Mogg Morgan

‘Write and find ecstasy in writing’: The repeal of the witchcraft act and the explosion of occult publishing

2008-05-10T08:37:00.000Z

Mogg Morgan (rough uncorrected proof)

‘Write and find ecstasy in writing’
The repeal of the witchcraft act and the explosion of occult publishing

1951, the year in which the Witchcraft Act was finally repealed, was certainly pivotal in the development of occult publishing. Paper rationing had ended two years previously and this set the stage for a growth of book publishing and enabled newer players to enter the industry. But it was older more established small independent publishing houses that became the real pioneers.

In 1951 G B Gardner, under the pen name ‘Scire’, published an historical novel, written in 1949 and entitled ‘High Magic’s Aid’. Still labouring in what he called ‘the guise of fiction’; Gardner was nevertheless later to claim that his novel was, as far as he knew, the ‘first book written by an initiated witch describing . . . something of what a witch believes.’ (quoted from ‘The Meaning of Witchcraft’ - G B Gardner’s 1959 book for Aquarian Press.

It took a couple more years until in 1954 for Gardner felt secure enough able to drop the disguise and come out as a witch - well almost. He wrote of his book ‘Witchcraft Today’ that it was: ‘the first book [as opposed to novel] ever written describing what witches are and what they do, by someone who had actually taken part in their ceremonies, worshipped their Gods with them and made magic with them.’ (‘The Meaning of Witchcraft’, p275.)

Gardner undoubtedly was right about the dangers and obstacles to this kind of ‘confessional’ writing. He makes a point of mentioning in the same chronology ‘The August number of Fate magazine (American edition) [which] carried a story of how, on July 3rd 1955 in Ojinaga, Mexico, eighty-five miles from Alpine Texas, a woman named Josephina Arista was publicly burned at the stake as a witch, without trial, upon the orders of a local priest, carried out by the alcalde and the city police.’ (Witchcraft Today, p.275)

Gardner’s contention that the 1954 publication ‘Witchcraft Today’ was a groundbreaker is almost certainly true. Nothing like it, certainly in the pagan/witchcraft genre had previously appeared. Authors of previous works, for example the widely quoted Christina Hole, (see ‘Witchcraft in England’ 1945) were essentially works of scholarly folklore. Christina Hole certainly had no broom in her closet. But her works were widely read by contemporary practitioners and were often cited, as for example the bibliography of Doreen Valienti’s first book ‘Where Witchcraft Lives’ (Published by Aquarian in 1962). Christina Hole’s was first and foremost a historian and folklorist and therefore immune from any possible strictures under the Witchcraft Act.

Up until 1951 it was pretty much obligatory that author’s adopt a fairly hostile attitude to the subject of witchcraft: For example Christina Hole’s 1945 book, ‘Witchcraft in England’ ends with the following valedictory:

‘When that faith sank, the witch and his craft dwindled to a mere survival from the past; and today, though witchcraft lives on it is no longer a terror even to those who believe in it, [she obviously didn’t know Maxim Sanders!], and has ceased to throw a dark shadow over any of our lives.’(Hole, 1945:160).

A few years later and in another of her books published after the repeal of the act Hole’s tone is still fairly hostile

‘Reports appear occasionally in the newspapers of the unpleasant activities of secret societies practising the more evil forms of ritual magick.’

The author goes on to give the full transcript of some of these reports;
One of these concerns a supposed ritual murder in 1945 at Lower Quinton, a stone’s throw from the Rollright Stones. This story continually resurfaced in 1954, after the repeal of the act and was given the big treatment by the Daily Mirror on the ninth anniversary of the still unsolved slaying - February 13th 1954.

VIII. MURDER AT LOWER QUINTON, 1945
Daily Mirror, February 13th, 1954
Ask in these parts whether seventy-four-year-old Charles Walton, murdered in a hedgerow here nine years ago on Sunday, was the victim of witchcraft, and even the detectives no longer smile.

For I can reveal that new clues and strange coincidences in this unsolved crime have recently come to light. And the idea that Walton was a twentieth-century sacrifice to black magic is no longer a joke in this Warwickshire hamlet.

At the time it seemed quite a commonplace murder. Walton, a hedger, was found with his throat slashed, beneath the hedge he had been trimming.
'Just find the motive and you find the killer,' thought the police.

But whispers of black magic trickled round the cottages of Lower Quinton almost as soon as Superintendent Alex Spooner, chief of Warwickshire C.I.D., and Superintendent Bob Fabian of The Yard started their enquiries.

The gossip about 'witchcraft' and 'a ritual killing' tickled the detectives. They smiled politely. That was nine years ago on Sunday-St Valentine's Day.

The killer of Charles Walton is still untraced. And today the detectives won't mock the word 'witchcraft'.

MURDER
Although Superintendent Fabian, who spent three months in the village, has retired, his colleague, Superintendent Spooner, has never admitted defeat on the case. Not once has he stopped inquiring. But what facts are there to go on?

First, picture Charles Walton on St Valentine's Day, 1945. The sun was unusually kind for February. It dappled the lanes and fields. Old Charles had a contract to cut the hedges of a local farmer and this was the sort of day his rheumatism would let him work. With his two-pronged hayfork and a razor-sharp hedge-slasher he hobbled from his thatched cottage. He had left his purse containing the little money he possessed at home-Charles Walton didn't believe in carrying money with him. Everyone knew that.
At six o'clock, when he was overdue for his tea, his niece raised the alarm. He was found soon afterwards, dead since about noon.

Those are the facts. Now here are some of the coincidences that have come to light.

The Date. According to the old-time calendar, which is thirteen days behind the present one, the killing took place on February I -the eve of a traditional sacrificial day. On that day a human being was killed in the belief that his life blood dripping into the ground would replace the fertility taken from the soil by the previous season's crops. (1)

The Method. The killer first threw the frail old man to the ground and then, before slashing him, pinioned him by the neck with the two prongs of his hayfork. Then the fork haft was forced over and wedged at an angle-almost as 'though to make certain that his blood would flow to the ground.

The Previous Murder. In 1875 at Long Compton, only a day's tramp across the Cotswold foothills, eighty-year-old Ann Ten-nant was the victim of one of the last known witch killings. She was killed with a two-pronged hayfork.

The police have found one other link between the killings, but I am pledged not to reveal it.

The Dog. Studying books on local superstitions and folklore, detectives have found reference to the 'visions' of a local boy of about fifteen who claimed that he saw headless dogs. That was about sixty years before the murder. The boy's name was Charles Walton. Since old Charles died there has been one other 'murder' on the slopes of historic Meon Hill, where he was found. The victim was a dog. The animal had been strangled by its collar as it struggled to free itself after being hung on a branch of a tree near the murder spot.

The Motive. Though Walton was a bit 'short-tempered', no one held a grudge against him. His only possession unaccounted for was a silver pocket-watch, but there is no proof that he carried it with him that day.

Like Superintendent Spooner-the man who says, 'I will solve this murder yet', but who is left with only one likely motive-I too have made many trips to the hamlet. But at my first mention of the word 'witchcraft', doors have been slammed in my face.

The killer has yet to be found. And that day may be nearer than he-or she-thinks.

This newspaper quoted verbatim in Christina Hole’s book with the added footnote from Dr Margaret Murray saying that the Sabbats of the witch-cult were held on Candlemas Day, May-day Eve, Lammas Day, and All Hallow's Eve. (The God of the Witches, 1933.

Although Murray contributed a preface to Gardner’s 1954 book, they later fell out because of the way she continued to give credibility to stories of the kind quoted above. Stories such as these recorded above provoked Gardner and ‘the witches of England’ to publish to try to set the record straight. Thus Gardner writes:

‘I have been told by witches in England: “Write and tell people we are not perverts. We are decent people, we only want to be left alone, but there are certain secrets that you mustn’t give away.’ So after some argument as to exactly what I must not reveal, I am permitted to tell much that has never before been made public concerning their beliefs, their rituals and their reasons for what they do; also to emphasise that neither their present beliefs, rituals nor practices are harmful.’ (Gardner 1954: 13).

We can see in this that Gardner is still being a bit coy about his connection with witchcraft. He poses as an anthropologist and proprietor of a museum, also founded in 1951. This was the normal way of all occult publishing before this time. For example Francis Barrett’s, author of the ‘The Magus’ (1801) a classic of Georgian alchemy and occultism, is careful to distance himself as merely an observer of certain practices. And this was always the way. The only real exception to this comes in the work of Aleister Crowley from about 1904 onwards. But Crowley, as in many other things is a bit of a one off.

So its maybe not so unusual that writing in 1954 Gardner is very coy and doesn’t really come out as a witch. Being a witch, as Gardner was only too aware, could still be a dangerous thing to admit in the climate of the time. Gardner knew Crowley and his career quite well. Gardner had seen at close quarters the consequences to ones reputation of the wrong stuff getting to the press. Bran, who is someone who was around at the time, thought that the repeal of the act was not really motivated by any libertarian aims of the Lord Chancellor but more as the clearance of obstacles to effective prosecution of other crimes. Another example quoted by Christina Hole shows the sort of farcical incidents that could, given the state of the law before the 1950’s, find there way into the courts:

News Chronicle, January 6th 1947
Gordon Sutton, an Army pensioner of East Dereham, Norfolk, told Dereham magistrates that his neighbour, Mrs Spinks, an old age pensioner, had practised witchcraft on him.

