Melissa Harrington wrote:
Hello Melissa -
BB, 93 and LODWTW
Very nice to hear from you - as to Parsons / Gardner connection - it may
be an occult tradition thing but I think I got it from Martin Starr's
"The Unknown God" - (the meeting between them) but I'm rushing a bit
today and can't spend too much time checking until tomorrow - but it
might be elsewhere - excellent book IMO, and finally clarifies that
MMotta was Germer's sucessor - but that's another story : ).
So far I do agree that Gardner's Wicca is a British recon tradition - no
problem with that -
I was just hoping that K Rees would clarify why he thinks that an
eroneous view?
BTW Dave reposting may be a breach of 'the list etiquette' but it is not
a breach of 'general internet copyright permissions'
- copyright always resides with the author AFAIK, once something is
freely posted on the internet there is an implied license to republish
elsewhere on the internet - some forums make blood curdling claims to
exclusivity but I don't think it has ever been enforced in law and is
really just hot air designed to restrict reasonable free discussion.
mogg
angle would preclude reposting such comments anywhere without the
authors permission, so please don't anyone do that, as we had trouble
with this kind of thing on the first incarnation of the list
> Dear Dave, Ken, Felicia, Caroline, Mogg and all
>
> Thanks for the interesting conversation, and to Dave, Felicia and
> Caroline for inviting me to join the debate, I am here but usually
> just lurk due to time pressure of being mum-of-small-kids, but this
> thread was tempting me already.
>
> Ken, I must admit I was a little perplexed about the 'non-British
> Wicca'. I've always seen it as a syncretised living religion that has
> taken on board material, influences and ideas from many sources,
> including classical influences that would have been part of the
> education of the people who made up the magickal milieu from whence
> Wicca emerged. I would be interested to hear more on non-British
> Wicca if possible.
>
> Felicia, I think you particularly hit the nail on the head by saying
> that plagiarism does not a corpus make. Regarding the Charge, it was
> extent, and more overtly thelemic, before Doreen Valiente rewrote it,
> but as you said also included pieces from other sources, including the
> Aradia. Now the vast majority of the form and content is in Doreen's
> words, so it is attributed to her.
>
> There has indeed been some conjecture that when GG referred to a coven
> he was in fact referring to the Rosicrucian Theatre group. However,
> the research of Philip Heselton on the roots of Wicca has shown that
> there may have been a coven, who were linkede to the theatre, but had
> their own group. So much of the mythmaking around the origins of Wicca
> is indeed conjecture, which then rapidly becomes 'fact', i.e. the old
> chestnut that Crowley wrote the Book of Shadows. For a good read on
> Wicca's roots I cannot recommend Heselton's books enough,
> particularly when read in conjunction with Hutton's Triumph of the Moon.
>
> Congratulations for your work on Parsons. I too would be interested to
> know whether Aleister Crowley or Gerald Gardner were ever in
> possession of Jack Parsons' writings regarding witchcraft. I am also
> curious as to who it is that suggests Gardner was influenced by
> Parsons and what evidence they present to support their claim. I have
> an idea where this may have come from, but will wait for Mogg's
> answer in case I am completely wrong.
>
> Regarding the initiations, I would not say that Gardnerian
> initiations are
> straight out of the OTO's Man of Earth initiations. Like Caroline
> (hello again Caroline) I can see where both the OTO and Wicca have
> borrowed from Freemasonry, or indeed from archetypal initiation
> ceremony. Although the two first degrees have freemasonic elements and
> some obvious symbology in common, the rest of the OTO Man of Earth
> does not, in my opinion, relate to the Wiccan initiations. I won't
> go into it any further here, but if comparisons are to be drawn, from
> my experience and from what I understand of the rituals, I would
> rather tend to see each Wiccan degree to correspond to a triad of
> initiations within in the OTO, both in what is conveyed to the
> candidate, and what is expected of them. This also fits with the
> ethos of each tradition. Both seek to initiate and empower their
> initiatory candidates, and do so via a three part system; however
> Wicca, the segmented polycephalus Nature religion, maintains fewer
> formal degrees and more individualistic initiation criteria than the
> OTO, the hierarchical organisation which splits its grades into a
> number of subsidiary degrees. That of course is just my opinion but I
> hope it is helpful ,or at least opens up more cordial dialogue on this
> thread.
>
> With regards
>
> Melissa.
>
>
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