Mandrake Speaks Newsletter

• Thelemic Symposium (review)

• Mandrake Book of the Month: Apophenion: A Chaos Magick Paradigm by Peter J Carroll

• WICCA: Magical beginnings (summary/review by Tzaddi)

• "Sex in the City" - actually Peter Grey's "The Red Goddess" (reviewed this time by Mogg)

• Phil Hine Interview

•  

• Lectures Talks

• Groups Meetups

• Conferences & Exhibitions (click to view)

  Day of the Dead (1st November, Central, London)

WICCA: Magical beginnings
- A Study of the Possible Origins of the Rituals and Practices Found in this Modern Tradition of Pagan Witchcraft and Magick.
By Sorita d’Este & David Rankine
Published by Avalonia Books, 2008

According to the preface "this book was born out of a discussion on the origins of the Wiccan Tradition as known today, with some of our students in late 2001. . . Has Wiccan history tied itself into knots of personalities in an effort to conceal its true origins? Was there something we were missing? Why was it that whilst some people claimed that the tradition was the continuation of a very ancient Pagan religion, others stated that it was created (or compiled) in the 1950s or 1940s in England? Why was it that Gerald Gardner was greatly respected as the ‘Father’ of the modern movement and simultaneously viewed as a charlatan? What really made Wicca, Wicca? (From Preface p10)'' ''So the book beings with a discussion of Wicca's emergence in the 1950s, primarily through the work of Gerald Brousseau Gardner and a subsequent succession of people associated with him. During the transitional period of the 1950s, between the austerity of post-war Britain and the swinging sixties, Wicca quickly gained media attention as something mysterious and beyond the norm... ''

The authors say "it would be naïve to believe that all the practices and beliefs of the tradition sprang fully formed into being from nowhere and that it was completely unknown or thought of prior to Gerald Gardner. Undoubtedly the publication of his factional novel High Magic’s Aid in 1949, and subsequent writings, teachings and media exposure inspired and fuelled the interest of many people to explore what Gardner referred to as ‘the witch cult’. It would however probably be more accurate to view Gardner’s work as being the product of, or the continuation of, a growing spiritual and magickal current fuelled by a wealth of material published in numerous sources by a range of authors in the previous years, as well as the practices of a wide spectrum of esoteric groups and orders which flourished at the time and in the preceding decades.''

This is followed by a discussion in chronological order on the works by influential authors including the following:

JG Frazer, Folklorist, who in 1890 published his classic work The Golden Bough

Charles Godfrey Leyland, American Anthropologist, who published Aradia Gospel of the Witches in 1899

Margaret Murray, British Egyptologist, who published The Witch Cult in Western Europe in 1921, and The God of the Witches in 1933.

Jessie L.Weston, Folklorist, who published From Ritual to Romance in 1920, a work that explores the Arthurian mystical and magical themes.

MacGreggor Mathers ‘translation of The Key of Solomon in 1889, Jules Michelet’s La Sorciere,

Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Wilhelm Reich, Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune, Israel Regardie, Golden Dawn, AO Spare, Kenneth Grant, Jack Parsons, Frater Achad.

The influence and ideas of these various sources are explored over several, detailed chapters concluding with five different putative origins viz:

1. The Wiccan tradition is a continuation of the grimoire tradition
2. The Wiccan tradition is a continuation of the Victorian ceremonial magick system
3. That the Wiccan tradition was a creation of Gerald Gardner and his associates
4. That Wicca is the survival of a British folk magick sytem
5. That Wicca is a final form of a tradition of European witchcraft going back to classical Greece and Rome

The authors carefully go over each point, bringing together and skillfully summarise material that has so reanimated witchcraft research over the last decade and that has yielded a crop of original books such as Philip Heselton's Wiccan Roots and Owen Davies Cunning Folk. What they bring to the equation is a strong practical knowledge of the mechanics of magick, plus the fruits of many long hours reading and editing their excellent published editions such as "The Goetia of Dr Rudd" (Golden Hoard Press), and their extensive experience of running covens and groups, so they know of what they speak. A good read. Highly recommended. [Tzaddi]

Phil Hine interviewed by John Wisniewski

> >When did you become interested in Chaos Magick?

