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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.religion.wicca,talk.religion.misc,alt.pagan,alt.magick.order
From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva)
Subject: Various: Parsons and Witchcraft
Date: 23 Dec 1997 21:51:10 -0800

~From: Bill Heidrick 

93,

  Chariot156@aol.com wrote:

>Well, anyway, back to Parsons and witchcraft...
>I once saw a xeroxed booklet of Jack Parsons poetry, and much of the subject
>matter was witchy.

_Songs for the Witch woman_, dedicated to Candida (Cameron Parsons), Jack's
last wife.  It was in an edition of _SOTHis_, maybe Vol. I, no 4., 1974 e.v.

Poems include:

Witch Woman
Night
The Fool
Pan
Stonehenge
The Garden
Danse
Sorcerer
Under the Hill
Narcissus
Aztec
Sabat
Punch
Merlin
Arcadia
Autumn
Farewell Unknown
Passion Flowers
King David
Neurosis
Bierce
Harpocrates
Lesbians
Night Song
The Witch House
Untitled

>Also, if
>anyone read Greenfield's essay about AC and Gardner, it mentions a book by
>Parsons, something like "Witchcraft, Gnosticism and Magick."  I also would
>like to read this.  Where can I find?

These are short papers written by Jack for his classes.

Here's Jack's text of the sign-up form for "The Witchcraft":

   "Registration for course P-1 and application for probationary membership
in the Witchcraft.
   "I hereby apply for probationary membership in the Witchcraft and
registration in the Basic Course, P-1.  I understand that this application
places me under no obligation other than that to study and practice the
basic course with the object of knowing and extending my own powers.  I
further understand that the Witchcraft is a religious, benevolent and
fraternal organization pledged to the ideals of live, of liberty and
universal brotherhood, and having no other religous, social or political
associations or commitments.  I understand that the Witchcraft is under no
obligation to me, other than that of furnishing a basic course of
instruction, consisting of fourteen sections.  I enclose 10 dollars for
these instructions and for probationary membership in The Witchcraft.
                                  "Signed ....
"Age......  Sex .... Occupation .... Religious affiliation....
Organizations....
"Reason for application ...."
                        Approved...."

                        -------------

"Course P-1.  Basic Magick, Fundamental Theory and Practice.  Fourteen
sections with assignments.  10 dollars.
  "Introduction to The Witchcraft, Laws of the ego, the nature of love, the
new eon, the origins of religion, basic rituals, magical weapons, equipment
and symbols, the nature of man and the gods, angels, demons, and
elementals, invocation nad evocation, the understanding and expression of
the true self.
   "For registration in class instruction or extension courses write The
Witchcraft. P.O. Box ..."  (That's where my copy ends, no completion of the
address.

Parsons wrote a "Manifesto of the Witchcraft" -- two pages double spaced.
He also wrote one page, same form "The Gnostic Church" and a two page
combination "The Gnostic Creed" and "The Gnostic Doctrine".

   I believe these and other papers will be coming out in about a year,
from Looking Glass Press in Sweden, with the permission of the Cameron
Parsons estate.

=====================================================

Tim Maroney :

>Well, anyway, back to Parsons and witchcraft...

Thanks. I was beginning to think one of the periodic storms of vitriol 
here had utterly loosed this topic from its moorings.

>I once saw a xeroxed booklet of Jack Parsons poetry, and much of the subject
>matter was witchy.  I have since lost contact with the people who showed it
>to me, and I would love to be able to get ahold of them again.  Also, if
>anyone read Greenfield's essay about AC and Gardner, it mentions a book by
>Parsons, something like "Witchcraft, Gnosticism and Magick."  I also would
>like to read this.  Where can I find?

"Freedom Is a Two-Edged Sword", an O.T.O. collection a few years back in 
wide circulation in Thelemic circles, contains Parson's writing on "the 
witchcraft".

