Michael Wynn's Occult Reference Library
SPIRITUALIST,SPIRITUALISTS

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ALEISTER CROWLEY EQUINOX EQ I 2

sser knaveries of the liberal professions. but i have no doubts. let the investigator study his own brain on the lines i have laid down, possibly in the first place with the aid of hashish or some better physical expedient, to overcome the dull scepticism which is begotten of idleness upon ignorance; it is useless to study the no-brain of another, on the strength of a reputation for fraud, as the spiritualist investigators seem to do. your own brain is the best; next, the trained and vigorous brains of clever and educated men, in perfect health, honest and wary. 88 you will get more from them than you will from some maudlin hysteric professional mountebank. all talk to the contrary is the merest froth; mohammed was a great lawgiver and a great fighter; try your experiment with the sane, an

ALEISTER CROWLEY EQUINOX EQ I 3 3

is small "passons" some time before her sudden death mrs. ridley had had a guest in her house whose unaffected manners had much offended the dignity of the male servants. he was said to be a distant relation of the late big-gun maker, james ridley. but he was "not" the late ridley had no relations whatever on earth_ at least among human beings. i happen to know that the so- called relation was a spiritualist. this sounds bad enough. was mrs. ridley in agreement with him or was she not? it is nothing more than a question. suppress the query, give the mere words another place in the sentence and you have two affirmations "she was" or "she was not" how 290 infinitely clearer is the point! any intellectual bloodhound ought to find out which is "the" affirmation. that is, if the so-called rela

nd you would to-day probably be doing your best not to improve upon the action which was the resultant of those thoughts. i say'"not to improve' because we are human, all of us "as it is, you were a redskin in north america, your name was 'faim de loup' and you are placed in such circumstances that you must find it difficult not to fall again into your old uncivilised ways "now, mrs. ridley was a spiritualist. and she was not a widow! her husband was not dead! he was the great gun-maker whom you know, and whose obsequies you may remember. his coffin contained but another man's remains "love, my dear sir, is a much-mistaken phenomenon, which only perhaps the most loutish among us could understand because of its very simplicity. love belongs to the spiritual world; it is an attraction, based

n moving sand, utterly impossible and unexistent; and they will have to release him, in spite of apparent elements of certainty which have for so long misled the public_ aye, and even the police. from "to-day's" papers "the man arrested in connection with the brighton murder has confessed. he will be tried at the next assizes" well! maybe he is a new mikolka. but where is the absent relative, the spiritualist? george raffalovich 303 reviews the cloud on the sanctuary. by councillor von eckartshausen. william rider and son. we shall be very sorry if any of our readers misses this little book, a translation from the french translation of the german original into the pretty broken english of madame de steyer. it was this book which first made your reviewer aware of the existence of a secret m

other, it showed that you would commit forgery. the authorities once sent him a photograph of a murderer, and he proved that not only was he bound to murder somebody, but to do it in just that special way. by an accident, the 75 photograph was that of a blameless grocer, an arthur henry hallam of grocers. but he went galumphing on with his monomania, until senile decay supervened, and he became a spiritualist. now he is dead, like max nordau_ ed] printed by ballantyne& co, limited, london books of interest to occult students strange houses of sleep. by arthur edward waite. with frontispiece portrait of the author. fcap. 4to, parchment gilt. printed at the ballantyne press. 12s. net. limited edition of 250 copies, signed and numbered. part i. shadows of sacraments; part ii. the hidden sacra

ALEISTER CROWLEY EQUINOX EQ I 3

of dislocation which some acrobats have taught themselves to perform are to sane gymnastics? for this reason i prefer to consider this abnormal condition of the spirit as a true "grace" as a magic mirror wherein man is invited to see himself at his best; that is to say, as that which he should be, and might be; a kind of angelic excitement; a rehabilitation of the most flattering type. a certain spiritualist school, largely represented in england and america, even considers supernatural phenomena, such as the apparition of phantoms, ghosts &c, as manifestations of the divine will, ever anxious to awaken in the spirit of man the memory of invisible truths. besides this charming and singular state, where all the forces are balanced; where the imagination, though enormously powerful, does no