I came across copies of both Pete Carroll's Liber Null and Ray Sherwin's The
Book of Results around 1980-81. I have a dim memory of picking up The Book
of Results at Chris Bray's shop The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Of course it
wasn't actually called "Chaos Magic" then.

> >Which writers' works have inspired you in your writings?

That's tricky. I've been influenced by a great many authors - and continue
to be so - but how does one distinguish between an influence and something
which is genuinely inspiring? It's rather obvious I was influenced by both
Pete Carroll and Ray Sherwin - after all without reading their early works I
wouldn't have picked up on and become involved in the chaos magic scene in
the late 1980s. But equally, I was influenced by some of the social
constructionist theorists I encountered when I did my first degree - in
particular, Irving Goffmann, Stan Cohen and Laurie Taylor. Cohen & Taylor's
book "Escape Attempts: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Everyday
Life" was a very strong inspiration for me in the early 1980s for example,
and its one of the few books I still possess from that time of my life. All
of my chaos magic-oriented writing owes a big debt to Goffmann and Cohen &
Taylor - as much as it does does to occult authors. In fact I'd say that in
general, I've found non-occult authors to be more inspiring - I'm thinking
here of Keith Johnstone's classic "IMPRO", for example, or David Harvey's
"The Condition of Postmodernity" which was a big help in rewriting Prime
Chaos for the New Falcon edition.

I'd also say that I was very much inspired by Starhawk, whose writings I
encountered in the mid-1980s. Her writing about magic, feminism, and
direct-action politics really put the hook in me, although I don't know if
that is apparent for other people. It was Starhawk's work that provided the
initial inspiration to get involved in ecomagic and pagan networking
(PaganLink), which led to me editing Pagan News for four-five years.

There is also a phenomena which I could class as "reverse inspirations" -
that is, books that I think are pretty bad and might possibly be useful for
me in doing my own take on a particular subject.. Take for example Adrian
Savage's "An Introduction to Chaos Magick" - a book which I read in 1988 and
thought was bloody awful, frankly. (btw, you can find the full text of this
slim-hipped volume preserved for posterity on the chaosmatrix website). I
think if I hadn't read Savage's book, I probably wouldn't have written the
original chapbook version of Condensed Chaos. I had some friends who were
interested in chaos magic, and I said I'd find some "introductory" reading
material for them - and i thought to myself, after reading Savage's little
book, that I might as well have a go myself on the basis that I couldn't do
any worse. I used to have a small set of books that I filed under the
"reverse inspiration" category, but they all went in the last pruning of my
shelves.

There are also authors I've put off reading in any depth because I felt what
I'd seen of their work was very interesting and I didn't want to
unconsciously "nick" their ideas - which can easily happen if you're writing
under a deadline and don't always take note of sources and so forth. Pete
Carroll once wryly quipped "I'm sick of half-baked ideas that pass from book
to book without any intervening thought" which I think is a good point for
writers to bear in mind - although of course I've done my share of that too.
-----------------------------------

continued next time

Phil Hine
info@...
www.philhine.org.uk

Thelemic Symposium (Review)

Conversation of the local female denizens of symposium venue, as overheard in public bar . . . "I haven't had a good sh*g for ages . . . maybe I'll go to the orgy . .. " Not that there was an orgy - not in the common understanding of the word at least - but you know how folk are. Later during the Gnostic Mass there was a forced entry via the security door - luckily not too disruptive but I suppose in such a packed day the sort of thing you might expect. The culprit, later expelled, returned in the early hours to burgle the place and is currently, so they say, awaiting her majesty's pleasure. It was the only cloud on an otherwise great day.

