Treadwells and Secret Chief Talks

Hello from Treadwells, Here's a selection of talks at Treadwells. Full descriptions of all events are to be found now on website, http:www.treadwells-london.com. Treadwells 34 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London Places booked on 0207 240 8906 or by email info@...

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Friday, 11 November Cunning Women, Cunning Men: A Cornish Case 7.15 for 7.30 Jason Semmons, Author and Researcher

Wednesday, Nov 16 The Four Elements: A Secret History 7.15 for 7.30 pm start £5.00 Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, Astrologer and Scholar

Tuesday, 22 November Victorians and the Supernatural 7.15 for 7.30 pm start £5.00 Dr Rhodri Hayward, Wellcome Institute

Wednesday 16th November - Ghost Stories
So you thought you were safe, now that Samhain fades behind us? No, my friends, that's just what they wanted you to think. In this Stygian limbo, 'twixt thinnest veil and longest night, they gather once more: people and presences from many worlds, telling tales of terror, supernatural stories and fables of fear. Pray join us...

Wednesday 30th November - Odebitola
"Santeria: A Magical Perspective" Odebitola is a practical Qabalistic Adept with nearly 30 years experience who is also a priest in the Cuban religion of Lukumi. Tonight he will look at the Cuban Yoruba religion of Santeria from a magician's perspective, concentrating on the role of divination, dead, the role of the Orisha and the iwin, the stages in initiation and the grade structure and the differences between the practices of Nigeria, Miami and New York. He will also tell us why he dislikes Santeria!

Rough Diamonds Vol I (Review - updated)

A compendium of rare and unpublished manuscripts, typescripts and documents relating to the works of Aleister Crowley

If there is a story behind this continuing series of CD-Rom releases of material that is supposed to be 'under the seal', I don't know it. But my guess is that this is the work of a disaffected OTO member with an 'access all areas' pass to the OTO archive. The producers feel entitled, given the service they are rendering to the sum total of human knowledge, to have some fun at the same time - hence the Wagnerian soundtrack - which frankly I found a bit irritating - I'd prefer something a bit more modern - and I'm a fan of Wagner - but in this context it's a bit camp - come to think of it, maybe that's the idea.

Comment: 'I am sorry you found the Wagnarianesque soundtrack a tad irritating (as a slight digression: Ride of the Valkyres came 'second'). Yes, Eric Coate's 'March of the Dambusters' is camp (as was Crowley! I did not know the man personally, but both my great grandmother and grandmother did), but what true Englishman's blood and soul is not stirred by the symbolism associated with those bombastic chords and the imagery of bouncing bombs on those damn Germans... Or, should that be 'German dams'? Perhaps the soundtrack offers a clue into the 'story behind what's going on sub rosa?'' The C.D. does also offer a jukebox with six alternate choices of background score.

I also wasn't too sure about the photomontage of, for example, Leah Hirsig's head on the body of a soft porn star? There are definately some interesting pictures bundled with the CD but little tricks like the above made me worry about the authenticity of the whole package. But quibbles aside - well worth the price - to get your copy you need to go to the black flag productions website, which was at: http://www.tobew.com/SR

Comment:
'The subject matter of all B. F. titles is a bit heavy going (to say the least), Certain of the images bundled in the initial (Secret Rituals) release were intended as a 'one-off' bit of light relief. They proved to be extremely popular (for example: a well-know Crowley based web-site's image galleries has four of the images culled from the S.R. multi-media C.D. in its top six 'most viewed images' and hardly a day passes that I do not receive requests for larger versions, or for more). It seems pretty clear that individuals are aware of the nature of certain images, but nonetheless enjoy them for what they are: I will shortly be posting a selection of these on my web-page. Joking aside, and as I'm sure you are aware; the documents and related stuff presented in the 'Serious' sections of Rough Diamonds 'Kicks ass!' ( A vulgar, but apt euphomism I feel).'

The Grammar Of Witchcraft II

David w. Parry M.A.

