Who Would You Love E.A. To Interview?

Did you seriously just say that there is no unified goal in spirituality?

I’ll fill you in on what you’re missing.

There only 2 main goals in ascendent spirituality, depending on the opposing ideology.

  1. Mysticism: the desire to reunite with Godhead/source/formlessness.

  2. Magick: the desire to become God.

Everything else - the competing magick orders, religions, and schools - are all just quibbling distractions.

Our goal is transcend all that useless “noise” to regain focus on the actual matter at hand: Ascent.

I don't know what the big deal about a unified anything really is all about. SO far, that plan has failed every genre of every facet of society that has tried it. Unified nations. Fail (America is not unified, we're the murder and crime capital of the world). Unified education methods. Fail.

You are dead wrong.

Virtually all scientific and technological advancement in the history of humanity has occurred under the unified goal of uncovering truth through rigorous experimentation, and increasing efficiency of resources, while decreasing cost.

For you to bring up the United States, and any other corrupt, iron-fisted nation state is a red herring, and a false comparison.

Governments divide and conquer productive societies, destroying all efficiency under the weight of tyranny. Obviously, they are not an example of unified productivity.

You’ve obviously confused the free market and statism.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but how can we validate a science that, while it will work for some, wont' work for others? You will continuously have reckless debates, so peer-reviewing would be useless.

No, sorry, that’s a cop out.

The metaphysics of magick is not so “crazy and unpredictable” that it would be impossible to formulate a working system of understanding behind how it really works.

This is precisely why it’s crucial for forerunning experts to exchange information and compare notes and reports on successes, failures, and discoveries, so we can accurately map what works, why it works, and how it works.

The very fact that you are on this forum, to read other people’s experiences and methodologies, proves that you believe this is valuable.

Otherwise you wouldn’t be here, because a forum of intelligent information exchange would be no use to you.

I’ve just exposed your own hypocrisy.

I'm just saying, I don't feel like not interviewing is a weak man's move.

I do.

Refusing to allow critics, colleagues and experts to interview and debate you is a sure sign of intellectual cowardice.

Hell, maybe he just doesn't like your format. Does that make him an ass?

Yes. We caught him in a lie. That makes him an ass.

Not really, that just means he doesn't want to be part of what you guys are doing. Is that such a bad thing, is he such a charlatan just because he doesn't want to be a part of the BALG stuff?

Really? That’s your terribly shallow and bankrupt conclusion?

I’ll explain this one more time, because it hasn’t sunk into your thick head yet.

I don’t give a fuck about this author.

I’ve never cared for his work, and I never will.

We invited him because our subscribers convinced us that it could be productive for them to hear E.A. interview him.

Because we at Become A Living God actually do care about education we decided to give him a shot, despite our personal lack of interest.

You clearly didn’t read my previous posts carefully, because I’ve already articulated why I’m taking time to comment.

We are reinforcing the fact that most occult writers are flighty, flakey, cowardly, and do not have any intellectual fortitude whatsoever. They hide behind their keyboard, shit out books that are full of debatable material, and skirt accountability for their claims, by declining on interviews.

Mark Alan Smith is one of several self-anointed experts who has given us a lame, limp-wristed, pussy-footed, detectably deceptive response when invited to speak on a public platform for the sake of exploring their ideas.

It’s not a personal vendetta against him personally. He just happens to be the subject of the moment. I will forget he exists in 24 hours. It’s merely an expose on the academic fallibilities of alleged occult authorities.

That is the greater point we are making.


Ah, you have no defense of how Mark exposed himself as a hypocrite, so now you attack me personally.

Predictable.

I spend more time and energy working on the technical development and business operations of BALG and Astral Dynamics in one day, than you do at your milquetoast job in a week.

For you to “demand” I now start publishing content, do live interviews, or anything else - in addition to all my other responsibilities - makes you sound like a greedy, ungrateful snob.

E.A. and I made a very clear agreement when we started this project, and when we opened this forum: he’d be the content guy, I’d be the background guy.

I don’t write books, give consultations, or have my own occult website.

I don’t position myself as an intellectual authority in any way publicly. In fact, I barely even post on this forum, because after 18 hours of programming and coding the BALG website in a 24 hour period, I’m sick of this fucking thing.