There was much harrumphing about the change of venue from the grand but tiny Oxford Town Hall, where if I remember rightly, the porters at the last event bumbled into the late Andrew Chumbley's workshop and told everyone to wind it up. Well it was the fourth hour and they'd only just cast the circle - again all hearsay. So a new slightly larger venue was in order, with en suite bar, car park and indeed nature just a step away.

Peter Grey, took the stage together with his partner and delivered a paean to the goddess Babalon as reviewed elsewhere in this august newsletter and that really got us going. A good start, followed by Mike Magee of AMOOKOS, or perhaps formerly, as he filled us in on how he was expelled from the order he'd help found. Coincidently, the last time Mike spoke in Oxford was at the first Symposium back in 1986? The topic of his talk was "Factions, Fictions and Functions" which was all about the negative side of magical orders. (There's more background to this in my own "Tantra Sadhana" a chapter called "When your guru goes gaga") . This time he gave a short but informative discussion of the main elements of the Kaula magick so beloved in AMOOKOS. In the flood of correspondence I've had since the effect - not sure why me - I was just making the tea afterall - someone remarked how happy they were to see Mike again, being as what he is so charismatic.

By this time, Melissa Harrington's transport has screeched into the grassy carpark and after a suitable interval, reinforced with tea and one of Kym's inch thick sandwiches - she took the stage, returning to the theme of her talk of ten years ago on Thelema and the feminine. It was a masterly performance. The intervening years have seen many changes, marriage and parenthood - estrangement from the Caliphate OTO (bit of a pattern) and a serious reframing of her attitude to Thelema, Babalon and what to her eyes now is its first, totally flawed prophet. Her talk was a counterpoint to Peter Grey, whose book she both roundly praised but also cast at least one jaundiced eye - wondering whether the image of a whore was ever really anything more than a male sexual fantasy. She highlighted the huge caesura between Crowley's devotion to his goddess and his complete contempt for her earthly incarnations. It's difficult to imagine Crowley cutting the toenails of the mother of his children when she was too pregnant to do it for herself.

Another break, more tea and food, more buzz and camaraderie. Now Charlotte from Bath Omphalos, accompanied by a film show from defibulator images, spoke of her own work with dangerous, blood thirsty spirits. Which all prompted a rather interesting discussion on the theme of self harm and the strange dialectic in which it stands with some extreme forms of magical consciousness. Her spooky slide film show was full of images from Oxford Pitt Rivers Museum, which closes on 1st January for a twelve month refit along with the stupendous Ashmolean Museum - so get your fix now.

Next up was Jake Stratton Kent who regaled us with an investigation into the Grimoire Verum and other necrotic texts that have come down to us in our long and noble history. His talk was very academic although there was much emphasis was on matters practical as he fielded many interesting questions from the floor such as "is it dangerous"; "do you deal with the boss" etc. (As in all walks of life, one tends to have more dealings with the foot soldiers than the managing director.

Finally, we came to David Beth on the topic of Voodoo Gnosis, the syncretized synthesis of voodoo put together by Michael Bertiaux and the Couleuvre Noire and published in various editions of The Voodoo Gnostic Workbook.. He spoke well but it was complex stuff and in the end it did rather boil down to whether one either understood or related to the ideas of Michael Bertiaux, which many obviously did. My ears pricked up at the mention of occult technology, I'd heard of those wyrd machines made from twisted wire and cardboard tubes with which these practitioners commune with denizens of others dimensions. So more of a post modern view of Voodoo than strictly revivalist.