He was summoned for assaulting Mrs Spinks. Both were bound over for six months.
Sutton declared: ‘A witch has been in the witness box. Many a time she tied a bunch of flowers on my front gate and I have spat on them and thrown them away. (Hole adds in a scholarly footnote: ‘Spitting is a very ancient protective charm. Human spittle from time immemorial has been supposed to have magical powers and to be a defence against evil’) [The report continues) You know that is going back to the witchcraft of the Dark Ages. I dare not tell you half the terrible things she has done to me. I have been tortured for five years.’ [Shades of Nora Batty]
Mrs Spinks, who denied she had practised witchcraft, said the trouble was due to her gathering parsley which Sutton wrongly said was in his garden.’ (Hole 1957:106)

What of the publishers?
Michael Houghton, the proprietor of the famous Atlantis bookshop in Museum Street, London, published Gardner’s 1949 novel. But by 1954 he had managed to persuade a much larger and well-established company called Rider to take him on. Gardner says he had to be confessional or reveal something new or they would not have been interested. Ring of truth there. It’s difficult to ascertain whether the repeal of the Witchcraft Act would have played any role in the publisher’s deliberations. Fifty years later and the tracks have gone cold. Rider is now part of global media giant Bertelsmann, absorbed into its UK division Random House. Small presses like to delude themselves that being bought out by a big corporation is some sort of belated compliment to their editorial taste and acumen as publishers. Sadly this is not the case, it’s the backlist the predator craves and has very little sentimental attachments to the entity itself. Rider becomes just another imprint amongst many others. I’m currently awaiting a response from Random house as to whether they have any archived materials of Rider in the 1950s.

Despite these gaps in the record I think it is a reasonable assumption that the legal eagles at Rider would have questioned such a publishing project. They would have asked Gardner’s opinion; they may perversely have liked the prospect of a fight. More likely they would have gone for the publishing maxim ‘Lets take a risk and turn it down.’

Afterall at the time other writers were experiencing censorship problems. I’m thinking of Rosaleen Norton in Australia or Mervin Peak in the UK. Vindictive Christians may well have initiated an action if only to put a spanner in the works. After all, fifty years earlier Madras Christian newspapers, with an eye on ‘market share’ had pretty much destroyed Helena Blavatsky’s reputation.

1951 was also important in other ways. The celebrated Aquarian Press seems to have been founded in that year, with an output of fairly uncontroversial spiritualist books. Titles such as Arthur Bhaduris’s ‘The Key to Health’,
Gilbert Alice’s ‘Telepathy for you: to Mr and Mrs Everyman’,
Bromage Benard’s ‘The Occult arts of ancient Egypt’;
Daphne Viger’s ‘Atlantis Rising’;
Marian Emma Slater’s ‘The Stars at Christmas’,
Vera W Reid’s ‘The Silver Unicorn’.
I wonder whose heard of any of these titles nowadays?

It wasn’t until 1959 that Aquarian as it were ‘moved over’ and published Gardner’s ‘The Meaning of Witchcraft’, a follow up to the 1954 ‘Witchcraft Today: And in 1962 Aquarian published Doreen Valienti’s first little offering ‘Where Witchcraft Lives’.

What of Hale, well known publishers of ‘Eight Sabbats for Witches’ etc - did they play any part in the 1951 breakthrough? Sadly not. A long established company they came later on the scene. It was not until the late sixties and seventies that they really jumped on the bandwagon. Before that their output was mainly of the pre-repal folkloric variety, such as Ronald Seth’s study of the seventeenth century witchcraft trials ‘Children against Witches’
Eric Maple ‘The Dark world of Witches’ (1962)
Ruth St Legers-Gordon’s ‘The Witchcraft and Folklore of Dartmoor’.
Or in 1972 Lauran Paines’ ‘Sex in Witchcraft’.

You might ask which book was first out after the repeal of the act? I have to tell you it as John Symonds first version of ‘The Great Beast: the life of Aleister Crowley’ (also published by Rider). The Bodleian pressmark says 20 November 1951. This is probably the most radical book of the times and one that as we shall discuss below. It was a time bomb that finally blew in the sixties.

‘The head of the OTO at the time, Karl Germer was shocked when he read ‘The Great Beast’. The Order of Oriental Templars (or Order of the Templars of the East) is a small international body of adepts who practice sexual magic. Germer said that the book would set the Order back a thousand years. He was mistaken. There is no doubt that the widespread interest today (1973) in Aleister Crowley stems from ‘The Great Beast.’ (Preface to 1979 edition of The Great Beast)’

Symonds is certainly right that it did no such thing, the very opposite in truth. Its interesting that the book has gone through many incarnations and rewrites and its in the words of Colin Wilson ‘a kind of appalling classic’ (on dust-jacket of 1989 reprint as ‘The King of the Shadow Realm: Aleister Crowley: his life and magic’). Did the 1951 act have any effect on the publication of this book? Yes I think it did, notice that there is no mention of magick on the cover of the first edition. Symonds says in another edition that at the time this sort of things couldn’t be too obviously cited on the cover and that in later works he was able to add more of the sexual magick stuff. Indeed the more magical material was not published until 1958 and then by another publisher called Mullers, whose output also included the books of Crowley’s disciple Kenneth Grant. It was not until 1973 that a complete revised edition of the Great Beast appeared in various cheap paperback editions licensed by Duckworth.

Symonds biography ‘The Great Beast’ has never been popular with occultists although its impact on popular culture has been, imo, immense. I remember reading one of the shlock horror editions given to me by a climbing friend. I must say I found the book a revelation, as did countless others. Since then other more ‘sympathetic’ writers have tried their hand at writing a more ‘sympathetic’ biography but few have really matched Symond’s panache. When Cecil Williamson, the owner of the witchcraft museum read it, it was a revelation and he immediately decided he needed to know more about the subject.

Returning to Gardner’s publishing efforts, one might ask what was his motivation in publishing his confessional books such as ‘Witchcraft Today’? Recent research shows that the publication of coven secrets earned him no friends amongst his initiators. Maybe they thought it better that witchcraft remain a largely secret tradition.

I contend that Gardner may well have seen the publication of ‘Witchcraft Today’ as a magical act. Yes it would be good for his ego, what author doesn’t crave the kind of recognition that the publication of a book brings? But his motivation goes further than this. Through the publication of the book he sets in motion a revival or re-creation of a cult that was up until this point largely moribund.

It could also be said that he open the flood gates for a kind of ‘confessional’ writing about witchcraft. Accounts by living practitioners of witchcraft were pretty much non existent before this time. As I said most books were either heavily disguised accounts posed in the form of a novel or semi scholarly accounts often quite hostile or distant from the tradition they describe.

Gardner deserves recognition as a pioneer who started a trend that in later years would lead to the growth of a new kind of occult literature. The massive increase in this area of publishing is in the main in books by self confessed practitioners, developing or revealing the secrets of their art. That’s quite an achievement. Familiar images of the occult, such as those shown in the following montage, would have been impossible without him. In a future article I hope to follow further the long associations between writing, publishing and magick.
[Montage]

Writing and words have always had a long association with magick. Some would contend that writing is the invention of magicians. In ancient Egypt the hieroglyphic script seems to have a distinct moment of creation. Their use was to record accurately magical and religious texts. The earliest function of writing is as an instrument for the public reading, aloud of magical or religious formulae. It was only later in the Greek and Roman world that reading began its long development as a medium for silent and private reading of an author’s text.

Witches and magicians are more than any other the people of the book. I know this phrase is usually reserved for devotees of the Abrahamic tradition. But we are the true people of the book - lots of books. Books, reading and the text have always been a crucial part of magical practice. Let me remind you of the phrase ‘Bell Book and candle.’ Remind yourself for a moment of these concepts so familiar:
Grimoires - or grammars of magick;
The Books of Shadows;
Spells.
Talisma, ‘eating your words’ as in late hermetic practice
Libers.
‘The Great Beast’ is also a good example of a ‘Liber’. The Liber has been especially important to the magicians of all times. A Liber is magical book written at the behest of a discarnate entity or spirit. Aleister Crowley wrote lots of these including the monumental master work ‘Magick in Theory and Practice. More correctly entitled Liber ABA - Aba / father or by simple cabalistic numerology ABA = 4, book four. Four being a significant number in occult symbolism

Liber ABA or Magick grew out of a magical working between Crowley and his ‘scarlet woman’ of the time, Sor Virakam otherwise know as Mary Desti. The working spirit that made itself known to the pair was called Abuldiz, hence the working is sometimes called the Abuldiz working. The final book was issued in the form of a square of four equal sides priced at four groats (shillings).

The book is in four parts, part II for example deals with the fundamentals of ceremonial magick. ‘Crowley exhorts the reader to magical endeavour in brisk prose on the grounds of common sense and practical psychology’

Lawrence Sutin, a gifted modern biographer of both Philip K Dick and Crowley says that ‘Magick’ was ‘a radical break from the veiling, sanctimonious tone that had dominated writing on magick since the Romantic period. Crowley followed on the basic approach set forth in his 1903 essay ‘An Initiated Interpretation of Ceremonial Magic’ . That is, he argued for magic as a structured, empirical means for developing unrecognised capacities of the mind. The implements and rituals of magic were extensions or projections of mind - however apparently irrational - constituted a course of self-confirming initiation to the open-minded and educated practitioner. Most fundamental of all was the training of the Magical Will, through which yogic meditation became possible.’ (DWTW: 222)

It was also in this work that Crowley first introduced the more archaic spelling of Magick with a K, a convention widely used ever since. Although on a lesser scale, Gardner’s book published after this time key into this long tradition of Magical books as special things.

It also keys into a long tradition of the book as magical object or talisman. The book as we know it was born in pagan Rome in the form of a Codex in fifth century AD. Before that the book took the form of a scroll hand written of course on Egyptian papyrus. The Egyptians held a monopoly on the production and supply of papyrus for writing. The creation of the standardised book was begun in great Alexandrian libraries of the Ptolemies. Before the book there is the text - usually confined for use by Priestly or aristocratic elite minority. Religious and ritual in content. The book creates a new intellectual space that of the reader who can interact the book by recitation and silent reading. In Rome these were most often the augury texts.

The pagan Romans seem also to have invented the Novel. - Reading out loud greatly facilitated by continuous script - needs spoken voice to make sense of it -

The rise of the ‘codex’ - adopted by the Christians - not pages on a roll but a book with pages - parchment rather than papyrus - cheaper - more portable - easy to read and private where necessary. (p15)

In Latin West - a break with the past - reading became restricted in place i.e. churches and subject matter holy scripture. Reading became a silent or murmured activity divorced from his pagan social or dialectical qualities.

