What if, as a practitioner-insider myself, I just wanted to look at the GD
from a secular angle after twenty-plus years of interpreting it through a
supernatural angle?
~Caroline.
-----Original Message-----
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Morgan Leigh
Sent: Thursday, 31 March 2011 5:35 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Wallis Budge / Liber Resh
If the society you are studying maintains that the supernatural is real
it seems an odd choice to not mention it. It is, as you say, not one's
own belief or lack thereof that is the question, rather that of the
society, or persons, being discussed.
One important part of archaeology is the science. If one is doing
science, one is necessarily limited to physical evidence. Another part
is to examine the possible meanings of those physical things for those
to whom they belonged. To do this one needs to consider the known
beliefs and motivations of those under scrutiny. When the purpose of
one's paper is such, to deliberately omit an important, perhaps the most
important, known aspect of the motivations of those involved can only be
censorship. However this attitude is common in much of academia today.
Regards,
Morgan Leigh
PhD Candidate
School of Sociology and Social Work
University of Tasmania
On 29/03/2011 11:18 AM, Caroline Tully wrote:
> Yes, I'm not denying that at all, but you aren't supposed to use
> *supernatural* evidence in academic research - at least not in
archaeology.
> So yeah, absolutely, that's exactly what they did, or thought they were
> doing, but I can't utilise that from an "I believe it" perspective in
> archaeology... well, I suppose I could, with qualification and
> explanation... but I chose not to in this instance. I was specifically
> trying to analyse their activities from a secular Egyptological viewpoint.
> People have been incorporating the supernatural evidence in writing about
> the GD for years, but I was deliberately _not_ incorporating it. I don't
> know how other disciplines besides archaeology deal with "supernatural" or
> religious evidence, but at Melbourne Uni, it is discouraged from coming
from
> a belief angle, at least in publicly read material like that. Yes, I could
> turn it around and write it from a belief angle - the GD's belief - and I
> thought I did that really, I thought it was evident that _they_ (the GD)
> believed in the reality of the Egyptian gods, but that in my article such
> evidence was not incorporated because it was supernatural evidence.
>
> ~Caroline.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Morgan Leigh
> Sent: Tuesday, 29 March 2011 9:08 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Wallis Budge / Liber Resh
>
> Greetings,
> Having just recently read your Walk Like an Egyptian paper and this
> thread I'd like to suggest that perhaps the reason that the GD
> privileged Egyptian gods and that AC's take on Egypt was different from
> the archaeological work was that they had a source of information that
> was different from the archeological. That is, that both the GD and AC
> had made contact with the Egyptian gods and had first hand info that
> wasn't bound to the same motivations as the Egyptology of the time.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Morgan Leigh
> PhD Candidate
> School of Sociology and Social Work
> University of Tasmania
>
>
> On 27/03/2011 11:59 AM, Caroline Tully wrote:
>> Hi Mogg,
>>
>>
>>>> You mean hung out in the British Library which was them part of the
> BM?<<
>>
>> Yes, well actually I mean the Reading Room of the BM.
>>
>>>> Not sure that's the same a direct work with the Egyptologists there -
>> surely there would be something more concrete - rather than the same
vague
>> rumours and chinese whispers.<<
>>
>> That's right, it's not the same. I'm just saying its likely, or at least
>> possible.
>>
>>>> It's a bit like the statement that Mathers worked as a curator or
> whatever
>> at the Horniman - if you ask them they have no record of that although
> they
>> are aware of his friendship with the founder?<<
>>
>> That's interesting,. I've only heard of that in Mary Greer, so whatever
> her
>> source is for that, I guess that's the source.
>>
>>>> Its funny how something so recent has so little documentation - makes
> you
>> wonder about the relationship between older research and its evidence
base
> :
>> )<<
>>
>> Well, if documentation does exist (about the GD and BM), I'm sure someone
>> diligent could go find it - if it was findable.
>>
>>>> I agree with your article about the authority of Egypt for GD/AC etc -
> but
>> does it ever go further - and why is there such a discrepency between the
>> Egyptological knowledge of the time and some of the Crowleyian liturgy?<<
>>
>> You mean why is Crowley's take different to scholarly Egyptology
> (admitting
>> that some of that scholarly Egyptology wasn't that great)? I think
Crowley
>> would have felt free to adapt Egyptian material to his purposes and also,
> I
>> think he used a Kabbalistic structure as his base, his 'map', and fitted
>> things into that, for example, the "Four-ness" of say Liber Resh fitting
>> into the Tetragrammaton. He would have favoured 4's (Tetragrammaton), 7s
>> (planets, excluding the later-discovered ones, even though he included
>> Neptune in his Astrology book), 12s - the Zodiac etc...
>>
>>>> I suspect that Crowley thought the Egyptians meant it to be a nice even
>> four and rectified the rite as he did for Liber Samech.<<
>>
>> Big YEP there.
>>
>> ~Caroline.
>
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