So on the whole a good day - several times I wondered at the failure to mention the elephant in the room, which for me is the authentic voice of the ancient Egyptians who sometimes seems as silenced in modern occult discourse now as it was at the at the beginning of the Christian ice age. But our day was not yet done - still to come was a Gnostic Mass. I finally found out what the strange man with swivelling eyes and Sherlock Holmes costume was up to. Actually I missed the Mass, but someone who was there said it was "both the most ridiculous and coolest thing he had ever seen". There was much knob twiddling after the Mass and many people left before the social really got into its swing - which was a shame as it was good fun. My correspondent says: "thank you for facilitating my public dancing debut at the Canal Club. Was it the congenial atmosphere engendered by an alliance of like-minded people? Perhaps the sun in Libra, moon in Sagittarius configuration astrologically? Maybe the unknown ingredients of the EGA Eucharist - extolling the raised glass, the presence of a naked lady or just that the world was ready for such a spectacle "... And I must also thank all the people who came to the Symposium, especially the audience - you were intelligent, engaged, urbane and great fun to be with. Roll on next year - [Mogg]

Top

The Red Goddess
by Peter Grey (review)

258pp, Hardback 2008 £37 + p&p

This is a beautiful, provocative, thought-provoking book, one man’s journey in search of the obscure object of his desire – full of odd typography, robust, sometimes rough language and a £37 price tag. Using the latest research from books such as “Strange Angel” , “Love and Rockets” and “The Unknown God” the author blends his own narrative around that which he sees as the three pillars of the Babalonian mythos – Enochian Magick, Aleister Crowley and Jack Parsons. Thus one reads:

“Eunuchs have been used traditionally to serve the Goddess, often as sodomitic dog priests. That name is not a slur but most likely comes from their dog position sex. These were important priests who served the ancient Love Goddess by sacrificing their reproductive power. They are no longer men. They cannot penetrate the mystery. I will not advocate the joys of self castration or the smooth root of the Skopsie, but it is certainly one way to serve Our Lady. I prefer Magick with the balls to push shaft deep into the crimson petals of the Goddess.”

Babalon is modern goddess, one of the most recent to emerge from the cauldron of serendipity. Even so, some, Peter Grey amongst them, would claim she has antique roots. She remerged in the modern world via the writings of Aleister Crowley, who is also responsible for renovating the old English spelling as Babalon, which has a significant numerology of 156 as opposed to 165. For Babylon, is an ancient Mesopotamian city, the Bête Noire of the ancient Hebrews, and therefore a natural cipher for corruption and hubris in the strange apocalyptic end game of the Biblical New Testament. I’m talking of the Book of Revelation, a book that exerted a powerful influence on Crowley’s imagination and one way or another figured large in his new Thelemic mythos.

The Book of Revelation is widely believed to contain much hidden and indeed Kabbalistic symbolism, So no surprise that the “anti-gods” of that book turn out to be, according to Thelemites, the true corrective of the modern age. The goddesses of ancient Babylon were Innana, Ishtar and Astarte. These are “Red Goddesses” in more ways than one – and possible role models for the modern woman who is powerful, self sufficient and above all sexual. Whether modern “scarlet woman” is, as Herodotus suggested, willing to give herself to any man for any small coin, seems unlikely these days somehow. So in as much as the author of Revelation was saying that it’s the goddesses that really bring society down, Crowley and the Thelemites say the opposite.

Few would argue that Peter’s Red Goddess is a Mesopotamian creation. Most of us accept Mesopotamia, as the “cradle of civilization” and the dispersal hub for many important things, writing, astrology, technology, religion, etc etc. I must admit my own dealings with “The Red Goddess” are in her Egyptian territory (see “The Bull of Ombos”) Peter devotes a short chapter to the exploration of her possible Egyptian roots, although this is maybe a clear example of where the works of the Victorian Egyptophile Gerald Massey provide an inadequate guide to the material.

AFAIK, Egypt, did indeed benefit from early contacts with Mesopotamia before the rise of the Pharaohs (i.e. 4000BCE) but its main development was independent. So for example although writing may have been invented in Mesopotamia, it was also invented quite independently in Egypt, presumably for the same imperative. The earliest reference in Egypt to the Semitic goddesses Astarte and Anat belongs to the reign of Thutmoses c1500bce, both love goddesses were married to ultimate “Red Bull” Seth. But my Egyptian “Red Goddess” has to be Hathor, a goddess as old as time, goddess of the cattle cult (hence the horns) she is indeed sensual, sexual and intoxicated. (See Les Secrets D'Hathor by Ruth; Rossini Schumann-Antelme, reprinted as Sacred Sexuality in Ancient Egypt: The Erotic Secrets of the Forbidden Papyrus.") When old man Ra is down in the dumps she lifts her skirts and gives him a laugh.

