Path: typhoon.sonic.net!feed.news.sonic.net!newsfeed.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.fjserv.net!newshosting.com!news-xfer2.atl.newshosting.com!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sn-xit-03!sn-xit-04!sn-xit-06!sn-xit-08!supernews.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: paulhume@mailsnare.net (Paul Hume) Newsgroups: alt.religion.wicca Subject: Re: Questions: "oathbound" and "ravening" Date: 27 Feb 2003 09:17:35 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 46 Message-ID: <9a20611e.0302270917.45c74d2a@posting.google.com> References: <3e5d309f@news.victoria.tc.ca> <3E5DD258.C7D3DE1A@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 1046366255 3829 127.0.0.1 (27 Feb 2003 17:17:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Feb 2003 17:17:35 GMT Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.religion.wicca:660357 > You are, you say here, a "a member of a fraternal order", and that > you understand GG to have been a member of the same order. Gardner was initiated into Co-Masonry (and thus the same line of Masonry as Cat). Co-Masonry is at odds with accepted Freemasonry because the former admits women as Masons, which Masonry under the landmarks accepted by English and US lodges, doesn't. > Should > this be read to mean that you are in some way associated with the > Rosicrucians? Since iirc that's the only 'fraternal order' [1] > I've read about GG being associated with. He read works by members > of the Golden Dawn organisation, and was clearly familiar with > Crowley's OTO lot, but the only info. I've seen alleging that he > himself was a member of such an organisation referred to a > Rosicrucian theatre in the New Forest. > Garnder was an initiate of OTO, though there is some question of which degrees (if any) he took in the full initiation ritual, and which were conferred "at sight" by Crowley, which was his prerogative as Grand Master of the Order. He was a IVo if memory serves. I believe there was reference to his at least taking Minerval from Crowley (Louis Wilkinson assisting), but I myself doubt he took the other degrees in full, even in the Man of Earth triad, since as far as I know there wasn't a temple in the UK equipped to work those rituals at that time. Documentation in private hands includes things like the charter issued Garnder to operate a "Camp of Minervals," and in another collection his charter as a IVo. The Harry Ransome collection in Austin has at least one letter from GBG to Gerald Yorke, written some months after Crowley's death in December 1947, when Gardner was living in Pennsylvania. Gardner speaks of trying to get the OTO back in operation in Europe, among other plans. His own work in Wicca obviously kicked in and took precedence, which is to our benefit in these latter days, IMO (g). The Rosicurcian theatre has always sounded like a nifty thing, but I don't know much about what they did - I don't get that it was initiatory, but rather a "community theatre" type deal put together by members with mutual interests in esoteric dramatic formulae, who were probably all involved in one or another organization in that line of country (Co-Masonry, magical order, Theosophical Society, etc.). Paul