HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: alt.magick

>
>What makes you think that Liber Null is a fabrication? It seems to me to be
>based opon the works of Austin Osman Spare. Please justify your "widely
>accepted" comment.
>
>BTW, on another note, you mentioned in a previous posting a publisher by
>the name of Starry Wisdom (or something similar). Do you have the address
>or telephone number?
>

Oh dear, I definitely brought this upon myself. Part of the problem
must be the uneven implementation of NNTP (Network News Transport
Protocol) used to propagate Usenet postings. The original RFC specified
(along with checksums etc.) a "funny bit" in the message header to be
used to indicate when the sender is attempting to be funny. Unfortunately
many implementations of NNTP do not propagate the funny bit and leave
it null, which causes problems at recipient sites. Some people use
smileys as a workaround, a practise which will cause increasing semantic 
confusion if sites upgrade to use the funny bit  - how should one interpret
a positive funny bit *and* a smiley. How does irony fit into all of this?

However, I have made some progress in locating the Starry Wisdom Press. It
turns out that they are tenants of the once deserted church on Federal Hill
which Lovecraft describes in "The Haunter of the Dark", a church once home
to the "disliked and unorthodox Starry Wisdom sect prior to 1877". Lovecraft
provides a useful and detailed description of the place:

"Of all the distant objects on Federal Hill, a certain huge, dark church
most fascinated Blake. It stood out with especial distinctness at certain
hours of the day, and at sunset the great tower and tapering steeple loomed
blackly against the flaming sky. It seemed to rest on especially high ground;
for the grimy facade, and the obliquely seen north side with sloping roof
and the tops of great pointed windows, rose boldly above the tangle of
surrounding ridgepoles and chimneypots. Peculiarly grim and austere, it
appeared to be built of stone, stained and weathered with the smoke and
storms of a century and more. The style, so far as the glass could show,
was that earliest experimental form of Gothic revival which preceded the
Upjohn period and held over some of the outlines and proportions of the
Georgian age."

Interestingly enough, Lovecraft records that the church held a large
collection of occult manuscripts in the vestry - Necronomicon, Liber
Ivonis, Cultes des Goules, Unaussprechlichen Kulten, De Vermis
Mysteriis, Pnakotic Manuscripts, and the Book of Dzyan, and I expect
that if the Starry Wisdom Press have access to these they will be doing
a series of reprints, as well as the existing commentaries by the likes
of Justin Geoffry. I haven't had a chance to check the address, living
as I do on the mysterious plateau of Leng, but I guess anyone in
Providence shouldn't have too much trouble locating the place.

Colin
From: oispeggy@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Peggy Brown)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Detailed notes on Merlin Tarot Workshop with R.J. Stewart
Date: 21 Aug 92 02:17:00 GMT
Distribution: alt
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Aug21.000542.7490@henson.cc.wwu.edu>, n9140397@henson.cc.wwu.edu (Michael J. Hamilton) writes...
>In article <1992Aug19.144743.24898@gdr.bath.ac.uk> mascdb@gdr.bath.ac.uk (C D Burdorf) writes:
>>In article <keYNWJy00iUx05gIcP@andrew.cmu.edu> ak32+@andrew.cmu.edu (Ann Laurel Kopchik) writes:

Another fan of grail legends, merlin, & RJ appears:

RE: On which ancient texts did RJ Stewart base his Merlin Tarot.
>>
>Which ANCIENT texts... I'm also honestly curious.
> 
>Dymen

The main text:    The Vita Merlini by Geoffrey of Monmouth, 1150

           also:  The Life of Merlin Ambrosius  by Thomas Heywood, 1641
                  Historia by William of Newburgh, 1190

assistance from: The Legendary History of Britain by JSP Tatlock, 1950

More information about sources can be found in Stewart's The 
Prophetic Vision of Merlin and The Mystic Life of Merlin.

About that tarot deck, save your money, unless you really want to 
spend a lot of time figuring it out (which I'm still doing) :).  
I'm not kidding.  I can deal with fish, snakes, deer, and birds
instead of cups, wands, etc...; but it gets worse....

o The major arcana is great.  
o The minor arcana boring.   
o What the $#$@@# are these ace cards!  Like the stag with 3 
  circles over its head?   Yo, Chris!  Ask RJ why the ace cards are 
  not explained in the book.  They're listed in the index, but 
  when you turn to the page, they're not mentioned at all.
o And most pressing of all, why are the cards numbered unlike cards on any 
  other deck?  I had to write in the quabala numbers myself in 
  pencil.  Also, I use Dion Fortune's Mystical quabala to 
  interpret stuff, especially for the court cards and the minor 
  arcana, because RJ's book doesn't explain these either.  (I 
  suspect he was dealing with a tight deadline where the book
  is concerned.)