Again, though, there is a common error in studying these subjects. Any 
number of people and groups may have independently turned the eclectic 
reclaiming engine to this traditional myth. I believe from the testimony 
and from the personal attacks on witches in his work that Crowley did 
have contact with a group of "witches" in his youth, though it is not yet 
possible to identify it. Dion Fortune, Maiya Tranchell-Hayes and J. W. 
Brodie-Innes are all known to have had strong interests in the subject. 
When we dig up one of them it does not follow that we have discovered the 
fabled pre-Gardnerian witchcraft tradition. There were almost certainly 
several, and none of them is necessarily a direct Gardnerian ancestor; 
the Gardnerian system may represent another original reclamation of the 
witch legend. Greenfield's hypothesis is like saying any two Neo-Pagan 
rituals using Norse deities in the same half-decade must be connected to 
each other.

It's similar to Michael Rae's searching for "the Golden Dawn sex magic 
teaching." What is mistaken in the emphasis on the singular article. 
There are at least four distinct Golden Dawn sex magic teachings in the 
written record -- Randolph/HBL, T. L. Harris, Cromlech Temple, and 
Moina's celibacy -- and some overlap between GD members and other sexual 
circles would not be surprising, given the Continental Freemasonic and 
occult connections of Westcott, the Mathers couple, and others. Not 
everything dealing with a set of related subjects reveals an underlying 
unified tradition. If there is any evidence of texts and major themes in 
common between Parsons and Gardner, rather than their both reclaiming the 
traditional theme of witchcraft as other occultists before them had done, 
I'd like to hear about it. My own reading hasn't discovered any such 
evidence of contact.

==============================

Bill Heidrick :

Nexist {DAR}  wrote:

>> _Songs for the Witch woman_, dedicated to Candida (Cameron Parsons), Jack's
>> last wife.  It was in an edition of _SOTHis_, maybe Vol. I, no 4., 1974
e.v.
>
>Is this nettable anywhere?

Not without Cameron Parsons estate permission.

What is _SOTHis_, can I get it anywhere?

It was a UK Thelemic periodical of the 1970's.  It tended to favor Grantian
and Tantric approaches.  It's long out of print.

>> "Course P-1.  Basic Magick, Fundamental Theory and Practice.  Fourteen
>> sections with assignments.  10 dollars.
>
>Did he ever complete the courses?  Are tehy accessable anywhere?

Aside from fragments and short pieces, I don't know.  Jack's papers were
not well conserved.  Jane Wolfe copied some, which I have in part.  Cameron
kept others, which will be published.  Quite a lot was lost for
understandable reasons, following Jack's mother's suicide (days after the
yellow press coverage of his death).  Cameron had a prolonged homeless
period, complicated by emotional depression, following Jack's death.  Jane
helped her when she could, but papers do not easily survive such
conditions.  Jane herself apparently had developing altzheimers or
something similar in those days.

>> Parsons wrote a "Manifesto of the Witchcraft" -- two pages double spaced.
>> He also wrote one page, same form "The Gnostic Church" and a two page
>> combination "The Gnostic Creed" and "The Gnostic Doctrine".
>
>Some of these are in _Freedom_,  I believe that "Manifesto" and "Creed" are
>there.

Content of _Freedom is a Two Edged Sword_:

Introduction
Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword
On Magick
Basic Magick: Fundamental Theory and Practice
The Gnostic Credd
The Gnostic Doctrine
Manifesto of the Witchcraft
The Witchcraft
The Children
The Cup, the Sword and The Crux Ansata
Genderal Field Theory
Analysis of the Ring
The Star of Babalon
Bibliography.

Except for the poetry and the application form I copied in my earlier post,
the items I cited are in there.  Much of the material in "Freedom.."
appears to be from P-1.  Michael Stailey published some of Jack's
correspondence, occasionally out of context and with a bit of "spin", in an
edition of _Starfire_.

=======================================

EOF
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