ALEX SANDERS THE KING OF THE WITCHES

rom the moon, knowing that witch law proscribes individual work. little use to reason that his gran had been doing just that when he had first discovered her as a witch. alex was very young still, and very unsure of himself, all he could do .was watch and wait until someone gave the sign that he would surely recognize. 29 4 all mown tbe ptrttll when alex was seventeen he met a girl who was a keen spiritualist. learning of his interest in the occult she invited him to a m eting: he was curious to see if it had' anything in commo with witchcrafe, and went along with her. during the evenmg a medium in a trance singled him out 'i see horns on your head' she murmured. there was a ripple oflaughter; horns could mean he was a cuckold. but alex knew them as the ymbol of witchcraft and was impresse

ited him to a m eting: he was curious to see if it had' anything in commo with witchcrafe, and went along with her. during the evenmg a medium in a trance singled him out 'i see horns on your head' she murmured. there was a ripple oflaughter; horns could mean he was a cuckold. but alex knew them as the ymbol of witchcraft and was impressed by such perception. he went along to every meeting at the spiritualist church and before long he was being trained as a medium. fit .hea:t he felt h; was cheatin, for. while they talked of going into a trance, he was working witchcraft. but what did it matter, he asked himself? the end product was the same a .glimpse into the future, and he was not disobeying the witch law by working alone. witho t tellin his companions he was using powers taught him by

g the witch law by working alone. witho t tellin his companions he was using powers taught him by his grandmother, he began healing. there was. a woman who suffered from fibrositis in her back' a man whose face was disfigured with a twitch; in all about a dozen cases. it was nothing to alex; with his gran he had practised the same cures in aid of her neighbours almost 30 ten years ago. but to his spiritualist friends this was magic indeed. word spread and the little church was inundated with appeals for cures. glad to be able to use his gifts, alex spent nearly every night laying his hands on troubled bodies. there was nothing in it for him save the glow of satisfaction, the happiness in being needed, but those who were cured showed their gratitude to the church. money poured in; the build

swift succession the pictures flashed by. 31 lying awake long into the night, he tried to reason how he, a low-paid, poorly educated analytical chemist living in a near-slum, could ever come to afford such lavish parties, and he shied away at the thought of another death. his father was now a permanent invalid, but the death in his vision seemed to be that of a woman. since his activities in the spiritualist church kept him busy and he was happy enough at work, where he compared modern formulae for patent medicines with age-old recipes of witchcraft-sometimes to the former's disadvantagealex was unaware at first that his marriage was beginning to break up. doreen leaned heavily on her mother, who disliked alex, and neither little paul nor, later, babyjanice did anything to cement the marr

efused to be drawn on details. alex cheered up when the others arrived and the hostess told the assembled party of eight that they would now cast the circle. once again he was disappointed, however, for instead of bringing out the sword and athame, the altar and the pentacles, as he and his grandmother had done on their own, the group assembled dining chairs and made a circle similar to that of a spiritualist meeting. tentatively alex questioned the rites but the participants sincerely believed that they were practising witchcraft. perhaps he was the only witch left. time has taught alex that many covens use rituals quite different from those handed down by his grandmother, but most of them do have basic similarities, like the names of the guardians of the watchtowers, the symbolic cardina

ALICE A BAILEY19 THE UNFINISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHY

of us had long, interesting talks. one of the things i feel we both deeply realised in that friendship was that under the skin we are all alike, and that whether you are of royal blood or the lowest type of human being socially, we have the same likes and dislikes, the same pains and sorrows, the same sources of happiness and the same urge to go forward spiritually. the grand duke was a convinced spiritualist and we used to have quite entertaining times holding little seances in alice's huge living-room. one afternoon mr. roumanoff called my husband up, asking if my husband and i were free that evening and if so would we be responsible for taking the grand duke to the two places where he had to speak. we were glad to do so and took him where he had to go and at the close of his talk rescue