- Peggy -
From: kc2z+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kevin W. Cooney)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Is Magick worth the effort??
Date: 21 Aug 92 20:06:10 GMT
 <BsGwAA.4Mp@news.cso.uiuc.edu> <UeVm9sS00Vo9QDW_54@andrew.cmu.edu>
	<BstKFI.Kz6@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Organization: Sophomore, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

I'm back from vacation, and I finally caught-up on alt.magic.  :)

oispeggy@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Peggy Brown) writes:
> You can refer to my experiences as interesting, and I do not consider 
> them to be out of the ordinary either.
> 
> If I were to post these experiences and call them magick, it 
> would not surprise me if someone else responded that they were 
> not.

Would you call your expericances magic?  I'm just curious.

> You may have noticed that there are more definitions of magick on 
> this board than Crowley's.

I do not hold to any specific definition of magic so far.  Here are a
few I've looked at (the names are arbitrary, and though up of just now):

1)  The human one: Magic is applied will.  Magic is inherently related
to us as humans.
2)  The historical one:  Magic is anything not currently considered
science (what is now science was once magic)
3)  The useful one:  Magic is making things happen not using (known)
science.  Called "useful" because calling everything magic makes magic
lose it's meaning.

The three definitions are related.  Note that these are just
defintions for a word, and not meant to say that anything else is not
"magic".

-Kevin

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
kc2z+@andrew.cmu.edu		"If I disappear, don't call me rash...
	Belfore			 I was never here, never here"
[B0 t w- g(+) k+? s+? h- vp]	 -_Already_Dead_, Vastly Untapped
From: Gerald_Del_Campo@sorinc.UUCP (Gerald Del Campo)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Liber XLIV - The Mass of the Phoenix
Distribution: world
Date: 20 Aug 92 15:05:21 PDT
Organization: Shades of Reality BBS - Medford, Oregon

In a message dated Thu 20 Aug 92  5:11, ba@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (B.A.
Davis-Howe) wrote:

 BD> And my flatmate cringes at the thought of people actually rubbing
bread
 BD> in an open wound.  Having lots of nurses in his family, he is well
 BD> trained in sanitation and health.  "Gangrene, anyone?" :-)

Kinda gives "yeast infection" a completely different meaning.  I just can't
imagine having to rub my chest with Vagisil <G>.

Love is the Law.
Gerald

-- Via DLG Pro v0.992
From: mkkuhner@phylo.genetics.washington.edu (Mary K. Kuhner)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Brainwashing
Date: 13 Aug 92 18:30:01 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

Specific criticisms:

Statements are made in the article which are so sweeping it seems
impossible that they are known to be true.  "No one in the history of
humanity has ever realized or acknowledged they were brainwashed"?  

Buzzwords are thrown around for the obvious purpose of impressing/
frightening the reader, not to enhance understanding.  What does
'psycho-physical' mean?  Why throw it out without definition?

The author spends a tremendous amount of time trying to impress the
reader with his power and erudition, rather than presenting evidence for
his views.  Things like EEG readings are used to give an impression of
scientific rigor, but no evidence is presented that, for example, alpha
state really equates to high suggestibility.  Statistics are used in the
same way.  So people are 50% more suggestible under certain
circumstances.  Sounds awful--what does it mean, really?

My gut feeling is that the article's more useful as an example of the
very pressure tactics and dishonesty it claims to expose (though in a
different medium than the music-and-sound tricks it focusses on) than as
a real discussion of mind control techniques.

Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@genetics.washington.edu
From: mcmorris@vet.vet.purdue.edu (brandywine)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Benign magic spells (empathy?)
Summary: why empathy shouldn't be played with
Keywords: responsibility, unfair, careful what you wish on someone else...
Date: 20 Aug 92 14:12:55 GMT
Organization: Purdue University SVM


Empathy *can* infact be dangerous to the person not use to feeling
someone else's feelings.  By it's very definition, it means *feeling*
what another person is feeling.  Not thinking, not understanding.

If I feel hate for person A, and person A picks that up from me
empathically, they will be feeling hate for themselves.... not a
pretty sight.

If I make another person feel *my* feelings, I am essentially saying
that *my* feelings are more important that her or his feelings.  That
is making a bad statement about me and about control.  After all, if
you are trying to control another person thru Magick, then you must be
ready to accept responsibility for that person's actions.

