Exhumation of a Murder -
The Life and Trial of Major Armstrong
by Robin Odell

Trade Paperback Category: Law/Crime isbn 186992892x 12.99 UK pounds

The case of Major Armstrong, the celebrated Hay Poisoner, the only solicitor ever to hang, is one of those classic, old-fashioned English murders which hail from the heyday of courtroom drama when, with the hangman lurking in the pine-and-panel wings and the black cap an object of horrifyingly alarming currency rather than mere symbolism, the loser in 'the black dock's dreadful pen' lost all. It comes straight out of the pages of George Orwell's essayed nostalgia ['Decline of the English Murder' in Tribune] for the era of the Great British Murder, when, after a Sunday lunch of roast beef and Yorkshire, you put your feet up on the sofa and, with a good strong cup of mahogany-brown tea, read all about the latest 'good' murder in the News of the World. And the Armstrong case was unquestionably one of the best; right up there in the grand tradition of Dr Palmer of Rugeley, Neill Cream, Mrs Maybrick, Dr Crippen, Seddon, and George Joseph Smith.'
- Richard Whittington-Egan

The Author
Robin Odell acknowledges his debt to the researches of the late Dr Hubert Trumper a medical practitioner in Hay-on-Wye, and the late Joe Gaute, distinguished crime historian and publisher. Their combined efforts sustained over several years brought many insights to bear on the life and trial of Major Armstrong.

'Occulture' Call for contributors

The date for the successor to Occulture is now set for July 14th 2007 in West Sussex on a farm. Kindof Carryon Camping meets Hammer House of Horror. That's two weeks after the Bath Omphalos Happening so July should be hot

In addition to a Music programme - Cinema Programme and mainstage, there will be a small cuddly venue called the Pleasure Dome. So if you have any suggestions or nominations for this venue please get in touch now. I'm looking for a mix of good occult speakers with performers or workshop facilitators. So email me mogg@... with your suggestions.

Artists so far interested Arthur Brown, Jeff Merriefield, Dave Davies, Ralph Harvey, Colin Wilson, Oryelle, some Polish people which is a new phenomenon but good all the same.

8pm - at the Devereux Public House, 20 Devereux Court, off Essex Street, Strand, London WC2, near Temple Underground)
For programme, contact The Secret Chiefs
Suite B, 2 Tunstall Road, London SW9 8DA
Tel (0207) 733 5400 Fax (0207) 733 4449
The Secret Chiefs, Britain's longest-running pagan/occult talks forum (Check for updates on http://www.pflondon.org) (Talking Stick began at The Plough on 14th February 1990, moving through the years to The Marquis Cornwallis, The Dog Trumpet, the Black Horse to the Princess Louise, there becoming Secret Chiefs on 15th March 2000. Now at the Devereux)

Wednesday 20th September - Andy Collins

Wednesday 4th October - Larry Summers "London: Murky, Mysterious, Magnificent!"

Wednesday 18th October - Rachael Bulla "Joseph Smith And The Occult"
Rachael Bulla is researching the Druidic Ogham for a DPhil at Oxford University. She has been a devout member of the LDS ('Mormon') Church since age 10 and has been exploring 'pagan magic' in connection with her LDS spirituality for five years. She will discuss the 'pagan occult' aspects of the prophet Joseph Smith: his interest in astrology, magical sigils and talismans, magical treasure seeking, his use of seer stones and Urim and Thummim to translate the 'golden plates' (the 'Book of Mormon') and his involvement with Freemasonry.

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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 WC2
Places booked on 0207 240 8906
or by email info@...

The Alchemical Mercurius

The Moot with No Name

Alternate Wednesdays, 7.30 for 8pm. Upstairs, Devereux pub near Temple. £2. (Unless otherwise stated.) Directions: Opposite the main entrance to the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand (near Aldwych) is a Tudor-style pub called the George. Go down the alley next to this and the Devereux is at the bottom. There's a map at .

13 Sept Rat Scabies Chris Dawes Rennes-le-Château the Grail
Yes, THE Rat Scabies, who along Chris Dawes wrote the best book of 2005

BEYOND TANTRA
By David Conway

"It's all sex nowadays" my mother used to grumble after an evening in front of the television. Even her favourite nature programmes, she moaned, were increasingly obsessed with it. Much the same might be said about Tantra. Or, at least, about what currently passes for Tantra, something which to many people today means little more than sex with fancy trimmings. No surprise then that among the first 'tantrik' sites to appear on Google is one that markets books on sexual techniques, as well as performance-enhancing potions like - currently on special offer - tiny pots of nipple sensitising cream. True, there's a token reference to Tantra's origins in India but it's the "get your kit off" message that counts. My mother wouldn't approve. And neither, frankly, do I.