Copyrights © 09/2005

Chapter 1

The same-sex service was to be held at St. Breeders: a third irony. As a guest from out of town, Caliban had been given a highly detailed map and advised to get a cab. He was meant to be looking for the only Methodist Church feeling magnanimous enough to "officially" celebrate this type of union. For f**k sake! This made no sense to him at all, since the idea behind every type of marriage seemed rather similar. Change necessitates choice. No matter what sexual orientation a person had, getting a partner meant that everything in life would be different and doubled. It was an undeserved blessing as well as a crippling curse. In some mystical sense the couple become parts of a single uncoordinated whole, which is inevitably more than the sum of its individual parts. Years previously he had read that as a man and woman make love they become an angel. No doubt. But, gay lovers in particular bond closely on a subtle, physical level. From experience Caliban knew when two tough male bodies held each other down, they form a clenched demi-god: a man greater than Hercules could ever be on his own. As men they locked themselves into a four armed, four legged miracle of flesh. Three girls therefore actively evolve into a twelve-limbed-Love-Goddess.

His cabby had never heard of the Church, or at least said he hadn't, so Caliban kept reading the map despite his directional sense always being shit under pressure. Anxiously, he looked out of a dirty window admiring the unexpectedly leafy suburbs as well as the opulent colours of the brickwork.

"I think we turn left at the next crossroads."

"What was that you said, mate?"

"Left at the crossroads and then up the hill"

"Sorted."

"Cool".

Caliban hated saying "cool", along with the entire kitsch vocabulary surrounding emphatic expletives.

A tired old Crow with obsidian eyes suddenly flew across the road and hid somewhere above a parked Ford Fiesta. Just out of sight, feathers then frantically flapped with all the semblance and the seeming of an omen. Turning a corner, the cab drove more closely towards the sound. Caliban saw a younger bird standing above the prostrate body of its older rival, plucking at the formers defeated plumage: an extremely bad correspondence. Now every Witch knows there are times when signs and portents bubble up from the depths of existence. During the Glorious Revolution, we were painfully aware that some auguries could testify against us. Certainly, Black Shuck the Demon Dog could speak Gospel Truth when it suited him, although consensus held Norfolk cats of every colour would hold their tongues. Witches such as Agnes Waterhouse also claimed that consorting with Toads proved equally reliable. She noted these creatures would often become Familiar Imps or in other words, forbidden bestial lovers. Indeed, before her hanging, the pleasure she received from these "love-pygmies" had become almost legendary.

Caliban's familiar was a Monkey. His name was Mike. The Almanacs warn Witches against Monkeys, but they had been instantly attracted to each other. Mike was a huge muscular boy, six foot three inches tall, hazel-eyed and really hairy. He wore tight Khaki shorts to show off his butt, complimented by a white tank top. There was a heated chemistry between them from the beginning, despite the obvious fact that the Monkey was afraid of him. Like every other Witch, Caliban suckled one of these Imps. He fed him through a supernumerary nipple marking the dwarf's genetic superiority over heterosexuals. In the past, our enemies would search for hidden teats all over our bodies with their prying, sensual hands. They tended to claim these unnatural protuberances were completely insensitive to pain and incapable of bleeding, shortly before torturing us. Perhaps nothing really changes.

As Caliban sat in the back seat looking for local landmarks, he noticed the shadow of Matthew Hopkins and the shade of Charles Fort sitting opposite him, arguing about Oracles and Imps. From beneath his wide-rimmed hat, the lean and looming Witchfinder General was horrified by these happenings. He stroked his long grey nose, and he muttered beneath his thin breath:

"Phenomenology or Witchcraft, I ,Sir, see not the difference. You like these bizarre and monstrous events because you be a limb of Satan yourself, Master Fort".

Glowing with genial light, Forts' plump spirit shone with a greater luminosity than usual. He responded by saying: "Oh come, come, what Witchcraft? Creative Nature serenades us men at every moment. I have heard that in the forests of England, there have been times when stones were known to give good counsel and brooks have babbled with satirical comments. Chaucer must have heard this on his travels, as well as Shakespeare when he trod the boards. Unlike the philosophers, these poets would let the planet speak to them personally, refusing to lecture the world about its essential processes. Far too few thinking men have ever had the genuine courage, or imaginative insight, to follow this lyrical path." Hopkins tightened his grip on the cane he carried, wrinkling a heavy brow:

"Lyricism and laxity. I was the youngest member of the Puritan Commission and their rational instrument against the forces of exotic Romanticism. The intellectual freedom you extol is but licence to grasp the ungodly. What does Truth need to know of Omens or humour? Devil's work, Sir!"