And trying to control another person is unfair, difficult and probably
will lead to some ugliness if they ever find out.

If you have power, or ability, or talent... there is a reason you have
it and another person does it.  It is not *right* or desirable to be
using the power, the gifts you have been given to make the world over
according to your view.  

The original post concerning this seemed to come from an individual
trying to make things a little better in their corner of the world.
THat is admirable. I just said empathy was not the way, in my opinion,
that this could best be served.

Before a person wishes that kind of stress and pain on another person,
they should try it themselves.  Be empathic without barriers for a day,
and you will understand what I mean. Better yet, try a shopping mall
or a Guns and Roses concert and pick up the feelings there without
barriers or emotional protection.

But take a friend so they can pick up the pieces you fall into.

-brandywine
From: mascdb@gdr.bath.ac.uk (C D Burdorf)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Detailed notes on Merlin Tarot Workshop with R.J. Stewart
Date: 19 Aug 92 14:41:49 GMT
Distribution: alt
Organization: School of Mathematics, University of Bath, UK

In article <16rcvhINNc3u@early-bird.think.com> cward@Think.COM (Christopher Ward) writes:
>In article <1992Aug18.144339.118@gdr.bath.ac.uk>, mascdb@gdr.bath.ac.uk (C D Burdorf) writes:
>
>I wonder if Stewart is using the archetypal images and themes as manifested
>in celtic lore and Authurian legend but presenting them in the Tarot card
>format.  This could explain his claims of predating the usual 13th century
>date for Tarot deck origin.

That's pretty much what he told us as I recall.  I just didn't 
express it too well.

>
>Does that mean you didn't get anywhere but got stuck on the wheel of
>fortune? ;-)
>
 
Yeah, I guess so.  It's just me old head spinning (on the wheel that is).
Hopefully, I can learn how to get beyond the wheel through the future
workshops. It's a nice feeling and all, but if there's more to it than that,
I'd like to experience it.

Chris
From: mascdb@gdr.bath.ac.uk (C D Burdorf)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Detailed notes on Merlin Tarot Workshop with R.J. Stewart
Date: 19 Aug 92 14:47:43 GMT
Distribution: alt
Organization: University of Bath, England

In article <keYNWJy00iUx05gIcP@andrew.cmu.edu> ak32+@andrew.cmu.edu (Ann Laurel Kopchik) writes:

>
>>He said that modern tarot understanding is mostly based on work
>>done by victorians (Waite, Mathers, Crowley, etc.) which were
>>intellectuals coming from strict disciplinarian regimented 
>>backgrounds that sought to bring order to the cards, but missed
>>out on much of the spiritual aspects partly because many ancient
>>texts that weren't available then are available now.
>
>?? Which texts are these?  (This is not a flame, but honest curiosity)  

According to Stewart, most of the modern tarot books are based on
the work by the big three (Waite, Mathers, and Crowley).  Certainly
any Golden Dawn type of Tarot is based on their work.  Crowley's Book
of Thoth is the only one I know of off hand.

>> 
>>Merlin lives his life backwards through time.  
>
>
>I've seen the poems of Taliesin (sometimes thought to be a contemperary
>of Merlin)... I've never seen any writings attributed to Merlin.  I'll
>agree that he is presented as a prophet child in many of the myths.  
>
>However, I have never seen Merlin portrayed as living backward in any of
>the myths and lore I've read.  I've only seen it in T. H. White's "The
>Once and Future King" and Arthurian fiction written after T.H. White. 
>Besides, living backwards (if it was possibe) would cause all sorts of
>probblems... How would you interact with other human beings?  (Think
>about it for a while... It wouldn't be as simple as loosing a year of
>age every year... you'd be living *all* time backward.

I'll try and get his reference for this.  It's something that
I don't understand myself.

Chris
Newsgroups: alt.magick
From: shava@hermes.oit.unc.edu (Shava Nerad Averett)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: The Fool and the Sphinx
Date: 16 Aug 92 17:36:38 GMT
Organization: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

The Sphinx and the Fool were standing at a vista, looking over the edge
together.

S:	Why do you even bother to try to talk about these things?  It only
gets you in trouble.  You look like a fool.

F:	What else should I look like?  What's more, why should I be afraid
to look like a Fool?

S:	You only add confusion and chaos.  Even those who understand what
you are talking about don't really have a way to concur.  You may as well
be silent.  *I* have always promoted silence as the best option.