What offends me is not so much the sexual free-for-all - each to his own as far as I'm concerned - but the attempt to glamorise, even sanctify, it by calling it Tantra. After all, Tantra is first and foremost a spiritual practice by which the self aspires to merge with the energies that sustain or, rather, constitute, the universe. It is a means of becoming one with the Whole, of escaping from the illusion of separateness that determines how we experience the phenomenal world around us. Sensitised nipples have precious little to do with it. (And anyway a dab of Vaseline does the job, if you're curious.)

The word Tantra is Sanskrit for 'weave', a term used to indicate that a particular text has been composed according to an orderly pattern (samhita). Others prefer to believe it points to secret teachings 'woven' into the Vedas, the thread visible only when teased out by a scholarly commentator or qualified guru. This interpretation, though appealing, is undermined by evidence that before being taken up by Hinduism, Tantra was already a feature of Buddhist practice, later becoming associated with Mahayana Buddhism in particular. (There the feminine principle, sakti, has long been held in high esteem.) This might also explain its early adoption by the Vajrayana (Sk. "Diamond Vehicle") sect of Tibet, one that borrowed heavily - again significant perhaps - from that country's indigenous religion (Bön). Yet the true origins of Tantra almost certainly pre-date all of these and are rooted in the ancient practice of Yoga, especially in what later became Hatha Yoga, so called because it is the path (Sk. marga) of effort and discipline, both essential if the body and its vital energies are to be brought under control. Appropriately enough, one of the early names given to Tantrik teaching - Agamas or 'What has come from before' - may be an acknowledgement of its great antiquity.

Not all Hindu teaching is sympathetic to Tantra, with many scholars, especially more recent ones, uneasy with its intentionally blunt language (Sandhya-bhasha) and overtly erotic symbolism. At times even its defenders sound apologetic, pleading that, for want of anything better, it is at least a convenient path to mystical experience in the current Dark Age (Kali-yuga) (1), a period when our race is woefully lacking in spiritual refinement. (Held to have started 5000 years ago or, as others maintain, following the death of Krishna in 3120BCE, the Dark Age is scheduled to last for 430,000 years so there's lots more of it ahead.) With the advent of Kali-yuga we are said to have lost our ability to see beyond the illusory appearance of things (maya), something traditionally expressed as the loss of our Third Eye or Eye of Siva. This symbolic organ is depicted in art as a lotus blossom, the sun, a snake or a star and set in the middle of the forehead, though some occultists maintain, none more forcibly than Mme. Blavatsky, that the Third Eye was, literally, just that. Today, the pineal gland is claimed to be its only anatomical remnant.

Hinduism accommodates two kinds of Tantra, that of the right hand (Dakshinacara) and that of the left (Vamacara). The first, regarded as the more respectable, favours a metaphorical interpretation of the erotic language found in the texts, while the second, often dismissed as 'black' magic, adopts a more literal approach, treating what it finds as a practical guide to attaining enlightenment. Only the latter approach need concerns us.

As was said earlier, Tantra is not about sex. Well, not just about sex. Its spiritual element - 'psychical' may be a better epithet - is at least as important as the physical. In any case the two are complementary. More than that, they are inter-dependent for only when acting together - physical act and spiritual intention - will they induce awareness of the unity subsisting between the conditional world and the absolute reality on which it depends. Nowhere is this togetherness more sublimely realised - here comes the sex - than in the act of coition, that synergic conjunction (Paramsiva or the union of Siva and Sakti) of two individuals or, better still, two creative polarities.