Books became fetish objects - more precious and monumental - punctuation to aid silent comprehension - more luxurious as a form of patrimony.

Throughout the early Middle Ages the Jews of the Christian West seem to have sacralised the book in much the same way as contemporary Christian society. For Jews as well as Christians the book was a religious object with magical properties, rather than an instrument for communication through reading. Its supernatural charge made it a relic for pious and contemplative adoration, rather than a reservoir of contents that could be drawn upon freely. In short the book was doubly closed to direct exploitation, it was closed within its binding, and it was closed within the ark, to which ordinary people did not have access. This view was in clear contrast to the idea of the ‘open’ book (in both senses) that began to circulate after the year 1000. One clear example of this view of the book can be seen in the so-called Chronicle of Ahimaaz, an epic genealogical work composed in southern Italy in 1054 on the basis of oral traditions dating back to the second half of the ninth century. It recounts the story of a woman who brought down the wrath of God on her family, causing the death of several relatives, because one Friday she lit a candle before a sacred book, while she was menstruating. The details of the story are somewhat murky; not is the function of the light (or the contents of the book) at all clear. What seems beyond doubt, however, is the custom of keeping a light before the Book of the Chariot, an ancient Hebrew mystical text. The woman’s act is supposed to have contaminated the holiness of the book, here treated as a genuine relic. (Cavallo et al, 1999:150).

We can learn from this that an important ritual activity of the Kabbalah was the reading of the book - reading or more especially chanting aloud a mystical or magical text was a ritual.

Renaissance pagan revival also revival of books and secular reading; abbreviations, two column spreads - sectioning an aids to broader quick understanding. Renaissance Humanism, whose roots lie with

‘On 10th December 1513 Niccolo Machiavelli wrote a letter to his friend. In the previous year, when Piero Soderini’s government fell and the Medici regained control of Florence, he had lost everything he valued most. He had tried to build a citizen army; it collapsed. He has prized his position in the government; he was sacked. Suspected of conspiracy, he was imprisoned, tortured and ended up on his farm outside Florence. Here he yearned for any sort of political occupation, quarrelled and gossiped with his neighbours - and read:

“ Leaving the wood I go to a spring, and from there to my bird-snare. I have a book with me, either Dante or Petrarca, or one of the lesser poets like Tibullus, Ovid and the like: I read about their amorous passions and about their loves, I remember my own, and I revel for a moment in this thought. . . . When evening comes, I return to my home, and I go into my study; and on the threshold, I take off my everyday cloths, which are covered with mud and mire, and I put on regal and curial robes; and dressed in a more appropriate manner I enter into the ancient courts of ancient men and am welcomed by them kindly, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born; and there I am not ashamed to speak with them, to ask them the reasons for their actions, and they, in their humanity, answer me, and for four hours I feel no boredom, I dismiss every affliction, I no longer fear poverty nor do I tremble at the thought of death: I become completely part of them. (Cavallo et al, 1999: 180)”’

Books are and have always been very liberating things.

The 1960s. Renaissance
To close then I have to jump forward to the 1960s, for a brief tour through the major publishing landmarks of the era. For although for occultism, the events of 1950 and the decade represented a sea-change - it was really during the 1960s that the new occult ideology came into its own. If I may borrow a term from Germaine Greer, the 1950s have been called the ‘decade of foreplay’ another the real explosion occurs in the 1960s when for many progressive people the world really began. It was a renaissance although now forty years later, it’s easy for retro historians to try to minimise its importance in the development of the modern sensibility.

To quote from a rather excellent new book on the period, think of the 1960s and you maybe think of ‘a time of revolution - political, social, psychedelic, sexual.
But there was another revolution that many historians forget: the rise of a powerful current that permeated pop-culture and has been a central influence on it ever since. It was a magical revolution - a revival of the occult. Previously rejected and ridiculed beliefs took centre stage, reaching the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, saturating the hippies and flower power, hitting the big screen with Rosemarie’s Baby [a film that featured Anton Le Vey in cameo role as Satan] and the bookshelves with Lord of the Rings. The Tarot, I Ching, astrology, kabbala, yogis, witchcraft, UFOs. Aleister Crowley, yin-yang and The Tibetan Book of the dead became the common currency they are today.’

!960 and the world of occult publishing was pretty much in a state of hibernation. There was interest in occult and magical books but not too much. Then in 1960s France a literary time bomb exploded. It was called Morning of the Magicians by two French alchemists, Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier. . The publishers Gallimard had expected a modest success but by the end of the decade the mayflower English language paperback alone had sold 1 million copies.

‘Paris in 1960 was the capital of futility, nihilism and dreary ‘authenticity’. It was the Paris of Jean Paul-Sartre and Albert Camus, of ‘nausea’ and ‘the absurd’, of alenation and of being engage, of black turtlenecks and Waiting for Godot. In such an atmosphere, a book on magick would be the last thing one would think would do well. But within weeks f its publication, The Morning of the Magicians had both banks of the Seine talking about alchemy, extraterrestrials, lost civilisations, esotericism, Charle Fort, secret societies, higher states of consciousness and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. (Lachmann: 2001:15)

I was about six years old when Morning of the Magicians was first published so I don’t remember too much about it. Even so it was destined to be one of those crap books that change my life. I can’t remember quite when I read Pauwels and Bergier’s flawed masterpiece, but it was destined to be for me one of those ‘crap books that changed my life.’ It became underground classic besides The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Steppenwolf, and Timothy Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience. I remember how it spoke of the twentieth century as being locked in a struggle between dark and light occult forces. It told of secret societies and ancient knowledge. Every other sentence seemed to be about some mind-blowing piece of history. After a couple of chapters I could really take any more, I wanted to go and find out for myself. I guess this was how it effected many of its readers. After reading Morning of the Magicians one needed a reality check.

The great antropologist Mircea Eliade wrote, there was something ‘new and exhilarating [in] the optimistic and holistic outlook ... in which human life again became meaningful and promised an endless perfectibility. Man was called to ‘conquer his physical universe and to unravel the other, enigmatic universe revealed by occultists and gnostics.’(Mircea Eliade quoted in Lachman 2001: 16)

Morning of the Magicians is quite a thoughtful book, quite intellectual. Many of its ideas have been repackaged over and over again so you have to try to imagine how it was the first time round. The book contains an epic thesis, spanning the whole of human history.

Future perfect: ‘It may be that what we can esotericism, the keystone of secret societies and religions, is a remnant, which we find very difficult to understand or deal with, of a very ancient branch of knowledge of a technical nature, relating to both mind and matter.’

Magicians and witches are revealed as the holders of an ancient secret that they preserve via secret societies that have existed for time immemorrial under such names as the illuminati, the magi, the Atlanteans, the Rosicrucians, or the golden dawn. And what is the nature of this secret? First that humanity has a purpose. Is that a startling thing. Maybe not although most mainstream science and history would maintain that life has no meaning other than perhaps the replication of its DNA. But to the secret council of adepts, humanity’s purpose has always been the creation of a race of perfected beings - the superman if you like. This thesis has lead to a widespread conspiracy and indeed struggle between adepts of the black and white brotherhoods, either to preserve the secret agenda of humanity or to mould it to their own ends. In the twentieth century things are said to have come to a head when the struggle between good and evil magi culminated in two brutal world wars.

In Morning of the Magicians this thesis about the secret history of humanity is illustrated firstly by the presentation of previously unknown ‘secrets’ of ancient technology. The mysteries of the pyramid builders, the ‘miracles’ of ancient medicine etc. Coming up to date it introduces lots of suggestions from literature that talk of dark goings on - thus we read about H P Lovecraft’s paranoid visions of a race of trans-dimensional creatures plotting and dreaming of there return. Or think of Arthur Machen’s Welsh tales about strange races of fairy folk who lurk in the deep forest or snowy heights.

You might not accept all this but, good or bad, it has been a very influential idea within occultism. You can see most of the books of that followed as developments of this theme of the perfected individual ready to take humanity into the future. Take only one example, say the whole sixties psychedelic revolution where drugs and alternative lifestyle are seen as the growth of the new person fit for the future expansion of human consciousness beyond the planet. I wonder if Gerald Gardner in the twilight of his own life was not influenced by Morning of the Magicians. I have in my possession a letter from a then student who describes Gardner as obsessed with pyramids and pyramid power. Impotent and with failing health, Gardner spend long hours within a special constructed pyramid in a bid to renew his powers.

These are quite radical ideas and they cannot be easily dismissed. Perhaps the interest in them as waned slightly but they cannot be completely avoid. The modern magician ought at least to think about them and decide whether in some form or another they ought to be extended or perhaps rejected. Some like Gary Lackman see them as what went wrong in the sixties and what turned magick and occultism into wuite a reactionary trend. What do you think?

It is with this kind of thing that Gary Lackman begins his magical mystery tour of thee occult philosophy of the sixties (no apologies here to Frances Yates: The Occult Philosophy of the Elizabethan Age). H P Lovecraft, Conan the Barbarian, Maharishi Yogi, Timothy Leary, the two Kenneths (Anger and Grant), Aleister Crowley, Tolkein, Castaneda, Alan Watts, Idries Shah, Charly Manson. Down the pub I asked can anyone think of a so-called sixties guru who doesn’t have feet of concrete? Silence for a moment then ‘Alan Watts’ (author of Zen classic ‘The Spirit of Zen’). He who, according to Lachman ‘masturbated daily, drew pornographic pictures, read pornography and had a taste for “various tortures” which he inflicted on himself in order to achieve orgasm’ (p115). He succumbed to ‘alcoholism and killed himself in 1973’ - could happen to any of us after all.