F:	For a while, I decided silence was the best option, because every-
thing I tried to say was idiotic-sounding.  Any of it, if you didn't under-
stand it already (and sometimes even if you did), sounded like the ravings
of a lunatic!  How could I possibly believe I could teach, or even discuss,
such things?  How could I be so arrogant as to believe that I had anything
useful to say?

S:	Such a course seems wise to me.  'The way that can be spoken is not
the true Way."  Besides, why should you expend energy on something with
so little personal return?

F:	(smiling shyly)  Well, for one thing, I write for myself as much
for anyone else.  But for another, I was happily not writing, and studying
on my own, when I realized how many of my teachers were authors.  Eliade,
Lao Tsu, Ken Wilbur, Franklin Jones (et al), RAW, AC, Frank Waters,...  I
could go on, but you might as well come look at my library.  Every one of
them decided to apologize to you and forge ahead.  I feel like I have a
good synthetic understanding of some of these folks.  And I am very grate-
ful to them.  Isn't it the duty of the student to pass on hir understanding?
To refine it?

S:	(looking over the edge)  It's a long way down.  Are you sure you
know where you're going? (flicks a pebble into the abyss with one very
sharp claw, shrugs)  I remain conservative.

F:	(shrugs, looks over the edge)  I've seen this often enough, it 
looks familiar.  What, me worry? (steps over the edge, with the sphinx
dogging hir heels)

-- 
Shava Nerad Averett				shava_averett@unc.edu
/*  all materials (c)1992, Shava Nerad Averett, and have nothing significant
    to do with the University of North Carolina, a mostly owned subsidiary 
    of the NC Legislature, a mostly owned subsidiary of the DOT.      */
Newsgroups: alt.magick
From: cigp07@vaxa.strath.ac.uk
Subject: Liber XLIV - The Mass of the Phoenix
Organization: Strathclyde University VAX Cluster
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 15:40:50 GMT

LIBER XLIV - The Mass of the Phoenix

The Magician, his breast bare, stands before an altar on which are his Burin,
Bell, Thurible, and two of the Cakes of Light. In the Sign of the Enterer he
reaches West across the Altar, and cries:

	Hail Ra, that goest in thy bark
	Into the caverns of the Dark!

He gives the Sign of Silence, and takes the Bell, and Fire, in his hands:

	East of the Altar see me stand
	With light and musick in my hand!

He strikes Eleven times upon the Bell 333-55555-333(1) and places the Fire
in the Thurible:

	I strike the Bell: I light the Flame;
	I utter the mysterious Name.

			ABRAHADABRA

He strikes eleven times upon the Bell.

	Now I begin to pray: Thou Child,
	Holy Thy name and undefiled!
	Thy reign is come; Thy Will is done.
	Here is the Bread; here is the Blood.
	Bring me through midnight to the Sun!
	Save me from Evil and from Good!
	That Thy one crown of all the Ten
	Even now and here be mine. AMEN.

He puts the first Cake on the Fire of the Thurible.

	I burn the Incense-cake, proclaim
	These adorations of Thy name.

He makes them as in Liber Legis, and strikes again Eleven times upon the Bell.
With the Burin he then makes upon his breast the proper sign.

	Behold this bleeding breast of mine
	Gashed with the sacramental sign!

He puts the second Cake to the wound
	
	I stanch the Blood; the wafer soaks
	It up, and the high priest invokes!

He eats the second Cake.

	This Bread I eat. This Oath I swear
	As I enflame myself with prayer:
	'There is no grace: there is no guilt:
	 This is the Law: DO WHAT THOU WILT!'

He strikes Eleven times upon the Bell, and cries:

		ABRAHADABRA

	I entered in with woe; with mirth
	I now go forth, and with thanksgiving,
	To do my pleasure on the earth
	Among the legions of the living.

He goeth forth.

NOTES: 

1) Saturn and Mars are the planetary representatives of the current which the
   Magician is invoking by this battery of knocks. Eleven is the number of 
   Magick; he therefore strikes eleven times in a balanced series of threes
   and fives, three being the number of Saturn, five of Mars. See a Tree of
   Life diagram.

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     *            	V.
                        cigp07@vaxa.strath.ac.uk
 *	 *              acarty@cs.strath.ac.uk

   *   *		"Convictions cause convicts"

What is real??                           - Principia Discordia
From: cranmer@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: I Ching and Magick Squares (Long)
Date: 17 Aug 92 09:23:52 EDT

Hello,

Tagi@cup.portal.com (Tagi Mordred Nagashiva) writes...

> A) What is the logic behind King Wen's arrangement of the I Ching?
>
> B) Are there many configurations of an 8 x 8 magick square in which the 
> central diagonals also add to the same total as the columns and rows??  
> How many, if so?  Is there a method to construct them?

