Dear Steven
Well on gardiner's witchcraft beginnings -
perhaps its too complex an argument of this list
- or maybe old ground too well worked over not sure.
AFAIK, (which on this topic is from earwigging my cunning friend-
Jack Daw - who seems to know a lot about this) -
Gardiner's claims to initiation may yet be true - although he, like any
magician ,
used published sources to flesh out his new wicca cult -
Obviously there is the whole issue of 'the foundation myth' but he wouldn't
have been the only magician to have (re)constructed his own history - see
for example the foundation of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The
faked cypher manuscripts don't seem to prevent the magick from working. It's
a very old tradition in magick - what we might call 'plato's noble lie.'
Austin Spare's witchcraft claims are interesting but have less basis in fact
than gardiners - IMO - AOS was very fond of constructing ripping yarns to
help sell a picture - and often told people what they wanted to know.
I'm not carrying a candle for Le Vey - far from it -
indeed i've written a gentle polemic against him in my book (Tankhem). But
i'm not sure i buy into your psychologising of the man - but even so - he is
IMO responsible for the rebirth of some important ideas in modern magick -
even on the level of the 'nature of evil'.
I think you should state what's wrong with his ideas rather than the man.
'love and do what you will'
mogg
I disagree, there's an objective comment amidst the
hyperbole. Although I'm quite willing to conceed
Gardiner was relatively sane and may have had genuine
psychic abilities, I don't think he had any authentic
connections to any genuine witchcraft traditions did
he. He made it all up in other words. Nothing
contentious in that I would have thought? If he had
admitted that I might have been more kindly towards
him and considered him an early chaos magician, which
he more or less was, albeit a dishonest one.
Spare was probabably a similar kind of person, but
apart from being a great artist, and the alleged
'father of chaos magic', he was also obviously in
touch with a genuine witchcraft tradition
of quite some antiquity, for those who have had any
contact with such. Though I agree he also made some of
it up, but that the technique of an authentic witch
isn't it?
>The charlatan and the magus personalities often are
>combined - and indeed
>that's also an characteristic of surrealism.
I quite agree. The Trickster is central to both Art
and Magic, particularly Witchcraft where the cunning
man is also the conning man. But even the magical
charlatanism of the Trickster is an art that draws on
several techniques. Its not really about reading a few
books and making up a hereditary tradition. :)
I do accept informed defences of Gardiner though....
As for le Vey I can't take him seriously as I do think
he was clinically mentally ill, though I admit I'm
being an armchair psychiatrist here :)))) He just
demonstrates too many neurotic systems to be taken
seriously as far as I'm concerned.
>Incidentally there is a rather voluminous study of
>COS and TOS written
>by
>michael aquino and available for free download via
>his web page - can't
>say
>i've finished reading it yet but it is certainly
>very detailed and
>informative although here too one has to beware of
>some bias.
Quite a bit of bias I would imagine.
>Nadia Choucha's essay certainly opened up the issue
>for me, although of course there is more to say.
Yes, it was an excellent introduction if you'd never
heard anything of the connection before. I've even
qouted from it I think!
>BTW I was looking at alex sanders film 'legend of
>the witches' on DVD
last
nite and that is areally interesting film - despite
the flaws, that
group
really did IMO expore some of the more interesting
aspects of magick -
check
>it out - also note that maya deren's film has just
>been released on DVD
Sanders was far more interesting than Gardiner with
out doubt. And Deren, well another genius.
'love and do what you will'
mogg
'will and do what you love'
steve ;)
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