Fort sagaciously stroked his moustache and crooned, "How can the mystery of life be without laughter? We should delight in the flowering of Creativity while rejecting any possible interpretation. Whose Truth? First-hand experience is more valuable than third-hand explanation. The word "unnatural" makes no sense. If something can happen in nature, it is then, natural".

Caliban could contain himself no longer and grumbled:

"Neither of you understand Witchcraft".

They both looked at him with surprise.

"Neither of you".

Before his unwelcome travelling companions could speak Caliban continued: "We worship the All-Seeing Eye of Mother Energy burning in the Messianic activities of Her Triangular Son, who constantly ascends back to His Mother. For us, He becomes Incarnational Flesh and phenomena tasting the knowledge that flesh alone knows. But He is still only Her son. She is Sovereign: the Absolute "I" observing Herself in created things. Historically our energic religion once communicated in the secret Mystery-cults of Eleusis, Corinth and blessed Samothrace. When these centres of learning were suppressed our wisdom was taught in the poetic colleges of Ireland and Wales".

"Can't hear you mate". The cabby looked confused

"What?"

"I couldn't make out your new directions".

"Oh, sorry, just talking to myself. Keep going".

"Sorted".

Both the Witchfinder and the Phenomenalist disappeared in a thunderclap with an air of indignation.

"Bloody hell, strange weather. Good job you got this cab"

Caliban didn't say anything. He felt quiet and thoughtful, remembering that during the persecution, we told the likes of Hopkins that our Craft offered a magical perspective we would defend with our lives because it burned with the immediacy of Her Being. As a peculiar Gnosis, our understanding all but flickered out in the public domain at the end of the seventeenth century. We were tired of the turbulence, turning instead to indirect communication and Hollywood.

On balance however, Fort was closest to our faith, since he guessed nature's soul sent tokens to its lovers in weird, wonderful, ways. Caliban recalled as a child seeing spectral balls of light in the night sky. They were crystal white in colour and seemed to be following him like expectant eyes overseeing his journeys. One Lammas-tide, he silently challenged one of these spheres to prove it was objective. Within moments, he was answered as the globe streaked ahead of him, leaving a brilliant trail behind it. A courting couple kissing in nearby trees shrieked with surprise as the Vision Splendid vanished. Caliban felt excited and frustrated. Her ways were indeed very hard to fathom.

"Here we are mate". The cab stopped at the entrance to an imposing grey stone building.

"I've only got a tenner".

"Sorted, mate".

"Thanks".

Caliban wondered how many more times that guy would say "sorted" in the next few hours. He got out and walked up to the Church.

(. . . continued next time)

NIGEL BRYANT versus Dan BROWN

MERLIN'S MOUND author Nigel Bryant appeared on ITV's much-publicised programme The Grail Trail (25.9.05) to attack the vision of the Holy Grail in Dan Brown's THE DA VINCI CODE.

"It may seem strange," he says, "that I laid into Brown for using the Grail as a symbol of the womb, of the sacred feminine, when that very thing is central to MERLIN'S MOUND. But the difference is that I'm using it knowingly as a symbol. And I don't claim that MERLIN'S MOUND is anything more (or less) than a story.

"The trouble with Brown's book is that it's a prime example of a dire new literary genre of pseudo-fact. Unfortunately, in THE DA VINCI CODE Dan Brown has swallowed hook, line and sinker the central thesis of a best-seller of two decades ago - The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail - which can be demolished in 30 seconds.

"The theory depends entirely on a mistake caused by astonishingly sloppy scholarship. The play on words by which the SANGREAL (the Holy Grail) is supposedly a code for SANG-REAL ('royal blood') - leading on to the hilarious notion (after all, let's just stop and think about it for a second) that a child born of Jesus and Mary Magdalene was the start of a bloodline which kept going in secret for 2,000 years - simply doesn't work. Dan Brown lists a series of 'facts' at the start of his book; well here's a fact he doesn't mention: the spelling SANGREAL doesn't exist in any French work. It's a pun that works only in French, but no French writer ever used it. In French it's invariably written SAINT GRAAL. The only person who ever did write SANGREAL was the 15th-century Englishman John Hardyng whose French wasn't very good, so he heard 'saint graal', didn't know how to spell it, had a guess and wrote 'sangreal'. And on that simple mistake, almost akin to a typing error, is the whole wild theory based.