As for the erotic techniques described in tantrik literature or even in the teach-yourself manuals peddled on the internet, their purpose is to facilitate this beatific outcome by means of, inter alia, breathing exercises, tactile stimulation and, most famous of all, delayed orgasm or, on occasion, the disciplined retention of semen. Above all, however, recourse is had to the goddess Sakti herself, the initiatory and dynamic expression of divine power. (The name itself means nothing less.) As the "Princess who sleeps at Brahman's gate" the goddess is dormant inside each of us under the guise of Kundalini, the Serpent Power coiled three and a half times around the Muladhara chakra at the base of the spine. Aroused from its slumber, Kundalini can be persuaded to ascend the spinal column - or, more correctly, spiral through the citrini nadi of its subtle equivalent (Sushumna) - like a jet of blue flame, shedding sparks in its wake, red on one side, yellow on the other. (2) Passing rapidly through the next five chakras, it brings each of them into harmonious and tuneful life - the first syllable of Kundalini (the word itself denotes a coil of rope) means 'sound' - until at last its cosmic fire ignites Sahasrara, a supernumerary chakra and the noblest of them all, immediately transforming that glorious, thousand-petalled lotus into the marriage bed of Siva and Sakti. It is their divine coupling, mirrored in our own, that facilitates our release (moksha) into the ineffable bliss of absolute being.

A similar bliss is accessible through magical practices, particularly those with an overtly sexual component. For that reason the latter are often referred to as Tantra, proof again of how the word has become synonymous with sex. And true enough, the methods of sexual arousal available to the magician are often similar to - because copied from - those of the tantrika. (They have, after all, proved their worth over time.) Even so it may be misleading, no matter how convenient, to describe sexual magic as tantrik because there is one important, indeed fundamental, difference between the two.

To grasp it we need to remind ourselves that for Vedic scholars, phenomena and form enjoy no real existence (avastu). Our awareness of them is merely the accidental reaction of our senses to a reality, itself imperceptible, which is nothing less than the creative self-projection of Brahman. (3) Over time this emphasis on the "otherness" of what is truly real (and, as such, a manifestation of God's inviolable Oneness) led to the view that the phenomenal world, product of our faulty perception, could not be other than inferior to what lay beyond it. After all, was it not the imperfect, because conditional, aspect of what is immutable and absolute? And so the notion grew that the world of matter was somehow debased and, as such, unworthy of being cherished or respected on its own terms. Such a notion is not confined to Hinduism. Closer to home we come across it in much Christian thinking, both orthodox and (to a far greater extent) heretical, while the neo-Platonists - to whom Western magic owes much - were, like the Manicheans, particularly infected by it. The celebrated Plotinus summed up their views by dismissing matter as "the primary evil".

We have always to remember, therefore, that while Tantra indulges the body and the senses, it does so with the aim of transcending both. Because of that, all the tantalising foreplay and eventual orgasm, however incidentally enjoyable, are simply means to an end, devoid of any ultimate value themselves. A way of escape from the snares of conditionality, they facilitate a brief triumph of mind over matter.

For the magician by contrast, matter is inherently sacred. Far from being a route to the Absolute it is the route by which the Absolute becomes real and present - even palpable - to us. For that reason the aim of Magic is to exploit the sacramental nature of matter, treating it (in the language of St. Augustine, as modified (in italics) by St. Thomas Aquinas) as the outward and visible sign of an inward, divine and efficacious grace. From this it follows that for the magician the sexual act is no longer the means to an end but correctly understood, the end itself. Through it, with it, in it, a higher, unconditioned reality manifests itself in terms appropriate to our environment. Tantra, by contrast, requires us to "liberate" ourselves from that environment before the same reality is met. At the risk of labouring the point: for Tantra it is through matter that we strive to touch the Absolute; for Magic it is through matter that the Absolute touches us. Matter is the Absolute in posse. (4)

It should be emphasised that sexual activity is not an indispensable constituent of magical practice. (Like Tantra, Magic is not, definitely not, "all sex"!) Readers who feel ill at ease with it or, as must happen to us all, no longer up to it, need on no account despair! But those who have at some time or other been privileged to participate in this type of work will be aware of its tremendous efficacity. My own first experience, following hints so discreet it took months to work them out, occurred when I was fifteen and introduced me - too soon, I sometimes think - to matters which (if my memory serves me well) are deemed in some sections of the O.T.O to belong to the arcana of the VIII° and IX°. Ten years later in a crowded warehouse deep within the meat-packing district of Manhattan (now gentrified beyond recognition) I watched dumbstruck as a veritable phantasmagoria of mighty beings were lent form and substance by the tremendous power inherent in what Verlaine called "ce divin phosphore". (5) Indeed, I have only to recall that occasion to be made giddy by the memory of it and, more importantly, to have again at my disposal (for such was the purpose of the undertaking) the 'phosphoric' energy simultaneously generated in the theurgic fervour of that night. But of course there's no need to cross the Atlantic for such experiences. Members of the gentlest, least pretentious Wiccan group will have experienced something of the kind - and of comparable worth - each time the Goddess deigns to bless them with her presence in the quiet of the night.