Not that I am really *recommending* this source, but Jose Arguelles' book
_Earth_Ascending_ contains a similar 'exploration' of the I Ching and
magic squares.  He also includes ancient Mayan calendrics/mathematics.

Here's something you can try - based on stuff in that book.  Try to trace
'lineal' figures through the magic squares, starting at 1 and weaving your
way through to 64, or whatever.  You come out with some neat-looking
shapes suggestive of mandalas.  Hmmm, I'm curious to see what would happen
if you trace out the original King Wen sequence, but with the square's
correspondences in the 'Leibnitz' order (i.e. trace: 2,10,13,46,24,...).
Hmmm... I think I'm going to try it!

Why 'Leibnitz,' by the way?  I'm not familiar with any work he did with
binary number systems.  Hmmm, 'Boolean' sounds more like it to me.

(By the way, the reason I am hesitant to 'heartily' recommend Arguelles is
 his penchance to be kind of a publicity hound - remember the 'Harmonic
 Convergence'? :-) Also his predictions of exact dates for worldwide
 phenomena smacks of tabloid psychic predictions.  He writes some neat
 stuff, if you take it with a grain of salt....)
____________________________________________________________________________
   "Hold your fire -- Keep it burning bright,
    Hold the flame 'til the dream ignites --
    A spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission!"   - N. Peart

                                  Steve Cranmer
                                  cranmer@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu
From: joshua@cpac.washington.edu (Joshua Geller)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Magical Power(book)
Date: 14 Aug 92 13:25:38 GMT
	<BsxqDs.Gn8@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Organization: Institute for the Study of Ancient Science


In article <BsxqDs.Gn8@acsu.buffalo.edu> oispeggy@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Peggy 
Brown) writes:

   I think Leo's definition of magick is fitting "Magick is all the 
   things that _work_ that aren't science."  Yet.  I added the 
   "yet". :)

let's not forget that magick used to be perfectly good science.
kepler, tycho brahe, newton, robert hook all did work in one or
more disciplines that would today be called magickal. john dee
(who surely needs no introduction to the readers of this newsgroup)
was, during his lifetime, more famous as a scientist than as a 
magician (see 'The Mathematicall Preface to the Elements of Euclid
of Megara', which also gives a very good idea of what was considered
science in the mid sixteenth century). 400 years is not that long a
time ago as these things are reckoned.

josh
From: amanda@INTERCON.COM (Amanda Walker)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
Date: 20 Aug 92 22:38:47 GMT

friday@netcom.com (Carol Anne Ogdin) writes:
> Gad, me too!  There are some real weirdos who've been through NLP, and
> then I get tarred by the same brush

Well, sorry if I've contributed to that tarring :), but so far you're the 
most articulate NLP propenent I've met...

> "Frogs into Princes" is a very poorly written book.  Basically, Richard
> Bandler doesn't write, but he does great f2f work.

This would explain some of my poor reaction to his written works.  I tend to 
associate fuzzy writing with fuzzy thinking in the absence of other evidence, 
even though I do know that the two are not necessarily correlated.


Peace,

Amanda Walker
From: amanda@INTERCON.COM (Amanda Walker)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)
Date: 19 Aug 92 04:09:14 GMT

> No, Amanda, it isn't my responsibility to justify NLP, or to "explain 
> what's new."

Granted.  Neither is it, however, our obligation to take your claims at face 
value, particularly when your qualifications are from within the system you 
are promoting.  Proof by assertion doesn't work for you either, especially 
with an audience which is rather better informed than the general public on 
the topics in question.

> I offered you a challenge, from the perspective of 
> experience, qualifications and knowledge.  Hurling words without 
> substance cuts no ice with me. 

Which I have responded to with a hundred-or-so line posting.  I look forward 
to your response.

> I'd be happy to reiterate my challenge:  If you'll quote something you 
> believe to be inappropriate, I can tell you whether, in my experience it 
> is part of NLP.

To summarize my major objection: the misrepresentation of linguistics and 
psychological theory, in particular overreaching claims regarding 
transformational grammar, sensory channel matching, Ericksonian hypnotherapy, 
and so on.

If my posting of this afternoon is not sufficient to get things started, I 
will be happy to prepare a detailed criticism of NLP.  You can even pick the 
source materials, if you'd like, since I wouldn't want to be accused of 
making a biased selection...


Amanda Walker
amanda@intercon.com
-- 
"An ignorance of history is not just stupid, it's rude."    --Paul Jennett