The difference is that Mark Alan Smith DOES position himself as an authority, and refuses to do interviews, where he might be challenged on his claims and ideas.

Furthermore, I do intend to write a book eventually - not immediately, because I’m now SINGLE-HANDEDLY managing the production and publication of 4 upcoming books, video courses, and more - but when I do release it…

… I’LL BE MORE THAN HAPPY TO GIVE AS MANY INTERVIEWS AS I CAN!

I’m not “dodging” attention, like him. I’m fucking BUSY.

Go fuck yourself for attacking me.

We objectify everything. Men, women, children, pets, co-workers, friends, enemies. Sexual objectification, emotional objectification, ego objectification, social objectification. What does this person do for me? What can they potentially do for me if properly guided?

So, it’s not that we should objectify women. We should simply be honest with ourselves.

That’s all fine and dandy. I personally didn’t find his work to be useful, nor to be magickal, nor to be even a good read. Some of you did, and asked that I have him on for an interview. You guys are the subscribers, and I want to try to give you what you ask for when possible. So, I contact him, and he gives me weasly “morality” escapes, prefaced by saying “If I am really honest ( which I find most people tend not to be).”

But he wasn’t being really honest, was he? No, he was using his “moral” stance as a strawman.

He’s not the first person to decline being interviewed here, but he definitely was the most snooty and dishonest about it.

I don’t know if you are familiar with Jeremy Christner. He and I have contributed some of the same periodicals, and were both at one time published by Ixaxaar. I contacted him a bit ago for an interview, and this was his reply:

Greetings E.A.,

I had a look at the website for the Interview with a Magus series, and upon further thought I will have to respectfully decline your kind offer. .

I thank you for thinking of me, and for the invitation; I’ve always respected your material (Kingdoms of Flame is an especially intruguing read) and hoped we could constructively interact at some point, but of this particular project, I will have to bow out. I hope this is not seen as disrespectful in any way.

Kindly,

Jeremy

Cool. He saw what I was about, and he didn’t want to be part of it. And he just flat out said so.

I’ve also had a few occult figures decline by saying “I think you’re a shill and I’ll never do an interview with you.” That’s fine too.

I’ve had others who simply don’t reply. To be fair, though, I had been trying to contact Michael W. Ford for a while and getting no replies. Someone finally told me that the email address I was using for him is a black hole, and they gave me one that he actually checks. Within 24 hours, he replied, excited to come together for this interview.

You don’t want to do the interview? Fine! Leave the self-righteous moral excuses for the spiritually weak and magickally impotent, though.

lol who called you a shill?

I do believe there is value in others experiences, to see how different people troubleshoot, this is correct. I also, on most of these occasions, throw out about 95% of everything I see here, because it isn’t really something that resonates here. I would only be hypocrite if I actually came here to perhaps copy people’s methodologies, but I almost always come away from it formulating it to my own skill level, ability, and personal proclivity. I didn’t say it was useless, that is the sharing of open forum work. I was saying that attempting to try and find a unified form of practice is essentially futile, and that ascent is different for everyone. You said that this forum was made for the intent of a unified goal of ascent, which I have debated is useless. I did not say exchange of information about particular people’s ascent was useless, or their techniques. I’m saying that because people are different, attempting to have a unified goal of ascent is useless, simply because that ascent process will be different for everyone. I mean, if you ask that question to the people on this board, I would be surprised if any two people actually had the same answer, let alone the majority. So how is that going to be unified, when the definition of the thing isn’t even the same for everyone?

For example, you have a pretty heavy focus on material gain, ideally through the pursuit of capitalism as it exists today. That’s perfectly fine, but for someone like me, the vehicle of capitalism that you place a heavy priority on, the same vehicle in which the government that you have called corrupt uses to further its mass corruption, is not at all where my ascension lies. Don’t get me wrong, I have no qualms with money itself, but the way people prioritize it and work with it, people including those corrupt individuals, is a distraction towards ascent.