On all such occasions the aim is not to gratify the senses - however gratified they are in the process - but to permit the physical to make explicit the spirituality implicit within it. This requires of us an immense act of will, something that again distinguishes Magic from Tantra. There, you may remember, the participant's will, like the rest of his individuality, is dissolved in a supra-mundane reality where all differentiation has ceased. The magician, on the other hand, applies his will - and such should be his highest ambition - to effect changes that help advance the evolution of the world. (5) His is above all an act of love. Of love freely exercised in accordance with his true will, a concomitant of that divine will which sustains the dynamic reality, perceptible and imperceptible, of which we are at once the part and the whole: verum est....quod superius est sicut quod inferius et quod inferius est sicut quod superius, ad perpetrando miracula rei unius. Unlike Tantra, which uses the 'below' to embrace the 'above', Magic, sexual or otherwise, enables the magician, loyal to the Thrice Great Hermes, to embrace the 'above' in the 'below'.

And by so doing, he sanctifies the world.

Notes:
(1) According to the Puranas there are four successive ages within each maha-yuga of 4,320,000 years. Kali-yuga is the fourth and darkest of the current maha-yuga, its predecessors (Krita or Satya, Treta, and Dvapara) each marking a progressive decline in the moral, spiritual and physical condition of mankind. Another Puranic tradition speaks of time divisions known as kalpas, divisible into fourteen manvantaras each consisting of 71 maha-yugas, though the duration does seem to vary. Each manvantara is governed by a different Manu, our present one (the "post-Atlantean" as some occultists call it) being in the custody of Vaivasvata (Sk. "Child of the Sun") whose responsibilities include the ethno-cultural progress of mankind. (Manu - Sk. "Man" - is another term for the Purusha or Paradigmatic Man, comparable to the Hebrew Adam Kadmon.)

(2) Usually the red flames occur on the left side (ida) in men, the right (pingala) in women but variations occur as, for instance, when the sexual activity is other than heterosexual. Solitary activity by either sex may produce a brilliant mix of red and yellow flames on both sides, often suprasensibly 'visible' to observers. Alas, some esotericists condemn masturbation in terms worthy of those stern Victorian moralists who claimed it led to blindness and insanity. There are also lurid warnings from certain Jewish authorities that onanism (and nocturnal emissions) are induced by Lilith, the first Eve, who then uses the spilled seed to manufacture bodies for the demons in her charge. No less devilish are the incubi and succubi - I always forget which of them does what - who feature prominently in accounts of the witch trials.

(3) The creative impulse (Brahman) is other than the "divine Nothingness (ahava), which alone is God. Referred to in the Upanishads as Neti, neti ('not this, not that'), the featureless nature (nirguna) of God was cleverly expressed by Crowley as God=0. None of which should be taken to mean that God is the negation of everything (in itself impossible since it presupposes a positive ground), but, rather, that God is the absence of 'something'. And in this case the 'something' is 'existence' as opposed to 'non-existence'. Yet by denying existence to God, neither Crowley nor Hindu thinkers call in question the fact that God is. For them existence is secondary, the product of God's self-awareness, manifesting itself - the Vedas speak of an effulgence of cosmic light (hiranyagarbha) - in the dualistic world of "becoming" (Crowley's 0=2), of which we are part. (The Cabbala, of course, teaches much the same, as did the Neo-Platonists, albeit in a typically complicated manner.)

(4) In the impending New Age this same principle - that matter is the vehicle of spirit - will be of particular significance to those who encounter the Lord of the Aeon himself, end product of the equation already quoted (note 3): 0=2=1. Outwardly human, inwardly - or in the Thomistic sense, 'substantially' - divine, His person will become a valid object of devotion. For out of this Divine Child, as the liturgy of the A.O.M (II°) proclaims, there gushes forth the solar light that vivifies creation, microcosmic equivalent of that greater light, more incandescent than a million suns, that is His true, unmanifested self. Especialy inimical to the New Aeon are the secret forces currently responsible for the growth in fundamentalist religion and, paradoxically, novel and belligerent forms of scientific dogmatism..