BLAVATSKY H P ANTHROPOGENESIS

ed to write books and to mislead less far-sighted students of the kabala[[footnote(s* such a pseudo-kabalist was the marquis de mirville in france, who, having studied the zohar and other old remnants of jewish wisdom under the "chevalier" drach, an ancient rabbi kabalist converted to the romish church- wrote with his help half a dozen volumes full of slander and calumnies against every prominent spiritualist and kabalist. from 1848 up to 1860 he persecuted unrelentingly the old count d'ourches, one of the earliest eastern occultists in france, a man the scope of whose occult knowledge will never be appreciated correctly by his survivors, because he screened his real beliefs and knowledge under the mask of spiritism[[vol. 2, page] 477 the genesis of the devil. may we not then be permitted

BLAVATSKY H P COSMOGENESIS

which dispels ignorance, that man becomes like one of the elohim or the dhyanis; and once on their plane the spirit of solidarity and perfect harmony, which reigns in every hierarchy, must extend over him and protect him in every particular. the chief difficulty which prevents men of science from believing in divine as well as in nature spirits is their materialism. the main impediment before the spiritualist which hinders him from believing in the same, while preserving a blind belief in the "spirits" of the departed, is the general ignorance of all, except some occultists and kabalists, about the true essence and nature of matter. it is on the acceptance or rejection of the theory of the unity of all in nature, in its ultimate essence, that mainly rests the belief or unbelief in the exis

to a state of motion can give no idea of the substance. if force is the result of motion, then it becomes incomprehensible why that motion should become witness to matter and not to spirit or a spiritual essence. true, our reason cannot conceive of a motion minus something moving (and our reason is right; but the nature or esse of that something moving remains to science entirely unknown; and the spiritualist, in such case, has as much right to attribute it to a "spirit" as a materialist to creative and all-potential matter. a materialist has no special privileges in this instance, nor can he claim any. the law of the conservation of energy, as thus seen, is shown to be illegitimate in its pretensions and claims in this case. the "great dogma- no force without matter and no matter without

mistry, as it now stands reformed. there is no other, not excluding astronomy, that can so unerringly guide scientific intuition, as chemistry can. two proofs of it are to be found in the world of science- two great chemists, each among the greatest in his own country, and these are mr. crookes and the late professor butlerof: one, a thorough believer in abnormal phenomena; the other, as fervid a spiritualist as he was great in natural sciences. it becomes evident that while pondering over the ultimate divisibility of matter, and in the hitherto fruitless chase after the element of negative atomic weight, the scientifically trained mind of the chemist must feel irresistibly drawn towards those ever-shrouded worlds, to the mysterious beyond, whose measureless depths seem to close against th

s said, because it teaches mysteries. mystery is the negation of common sense, and science repels it. according to mr. tyndall, metaphysics is fiction, like poetry. the man of science takes nothing on trust; rejects everything that is not proven to him, while the theologian accepts everything on blind faith. the theosophist and the occultist, who take nothing on trust, not even exact science, the spiritualist who denies dogma but believes in spirits and in invisible but potential influences, all share in the same contempt. very well, then; what we have to do now, is to examine for the last time whether exact science does not act precisely in the same way as theosophy, spiritualism, and theology do. in a work by mr. s. laing, considered a standard book on science "modern science and modern

CHIREAU YVONNE BLACK MAGIC RELIGION AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN CONJURING TRADITION

of the church of god in christ (pentecostal, bishop c. h. mason, with "god's handiworks in nature" early twentieth century. photo courtesy sherry sherrod dupree collection, university of florida, gainesville\ 91\ 4 "medical doctors can't do you no good" conjure and african american traditions of healing in the mid twentieth century the reverend addie battle, pastor of the mount zion holy trinity spiritualist church of cleveland, ohio, rendered an account of her life "i was born of farming parents on january 15, 1903, near tuskegee, alabama" she began "i had three older brothers and five older sisters" toiling in the rugged cotton fields of the alabama black belt, addie and her family saw few material returns from their labor "most of the time we had almost nothing to eat because our crops