I don’t consider my goal any more universally just than yours (Timothy) or EA’s, and quite frankly if you guys achieve it, I respect it and admire it because you set out for something and made it work. However, what applies to you all will not apply to me ALL the time. Moreover, our goal sets to ascension will be so much different, at least at many points, that to try and map universal processes, or “meat and bones” methods would ultimately lead to more confusion. Really, I could say something like, “Just intend for it”, and that would be all that needs to be said about how to make magic happen. But there are all these processes that people go through, and each person will swear that their method is necessary, the best way. Often, we will say that there needs to be a unified way, and yet the unified way we are talking about often is more closely related to “my way”, because no one wants to do someone else’s shit unless we agree that it is ours as well.

I’m also not sure how not wanting to do the interview for money’s sake is a moral stance. He’s not keen on it, he didn’t say anyone was bad for doing it. I’m not keen on eating meat. Doesn’t mean I think meat-eaters are bad, in fact vegetarians annoy the hell out of me. He didn’t take any stabs at you all, although if you want to read it that way, it could certainly be viewed as such.

I haven’t heard any of these Interviews before, but from what I can understand, you guys, or at least one of you, had admiration for the person’s work. However, you both state you have no admiration for this guys work, or at least find it pretty worthless. As far as I can tell, when it comes to interviews like this, if there is not any mutual admiration for each other’s work, these things will usually devolve into wasted time. I understand doing it for the audience’s sake, but part of the reason the audience likes the stuff is because the interviews are conducted with some sort of mutual admiration or desire to assimilate ideas and perhaps produce new insight. Not saying this can’t happen between folks who don’t have this admiration, but it is extremely rare, and then the audience doesn’t get what they came for, which was a quality interview that produces decent magickal insight. It will just be a battle of two views, most times with no clear winner but the God of Wasted Time.

I’m gonna stop here and leave this topic alone, because as debates can go, stuff can devolve into madness and wasted time pretty quickly. You got strong views, and if they work for you then I can’t knock’em. It ain’t goin’ down, and it sounds like that’s the better option in the long run. I’m just saying that this crime of Smith’s seems a lot more personally focused than any sort of actual “right” or “wrong” done on his part (if there even is an actual right or wrong).

[quote=“the1gza, post:218, topic:239”]I’m also not sure how not wanting to do the interview for money’s sake is a moral stance. He’s not keen on it, he didn’t say anyone was bad for doing it. I’m not keen on eating meat. Doesn’t mean I think meat-eaters are bad, in fact vegetarians annoy the hell out of me. He didn’t take any stabs at you all, although if you want to read it that way, it could certainly be viewed as such.

I haven’t heard any of these Interviews before, but from what I can understand, you guys, or at least one of you, had admiration for the person’s work. However, you both state you have no admiration for this guys work, or at least find it pretty worthless. As far as I can tell, when it comes to interviews like this, if there is not any mutual admiration for each other’s work, these things will usually devolve into wasted time. I understand doing it for the audience’s sake, but part of the reason the audience likes the stuff is because the interviews are conducted with some sort of mutual admiration or desire to assimilate ideas and perhaps produce new insight. Not saying this can’t happen between folks who don’t have this admiration, but it is extremely rare, and then the audience doesn’t get what they came for, which was a quality interview that produces decent magickal insight. It will just be a battle of two views, most times with no clear winner but the God of Wasted Time.

I’m gonna stop here and leave this topic alone, because as debates can go, stuff can devolve into madness and wasted time pretty quickly. You got strong views, and if they work for you then I can’t knock’em. It ain’t goin’ down, and it sounds like that’s the better option in the long run. I’m just saying that this crime of Smith’s seems a lot more personally focused than any sort of actual “right” or “wrong” done on his part (if there even is an actual right or wrong).[/quote]

He did say that he had to decline “on principle.” If I invited you to my home for chicken enchiladas, and you said that you had to decline “on principle,” because you don’t eat meat, then great. If I then said, “Okay, I respect that you don’t eat meat, so I’d love to make a vegan meal that we can enjoy together, if you’d still like to come over,” and then you said, “Eh… actually… I’d rather not,” then the whole basis of your original refusal is eradicated. Which is fine. If you don’t want to eat dinner with me, then don’t eat dinner with me. But don’t use your veganism as a scapegoat.

I’ve been on the radio two or three times with a man I absolutely despise: Chris Everard. Not only does his entire argument consist of ad hominem attacks and straw man arguments, he actually had the balls to suggest that my 6 year old daughter at the time be offered as a human sacrifice.