Maybe that why it is so important to know the dark side of the guru. That’s why I like Crowley, what you see is what you get, prepare for your disappointment now. He doesn’t have any skeletons in his closet . . .

The dangers of letting the guard down are nowhere better illustrated that in the tales of Idries Shah recounted in ‘Turn off your mind.’ Shah whose Octagon press published (and perhaps ghost wrote many of witch patriarch Gerald Gardner’s early works). Meeting J G Bennett of ‘The Fourth Way’, a disciple of Gurdjjieff and the founder of a successful alternative community known as Coombe Springs. Bennett became convinced that Shah was the guardian of ‘the secret’ and at the master’s request signed over the deeds to the estate as a gesture of good faith. Shah promptly evicted the entire community and sold the property for 100K, enough cash to prop up his publishing empire.

To my mind, the real dark side of the sixties was the cult of personality and the obsession of good interesting occultists (and not so good) with celebrities. Whether from the music or film world, these people offer rich pickings and an easy path to popularisation of important ideas. But maybe, as Gary implies, the road these people have taken to success makes them inherently empty, craving for novelty; dilettante - good cash cows but not the most serious students. Modern occultists and pagans would do well to heed the warning - not to be dazzled by these fake Lucifers. In the sixties is was Mick Jagger who had some style, now we have some bimbo from Hercules or Zeena signing initiation certificates for quite a well known magical grouping - stop - read this book!

Since the publication of Morning of the Magicians there have been many imitators and indeed if you go to the Psychic Questing Conference or Alternative Egypt you will see many books that follow in the footsteps, not always with as much elegance. Other pagans have reacted against it but picking single themes, such as Tantrism and discovering for themselves whether these were really the work of an ancient super race. In my own case remember reading about supposed wonderful ancient feat of medicine such as ancient transplant surgery or vaccination. As with so much of this kind of thing, if you depart from the main picture and start looking at the individual details in context things may not look quite so clear.

Around about the same time that I read Morning of the Magicians I remember pasting the pages of the Daily Mirror into a scrap book. It was another even bigger literary phenomenon. The Chariot of the Gods had arrived. Its author, a Swiss hotel manager was awaiting trail for embezzlement when a book he written in his spare time sold the first of over 42 million copies! Erich von Daniken had arrived. Like many of my generation it was the first time someone had something interesting to say about pyramids and the wonders of the _pre-Christian_ realm. It may have been crap but it was a our crap.

Van Daniken’s books are essential a reworking of Morning of the Magicians aimed at a less intellectual audience. The first line of his book reads ‘it took courage to write this book and it will take courage to read it.’ He gives the global conspiracy of the illuminates a novel twist. The ‘secret’ now becomes ‘was god was an astronaut?’ He was not an intellectual or good historical researcher but like his many imitators he knew how to present a good yarn and his mad theories about ancient times struck a chord amongst a people hungry for knowledge of their ancient pagan past.

Personally I see the sixties as part of the process of sharpening Occam’s razor - trying out new philosophies and lifestyles. Its seems mad when you look at it but it is part of the collective move away from the really ‘evil’ forces of global governments, whose slaughter policy makes Charlie Manson look quite tame. We are growing and learning from our mistakes, but to make sure we are not just destined to repeat them, I suggest one needs to know what they were, to debate them - and move beyond.

Abstract
The repeal of the witchcraft act signalled a sea change in occult writing in terms of quality and quantity. As the real ‘people of the book’, pagans have been connected with writing and publishing since the beginning of recorded history. I want to explore some of the mysteries of the book and the injunction to write and publish as magical acts. It been said that even a crap book can change your life, never was this more so than in the 1960s when an cultural renaissance was ignited by a couple of incendiary magical texts.

Omphalos Magical Fair 2007 (cancelled)

2007-07-01T09:37:00.000Z

Bath Omphalos at the Chapel
Bath Omphalos at the Chapel

Saturday Evening: Roberto workshop (Zivorod ).

Sunday Afternoon: 'Blood Lust and the Evil Dead' - extended workshop on supernatural assault. Workshop and performance of the Zar exorcism dance; audio/visual installation based around Mark Mirabello's Cannibal Within. Special altar and apotropiac rites. Illustrated lecture by Mogg Morgan based on his forthcoming book: Supernatural Assault in Ancient Egypt (Seth & Egyptian Magick volume III). More to be announced. A gathering of the clan rather than a commercial event so tickets £2-3 pounds.

Space in the chapel is limited so it would be handy to let the organisers know if you are coming. Bring food.

Website: http://www.omphalos.org.uk/

Yahoo elist: omphalosmagickalfair/
Sunday Afternoon: 'Blood Lust and the Evil Dead' - extended workshop on supernatural assault. Workshop and performance of the Zar exorcism dance; audio/visual installation based around Mark Mirabello's Cannibal Within. Special altar and apotropiac rites. Illustrated lecture by Mogg Morgan based on his forthcoming book: Supernatural Assault in Ancient Egypt (Seth & Egyptian Magick volume III). More to be announced. A gathering of the clan rather than a commercial event so tickets £2-3 pounds.

Space in the chapel is limited so it would be handy to let the organisers know if you are coming. Bring food.

Website: http://www.omphalos.org.uk/

Yahoo elist: omphalosmagickalfair/

Samkhya Dualism

2007-05-07T09:27:00.000Z

In ancient India what we now call a philosophy was termed a view (skt darshan). This is in contrast to the western tradition where philosophy can be more doctrinaire in its approach. The Indian intellectual tradition is relativist, any philosophy is a point of view, correct only on the basis of a set of presuppositions. The six most important views were, according to one important text said to be:

Nyaya or the logical school;

Its close relative the school of Vaisheshika or Atomism;

Mimamsa, literally 'enquiry', a school dedicated to the defence of the authenticity of the Vedas;

The Vedanta non-dualist school;

Yoga (1)

The Samkhya or Reasoning School.

Samkhya is widely believed to be one of the oldest of the six and along with the Vaisheshika Atomic school the main influence on the medico-scientific (Ayurveda) tradition and Tantrism. Samkhya represents an extremely important philosophical tendency in Indian thought. All of the later philosophies defined themselves in relation to its theories, either for them or against.

In reality there were many more than six philosophies in India. One important view was preserved by the Raseshvara (mercury lords), ranked as about eighth in an imaginary league table of important views.(2) This system almost certainly comprises alchemical practitioners like Nagarjuna and is closely akin to the later Tantrik and Ayurvedic views. It is worth noting that ideas connected with medical science (Ayurveda) are also extremely pervasive and very authoritative. In fact, there is hardly any text in the Indian intellectual tradition from the Late Upanishads onwards that does not make some reference either directly or otherwise, to Ayurveda.

continued at www.mandrake.uk.net/samkhya.htm

Pagan Federation Wessex Conference

2007-04-29T10:57:00.000Z

Glastonbury
I'm speaking in the afternoon on 'Typhonian Magick'

Deconditioning - the wrong way (from JSM0

2007-04-21T08:53:00.000Z

Mogg wrote:
Aleister Crowley recommends that magicians
cultivate the ability to argue the case from both sides -
as in the classical techniques of the sophists.

That kind of practice found its way into Pete Caroll's reworking of the whole
Crowley thing into his first book on Chaos Magick - _Liber Null_.
AFAIK chaos magicians still take this idea quite seriously -
ie i sure i read an article either in Chaos International or Oracle where one high level member of the IOT says how he was a 'lefty' most of his life but then decided he would be a 'fascist' for a while as some sort of intellectual exercise - which strikes me as about rhetoric - perhaps with the aim of deconditioning etc.

Personally i was never that impressed by that idea in crowley et al
- always struck me as 'bad faith' -

Mark said:
Clearly, if one already feels a conscious inclination toward fascism, the sincere adoption of a fascist world-view won't enact any profound de-conditioning. If in fact one finds it repugnant ( another mode of desire to be sure) than an engagement that seeks to find the truth or genius of the perspective might well be productive. Any sincere engagement with abjected material is potentially productive. In terms of Crowley, I immediately think of the squalor of the Abbey--an engagement with a basic form of the abject--filth.

As to playing at fascism, one need look no further than the west coast post-punk demi-monde of the 1980s, a'la Exit and ReSearch magazines,Feral House Press, Boyd Rice aka NON etc. Clearly the engagement exhibited by this group is as much about an interrogation of fascism as it is an embrace.

mogg said:
Thanks - that does help clarify the issues -
i suppose 'abjection' works on, or implies that these are arranged in some sort of binary pairs of opposites.
The middle way or equipoise (ie deconditioning)
comes by using them for some sort of intellectual kartharsis.
hence the famous binaries of hindu philosophy - pleasure/pain, attraction/revulsion etc

But I suggest that there is an unlimited number
of choices available to someone wanting to engage -
the other points of view -
and that some things (eg: fascism)
can be viewed as sui generis -
i.e. they don't stand in any meaningful
contrary with anything -

Of course the Buddhism philosopher might also say that the
idea of contraries is also an illusion -
ie: just a construct of some kind -
ie: in what sense is black really the opposite of blue ??

'love and do what you will'

mogg

ps: There is also the issue of ego -
imo an egotist believes that their personal development is more important than the suffering of others - but ego is the enemy of liberation - so they are caught in a paradox??

mark said:
Of course the abject can also be a function of suspended opposition. Those things considered monstrous or Other are abjected because they violate presupposed oppositions. Indeterminate race and/or gender is often construed as abject. The various figures of the undead also enact the kind of boundary crossings that call forth banishment. Most conceptions of the left-hand path--utilization of bodily pleasures or identification with "evil" as paths to spiritual elevation--enact this "impossible" co-presence as well. All of which is to say that the embrace of the abject may serve to reveal the illusory nature of binary opposition.

m

Dear Mark

that's very well put but a bit tricky for me to understand ; )
But guess you are talking about the nature of taboo ?
I.e. that the ideas of constructing a set of binary opposites -
often involves a lot of unexamined presuppositions
about what is 'good' and 'bad'?