"I've no problem with it, actually - the Mary Magdalene / bloodline of Christ idea's a fun story - but claiming it (and other supposed 'facts' in Dan Brown's book) to be 'true' is sad in the extreme. We've got to be able to distinguish fact from fiction. Pseudo-fact does no favours either for fiction or for history or, for that matter, for the world of symbols.

"I'm seriously interested in the medieval Grail stories - hence my book The Legend of the Grail [Boydell Brewer, 2004], which brings together the eight great French grail romances of the 12th and 13th centuries and creates from them a single, coherent narrative. Womb imagery is nowhere to be seen. But that doesn't mean I can't use the Grail's potential symbolism and work it into a story of the sacred feminine in MERLIN'S MOUND. But I'm not going to do a Dan Brown and claim it to be 'true' in the sense of being a 'fact'. Let's all grow up a bit. The Grail doesn't exist and never did. But it's there even though it's not there. It's absolutely 'true', profoundly 'true', when you take it as a symbol."

Omphalos (Bath alternative moot) Talks

All talks held at Batheaston Scout Hall, School Lane, Northend, Batheaston 7.30 til 9.00 p.m
Take the Bath turning from the M4 (jct 18) and follow A46 to Bath. At the Bath roundabout take the first left onto the A4 to Batheaston. This becomes Batheaston High St, look for a sharp left up Brow Hill. Continue for about 1/4 of a mile, until you find School Lane. Park at the top and walk down past the Gothic looking school - the Scout Hall is the large modern building straight ahead, although the entrance is up and around to the left. It's easy to find - map on request

Nov. 12th. 2005 Mogg Morgan on The God Seth: the personification of evil

Contemporary magical practitioners have always been interested in the 'problem of evil' - the nature of good and bad action. Take for example Helena Blavatsky's statement - 'demon est deus inversus' to be found in her highly influential and monument work 'The Secret Doctrine' (1888:1.411). This was later adopted by the poet W B Yeats as his magical motto in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Most practitioners believe that the ancient Egyptian god Seth is the prototype for the contemporary archetype of Lucifer, Satan or the Devil. I want to take a brief look, in context, at the famous image of Seth deriding Apophis, (the demonic / chaotic serpent of 'non-being') as a leitmotiv for the nature or 'personification' of evil in ancient thought.

AUSTIN OSMAN SPARE 2005 * Borough Satyr

31st October to 11th November 2005 at the Maas Gallery, 15a Clifton St London W1S
(Exhibition Opening Hours: 10am–5.30pm (also open Saturday 5th November)

In fact a private exhibition sale of one collector's stash - so probably orientated more to the well heeled collector looking to buy - prices circa 2K. But nevertheless open to the public - and a good opportunity to view the works close up.

Press Release:
Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956) is now a cult figure, a mixed blessing which threatens to overshadow his unique talents as one of the strangest and most powerful artists London has ever produced. This show – Spare’s triumphant return to the West End after a seventy-five year absence – redresses the balance in favour of his art.

Son of a policeman, Spare was hailed as a prodigy and became the enfant terrible of the Edwardian art world. He was extravagantly praised by Augustus John and John Singer Sargent, who is said to have described him as England’s greatest draughtsman. More ominously, George Bernard Shaw reportedly thought “Spare’s medicine is too strong for the normal man.” Spare went on to become an official war artist and to edit the journals Form and The Golden Hind, but during the 1920s he parted company with fame and fortune and retreated south of the river to spend the rest of his life there, living (in his own words) as “a swine with swine”.

Living in tenements and finally a basement, Spare had gone underground, at least from the vantage point of the contemporary art world. But these were some of his most fertile years, whether he was drawing his fellow Cockneys or pursuing his occult and sorcerous obsessions. It is the latter that have made him legendary, and his life has been mythologised until the London Borough of Lambeth seems like somewhere out of H.P. Lovecraft.

Spare’s art, meanwhile, was also legendary. He was the man who could draw like Michelangelo, but sold his pictures for a few pounds apiece in local pubs. Excitable comparisons were made not just with Michelangelo but with Blake, Rembrandt and Durer, among others, often by viewers surprised to find that “real art” was still being made in the modern world.