Having said something of the mythology of Innana et al, Peter soon leaves behind the ancient world. I definitely wanted more info on Mesopotamian religion, as his analysis is consistently interesting and engaging. He then follows the tracks of the Belle Dame Sans Merci, through the writings of her numerous modern devotees, including John Dee, Marquis de Sade, Jack Parsons and indeed many a modern mage, including his own dealing with she who must be obeyed, which brings to mind the lines of the song “my knuckles are bleeding and my knees are raw”. This reworking of the Crowleyian material on the nature of the scarlet women, is seen largely through his poetry and forms “The Red Goddess’ ” vibrant core.

Peter has no time for the post modern obsession with transgender and reclaiming the “blossoms of bone”. “Eunuchs” he tells us, “cannot penetrate the mystery.” But there again for me, Babalon might be like “post porn modernist” Annie Sprinkle –the love of whose life is famously the tortured Les, a female to male transsexual.

So all in all an interesting and provocative monograph; worthy I would think of some wider circulation. It might be that this first edition which is perhaps aimed at the “collector” for whom “the medium is the message.” Its white wibeline cover with red embossing is very striking; there are tipped in illustrations, one in colour. And indeed interior text is black and occasional red. Even so I’d be happy to read it in a standard hardback “Starfire” mode or even a good trade paperback. But whatever way you read it, it’s definitely worth a spin. [Mogg]

The Apophenion

- A Chaos Magic Paradigm
by Peter J Carroll
isbn 978-1869928-650 / £10.99 / $22

My final Magnum Opus if its ideas remain unfalsified within my lifetime, otherwise its back to the drawing board. Yet I’ve tried to keep it as short and simple as possible, it consists of eight fairly brief and terse chapters and five appendices. It attacks most of the great questions of being, free will, consciousness, meaning, the nature of mind, and humanity’s place in the cosmos, from a magical perspective. Some of the conclusions seem to challenge many of the deeply held assumptions that our culture has taught us, so brace yourself for the paradigm crash and look for the jewels revealed in the wreckage.This book contains something to offend everyone; enough science to upset the magicians, enough magic to upset the scientists, and enough blasphemy to upset most trancendentalists.

“The most original, and probably the most important, writer on Magick since Aleister Crowley.” -Robert Anton Wilson,
author of the Cosmic Trigger trilogy.

Magicians feared they had lost Him to the world of Theoretical Physics, but Zarathustra has come down from the mountain. The Apophenion is spoken – and proves the wait was worth it. Religion starts the hunt for Meaning, and with science Meaning is killed and served up as Truth. So we need magic, sowing the seeds of Meaning in everyday events, and we need art to cultivate them to public awareness. Thus does Apophenia
reveal how to bring back meaning
to our diminished lives.
- Lionel Snell,
Aka Ramsey Dukes, author of SSOTBME.

Peter J. Carroll is one of the founders of the Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT) which he led for a decade. He has spent thirty-five years in research and experiment and is the author of three other books Liber Null & Psychonaut,
Liber Kaos: the Psychonomicon, and Psybermagic.

more visit . . . http://www.mandrake.uk.net/peterjcarroll.htm

Top

Details of location below

Venues & Organisers:

Top

Groups Meetups

Top

00.Subscription details

To unsubscribe send email to: Mandrake-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
To subscribe send email to: Mandrake-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
or visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mandrake To email the list owner mandrake-owner@yahoogroups.com

Other lists: Naths, AMOOKOS and East/West Tantrism:
wyrdglow-108-request@...
OxfordPaganCircle-subscribe@yahoogroups.com