So for example in
'tantrik' praxis a 'low caste woman' may be seen as defiling
and therefore as a source of powerful, liberating encounters.
But we might well question the initial assumption of
'low caste women' = 'impure'
- that kind of thing??

'love and do what you will'

Mogg

ps: in western magick the equivalent of the 'middle way'
is AFAIK the 'middle pillar' - which lies between
the twin poles of 'mercy' and 'severity' -
perhaps an idea influenced by Buddhism?

Blood lust and the 'Evil Dead' in Ancient Egypt (talk)

2007-03-16T14:59:00.000Z

A talk in march at the Dark Arts Society, Deveraux Public House

I intend to continue my admittedly 'leftfield' exploration of the darker aspects of Egyptian folk magick.

The 'Zar' cult is probably a survival of a popular ancient Egyptian cult that involved 'demon dancing'. I will touch on this at some point in the talk although it might be even better to have someone demonstrate the Zar dance - perhaps one of the regular dancers might be able to have a go - as I believe Zar is part of the modern repetoire. I was wondering if anyone had a copy of Hassan Ramzy's 'Introduction to Egyptian Rhythms'.

Jan Fries has written an interesting chapter on Zar in his Seidways: shaking, swaying and serpent mysteries - he based that on the work of a eminent german anthropologist Enno Littmann, whose results are not otherwise readily available in English. I was pleased to find a connection between 'seething' and egyptian magick.

Magus: The Invisible Life of Elias Ashmole (Review)

2007-03-13T19:20:00.000Z

By Tobias Churton, 2004, Signal Publishing.

'Elias Ashmole is a particularly striking case of someone who did well out of the Restoration through his flair at 'remembering' a largely apocryphal golden Stuart past before the civil war. His lasting fame and 'name' rest (in the title of the Ashmolean Museum) upon his dubious acquisition of another man's lifetime collection of rarities, and his subseqent gifting of them to the University of Oxford'

Lisa Jardine (2002) On a Grander Scale , her biography of Sir Christopher Wren, quoted by Tobias Churton.

The above quote from Jardine provides the raison d'être for Churton's less eloquent but arguable more informed study of the life and impact of the famous antiquarian Elias Ashmole. The house that Elias built as a repository of one of the world's' first museums, is still Oxford's small but wonderful treasurehouse of scientific history. Recent work to extend the basement turned up Ashmole's alchemical laboratory complete with instruments and human and animal remains. The main exhibit is now divided between the Bodleian library, and the founders room of the new Ashmolean in Broad Street - surely one of the world's great museums. Tradescant's original collection of curiousities is still on display - along with the only known portrait of John Dee and one of Ashmole himself, along with the gold chain presented to him by a Swedish monarch in gratitude for his monumental History of the Order of the Garter. It is said that the actual chain is missing a few links, a sure sign of the frequent ebbs and flows in the fortunes of the old magus.

Churton's excellent redaction of the life is only made possible by the five volume compilation of Ashmole's diaries, autobiographies and related notes published by OUP in 1966. The author, Conrad Hermann Hubertus Maria Apollinaris (Kurt) Josten (Pheeww! you don't get names like these very often these days) solved Ashmole's cipher and was thus able to do the work. Awarded an honorary DLitt by the university for his troubles, after his retirement as curator of the science museum, he become curator emeritus.

Which all goes to show that Jardine has probably got it wrong and Ashmole was no Hasolle and does deserve his fifteen minutes of fame. If you need more persuasion read Churton's book. Perhaps aimed more at the museum bookshop than the serious contemporary magi, it does nevertheless contain some gems, especially concerning his struggles to remake himself after the defeat of the royalist cause (hurrah) during the protectorate of Cromwell (booo). Ashmole tells how he "went to Maidstone assizes to heare the Witches tryed, and tooke Mr Tradescant with me." The six witches were hanged, accused of bewitching nine children, a man and a woman and £500 worth of cattle lost and corn at sea by witchcraft.'

Or account of his relationshp with otherwise puritan ministers who nevertheless had a perchant for 'sorcery'. Mrs John Pordage, whom he was amazed to see 'Clothed all in white Lawne, from the crown of the head to the sole of the Foot, and a white rod in her hand. She was hailing as a prophetess by those dancing country dances about her 'making strange noises". Explaining that they were rejoicing because they had 'overcome the Devil.' Dr Pordage then appeared 'all in black velvet' and pressed everyone to join in.'

or even the more intimate touches of Ashmole's struggles to find a wife or love or was it both? It's difficult to see whether his failures were down to a lack of good looks or the necessary finances : 'I dreamt in the morning that I put my hand into Mrs Marche's placket (slip) and then to her next petticoat and then to her third and then to her smock, and then pulled it up, and with very little struggling felt her bare cun(?) - well who hasn't had a dream like that??

This is a lively picture of the times. I could have had more information on the magical work but I learnt a hell of a lot from this densely illustrated and well made book. If you've an interest in the times then buy it. - mogg

Legend of the Witches (Review)

2007-03-11T10:10:00.000Z

Written and Directed by Malcolm Leigh
Produced by Negus-Fancey
Edited by Judith Smith
Lighting Cameraman: Robert Webb
Border Film Production (London) Ltd
Year: 1969
Featuring: Alex and Maxine Sanders and their beautiful coven.
Format: DVD

‘In the beginning was the Moon, Diana. Her lover was the Dawn, Lucifer - God of Light. They created man, and built the monuments, which tracked their paths across the skies. Now man could predict the movements of the Gods, he sought to control them, through priests and ritual…’

Originally X-rated, this newly released DVD, is a real period piece this, documenting the beliefs and practices of Alex Sanders and the circle of witches, which under his leadership, electrified the popular imagination and attracted many into the Wiccan path.

The film's leisurely pace requires the modern viewer to make some adjustment to their viewing habits. Nevertheless this is a minor masterpiece and really manages to tell one of witchcraft's many 'stories'. We've perhaps become a little too knowing to accept all of the certainties of 1960s Wicca - but nevertheless we can all agree, that this 'warts and all' view, really does capture the spirit of the time. It's a beautiful film, shot I think in 16mm black and white, which lends it a very artistic feel, reminding me most of the experimental films of Maya Deren or indeed UK classics of 'socialist realism' such as 'Night Mail', the 1936 movie by John Grierson, with music by Benjamin Britten.

The documentary begins with lovely sweeping shots of seascapes and ancient, elemental landscapes over which the film's narrator begins his tale of the ancient witch mythology, of the Goddess Diana and her consort Lucifer, the sun. Now whether or not one buys into this spirited mythology, we have strayed into controversy almost immediately. Who amongst the current glut of media witches even dares to mention that name - Lucifer?

Almost half the film explores these ideas, covering issues such the mysteries of earth energy, altered states, the pagan traces that survive in pre-reformation churches, the persecutions and the rebirth of the old religion. It's foundation myth, easy to sneer at, but strangely wonderful just the same.

Seamlessly, the film now deliverers us into the hands of a modern coven. We see them perform a variety of rites. First, an outdoor initiation. The candidate, referred to throughout as Michael, not because that's his real name but presumably because of the ancient folk myth of 'crazy man Michael', Britain's very own 'holy fool'. The priestess repeatedly calls 'Michael' to various encounters with elemental forces, the whole rite done at Alderley Edge in Cheshire, itself a place of power, just a stone's thrown from Lindow Moss, where in Iron Age times, other, darker rites were done by our pagan ancestors.

Now the action moves into the temple, after some exploration of the many cursing exhibits, still to be seen at the Boscastle's Witchcraft Museum, we are prepared for the notion that witches sometimes curse. The coven, prepare such a curse, using the traditional and extremely ancient technique, in which a poppet is given life through the agency of Alex and Maxine's act of sexual magick - fascinating stuff.

We even get to see something seldom alluded to these days - the so-called 'Black Mass.' completed with a very lifelike 'sign of Osiris slain' - . These witches, known these days as Alexandrians, do not see such as mass as any form of inversion of Christian principles. They knew something that we have all perhaps forgotten - there is no impervable barrier between primitive Christianity and classical paganism. It was around this time that Professor Morton Smith wrote his groundbreaking book Jesus the Magician. The 'Black Mass' is only 'black to the blind' - it is in fact a celebration of life in all is bounty.

The film concludes with a nod to the future, when the special powers of the witch will be understood more in terms of the newish science of ESP and indeed the 1960s first forays into the psychedelic, encounter groups and other techniques of obsession and transcendence. Of course some in the new millennial will find this all too embarrassing and bad for business - but what do they know? Who are then the true successors to Alex Sanders and the witches of the 1960s? If they were still here I'd say the Temple ov Psychic Youth would be a likely contender. The film will outrage some but inspire others to take up where they left off after a generation or more of stoney sleep. Buy this and be refreshed. - Mogg Morgan

Ardhanarisvara or Ardhanari - Notes (in construction)

2007-01-30T10:04:00.000Z

A modern cult of Ardanari draws upon its ancient manifestations but differ in many important respects. For example the historical Kaulas worshipped a Goddess possessed of special abilities including the ability to produce an androgynous elixir or 'goddess semen'. The experts say that Ardanari was viewed as androgynous in a different way and that this does not include the production of male and female seed or both semen and menstrual blood. see (White 2003 : 278)

The modern cult would be more flexible in its mythology - but is still able to draw inspiration from older sources for the idea that the male and female adepts can be the source of a (if not the) androgynous elixir. Inspiration for this could be drawn from the Tantrik kingship rites of Bali and Java - medieval centres of the Ardanari cult:

'An Old Javanese court poem, the Smara'Dahana ("The Burning of Kama"), translated and commented by C. Hooykaas, ends on the following verses:

Such is her loveliness, moving and sweet,
to be compared with mead in a chalice;
together with her as his principal spouse
did Smara come down to earth;
King and Queen as Ardhanaresvan
continuously on the jewel lion-throne;
King Kamesvara in [the] lotus' inner part,
having as sakti the eight goddesses after their arrival.45