Spare was an inspired figurative artist who straddled the centuries, moving from the aftermath of Beardsley, the Pre-Raphaelites, and Art Nouveau to become – at least in the eyes of critic Mario Amaya – the first Pop artist. One of the most remarkable things about his art is its extraordinary stylistic range, but it escapes any suspicion of pastiche by the sheer intensity with which he inhabits his different modes: all of them are unmistakably “Spare”, from hideous linear grotesques to radiant pastel nudes.

Spare experimented with automatic drawing some years before the surrealists adopted it, and later developed a technique of anamorphic distortion he termed “siderealism”, combining a sensuous line with an uncanny perspective to produce an exquisite Art Deco stylisation. He is impossible to pigeonhole, except as a genius; neither the Edwardian decadent nor the proto-Surrealist he has sometimes been presented as, he could almost have been invented to embody what Peter Ackroyd has called the “Cockney visionary tradition.”

The best of his work speaks for itself, especially seen in the flesh, with a finesse of touch and an auratic charge that all but defy reproduction. Reviewing a posthumous show, John Russell Taylor wrote “Dreamer of dreams or observer of film stars, Spare never seems to belong to the same world as the rest of us. He was at the very least a very rare and genuine eccentric; but so dazzling were his skills that he cannot be dismissed with the usual patronage.” His Times obituary noted “Of his technical mastery there can be no manner of doubt”, and very presciently added “The collection of his drawings may yet become a cult.”
Phil Baker

More info at http://www.maasgallery.com/Pages/exhibitions/spare2005.htm

There can be few artists whose life was quite as extraordinary as that of Austin Osman Spare. Born the son of a City of London policeman, in 1904 he became the youngest ever exhibitor at the Royal Academy and was celebrated by critics and London society alike, but at the apex of his fame the First World War and a failing marriage prompted him to return to his roots in South London. There, inspired by strange visions and the lives of those around him he devoted his rare talents to recording his thoughts, dreams and the world as he saw it: sublime, haunting and magical.

Borough Satyr: The Life and Art of Austin Osman Spare is the long awaited full colour introduction to the work of this astonishing London artist. Accompanying an exhibition at The Maas Gallery (15a Clifford Street, London, W1) the book contains a comprehensive collection of his art complemented by a biographical introduction, a checklist of his exhibitions and essays by those who knew Spare well throughout his life, including classic recollections from Hannen Swaffer, Clifford Bax, Kenneth and Steffi Grant, Hadyn Mackay, Ithell Colquhoun, John Smith and others.

96 pages Landscape 4to Full colour Publication date: October 31st 2005 Hardback limited edition of 500 numbered copies £58.00 + p&p (£3.50 EU or £5.00 US) Paperback £29.50 + p&p (£2.50 EU or £4.00 US) http://www.fulgur.org/newbooks.html

Bats In Belfries and Bees In Bonnets:
A few thoughts at Halloween
By Akashanath

As Halloween approaches, our viewing schedules (for those of us not too proud to admit to having one) start to congeal with 'occult content'. While once limited to re-screenings of Hammer Horror classics and occasional worthy-but-boring local news stories about 'white' witches, recent broadcasts have been a little closer to the bone. A character in a cartoon I saw yesterday, on being offered the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the Wicked Witch of the North, asked "Will I get to hurt people, or is it just dancing round a fire at the Equinox?". Ever since the re- birth of the modern craft, Wicca has been on a mission to 're-claim' the term 'witch', polishing off so many of the rough edges that it now has practically no shape left at all. Has it been a victim of its own success - after all, witchcraft is no-longer frightening, even for children? In an age when even Scooby Doo knows that Wicca means wise (and probably a bit pompous and self-righteous), has the rehabilitation of witchcraft gone too far?

In the summer of 1604, in the village of North Moreton (which still exists just East of Didcot in modern Oxfordshire), a woman named Anne Gunter fell ill. Her symptoms consisted of fits, trances, rolling her eyes, walking on her ankles, and vomiting. She claimed she saw 'familiars', she produced pins from her orifices, and her clothes would fall off spontaneously when people visited her. Which may have helped to encourage the small army - from peasants to learned men of the University and Church - who made the journey to see for themselves. Three local women were charged with bewitching her. The events surrounding the trial in Abingdon have been drawn together in a fascinating book by James Sharpe , which I have drawn from heavily in order to make a point or two about our current predicament.

The story of Anne Gunter significant historically for a number of reasons. One is that the trial sits on the cusp of two centuries in which both popular and official attitudes to witchcraft shifted radically. Another is that one of the principal instruments of that shift, King James I of England and VI of Scotland, personally met Anne after the trial, through the machinations of her father (whom Anne later claimed had put her up to the whole charade).

