Path: typhoon.sonic.net!feed.news.sonic.net!uunet!sac.uu.net!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: bloodofenoch@goddamnfruit.com ({ Secret Chief }) Newsgroups: alt.magick Subject: Waite vs. Crowley? Date: 12 Nov 2002 06:37:28 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 60 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 151.196.18.135 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1037111848 572 127.0.0.1 (12 Nov 2002 14:37:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 12 Nov 2002 14:37:28 GMT Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.magick:324579 I've mostly been sitting out of the Waite vs. Crowley discussion, but I thought I'd chime in just now. Some of Waite's defenders have broken the world down into two categories: 1. Waite-appreciating geniuses. 2. Those who don't care for Waite because they have little education and are hung up on Crowley. It strikes me that just as adulation for Crowley can, as the Waite-geniuses argue, lead to an unfair disparagement of Waite, so too can dislike of Crowley lead to an over-estimation of Arthur Edward. So let's cut through all this BS. To pretend that Waite had anything like an elegant prose style - even for his time - or that he never engaged in circular bloviating without ever getting to a point, is to engage in wishful thinking. I say that as someone who enjoys reading Waite; but it just has to be acknowledged. Furthermore: The fact Waite and Crowley didn't like each other shouldn't stop us (whichever "side" we take) from seeing how alike the two really are. Let's take some myths that have been advanced by one side or another, or both. MYTH (WAITE SUPPORTERS): Crowley didn't know jack about Kabbalah; Waite was a real scholar of it. REALITY: It is true that Crowley was satisfied to muck around in the very limited and adulterated Golden Dawn Qabalah, while Waite was moved to engage primary Jewish sources. On the other hand, Waite nevertheless stuck to some of the more pseudo-Qabalistic GD ideas, like attributing Tarot cards to the Tree of Life. MYTH (CROWLEY SUPPORTERS): Waite couldn't write worth jack, while Crowley was a master of the English language. REALITY: Both men remained stuck on Victorian models long after their contemporaries had moved beyond them. Waite's prose - well, I don't think I have to comment further on it. Crowley managed to write relatively lucid prose, but his poetry is a real throwback. Although literary fashion had long since moved on to the freer verse-forms of Eliot, Pound, and Yeats, he kept on writing poetry in outdated metrical forms until his death. MYTH (BOTH SIDES): Crowley was a bad boy, Waite was a good boy. REALITY: Well, Waite never (that I know of) sacrificed a cat, ate feces, sucked strangers off in bath-houses, or had a smack habit; but he did have a whale of a drinking problem and carried on an affair with his house-keeper. I could go on; but the two are really much less different than they appear. - A.