Path: typhoon.sonic.net!feed.news.sonic.net!sjc70.webusenet.com!news.webusenet.com!cyclone.bc.net!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: paulhume@lan2wan.com (Paul Hume) Newsgroups: alt.magick Subject: Re: Pitting Crowley against Waite (was: Re: Book for Tarot Divination Date: 11 Nov 2002 06:45:02 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 55 Message-ID: References: <3DC962D7.28D1@luckymojo.com> <8fhy9.35$tk2.55581@news.uswest.net> <3DCAD023.48CBAA7E@luckymojo.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.107.93.163 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1037025902 27331 127.0.0.1 (11 Nov 2002 14:45:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 11 Nov 2002 14:45:02 GMT Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.magick:324464 Cat - > The very harshest end-of-life summations of Waite's career are made > with the dubious assistance of Aleister Crowley's scathing opinions, > but these are based on Crowley and Waite having been on opposing sides > during the ouster of S. L. Mathers from leadership of the Golden Dawn > over issues of Mathers' autocracy, alcoholism, and misappropriation of > resources; all very serious charges. > Note that Paul uses the term "at daggers drawn" to describe Waite's > antipathy to the magicians in the order. Actually I was referring to Waite's actions after the highland kiltie pantomime by Crowley, in his struggle for control of the organization with Yeats. Mostly via Bob Gilbert's research of the GD after the schism. > It's just not that simple. Things rarely are. If I read your own editorial position aright, it is that we can't determine from his actions in later years how he felt in his younger days. Fair enough. But we can determine what he actually did and what the results were (and without reference to Crowley and Mathers). > What changed for Waite -- why he took up Christian mysticism and > dropped ceremonial magic -- cannot be guessed at. But did Crowley stay > any truer to the teachings of ceremonial magic himself? I think not. Magick In Theory and Practice would seem to argue against that position. Jump a decade later and Magick Without Tears would seem to argue against that position. > No one here has made a substantiated claim that Crowley "really did > abhor" ceremonial magic because he later became interested in Egyptian > religion. Since he continued writing about, and is attested to have performed, ceremonial magick through much of his career, the claim would be hard to substantiate and easy to refute. You might make better headway arguing that he deviated from that system by depending more and more heavily on faux Tantric sex magick than faux Egyptian religion. Waite, from whatever experience or motivation, made ceremonial magick essentially irrelevant in the lineage of GD he rose to lead. You are quite correct that this does not mean he always felt that way, though I'd have to reread his autobiography to be sure of how he himself presented his feelings in later life. My recollection is that he dismissed the vitality of ceremonial magick at that time, and claimed to have felt the same even when he joined the GD. Paul