The history of witchcraft in England is complex and hotly disputed. The history of the law on witchcraft, on the other hand, is relatively easy to trace, and contradicts a lot of modern rhetoric about the so-called 'burning times'. The 'witchcraft laws' of the late 16th century were, by the standards of the day and for a society that believed in magic, quite moderate. Most cases reaching Court concerned allegations of actual damage (i.e. when people or livestock had actually died) . And there was no implied link with 'devil worship'. Instead, witches were thought to be born with their powers, or inherit them from a (usually female) relative.

The archetypal vision of the witch as female and elderly probably has its roots in a social system in which single women were increasingly excluded. As the twin wealth-creating activities of warfare and agriculture began to be supplanted by trade, towns and cities began to grow. As they expanded they drew in peasants from the countryside: some were successful, others were not, and new class of urban and suburban poor was created. Whereas the old family structures would support widows and spinsters (named after the craft by which they had earned their bread), the new communities did not. Poor, single women had to fend for themselves. Elizabeth Gregory was the wife of a local farmer and of good standing in the community, and was probably the main target of the accusations of Anne Gunter. Her husband was an enemy of the bewitched woman's father, who had been tried for killing two of her sons. The two other accused were itinerant and poor. One (Agnes Pepwell) was the mother of the other (Mary Pepwell), whose father was a nameless vagrant with whom she had perhaps traded sex for scavenged food. It was this older, single woman who had the long-standing reputation for witchcraft. Perhaps mumbling a few words over a churn of butter or a sick calf would have earned her a crust, and maybe the threat of a curse would have saved her from a beating, or worse. For women in her position, being perceived as capable of "hurting people" was certainly better than being laughed at for "dancing round a fire at the Equinox". But it was a dangerous game. The fact that she was seen as being able to cause harm made her vulnerable to accusations. And while she and her daughter weren't big enough game to warrant a prosecution themselves, she could be used to add weight to a claim against a wealthier opponent. Which is exactly what seems to have happened.

James I was of course the son of Mary Queen of Scots, whose bloody reign perhaps symbolised the acme of religious intolerance in English history. As Protestant and Catholic fought for dominance of Europe, unconventional religious beliefs became seen as seditious. Perspectives that conflated doctrinal deviance with deliberate evil began to emerge, encouraged by clergymen keen to cast their opponents in the worst possible light. In Mary's reign John Dee was tried both in the Star Chamber and, when this was unsuccessful, in the ecclesiastical courts . By James' reign the European doctrines that linked all magic with the agency of Satan had become more widespread. James' own tome on the subject, Demonologie, was as critical of peasant magic as of the 'high magic' of Dee and his ilk. This was a growing trend in contemporary works on witchcraft, and one which paved the way for the near genocidal scale of the witchcraft trials over the next 200 years. Instead of isolated incidents of malice, witchcraft became identified with rebellion, and accusations of devil worship were used to persecute whole political classes as well as vulnerable, wealthy individuals. James himself introduced the necessary legislation in England in 1604, having already found a pre-existing Scottish law a useful excuse to execute seventy to a hundred of his political opponents north of the border.

The 'witchcraft law' repealed in the early 1950s, which is commonly supposed to have given Gerald Gardner the freedom to talk about ' ' for the first time, was itself a liberal act aimed at ending religious persecution. The Conjuration and Witchcraft Act of 1735 stated bluntly that witchcraft did not exist, and the punishments it dictated were designed not for witches but confidence tricksters who tried to profit from the gullible. Not a bad characterisation of Gardner, some might say! Irrespective of whether it took place in the 18th or 20th century, process that underpinned the change in the law was not growth in liberalism but in scepticism - people no longer believed in the capacity of magic to cause harm, so it no longer needed to be illegal. These days we are protected, not by a regime that believes in religious tolerance, but by a common acceptance of scientific materialism.

