Mandrake Speaks Newsletter

Edited by Mogg Morgan

No 227

Monthly info for friends of leading occult publisher and bookseller Mandrake of Oxford
info on ours and other interesting publications, reviews and events.

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Also take a look at www.ombos.info for much Egyptian and Sethian material.

• Aleister Crowley: A Modern Master - New Title

• Jean Overton-Fuller (Obituary)

• A Shadow Magick Compendium (Review)

• Thelemic Symposium (Review)

• Lectures Talks

• Groups Meetups

• Conferences & Exhibitions - Skullchaos etc (click to view)

• Ombos Archive On Scribd (click to view)

  
  

Diabolical

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• Jean Overton Fuller Obituary
  

The author, biographer, and Theosophist Jean Overton Fuller was born on 7th March 1915, of Captain John Henry Fuller and the artist Violet Overton Fuller. The posthumous child of her father, who was killed in East Africa in the winter of 1914, her mother brought the young Jean up, with an entourage of intellectuals and artists.

Jean Overton Fuller is known in the field of Ripperology for her book Sickert and the Ripper Crimes. A study of the enormously talented Edwardian painter Walter Richard Sickert, in which, using her artist eye she scrutinises the paintings he produced for clues about the 1888 Ripper murders. Sickert found thrill and inspiration in the music halls, and the murky regions of the demi-monde and its inhabitants. The man was an enigma, his obsession with the Ripper murders, and the atmosphere of impending gory death, with the nudity, garishness, the strong scarlet hues, and the threatening shadows depicted so disturbingly in The Camden Town Murder series of his paintings, have raised questions and suspicion about the nature of Sickert’s fascination.

Jean, through her mother, was a contemporary link to these events, and with. Sickert and the Ripper Crimes had generated a considerable amount of interest from the public as well from among her fellow writers, such as for instance the American best-selling author Patricia Cornwell and her contribution to the subject with her Portrait of A Killer: Jack The Ripper, Case Closed.

Paul Begg and Adam Wood of Ripperologist had invited Jean Overton Fuller to speak at the 2003 Ripper Conference in Liverpool. Mogg drove from Oxford to Wymington, a small locality in Northamptonshire to collect Jean.en route to the Conference. This weekend in August was one of the hottest in the year. After the nightmare journey of the A5 to Liverpool with cars slowly moving head to tails, they were rewarded and arrived at the gigantic and labyrinthine Britannia Adelphi Hotel, a venue specially chosen for this Conference because of its Ripper connection. Jean greatly enjoyed this event and the very good and erudite company of the international Fraternity of Ripperologists. The late Jeremy Beadle was the Master of Ceremony and introduced Jean to the audience, and she came alight on stage and spoke entertainingly for about half an hour, without notes.

This was one of Jean’s last public engagements. The last being Jean’s talk on C.W. Leadbeater, at the 2005 Theosophical History Conference in London.

Jean was hard of hearing which at times made her appear distant. She was a great English eccentric, humorous, kind, highly intelligent with a far ranging culture. She was extraordinary.

Her friends and those who met her will remember her with great warmth and affection. When you met Jean, even though the age gap, there was no sense of an age barrier. She was a rare soul.

Dear Jean rest in Peace and enjoy Devachan with your loved ones who departed before.

‘Om Mani Padme Om, the Sunrise comes!
The dewdrop slips into the shining sea!’
(From The Light of Asia by Sir Edwin Arnold)

Jean Overton Fuller,
Author, Astrologer, Artist, Biographer, Theosophist, Ripperologist,
Born London, 7th March 1915, Died Kettering, Wednesday 8th April 2009.

Nu Thelemic Symposium 2009

In the year following the global credit crunch the organisers may well have had a few sleepless nights as to whether they would break even on this normally landmark event in the occult year. But on the day the rather magnificent surroundings of the Holywell music room were comfortably full - although there were reportedly tickets to spare. Some said the room was a bit cold, and Charlotte Rodgers & myself were the warm-up act - which seemed to go down quite well, although it would be inappropriate to review my own performance. Our title BLOOD ON THE THRESHOLD: Seth The Demonic Initiator - Charlotte is currently writing a book called "The Bloody Sacrifice" and my brief was to find some counterpoint to all that from my own obsession with the Egyptian God Seth and his bloody companions, who so often crop up in matters of "exorcism" - a common method of initiation in the ancient world.

Job done we handed the floor over the Liza Lewellyn of the "Open Source Golden Dawn". Her topic was "LIBER AL as a Geburic text" - which I admit is not one of my favourite topics. Liza did a good job, struggling a bit against the apparent lack of a chairperson or lectern, resting her notes on the very distracting slide projector. Later someone explained to me how it was quite a fairly straightforward analysis of the programme of Crowley's holy books and how it follows his own path of initiation. In other words the Holy books that came after Liber Al display more initiated knowledge than his earlier efforts when he was still at the level of Geburah in his progress through the Tree of Life.

