hey 42 here science is a slow process
and it's yet to answer many of the great
questions about life death time space
etc but some people are rather impatient
and would rather make up their own
mystical answers to life's great
mysteries people often turn to theology
philosophy and the occult to try and
find answers of their own mysticism is
to search for apparent hidden truths for
a range of special techniques such as
meditation rituals spiritual development
certain drugs or just by wearing a
secondhand kimono and quoting David
Bowie lyrics so today we look at the
dark and rather fearsome never world of
mysticism and discover some of the most
influential mystics in history Aleister
Crowley was an occultist a painter and
novelist a mountaineer a poet and
possibly a spy for Great Britain the
perhaps of the late 1900s we're not very
fond of Crowley and dubbed him the
wickedest man in the world since they
said he was a Satanist he founded the
religion of Felmy and wrote the book of
law which contains his guidelines he
wrote it in 1904 in Cairo
during his honeymoon which I'm sure his
wife Rose was delighted about the main
concept of Fela myrrh is do what thou
wilt it Crowley had previously been a
member of the famous occult society the
Golden Dawn but they were not fans of
his bisexuality and lifestyle so he left
after about a year losing out on his
Egyptian clothing discount card and
subscription to spooky tales monthly
it's thought that his membership could
have been an intelligence operation to
undermine Samuel little Martha's one of
golden Dawn's founders there are many
other events in Crowley's life that
could have been undercover work such as
when he wrote German propaganda during
World War one our next mystic rose all
away from the peasant villages of
Siberia to the top of the court of tsar
nicholas ii grigori rasputin left behind
his wife and three remaining children in
his early 20s to become a monk claiming
he'd had a vision from Our Lady of curs
bifur t he had become a religious
wanderer walking between holy places and
receiving hospitality in exchange for a
religious wisdom and likes on Instagram
through his interpretations of the
scriptures and his hypnotic steely gaze
he quickly built a following and ended
up in st. Petersburg around 1904 where
he was eventually introduced to desire
he cemented his place with the royal
family through his mystical healing
powers he supposedly helped the Tsar son
Alexei recover from near death through
the power of prayer but was probably
more down to the fact that he stopped
the boy from taking aspirin which is
having a savage effect on his hemophilia
he became a trusted adviser to the
Royals and even helped them to take
major military decisions during World
War one encouraging them to withdraw
large numbers of troops either to reduce
casualties or perhaps to free of German
troops to move westwards and defeat the
British we weren't this crazy monk
biggest fans and it's been rumoured that
British intelligence had a hand in his
mysterious death it could have just been
the work of the Russian aristocracy
though since they were not fond of
Rasputin Hever thanks to his influence
and his slow descent into debauchery
given that he grew a lot of dessert
wines and brothels his body was found
floating in the river and it's alleged
that he was poisoned with cyanide then
shot in the kidney and the head and then
drowned I mean if you going to murder
someone you may as well do it right
another Russian born some 40 years
before Rasputin in 1831 Helena Blavatsky
was a spirit medium who co-founded the
Theosophical Society theosophy is the
idea that you can find salvation through
discovering the mysteries of the
universe presumably by being really
really good at googling the aim of the
group was to follow the intelligent
evolution of all existence something
which our modern world has definitely
fought hard against just take a look
around
Helena claims you have gathered various
ancient wisdom and psychic powers from
her travels around the world starting in
1849 from the Americas to India and
her biographers suspect that this was
aligned she was actually just in Europe
photoshopping the Himalayas into her
selfies well she was really sitting in a
Starbucks somewhere in Poland hey we've
all done it Helena she became hugely
famous for her occult teachings and
although now her name is less well-known
in those times it was recognized
internationally as much as any modern
trend-setting guru today she was
basically the kim kardashian of the
occult with a smaller bottom a more
modern mystic now no malice Srivastava
who died in 2011 was the founder of
sahaja yoga a practice that covers a bit
more than tight leggings and being able
to suck your own toes it's all about
reaching a state of awareness and
unlocking your Kundalini Kundalini is
said to be a body energy that flows for
your various chakras which are like
invisible USB ports that run down the
center of your being this is why you
should never judge ouka teacher in a
bath they may electrocute themselves the
general aim is to reach thoughtful
awareness where you understand
everything but you're not really paying
attention a bit like when you keep
eating peanuts even though you're not
really hungry
she claimed in 1979 to be the embodiment
of Shakti the Hindu idea of cosmic
energy that runs throughout the universe
she's also named herself the Maitreya
from Buddhism and mati
of Islam she also claimed the iron
throne and said she knew what was in the
suitcase in Pulp Fiction and finally a
woman with an astonishing life who
helped lead the American suffrage
movement and was the first ever female
to run for president Victoria Woodhull
was born in rural Ohio to an illiterate
mother and a con man father she was a
bright child at school but could not
attend often and had to leave very young
when her father burnt down their mill in
a shady insurance scam she then became a
magnetic healer by following the work of
Austrian mystic Franz Mesmer and
probably a good dash of her old man's
conman skills but she quickly moved on
to greater things while still supporting
the spiritualist movement
her and her sister became the first
women to open a stock broking for
when they set up on Wall Street in 1870
within a few successful monster used to
money they had raised to launch a
newspaper primarily as a tool to back
Victoria's presidential campaign the
paper focused on feminist issues
supporting ideas such as free love
vegetarianism sex education and
legalized prostitution it was like rogue
if you swapped all the adverts for
actual content when the 1872
presidential vote came around Victoria
was actually in prison since she had
ruffled some feathers by devoting a full
paper issue to the affair between
Elizabeth Tilton and Reverend Henry Ward
Beecher a prominent Protestant minister
in New York highlighting the hypocrisy
of the sexual double standard between
men and women that had led her to
believe in free love we would all like
to find the hidden secrets of the
universe and unlock some kind of secret
path to happiness and enlightenment but
if you want to become a mystic you first
need to get a really cool sounding name
I mean just look at the people we talked
about today
cruelly Rasputin levansky Chevis DeVoe
obviously as it seems
one needs a sufficiently awesome name to
be able to align one chakras reach a
higher level of being and heal the sick
I'm afraid if you're going to call
yourself Steve the mystic you're not
going to be so mystical now are you
thanks for the view subscribe for more
42 there really is absolutely nothing
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Danish man beast Peter Freudian he is
the most interesting man in the world