So, to revisit my initial question, has the rehabilitation of witchcraft gone too far? By no means! I have no need, as Agnes Popwell did, to inspire fear. Although I find the umbrella term of 'Pagan' irritating, by accepting it I am putting people at ease. I am quite happy to be stereotyped as a tree-hugging, sandal-wearing vegetarian, as long as no-one tries to torture me to death. I'm sure there were many witches hanged or pilloried in the stocks who would have gladly traded places, and put up with the laugher of a few school-children. And to those of you who want to re-claim the radical edge of witchcraft from the Wiccans I say, beware! We have far more to fear from being taken seriously than we have from ridicule.

www.spiritual-freedom.org

Notes
(1) Sharpe, James (1999) The Bewitching of Anne Gunter, Profile, Cambridge U.K.
(2) Op. Cit p.67
(3) French, Peter J. (1972) John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus, RKP, London p.35

The Genesis Meditations:
A Shared Practice of Peace for Christians, Jews and Muslims

Neil Douglas-Klotz

Quest Books, 2003

Reviewed by Tom Bland

At first sight, this may seem a strange book to review for a newsletter dedicated to postmodern magic, but it is a book that is full of magic. It is magic in a devotional sense, meaning that it is an opening towards the divine. It is the divine in a specific sense embodied in the Aramaic word for God, Alaha, meaning Unity. This word comes from the Hebrew root word, Elohim, meaning ‘the one and the all.’ It is the word used for God in the first chapter of Genesis, and signifies the unfolding of unity into multiplicity.

This is the paradox at the heart of Neil Douglas-Klotz’s book, The Genesis Meditations, which seeks to open out the story of creation as a spiritual practice. He writes that the story of creation was not intended as the subject of theology, but as a mythic description of the origin of the world. He says that originally it was an oral story that would have been told in a group gathering, allowing each participant to engage with the story in an experiential sense. To open the first chapter of his book, Douglas-Klotz writes in a poetic fashion:

‘B’reshith Bare Elohim…
In the beginning of time…’
Gathered around a campfire,
the storyteller begins to move and chant.
Through her gestures and expressions,
her enthusiasm and feeling,
she catches the attention of young and old.
She amazes her audience with a story
they believe they are hearing for the first time,
even though they have heard it hundred times before. (p13)

Douglas-Klotz takes on the role of storyteller, leading us through a story we have indeed heard hundred times before - the story of creation. Instead of relying on previous translations, he turns back to the original Hebrew version, and finds in it a story we know only in an incomplete form. He discovers in the Hebrew a multiplicity of meaning that has not previously been opened out in prior translations, such as in the King James Bible. For example, he translates the first word of Genesis, B’reshith, in the following way:

To begin with…

Genesis 1:2
‘In the beginning…’ (KJV)
In the Beginningness,
In a time before time begins,
In the rest before movement begins,
In the space where nothing but
Elohim is, was, and will be.
It all unfolds and moves
like the wings of a bird taking flight,
like a spark turning to flame,
spreading to fire in all directions.
From this centre everything travels
toward its purpose,
somehow moving together and yet
each with its own kernel of destiny
known only to the Holy One. (p108)

This translation is interpretative, but also literal in the sense that Douglas-Klotz is translating what is inherent in the word. It is a mystical vision of the word, which he believes is inherent, integral and implicit in the word itself. This way of translating the word opens out the poetic, mythic and mystical dimension of the term. In his interpretation, Douglas-Klotz has clearly been influenced by the Kabbalah. His translation recalls the Kabbalistic concept of Tzimtzum.(1) In his work, he explicitly calls upon Kabbalistic, Sufi and mystical Christian concepts, in his opening out of the Genesis myth.

Douglas-Klotz seems to propose in the book that Genesis cannot be simply understood as a doctrine, but as a contemplative text that is practical in nature. In his translation of the term B’reshith, he has not only relied upon sound scholarship, but has also sought to understand the word as a living breathing reality. He outlines in the book a meditation on the word, using it as a chant, to open out each possible meaning through speech. It is a specific type of speech that is hard to describe. Martin Buber writes, ‘This speech has no alphabet, each of its sounds is a new creation and only to be grasped as such.’(2)

The Genesis Meditations provides the theory and practice of creation mysticism in the context of Jewish, Christian and Islamic doctrine. Douglas-Klotz seems not so much concerned with institutionalised religion, but more with the ecstatic and visionary aspects of these traditions. He writes:

In the last hundred years, much scholarly attention has been devoted to the area of myth and ritual. I propose here that there is a missing link in this study: the individual visionary. Without individuals whose spiritual experience originated, revived and relived the sacred story, there would be ritual. (p55)

The book is designed to allow the reader to cultivate their own vision of creation, origin and becoming. He does this through examining the creations stories inherent in the three religions, in the Torah, the Gospels and the Qu’ran, before looking at the concept of creation mysticism in the work of the mystics of these traditions. He then provides his own translations of the source material with a selection of meditations to enable the concepts to come alive in practice.