(5) The location in Washington Street, with animal carcasses stacked on the pavement and in surrounding buildings - there was a pervasive odour of fat and stale blood - may not have been accidental. For as Dion Fortune observed in her book, Sane Occultism, " . . .. blood being a vital fluid, contains a large proportion of ectoplasm, or etheric substance. When shed, this ectoplasm rapidly separates from the congealing blood and thus becomes available for materialisations". Several psychic researchers, notably the less-than-reliable Harry Price, have observed that physical phenomena are more prevalent during séances conducted when the (female) medium is menstruating. (It may be for this purpose that the use of blood is recommended in certain magical operations.) Luckily, for those who, like me, are of a squeamish disposition, the power of creative visualisation, known in Yoga as Kriyasakti, works just as well.

Arianrhod A Journey to Spiral Castle

By Levannah Morgan (review)

£3 PO Box 314, Exeter EX4 6YR cheques to J.Higginbottom (inclusive of postage).

This booklet explores the complex evolution of the Welsh goddess Arianrhod, from the earliest references to her in Welsh literature through to modern visions of her as a powerful stellar goddess of inspiration and magick. It traces the author's own experiential journey as a priestess of Arianrhod and suggests some ways of working with this goddess."

I’ve heard Levannah Morgan speak on a number of occasions, and I’ve always enjoyed what she had to say, how she said it and by and large have come away enriched by the experience.

She has also, in my eyes been one of the few woman whom I have heard talk of the Goddess forms in experiential, no holds barred, and dare I say I ‘real’ terms, and I’ve a lot of respect for what she has to say.

Thus I was more than willing to read and review this booklet, at that point sight unseen and subject relatively unknown.

A section of one of my bookcase holds some of my most valued magical literature. Not a hard cover amongst them, they are all magazines or all self-published booklets, oft printed in small numbers but containing more information that many of my glossy and expensive tomes do.

Bearing the above in mind it is really no surprise I find it as easy to write a review for ‘Arianrhod- A Journey to Spiral Castle’ as I would for a more traditionally formatted book.

‘Arianrhod’ is a great booklet; it is nicely written and in a relatively few pages (which includes a bibliography and all online sources used) she explores the roots of the Welsh Goddess Arianrhod in historical terms, as well as looking at the process in which Robert Graves fleshed out a very rudimentary amount of information to animate the Arianrhod who became so well known amongst the contemporary Pagan community.

Then Levannah goes back to source, so to speak, and presents her own research, and historical and experientially realised interpretations and perceptions of Arianrhod.

This results in an easy to read balance of the proverbial art and science that could be seen as being the backbone of true magic.

I think this booklet will be enjoyed and appreciated by practitioners of many diverse paths as well as being appreciated in general by those of both an academic and a creative bent.

‘Arianrhod- The Spiral Castle’ is of interest not just for the process, both academic and creative, of giving life, substance and character to a god/dess form but also for Levannah’s relating of more personal aspects of her journey, which creates an accessibility that endears the reader further.

Her suggested practical work is well done too; written in intensely ocular and evocative language, the visualisation is near automatic as one reads the text.

Call me a shallow, but aesthetics are of great importance to me, and the pleasing presentation only adds to something that at three pounds is more than a bargain.

Julian Vayne (author of Now That's What I Call Chaos Magick) writes:
So we all know Arianrhod right? Goddess of the Silver Wheel and Spiral Castle. Sister (or reflection) of Ariadne, the spider queen; haughty lady of the strange legend of Llew Llaw Gyffes and Blodeuwedd. Well yes and no. These things are part of the story but the tale of Arianrhod is much subtler as Levannah Morgan shows. This slim, well-produced volume traces the evolution (or creation) of this goddess from the earliest Welsh legends into contemporary paganism and directly into Levannah’s own story. As a Welsh speaker Levannah is able to shed light on the first traces of the goddess in both text and the Welsh landscape. She shows how the modern perception of her myth was woven according to the ‘poetic truth’ of Robert Graves and later stitched into the fabric of twentieth century Wicca. But this book is far from a hatchet job on an esteemed member of the modern pagan pantheon. Instead Levannah demonstrates how the goddess herself has been woven, and celebrates the creativity of this process. Levannah provides some evocative glimpses into how she has contributed to this divine fabric herself through her work in 1970s goddess feminism, witchcraft and the Fellowship of Isis. An excellent marriage of well researched cold hard facts and poetic, inspired magick, this book is a essential reading for anyone who wishes to walk the spiral road to the castle of the Otherworld. Highly Recommended.

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]

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