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>> On 29 June 2010 20:33, Magliocco, Sabina <[log in to unmask]> >> wrote: >> > At the folk level, the dead were never omitted from Western magic. A >> > number of vernacular magical traditions feature spirits of the dead: they >> > may be called upon to help, cause harm if they are restless or unhappy, or >> > be physically incorporated into magical philters through the use of human >> > bones. On 30 June 2010 20:22, Helen Frisby <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Indeed. This is abundantly clear from the voluminous English folklore > collections of the later C19th/early C20th. Admittedly the very concepts of > the 'folk' and their 'lore' probably says as much about the folklorists as > it does about their subjects. Nonetheless English funerary folklore of this > period is consistently underpinned by the presumption that the living can > and should assist the souls of the dead (especially during the liminal > period between death and disposal) toward the afterlife, while > also appeasing the potentially dangerrous dead, eg through care of the body. > Helen obviously you are both right, and it would be interesting - though beyond me - to compare some of these customs with New World traditions. The background of the Cunning Men an/or their clients would certainly overlap with such lore. These customs and beliefs were however no part of the Golden Dawn/Crowley synthesis, and are very largely absent from the grimoires, though for different reasons. This, along with a certain prejudice against Spiritualism on the part of Crowley, and the ambivalent relationship it had with Theosophy, have had a dramatic effect on the modern synthesis. Absent from the 'Western Magical Tradition' today, among both 'moderns' and 'traditionalists' is what we might call a well developed 'practical eschatology'. This is so fundamental and all encompassing a component both in folk and classical religion that its absence, once noted, is truly bizarre. (An important rider is that the modern W.M.T. so called is largely a product of the English speaking and Protestant world. These observations do not therefore hold true among African or Hispanic traditions &c, although 'modern magic' is penetrating S.American occultism. I shall restrain myself from anticipating or repeating some other aspects of the matter here). ALWays Jake > >> >> >> >> agreed, though as mentioned the survival of folk magic is patchy, good >> in Hoodoo, not so good in occult revival circles, where grimoires by >> rote, angels and the qlipoth are more common. This is definitely an >> area where taking the modern synthesis further could make magic more >> socially relevant, and more permeable to mutual cultural exchange with >> ATRs etc.. >> >> ALWays >> >> Jake >> >> http://www.underworld-apothecary.com/ > > ________________________________ > Get a free e-mail account with Hotmail. Sign-up now. -- Jake http://www.underworld-apothecary.com/