The third speaker before I headed off to the pie shop (one Matador Pie, one Mince and one Spicy Vegetable) was John Moore giving an illustrated lecture on his efforts to get his book ALEISTER CROWLEY: A Modern Master treated on a par with Fontana Modern Masters series.

Suitable fortified - the company now split into main session and optional workshops. Rufus Harrington spoke on his personal journey into Enochian magick. Rufus Harrington was initiated into Alexandrian Wicca as a teenager, and there introduced to Enochian Magic. He spoke of how his first experiences with Enochia precipitated an alarming dark night of the soul. In the "underworld" down under in Oz he eventually resolved his personal depression and crisis and re-emerged the man he is today. At this stage the illustrated lecture turned into an impromptu workshop - as Rufus wanted us to experience some of the power of Enochian invocation - after the demonstration there was another optional session in which anyone interested could learn one of two of the calls. Needless to say the room was still packed for what turned out to be one of the best presentations of the day.

Julian Vayne spoke next, although I missed most of that as I was out moving the car. He is the author of numerous articles and books, both popular and academic and spoke on his pet topic of WINE & STRANGE DRUGS. I'm told it was a good if not classic Julian performance. Rufus returned to introduce the "mighty" Geraldine Beskin and her illustrated lecture on the life of ALEISTER CROWLEY: "The Not So Beastly Beast" - which despite being a fairly well worn path for most of the audience nevertheless managed to be interesting and spring a few surprises.

I sat firmly at the back for newly revealed Typhonian Order's Michael Staley presentation on Magical creativity. The organisation formerly known as the Typhonian OTO has now changed its outer name to the Typhonian Order under heavy legalistic pressure. Potentially it is a good move although Michael's rather down beat talk was just a little short of the ralleying cry of the Thelemites. But if you stuck with it and were familiar with the old chestnuts such as H P Lovecraft and Bram Stoker, it was an engaging enough performance.

I didn't make it to any workshops although the androgyny session created the greatest buzz. It took a while to get going as there were several calls for participants for the "feminine" half of the workshop. Gossip in the social was that they split into two groups - one male one female - there was a rather apocryphal tale that the man zone got the most animated with a spontaneous chanting of "shag/kill" - in the end both sides came together for an invocation of Baphomet and creation of an elixir which impressed everyone by its subtle but nevertheless remarkable androgynous quality.

I went off with Rufus for a curry and some Cobra beer and bowled into the social at about nine although there was a merry crowd in the bar the musick was taking a while to materialise. At ten we were called in without much warm up for Sir Francis Dashwood's discordant rendering of the "Hymn to Pan" - slowly the whole set became more melodic and we were on familiar ecstatic Amodali territory. We danced on but trouble was brewing with the bar staff, who closed us down at 12.30 just as we were getting going. The barrage of complaints about watered down wine and illicite supplies was just too much. 12:30 was well past my bedtime so I was happy to return to my belfry. An exhausting and exhilarating day - room for improvement but very distinctive approach to Thelema. [Mogg]

Shadow Magick Compendium
by Raven Digitalis
ISBN 978-0-7387-1318-2
Published by Llewellyn
223pp /$17.95 paperback

Raven Digitalis is a popular American author of the bestselling Goth Craft - who is obviously trying to bring a more sophisticated view of the western occult tradition to a popular audience. This sequel extends this project with a whole range of material not normally seen in Pagan books aimed to a wider range of readers.

Thus we have chapters on various aspects of the "Jungian Shadow" from a more occult perspective, and these deal for instance with Crowley, Chaos Magick, the Dark Moon, Lunar and Solar Eclipses, the Black Sun; Halloween; Herb Craft & Wort Cunning, the Wyrd Sisters, Dark Magick and spirituality past and present-

I suppose one has to acknowledge that in UK at least, Llewellyn titles tend to be associated with middle of the road, fairly unchallenging fair, aimed as a mass market. Raven's book goes some way to dispelling those perceptions. So bearing in mind that the target audience, perhaps the neophyte dark mage, the material is mature and well thought out. There's is definitely an "American" look to their product; it's often said that there is a big difference in design aesthetic between both sides of the "pond". Even so, I have to say I'm full of admiration for the design and feel of Raven's books, lots of purple and black thoughout.

The content too looks stimulating and in terms of its target audience ground breaking. One example that struck me was his attempt to give some meaning to Solar and Lunar eclipses, an area of magick often overlooked. We all love the spectacle but what does it mean? Personally I follow the ancient Egyptian view that all lunar omens, and this would include eclipses, are essentially bad news, trick is know for whom the bell tolls. . .

So Raven's views may differ slightly to my own, but so what, it would be unPagan to suppose there has to be just one view. So all in all, a useful addition to those books aimed at the burgeoning Goth and Emo audience.

You can check out Raven's website http://www.ravendigitalis.com

[Reviewed by Mogg Morgan]

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