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From: duo@teleport.com (Tom Schuler)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Magick, Magic and Thaumaturgy
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 97 06:34:41 GMT
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In article <33CA7AF9.264C@popd.ix.netcom.com>, #page7@popd.ix.netcom.com wrote:

>Dear KingsWord:
>
>I am disappointed that you fail to discuss the eyewitness report of a
>manifestation to visible appearance, seen during the performance of a
>magical ceremony,  mentioned by the musician Antonio Correlli in his
>autobiography.  Perhaps you feel that you could discount the testimony
>of Correlli made some centuries ago, just as you feel that a few
>instances of fraud in the spiritualist field proves that all such
>reports of phenomana must be fraudulant.  

It is not necessary to discount the report to doubt the explanation he 
suggests for what he saw.  There have been more than "a few" instances of 
fraud among spiritualist trance mediums.  You would do well to be a bit less 
credulous.

>Also, could we have your statement that the phenomena produced by Madame
>Blavatsky were also the "work of charletans preying on the emotionally
>distraught," and that those crediting the work of H.P.B. should be the
>object of "disgust" if claiming magickal adept status?  If so, then your
>statement would certainly cover the "magickal adepts" who were the
>founders of the Hermetic Order of the G.D.

The founders of the Golden Dawn were no less likely to be taken in by a slick 
con than anyone else.  Spiritualism was very popular in England around that 
time and the exploits of Harry Houdini, which went far to discredit it, were 
not yet known.  Mathers himself was swindled by a woman calling herself "Swami 
Vive Ananda" and her husband, one Theo Horos.  Mathers, for a while, believed 
that Mrs. Horos was, in fact, a Secret Chief of the Order.  This woman was 
very stout and said this was because she had "absorbed" Madame Blavatsky.  
Mathers believed this, much to the consternation of other GD members.  He gave 
them a number of GD rituals, which they later used as a seduction technique 
for a certain young lady, who turned them in for rape.  At the trial, quotes 
from the Neophyte ritual were read into the court transcript and were 
disparaged as "most blasphemous" by the Solicitor-General, which so badly 
embarassed the GD membership that a number of resignations ensued.

So much for the unerring wisdom of the founders of the Golden Dawn.