I have no respect for this man, no admiration for him. His work is bogus, his assumptions are stretches, at best, and his entire campaign is based on creating fear and panic while offering no solutions.

But I agreed to interviews with him, not once, but thrice, and he’s actually a really frustrating person to debate… which pushes me to better clarify my positions, to think through them more clearly, and to do it immediately, on live air.

Sheree Geo from Truth Frequency disagrees with a lot of what I’m about, but I do love to go on the show and hash it out with her.

So, no, admiration is not a pre-requisite for professional interaction. In my opinion, if you’re going to put your ideas out there in the marketplace of ideas, you should be prepared to publicly defend them.

I have not, in 8 or 9 years of doing this professionally, turned down a single interview. Some of them were pretty lame. Some were pretty hard to get through. Others were amazing. Every last one of them was an opportunity to clarify my position, to open up the field to peer review.]

One thing I realized when Michael Ford and I got into our interview is that he wasn’t the person I thought he’d be. My respect level for him skyrocketed during that interview, because I called him out on some points that he’d been ambiguous about, and he was able to give very lucid answers and clarifications. I think that a lot of people have seen the same with my interviews.

I originally posted about our communications here to let you guys know (since y’all requested that I interview mark a few times) that he had declined, and to let you know his reasons. Then the posts here, as well as the private emails, asking if we could find some way to accommodate him and to put out premium content for free, because his principles would be compromised, led to us going back to him with an offer that we’ve not made to a single other potential interviewee.

If Mark doesn’t want to do an interview, that’s cool. He’s an older man and isn’t nearly as ambitious as I am. That’s cool, too.

The largest part of my diatribe had very little to do with Mark, and more to point out that the occult world is changing, and it’s changing fast, and rather than getting steamrolled into the ground by the changes, WE are instead jumping in front of it and shaping the motion of the change.

Well,

With all that’s been happening here regarding M.A.S. I think now is a GREAT time to ask about E.A. interviewing another controversial cat…

N.A.-A.218

Yes?

[quote=“Timothy, post:211, topic:239”]Originally, he declined because ethically he objected to us charging money - so in the spirit of diplomacy - E.A. politely agreed to make it a free interview release for everyone’s benefit.

Alas, he rejected it again, this time giving no rationale.[/quote]

to be fair to MAS, you have to realize that freedom of choice also means the freedom to say no. there’s no reason to disrespect mark just because he declined.

there is no reason to disrespect him just because he doesn’t feel like BALG is a good fit for him.

Also,

I know that I as well as countless others have mentioned The Queen ov Blood…

The Sorceress Cagliastro (In The Hands of 9)

She is soooo outrageous and unapologetic…she’ll fit right in here!!!

[quote=“the fool, post:221, topic:239”][quote=“Timothy, post:211, topic:239”]Originally, he declined because ethically he objected to us charging money - so in the spirit of diplomacy - E.A. politely agreed to make it a free interview release for everyone’s benefit.

Alas, he rejected it again, this time giving no rationale.[/quote]

to be fair to MAS, you have to realize that freedom of choice also means the freedom to say no. there’s no reason to disrespect mark just because he declined.

there is no reason to disrespect him just because he doesn’t feel like BALG is a good fit for him.[/quote]

You are correct, freedom of choice is the choice to say yes or no. And I don’t think (in my opinion) that Timothy or E.A. are disrepecting him. What they are saying is that they made an offer for MAS to appear, he declined for said reasons, and E.A. came back at him and changed the terms of the interview to better accomodate MAS terms. Again, he declined WITHOUT giving a reason. To me, or at least from the correspondence that E.A. posted, MAS bailed out on an oppurtunity to engage with another occult author and practioner. And Timothy is right in regards to the large amounts of material regarding the occult and magical material out there. Alot of people publish stuff and throw it out into the public without taking any responsibility in their work and saying “…this is what I’ve come across, I may be right, or I may be wrong but I’d be willing to discuss it with you (the public) and see what happesn…” But alas, very few people do this because ITS HARD!! Putting yourself on the ‘chopping block’ to see if what you’ve come up with will withstand the scrutiny of inquiry is not an easy thing at all.
So no, just becasue they called MAS out on the floor isn’t disrepectful, they are just calling it the way they see it.