The purpose in these meditations can be seen in a passage Douglas-Klotz quotes from the work of the twentieth-century Kabbalist, Abraham Isaac Kook.

An Epiphany enables you to sense creation not as something completed, but as constantly becoming, evolving, ascending. This transports you from a place where there is nothing new to a place where there is nothing old, where everything renews itself, where heaven and earth rejoice as at the moment of creation.(3)

I can only say now that this is a book I highly recommend to anyone who is interested in creation, origin, meditation and mysticism. It is a remarkable book.

References:

1) See Aryeh Kaplan’s Innerspace: Introduction to the Kabbalah, Meditation and Prophecy, Moznaim, 1991, pp. 120-128 for an outline of the concept.

2) Martin Buber, Between Man and Man, Routledge, 2002, p. 19.

3) The quote is from Daniel C. Matt’s The Essential Kabbalah, Castle Books, 1997, p. 99.

Tom Bland is a student of the theoretical and practical Kabbalah. He leads a reading group on Daniel C. Matt’s The Essential Kabbalah in Chelsea, London. He can be contacted at inward@....

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Conferences

5th Annual Witchcraft Seminar 2005 (review)

Last year it was 'Faulty Towers' this time 'Little Chef'. The fifth Witchcraft Seminar brought to you in this, its fifth year, (from Jerry Cottle's Wookey Hole.) Even without the glittering cast of speakers, to be able to perform a Hekate fire ritual in the caves, was in itself a bit of a breakthrough. The new owners, well known circus impresarios, with brands such as The Circus of Horrors (soon to be seen at Witchfest), are keen to open the place up and indeed develop it as the spooky/wookey theme park.

First up was Cassandra Eason, her topic, the power of nature, may not have been rocket science (for that you need Jack Parsons), but she was a good sport, warming the audience with a homely style. She finished with an invitation for members of the audience to charge her crystal ball!

Things really begin to loosen up when cunning and mild man of the woods 'Jack Daw' treated us to an urbane journey through the ins and outs of traditional witchcraft - question: 'does a spell return on the sender'; answer: 'only if you regret it'.

More musick to end that days formal session. Evocative lirics drifting our way, glimpsed through the door, as a 'robert plant' lookalike, Damn the Bard, strutted his stuff on the mandolin. The musick followed us into the cave. Mesmorised by the cave's resonance, I sang and chanted - only pausing to wind my horn, when as Nemty, the ferryman, I summoned those hardy souls to the invocation of Hekate.

That nite the ritual - 'nuff said - see the pictures, then fish chip supper, and a New Orleans blues band (Hollow Bones) - well Glastonbury actually - but really good - especially the PVC clad gogo dancers. Some were less than impressed by the missmatch between the Legba veve and the Ghede cabaret - others said that it was the spirit that mattered - and there was plenty of that.

I had to drag myself away from the breakfast table gossip just in time to see my old friend, Chaoist and now born ag'in runester Ian Read - looking as dapper as ever - he apologised to me before laying into one of our published theories on Seidr and Seething. His highly engaging talk was on Galdr - (spell casting) - although he admited Seething (Seidr) was a dynamite technique - although some of the 'old guard' have still to bite the bullet, swallow their pride and admit, despite what some supposed 'academics' say, that Jan Fries is right about it afterall. It's a recurring theme these last few years - kind of special pleading some feel they need to make before the altar of academe. Goes like this - 'RH might not agree with this, but I'm going to say it anyway.'

And now the end is near - and to round off, is Cornish wise woman Cassandra Latham. I'd never heard her before and although she might not make it to the cover of the latest Witches and Witchcraft (come to think of it neither would I) - what she said would knock most of those teen witches into the top hat she happened to be wearing. She certainly won me over.

All in all, a fantastic weekend. And that even without that ritual - but there again - you had to be there. Well done to Adrian and Ann (www.witchcraftseminar.com) for another roaring success. Next year it's Waterloo - I mean The Wellington in Boscastle - be there - or else I'll review your event! - mogg