This poem is in fact a reference to the Indonesian royal consecration, which was Tantric. Hooykaas explicates this verse on the basis of Balinese Saiva ritual, in which Ardhanaresvan is praised in the following terms:
"Hence a rain of nectar pours down, therefore on all the limbs and junc-
tions, born from the meeting of husband and wife, this is proclaimed to be
the 'real life.'"46

Here, the king and his queen, husband and wife, embody the divine pair Siva and Uma, who together are called amrti'karam, the "making of nectar, holy water." It is at this moment in the ritual, in which nectar or holy water is said to descend from the sky to earth, that the water in the vessel before the priest becomes transformed into holy water.47

This is the central mystery of Balinese Hindu religion. On the one hand, this consecration ritual transforms a man into a king: whereas as a boy, the king may have had an ordinary name like Ayam Vuruk, the Young Cock, following his abhiseka he is given the official name of Kamesvara. On the other hand, it transforms him and his spouse into the central deities of the Tantric mandala, vivifying the world with the nectar of their union:

in the moment of their consecration, the newly consecrated King Kamesvara and his spouse are identified with Siva and Uma bestowing the nectar of their supreme bliss upon humanity.48 The mandala is completed by the array of women that surround the royal couple: the king, together with his spouse, as Ardhanaresvan, are said to be seated in the padma'guhya, the hidden recess of the lotus, where they are surrounded by their eight Saktis, perhaps the king's lesser queens.49 However, as we noted in the previous chapter, the lotus and its heart are, in Tantric parlance, none other than the female sexual organ, and certain Kaula groups represented the Sri Cakra as a yoni surrounded by eight lesser yonis.50' (White 2003 : 135)

Thus we read in
Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit:

'Ardhanarishvara "The Lord Whose Half Is Woman" represents a transgendered being created by the union of the Hindu deities shiva (male) and shakti (female). Ardhanarishvara, above all, speaks to the totality that lies beyond duality. In Chinese Taoism (or Daoism), this concept is symbolized by the coming together of YIN AND yang in the Tao (or Dao). Like the Greek god Hermes, Ardhanarishvara is associated with communication; the intermediate being often serves to mediate between women and men, mortals and deities, and between other entities. For this reason, Ardhanarishvara is said to dwellin the chakra (sacred center of the human body) of the throat. In tantra, this chakra is also sometimes associated with oral intercourse, linking the deity not only to androgyny but also to homoeroticism. In the past, Ardhanarishvara was served by gender variant, cross- (or mixed-) dressing, priests.

Alain Danielou* writes, "The hermaphrodite, the homosexual, and the transvestite have a symbolic value and are considered privileged beings, images of the Ardhanarishvara. In this connection, they play a special part in magical and Tantric rites." To devotees, Ardhanarishvara, like Ganesha - Shiva's non-biological son and a companion of Ardhanarishvara - brings prosperity. In artistic depictions, Ardhanarishvarais typically shown with the left half of his body being female and the right half, male. The female (Shakti, or parvati, or Uma) half is usually garbed in red and often holds a lotus, while the male half (Shiva) wears a tiger skin or an ascetic's cloth around the waist. The skin of the female half is tan, while that of the male half is light blue. His/her gaze is pensive, serene; his/her pose sensuous, inviting. The cult of Ardhanarishvara appears to have reached a pinnacle during the tenth through the twelfth centuries and again in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when he-she became a popular subject in sculpture and painting.

*Danielou, Alain (1907-1994) French musicologist, writer, translator, musician (especially of the vina), dancer, and sportsman known especially for his works on Hindu music, mythology, religion, and mysticism, which include Hindu Polytheism (1964), The Ragas of Northern Indian Music (1968), Shiva and Dionysus (1982), and While the Gods Play (1987). Inspired by a deeply religious mother, at age four he constructed a sanctuary in the woods with images of the Virgin Mary and small crosses. His attraction to the sacred eventually led him to explore other spiritual traditions, particularly Hinduism, and to view eroticism as a bridge to enlightenment. He described his first homosexual experience in beatific terms - he felt suddenly "infused with light." "In that moment of intense pleasure, a god of sensuousness, happiness, and light was revealed to me - that god of love whom mystics [of ancient Greek religion, Sufism, Christianity, and Tantra] write about, the god of Jalal al-Din RUMI and Saadi, of Saint John of the Cross [San Juan de la Cruz] and Saint Theresa of Avila [Santa Teresa de Avila], of Dionysian and Tantric rites."

In the 1930s and 1940s, with his lover Raymond Burnier Danielou immersed himself in Hinduism, visiting, photographing, and writing about many otherwise neglected Hindu temples. In Fools of God (1988), one of his works which depicts the interrelationship of homoeroticism and the sacred, Danielou describes the erotico-spiritual dimension of the lives of certain sadhus(Hindu ascetics). For these, he insists, "the repression ofs ex is out of the question. The path of complete abstinence is considered impossible in the age of strife in which we live... The man who wishes to conquer heaven and earth must cultivate both sexual and mental energies and at length learn to channel the one into the other." While some sadhus have female companions, others, for reasons including the desire to avoid fatherhood, have male companions Danielou confirms that "relations between person same sex are . .. very widely practiced." Observing"this connection between homosexuality and spiritual life, and the sacred view of this kind of relationship, are well known in all religions," "Sex allows the pupil-teacher relationship to achieve fullness in which the flowering of the body leads to ennoblement of the soul."

see also

david white the alchemical body
david white, the kiss of the yogini
Sahajanath's Tantra Sadhana

website: O Grand Bucca, both Dark and Fair, divine androgyne, be in all heartsand on the tip of every tongue. For your time has come again as it does with the beginning of each moment! )http://www.geocities.com/cronnekdhu/Traditional_Cornish_Witchcraft.html

Pagan Theology & Ethics

2006-12-30T08:17:00.000Z

In construction

Is it possibly to derive ethical views from pagan values?
Assuming we can use the term 'pagan' to capture a specific set of religious practitioners - it's unlikely they would be able to come up with an agreed list of values. Its the nature of paganism to be vague about these things. Even so here are are some possibilities.

pagan values
1. Cause no unneccessary harm
I've a feeling that might be a self-evident truth.
You have to be pretty bloody minded to think the opposite.
Can you think of a counter example?

2. The necessity of polytheism
Some would say monotheism is the only necessity.
But true monotheism is rare.
For example, Christianity is a good example of polytheism masquerading as monotheism. The complexity of nature implies a natural polytheism

3. The plurality of ultimate truth
A great deal of effort has been devoted to the discovery of one 'ultimate truth' or one 'Theory of Everything.' But theories such as Godel's Theorem of incompleteness surely imply this issue will always be unresolved. In which case ultimate reality is always plural - which is expressed in certain pagan mythology such as that the world comes into being from the interaction of a god and a goddess.

4. Tolerance

5. Principle of Honour

6. Compassion

Issues:
Abortion
Conflict

Death and Burial
I take it Caliban's long comment is intended for the issue of 'Death & Burial'. He seems to be saying that the intellectual paganism of the classical period (Greeks and Romans) is responsible for a loss of the richer attitudes to death and the otherworld, traces of which are still discoverable in older cultures. It's an interesting idea and one that is evidenced in the literature. It maybe goes hand in hand with the idea that magicians of the period were such trouble makers that they provoked their own demise. Certainly it can't all be blamed on the Christians - bad as they were - the first laws against magick were enacted by Augustus way before the Christian hegemony.

The high culture of Egyptian had three classes of sentient being-

the ankhw, the akhw and the neterw -

the living, the spirits and the gods.

All that talk of 'spiritualism' is really about the Akhw - the spirits of departed who have some continued existence - sometimes in a way helpful to us sometimes not so. Death customs may be for the benefit of the deceased or serve some other aim - perhaps display or redistribution of wealth. Nothing so far implies an afterlife in some otherworld. The Akhw live amongst us not somewhere else, if they did maybe they would be less troublesome? Some death customs clearly do implie an otherworld - as for instance when someone is buried with a sword presumably to do some fighting on the other side. The death customs I like seek to return the body to the biosphere in respectful but also quick and efficient manner. The departed spirit is reborn or otherwise reintegrated into the living world of those that come after. That to me seems a more pagan way.

Divorce
Drugs - use & abuse
Ecology
Euthanasia
Gambling
Medicine & its limits
Politics
Sexuality
Sexual politics

A dialogue - please leave your feedback

Seidr & Seething - the saga continues

2006-12-25T18:12:00.000Z

UK's Pentacle magazine issue 19 has a response to the updated chapter of Seidr from the new edition of Jan Fries, Helrunar: a manual of rune magick. An extract from the said chapter was reproduced in the Beltain edition of the same magazine. At the moment the pagan scene is gripped by 'academeitis' - that's when someone attempts to end an awkward argument by invoking some supposed academic authority. I say 'supposed' because those cited are often no more of an authority on the matter than us regular mortals. I've heard it several times now - 'academics say that whatever else seidr might be - it can't posssibly be seething'. Given the supposed impossibility of proving a negative - that seems a rather reckless statement from a supposed cooled headed scholar.

I'm still not quite sure why some people get so hot under the collar about Jan's interpretation of the mysterious seidr practice. Surely there is room for more than one view on what it might have been. Jan attempts through various arguments to link it to the universal phenonemon of the shaking trance. But some heathens will have none of it - pamphlets have been published in the vain attempt to repudiate Jan's view; he is accused of an unspecified eastern influence; speakers have been known to digress from their scripts in order to warn their audience of the dangers of following Jan's lead.

Jan's seething hypothesis is hardly that threatening. Afterall it's not as if Jan isn't also sympathetic to the new American style seidr. He may point out the uncertainty of its theoretical basis but recognises that authors such as Diana Paxson have developed a nice syncretistic divination ritual which works well and to which they have appended the classy, ancient name seidr. All Jan does it point out that this same title is also associated with lots of things they don't like. Perhaps this explains why they loathe his theories and try to argue Nordic literature away?