[quote=“Mode_439, post:220, topic:239”]Well,

With all that’s been happening here regarding M.A.S. I think now is a GREAT time to ask about E.A. interviewing another controversial cat…

N.A.-A.218

Yes?[/quote]

E.A. was asked about this author and did comment on his relationship with The TOTBL… Odd attempt to create drama though.

Anyways, I could see this potential interview happening not via video but written if it did occur. I’d diffidently check it out.

[quote=“Mode_439, post:222, topic:239”]Also,

I know that I as well as countless others have mentioned The Queen ov Blood…

The Sorceress Cagliastro (In The Hands of 9)

She is soooo outrageous and unapologetic…she’ll fit right in here!!![/quote]

I have sent her an email, and am awaiting her reply! She and I spoke on the phone a couple of times. She was going to interview me for the release of Ipsissimus, but for various reasons it never materialized. I’d love to get on with her, though! If any of y’all have a personal line to her, feel free to hit her up as well, and send them my way! Same goes for any other artist and occultist you’d like me to chat with!

[quote=“UndeadGod333, post:224, topic:239”][quote=“Mode_439, post:220, topic:239”]Well,

With all that’s been happening here regarding M.A.S. I think now is a GREAT time to ask about E.A. interviewing another controversial cat…

N.A.-A.218

Yes?[/quote]

E.A. was asked about this author and did comment on his relationship with The TOTBL… Odd attempt to create drama though.

Anyways, I could see this potential interview happening not via video but written if it did occur. I’d diffidently check it out.[/quote]

Ya know…I hear ya.

That’s what I f*ckin’ (pardon my fucking language) love about the Magus series. E.A. himself, or the other Occultist being interviewed may not “like” each other per se, or, agree with one another’s work…BUT that can all be put to the side for the Path of Discernment.

Now to me, THAT shows a level of human maturity that is unparalleled. Thanks for commenting on Chris Everard E.A…that takes balls man. To go back to a mutha-fucka thrice that you dislike for an interview!

I don’t know about Chris, and I certainly don’t know you personally, however, I bet that between the two of you YOU probably grew personally EVER single time you completed the interview.

Well done.

P.S.,

I believe The Fool (not -TWF) mentioned somewhere that he is a personal student of The Sorceress Cagliastro…yes?

Perhaps he can assist with setting up a chat with her.

ea, i tried to PM her contact email to you but your PM’s are blocked -_-

i left the PM in my inbox, it’s titled ‘madame cagliastro would like to hear from you’ - her contact info is there. i won’t put her contact info here for obvious reasons.

get timothy to go into my account and retrieve it and reach out to her, she has been waiting to hear from you for 2 weeks. please don’t get caught up in playing phone or email tag with her, respect her time is all i ask.

You may submit information to us at our private help desk:

https://becomealivinggod.zendesk.com

i did that awhile ago, actually.

if you really want to get through to madame, find a way to open your lines of communication a bit more. they are closed too tight. she’s not the type to fancy dealing with customer support.

keep in mind that the onus is not on HER to contact YOU; it’s the other way around. YOU need to reach out to HER. and i have already given you the means to do so.

i’m not going to put her info out there for everybody to see. if you want her email, PM me and i’ll send it to you. otherwise get a web admin to log into my account and you can get it there.

she also told me that if bad comes to worse, you can email her directly on her facebook page ([url=http://on.fb.me/1bpiSgK]Facebook - log in or sign up). she also checks her messages there but avoids spam. since she is waiting to hear from you, an approach would be paid attention to.

again, where there’s a will there’s a way.

Now, not to stir anything up, but I’ve already emailed 3 different email accounts of hers, two of which she and I have used previously to communicate… so the “closed off” -ness seems to be on both parties. Which is understandable when you’re a public figure.

And we received it, actually.

And contacted her, actually.

And she didn’t reply, actually.

I just checked my emails, and I actually did email her at the address that you provided, as well as two others that I’ve used for her in the past. I’d love to talk with her, and love to interview with her, but there’s no “onus” at all in this case. If we happen to get together, then we do. If not, we don’t.