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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.pagan.magick,alt.magick,alt.magick.goetia
From: nagasiva 
Subject: Classic Evocation Sources? (was Runyon ...)
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 09:24:48 GMT

50010816 VI! om Hail Satan! Hail Yes!

Poke Runyon (Gnomedplume@aol.com):
>>>>>> Ellwood's and Holzer's books were a great deal more important
>>>>>> and well known than Nelson's. Kraig's ignorance of them is
>>>>>> remarkable.)

nagasiva: 
>> I'm not sure that this is true. 

sri catyananda :
> I am sure that this is true. 

sorry for any unclarity, what I meant was I wasn't sure if the
ignorance was remarkable. you seem to have similar ideas, 
especially in an analysis of age and exposure.

> Nelson White's book was a home-made little
> thing. The other books cited were published by Doubleday, Manor, Bantam,
> etc. -- all MAJOR houses at the time. Nelson White published what was in
> essence a small-press item or fanzine. Holzer was what my mother used to
> call "A Nauthor with a capital N," meaning a writer who made a personal
> spectable of him or herself as well as writing books. 

does seem a tad unbalanced by including White with the classics, 
yet perhaps White had a clear exposition that many classic texts 
to which Kraig had access lacked. I'd suggest that he was 
presenting his own style of magick, rather than attempting to be
exceedingly thorough in presenting that of others.

>> to the practicing mage, reading about Neopaganism 
>> (Holzer) or religion and mysticism (Ellwood)
>> may not be important at all. 

> ...Anything remotely connected with the hippie revival of 
> hermetic occultism was known to the community -- which
> at that time was not so firmly delineated into camps calling 
> themselves "neopagan" versus "magickal."....

I was only trying to focus on the essentials of an overview on
goetic evocation. Kraig's references seem pretty standard,
perhaps with a minor local slant (because of his inclusion of
White's material).

> ...Hans Holzer may be forgotten now by you....

didn't forget the guy, but I wasn't sure how far I could trust
his material, especially when I was told by Wiccans that his
books were trash and by Thelemites that grimoires were far more
important to goetic research than most modern (especially pop-
occult) authors.

> * Poke is telling the truth when he says Holzer's and 
> Ellwood's books were "a great deal more important and 
> well known than Nelson's."

never disputed that. sorry for any unclarity.

> * Poke is speaking from a shared generational perspective when he
> asserts that those books -- which were about neopaganism AND the revival
> of hermeticism, where incredibly well-known in the then mingled neopagan
> and hermetic communities.

but not classics such as were with exceptions noted, listed. 

> Poke calls it "remarkable" that Kriag was unaware of these books -- 
> but perhaps he gives Kraig more credit as a scholar than Kraig 
> deserves, or perhaps Kraig was too young to have witnessed the 
> carnival that accompanied their publication.  I mean, i'm not 
> saying it's "remarkable," but ... it is odd to me. No reason to 
> think Kraig is lying, of course. Kraig came along later, after 
> all the hoopla had died down, maybe he was too young to recall, 
> maybe he never talked to anyone older than himself, maybe he 
> didn't get out much, had few friends? It's possible. 

did he miss any of the classic sources on evocatory magic? would
Levi or Dee or Waite have been reasonable additions? if you want 
to talk about scholarship, I think you'd first have to assemble a
list of classic texts on the subject, see how Kraig's compares in 
terms of upon what he is drawing to write his text, and then, 
given the publisher and his level of expertise, consider whether 
it is really so odd. 

>>>>>>         In Search of Magic and Witchcraft
>>>>>>               by Alan Landsburg
>>>>>>         Bantam Books,  1977
>> 
>> again, not necessarily imperative to a study of Magick.
>
> A book titled "In Search of Magic and Witchcraft" is not "necessarily
> imperative to the study of Magick" (no one book is) 

probably Book Four is, for purists. don't forget we're talking
about a specific chapter on the evocation of spirits.

> -- but it was a BIG SELLER and it had the words MAGIC and 
> WITCHCRAFT right on the cover!

insufficient by my standards, especially as a focussed source on
evocatory magic(k).

>> we're talking about Llewellyn here. thorough research is not the
>> standard of that publisher's texts.

> Well, on that, at least, we do agree. 

we'd probably also agree that there have been few instruction books 
on how to evoke spirits. the directories (grimoires) would be the 
most important, then would come the classic commentaries or
presentations, such as Shah, Waite, maybe even Crowley, then the
more modern commentaries on the classics. the works of magicians
would be valuable as supplementary to fill in practical gaps. as
Kraig was a practicing magician himself, was working with many
others near to him, and seems to have felt he could fill in these
gaps himself, it seems reasonable that an explication on his own
kind of magick would include no additional references to those who
were not a direct influence upon him (through text or practice). 

how does the list I provide above compare to what he's got at the
end of Chapter 9? does the level of research indicated by the list
he provides indicate to you a level of scholarship by which such
minor glitches as a flimsy source might necessitate a revision?

blessed beast!

nagasiva
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