Jan Fries is very much in favour of people making up new things. Afterall there is no necessity for all good things to be ancient in order to be genuine. I'm sure he would want them to be proud of their new interpretation of seidr which now has an ethical frame it probably lacked in its historic version.

Alan Nash is the latest to enter the fray. The intentions of Alan's letter in Pentacle may have got a bit lost in 'translation' but I suspect his interest is to provoke discussion and see the arguments rehearsed. Alan questions why Jan's appears to deny that that the lady in Erik's Saga was doing seidr. Erik's Saga is one of the prime sources of information on Seidr, and in it there are details of a supposed seidr rite (see Jan Fries Seidways: shaking, swaying and serpent mysteries, for the full text). I'd say that Jan merely asks why, if this really is an account of Seidr, the priestess isn't referred to as a seidkona as one would expect, but is instead almost invariably called a spakona (seeress)?

Alan Nash also questions Jan's apparent characterisation of seidr as 'evil' - now things are really getting serious as that could be seen as an insult to the whole heathen tradition! What Jan says is that historically seidr did have such a reputation in Nordic literature. Like it or not - there is apparently not a single text in Nordic literature that says anything kind about the practice.

Finally - as has been common on this debate - which has rumbled on for a while now - Alan evokes the shade of Edred Thorson, who apparently has strong views on this issue. The great man may have spoken but whether what he says stands up is another matter: "One thing I must vigorously insist on is that the word seidr can in no way beconnected to the English word 'seethe'."(Witchdom Of The True: A Study of The Vana-Troth and the Practice Of Seidr, Runa-Raven Press, 1999).

As any student of logic knows, definition is supposed to explain what a term means, not what it does not mean. Irvin Copi once wrote: "to define the word 'couch' as meaning not a bed and not a chair is to fail miserably to explain the meaning of a word." But to be fair I've not been able to see the article and perhaps it has some stronger arguments. I'm told Edred is an expert on etymology - so presumably he meant to say "Old English word 'seethe' ", occuring as it does in citations before 1100 AD. According to the lexicographers at the Oxford University Press it is in fact an Old Teutonic word - infinative seothan* - with an obsolete form sod.

There is a related word in Gothic sauth* which brings out its ritual connotations - as a sacrifice - which as Jan says in Helrunar - has the literally meaning of 'boiled meat' - the sine qua non for a Nordic sacrifice. The Oxford Lexicographers explain the limits of the OED's remit in their introduction, thus it is true that they do not mention Seidr as one of its cognates. The connection between the two is thus still, AFAIK, an open question. They do however say that seething had certain figurative uses not found in later texts - meanings such as 'to try someone by fire' or 'to afflict with cares'.

I suppose I ask myself does the word seidr survive in any form in the languages of Europe. If it does, then Old English or Modern English Seething, being very similar in sound to Seidr, would be a far from ridiculous suggestion that might yet be proved correct. The connection between Seidr and Sauthr is not something Jan made up. It has been argued before in many academic tomes, including Jakob Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie in the 1830s.

But as it happens, Jan's characterisation of Nordic Seidr as 'seething' was probably never really based on linguistics - his arguments are more about the nature of magick and trance activity. The English word he choose turned out to have a fortuitous and evocative history all its own. Seething takes us right back to the appropriate time and to the rich sacrifices that go into the steaming cauldron of magick.

Check it out for yourself. By all means let's debate the issues but let's also stick to the facts rather than spurious appeals to authority.

E&OE - comments welcome

Yvonne comments (probably tongue in cheek) that 'Seidr' might be related to 'Cider'.
Strangely enough if you check that in the OED - it turns out to be a very old loan word from
Old Testament Hebrew - 'Shekar*' meaning 'strong drink' ; )

I may be facilitating a workshop of this style of Seidr/Seething
at London's Beltain Bash, May 2007. A chance to meet other seethers,
talk about problems, exchange ideas and techniques.

Curse of Merlin IV - Magical Journey

2006-12-01T17:41:00.000Z

I never did find out why it was that Newport's Reference & Lending Library acquired so many magical books. I spent such a lot of my time in that library it was just a matter of time before I read them all. Best of all was Aleister Crowley's masterpiece - Liber ABA - Magick in Theory and Practice. The reference library must have bought a copy almost as soon as it was published in an edition edited by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant in 1973. It's a lovely book with the most evocative of covers. It was kept in a special cupboard, along with the Kinsey Report and Masters & Johnson. If you wanted to read it, you had to ask and I did ask.

continued at:

http://www.myspace.com/moggmorgan

Evil Sleep - lecture

2006-11-28T19:30:00.000Z

London Earth Mysteries Circle
7.00pm Tuesdays (2nd & 4th in month)
Diorama Centre
34 Osnaburgh Street
London NW1
Admission: £4.00
(Meetings in Skylight Studio or Work Room at
34 Osnaburgh Street or Cherokee Room on Triton Square). Tubes:
Gt Portand Street, Warren Street & Regents Park.

Check London Earth Mysteries Circle website www.lemc.ic24.net for venue details and Autumn Programme 2006.

Next Meeting:
Nov 14: Pyramids for the future with Bob Harris
Nov 28: Evil Sleep of Egyptian Magick with Mogg Morgan

‘The night was man’s first necessary evil, our oldest and most haunting terror’
A Roger Ekirch (2005) At Day’s Close.
It is widely supposed that the night was always a source of fear, the domain of frightening and threatening entities. Thus Plato wrote:

‘Evil spirits love not the smell of lamps’
It may be well to remind ourselves that the humble lamp, that we take so much for granted, had in the ancient world wider connotations where is was a complex magical instrument with which the huddling masses did battle with the monsters from the Id.

I will discuss some of the Ancient Egyptian responses to the terrors of the night. This will bring us into the realm of ancient psychology and demonology. It will also reveal the domain of private, freeform Egyptian magick and witchcraft. We will touch upon the natural history of the Egyptian vampire. It will cause us to read the most ancient of dream books, and also look at almanacs of lucky and unlucky days. It will also uncover some hardcore 'spellkits' designed to fight evil with ‘evil’.

'I may be wrong' is not a phrase one ever associates with Richard Dawkins

2006-11-27T09:52:00.000Z

From Giles Frazer, 'Doubters do it from the pulpit' in The Independent on Sunday, 26.11.06

CATHARSIS - POETRY AND HEALING (draft)

2006-11-02T12:04:00.000Z

Mogg Morgan (c)

The literary vocabulary is peppered with metaphors of food and eating. We talk of 'good taste', 'to savour something' or of 'food for thought'. In this article I hope to show that this use of language is not accidental and in fact leads us to the heart of poetry. The contention that the mental feelings of enjoyment are indebted to bodily or physiological feelings may be difficult for some people to accept. We are inclined to draw a strict dividing line between mind and body; but this has not always been so, nor need it be in the future.

Aristotle in his Poetics speaks of 'Catharsis' which is also a medical term meaning cleansing or purging; a crucial component of the medical practice of his time. Aristotle was a physician as well as a philosopher and in the system of healing he practiced, which was based upon the Humours, Catharsis would have brought the sick person back to a state of psycho-somatic equipoise or isonomia

The similarities between Greek ideas and those of ancient Indian aesthetics are so striking that it is highly probably that they derive from a common source.
The oldest system of Indian medicine is called Ayurvedic, which is a compound of two words, 'ayur' meaning longevity and 'veda' meaning knowledge [anglicised spelling]. The main textual sources of Ayurveda go back to about the beginning of the present era. Many of its ideas are much older and derive from a very creative period in Indian culture at around the sixth century BCE. Ayurveda views the world rather like a vast organism, in which all the parts are interconnected. The essence of this organism is a constantly changing liquid called 'rasa', and so one analyses all its various parts by the sense of taste, which in Sanskrit is the same word - 'rasa'. This homonym has a number of interesting and related meanings, including sap, liquid, essence, elixir, serum, chyle, mercury, semen, taste, feeling, and sentiment. Therefore the sense of taste is the connecting link between an individual and the larger whole; an idea that has very wide implications in art and culture. In this system there are said to be six varieties of taste:
Sweet, Sour, Saline, Pungent, Bitter and Astringent.

According to the Ayurvedic system what one eats, and therefore tastes is also the cause both of health and illness.(1) This is because all foods are broken down in the stomach into a pure liquid food chyle (rasa), and its waste products. In this process three humours are also produced, in Sanskrit they are called Vata, Pitta and Kapha, and they are sometimes translated as Wind, Bile and Phlegm. The term 'humour' is a translation of the Sanskrit word 'dosha' which means 'to spoil. These substances are essential constituents of the human body, but if they are produced in too great a quantity or in the wrong part of the body they are the fundamental cause of all diseases that afflict humanity. Thus one form of Bile keeps the skin in a good tone, but if there is too much of it leads to swelling.

The Ayurvedic system tells us that there is a dynamic relationship between the three humours and the six tastes. For example:

Bile, which is oily, hot, sharp, liquid, sour, fluid and pungent is soon overcome by medicine having opposite qualities.

Wind, which is rough, cool light, subtle, mobile, non-slimy and coarse, is reconciled by medicines having opposite qualities.

Phlegm, which is heavy, cool, soft, oily, sweet, immobile and slimy is relieved by medicine of opposite quality.(2)

The relationship between tastes and humours is complex but can be represented in a very simplified form by the following diagram: (add diagram)

Equipoise is achieved by manipulation of these relationship through the food that one eats, so that a person is restored to or maintained in good health by an appropriate diet.

How all these factors effect the Mind gives us the link between medicine and poetry. The Indian intellectual tradition makes a division between consciousness and the body which is quite alien to that of the Western tradition. The Indian tradition divides all phenomena into two broad categories of spirit and matter. On one side is purusha, the transcendental aspect of ones personality, and on the other is ranged all our physical attributes, which in this system includes the Mind (manas), the Intellect (Buddhi) and the Senses (indriya). Thus ones mental sensitivities, although they are constructed from a finer material than the more gross aspects of the body, are still essentially part of the same model of causes and effects outlined above. The Mind has its food just like any other part of the body. Thus insanity (unmaada) means literally intoxication. Mental equipoise is achieved by reference to an allopathic model of mental tastes designed to counteract a particular temper.

The aim of Sanskrit poetry is to create a state of bliss in the hearer, an "impersonalized and ineffable aesthetic enjoyment from which every trace of its components..material is obliterated."(3). Aesthetic enjoyment is both a means of achieving perfect mental balance and ultimate salvation. This transcendental aspect of poetry is something lost in the present day, but would have been taken for granted by our ancestors. Plato spoke of the power of art to bring about spiritual liberation, and this tradition flows strong in the history of Celtic Bardic traditions. A good poem is often still recognized by the mysterious frisson it brings about.

Sanskrit poetry has several different moods designed to provoke particular emotions. "Mood" is another possible translation of the Sanskrit "rasa", literally the taste or flavour of something. This is more than an accidental homonym. The fact that the same word occurs in medical and poetic texts has to mean that there is a fundamental unity of outlook.(4). There are eight or sometimes ten moods in Indian poetics: Love, Courage, Loathing. Anger, Mirth, Terror, Pity and Surprise and optionally tranquility and paternal fondness .

Interestingly Yeats used the term "Mood" in a short piece on the purpose of poetry published in Ideas Of Good & Evil, page ?? this volume.
Perhaps the most widely used Mood is the erotic one, as it is a remarkable feature of Indian culture that the spiritual truths are most often conveyed by erotic images. Thus the story of Krisna's dance with the Cowherd's wives conceals an essential spiritual message. Each girl dances with Krisna and feels that she is unique. This symbolizes the mystery of the communion of the multiplicity of all human souls with the undivided Absolute. This theme is the subject of one of Indian most treasured poems, Jayadeva's Gitagovinda or "Love Song of the Dark Lord". which should be sung with Raga Vasanta or Spring Mode

Soft sandal mountain winds caress quivering vines of clove.
Forest huts hum with droning bees and crying cuckoos
When spring's mood is rich, Hari roams here
To dance with young women friend--
A cruel time for deserted lovers.(5)

Indian poetry is created within a totally integrated philosophy of the human psyche and body. Our aesthetic sense, literally our sense of taste, connects us to the wider universe of which we are only a small part. Perhaps here lies the mysterious secret of poetry. Its ability to lift us up out of ourselves, at the same time purifying and healing our alienated nature. The basis of which Indian poetical works may strike some as too literal an interpretation of the facts. However these ideas completely permeate the art of the sub-continent and have generated some of the most sublime artistic creations of any culture.

Mogg Morgan

1 Agnivesha's Caraka Samhita translated in English by R K Sharma and Vaidya B Dash (Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, Varanasi 1976) I.xxv.29
2 ibid I.i.59-61.
3 S K De History of Sanskrit Poetics (Calcutta 1960) page 37
4 R K Sen Aesthetic Enjoyment and Its Background in Philosophy and Medicine. (Calcutta 1966)
5 Jayadeva's Gitagovinda - Love Song of the Dark Lord Edited and translated by Barbara Stoler Miller (Columbia University press 1977)

Further reading

Medicine of the Gods:
Basic principles of Ayurvedic Medicine
by Chris Morgan
(If you would like to read a short essay explaining some of the principles of Ayurveda, click here)
ISBN 1869928377, 120pp. £9.99/$14.99
Order this book

Ayurveda is an Asian medical system which has its beginnings in the sixth century BCE and thrives even to the present-day. There was once a celebrated doctor called Caraka who lived in the second century of our era. He was one of the greatest physicians that has ever lived. He recorded the fact that the gods themselves were perplexed by the continued existence of disease, which was a hindrance to humanity's progress to enlightenment. These same gods, he says, therefore prepared the way for Ayurveda, which literally means the 'science of longevity' to be taught to the human race. Thus the title of this book is Medicine of the Gods.

Medicine of the Gods is the first of a series that aims to introduce the physical and metaphysical concepts of Ayurveda to a non-specialist audience. Medical ideas underpin a great deal of Eastern thought especially Tantrism, alchemy, yoga and the science of love. The book is not intended as a series of health tips or as a textbook for the clinical practice of medicine, which in the Ayurveda tradition requires at least seven years intensive training. The book is aimed at students and lovers of South Asian culture, perhaps also anthropologists and others with a need for a straightforward introduction to the core principles of another scientific tradition.

Praise for first edition:
'The author's main purpose, introducing ancient Indian medical theory in a relatively trustworthy manner to the interested general reader in easy language, while at the same time being intellectually challenging, is served well by this book.' Rahul Peter Das in Traditional South Asian Medicine Vol 6 2001

This book contains virtually everything you could want to know about the Hindu system of Ayurvedic medicine, which began on or about the sixth century BCE and is still thriving today. The history, correspondences or "humours', and other intriguing aspects of this intricate system are described in easy-to-understand language for those unfamiliar with Ayurveda. There is also a catalogue of ailments and how Ayurveda views each of them, and illness in general. I found this fascinating reading, both as a western herbal practitioner, and as a reader fascinated by how other cultures view the world and what goes wrong within it. Highly recommended!
Reviewed by Cerridwen Connelly in The Pentacle

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Persian 'Mar Nameh': The Zoroastrian Book of the Snake (review)

2006-10-11T17:46:00.000Z

The Persian 'Mar Nameh': The Zoroastrian Book of the Snake, Omen and Calendar and the Old Iranian Calendar, essays by Payam Nabarz and S H Taqizadeh. ISBN 1905524-250, 128pp, £12
This is Payam Nabarz's follow-up to very well received Mysteries of Mithras. As one might expect he is extending further some of the cultic material available to initiates involved with that mythos. In this case he presents a short omen text from the Zoroastrian tradition.

Essentially this is a reprint of an 'Old' Iranian omen text in 30 verses with an accompanying short modern commentary plus the author's own rendering of the text. This rendering is rather misleadingly referred to as a 'transliteration', which might indeed have been useful too. The second part is a reprint of Seyyed Taqizadeh's 1937 essay on Persian calendar studies. This essay is obviously very erudite but likely to be mainly of interest to fellow researchers in calendar studies, although doubtless there have been other more modern studies in the sixty odd years since its composition? This is certainly the case with some of the Egyptian comparative material - Egyptian calendrics has experienced a continual renaissance over the last fifty years. Even so it presents quite a lot of highly informative material on the topic although it is at times impossibly heavy going for the non-specialist such as myself. The whole could have done with some sort of glossary or editing to provide the reader with a way through the jungle of unfamiliar terminology which obviously would only make sense to Persian readers.

The subject is complex because Persia, like so many countries in the region, has had many different calendar systems over the thousands of years of its existence. For example, Professor Taqizadeh tells us: 'the theory of the Persian New Years' Day originally falling on the Vernal Equinox is not supported by any convincing proof' (p52). In other words prior to the rise of Zoroastrianism in the sixth century BC, the original Persian New Year, may well have fallen on the summer solstice and not as is nowadays the case, on the spring equinox! Professor Taqizadeh was a prominent Iranian politician, responsible, so we are told, for many modern calendar reforms. He moved modern Iran away from the Arab based lunar calendar to a solar based system based firmly on Zoroastrian principles. Which made me wonder how very different the current situation might have been, if the learned professor had instead reconnected with the far older lunar-solar tradition of his land before the coming of Zoroaster!

Turning then to the 'Mar Nameh: the book of the Snake'. The observation of omens of one kind or another is an ubiquitous feature of the culture of the Ancient Near East. This particular omen text gives a Zoroastrian spin to what is a very ancient tradition. We are told this is a relatively modern exemplar, first translated into English in the nineteenth century and presumable composed a few centuries before that? The core of this edition is a metrical rendering, based on that first translation: For example:

1. If you see a snake on the day of Hormozd
Your honour, property and pay will increase'

The useful commentary tells us that Hormozd, is the lord of wisdom, (Ahura Mazda), the Zoroastrian name for God. It is also the name of various kings of the Parthian and Sassanian dynasties. The Zoroastrian calendar reprised an older tradition that linked particular gods with particular days (originally) of the lunar month, and indeed different quarters of the moon. These days were mapped onto a fixed year and the older lunar mysteries largely submerged and forgotten. On the whole I found Payam's book a useful stimulus to debate. There is also something for those non specialists in need of a short guide with which to interpret interesting dreams or alarming physical phenomena. - [Mogg]

Hindus and Neo-Paganism

2006-09-17T10:02:00.000Z

Hindus and Neo-Paganism

Interesting piece but one has to bear
in mind that what he called 'sanatana dharma' or 'old time religion' is
really a construction of the nineteenth century when hindus were
striving to present a sanitized version of hinduism to their colonial
masters. Many commentators - including this one - are far from disinterested
academics but have a definite axe to grind. So for instance where he
says:

'From an orthodox Hindu viewpoint, most neo-Pagan groups would have a
status similar to the tribals of forested Central India. Though the
tribals are recognized as Indian fellow Pagans, Hindus by Savarkar's
definition, they are nonetheless commonly perceived as savages because
of their disregard for certain taboos and because of their not so
strict morality (as in the common youth dormitories where sexual
experimentation is encouraged). The city jungles of the West have
somehow spawned a lifestyle similar to that of the tiger infested and
snake haunted jungles of India.'

infact what he calls the tribals are closer to the religious diversity
of the indian subcontinent - where for instance the eating of meat is
definately Vedic or 'pukka' - and is still used in Ayurvedic medicine.
To get behind the propaganda you have to read something like David
White's Kiss of the Yogini and indeed tantrik material - but even
here you have a different set of prejudices with which to deal.

om ganeshaya namah

mogg