cured her "i sent my husband a telegram and he sent for me. he was still running around. then he"hoodooed" me so that i couldn't leave him" then, one night, she recalled "something" told her to look inside of his pants pocket. there she discovered the conjuring charm that she believed had captured her will. destroying it, she was able to leave her husband. addie made her way to a church. it was a spiritualist congregation, a sanctuary where divine spirits and the invisible dead regularly fellowshiped with believers "i black magic page 57 of 144 http//content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docid=kt600020q0&chunk.id=0&doc.view=print 7/14/2006 fasted and prayed two days and on the second day i was praying c when the holy ghost came upon me and i spoke in tongues. i felt so glad and pure and clean that i

omething evil and negative.a danger to be opposed and subdued with a stronger, christian "magic" a more explicit adoption of supernaturalism in a religious context occurred within the black spiritual churches, a network of congregations that emerged within cities in the united states after the turn of the twentieth\ 114\ century. its earliest officially chartered congregation was the eternal life spiritualist church, founded in 1913 in chicago. the city was a veritable mecca for thousands of blacks who left the south between 1914 and 1918, and subsequently between 1939 and 1945, during what became known as the great migration. fleeing labor exploitation, a devastated agricultural economy, and jim crow segregation, masses of black southerners poured into chicago and other northern cities, f

an religious life in the first quarter of the twentieth century.[47] the early spiritual churches have been aptly described as urban "wayside shrines" where persons in black communities sought guidance on a variety of secular and spiritual matters. many of these churches were actually private venues that offered personal consultations for individuals in need of employment, protection, or healing. spiritualist advisors sometimes doubled as pastors, forming new congregational bodies with their regular clients. in this manner many new storefront churches were organized around spiritual ministers.[48] the decentralized structure of the spiritual church movement permitted considerable eclecticism in the groups f theology and practices. although the churches shared a common origin, spiritual tra

spiritual world. in the black spiritual tradition, a pivotal event was the believer's interaction with divinities, sacred entities, persons who had "passed on" roman catholic saints, or other powerful beings. while some spiritual churches instituted public ceremonies for "calling up" the spirits, such rituals more frequently occurred in the context of private seances or in personal sessions with spiritualist mediums (also known as prophets, divine healers, and advisors) outside regular church services.[51] the emphasis on supernaturalism in the spiritual churches can also be seen in particular practices. while retaining the liturgical trappings of christianity, black spiritualists put a distinctive accent on devotional spaces, objects, and rituals that facilitated the invocation of "spiri

y, black spiritualists put a distinctive accent on devotional spaces, objects, and rituals that facilitated the invocation of "spirit" spiritual sanctuaries and altars were filled with statues of saints, photographs of spiritual forebears and leaders, colored candles, and tall vases with colorful bouquets. using techniques such as prayer and bibliomancy\ 116 (guidance through biblical revelation, spiritualist practitioners addressed clients f concerns. some spiritualists embellished older conjuring techniques by utilizing the dramatic visual impact of miraculous healings. for instance, according to witnesses, mother catherine seals, a legendary spiritual leader in the early twentieth century, removed a black cat, a wasp's nest, and an assortment of other rustic creatures from the bodies of

DAVID ICKE AND THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

lation of the brain, and electronic devices to track and monitor his victims. that is the mentality of one of the main figures behind the cult awareness network (can. so what constitutes a 'cult' in this man's misguided mind? according to his own published papers, they include the following "1: neo-christian cults; 2: hindu and eastern religious cults; 3: occult, witchcraft and satanism cults; 4: spiritualist cults; 5: zen and other sino-japanese philosophical cults; 6: race cults; 7: flying saucer and outer space cults; 8: psychological cults [like can, presumably; 9: political cults; and 10: certain communal and self-help or selfimprovement groups that become transformed into cults" what about the "walking to the shops to buy tonight's dinner" cults? i can't think why he missed that one

DION FORTUNE MYSTICAL QABALA

tery tradition from very ancient times, and because when it is used loy anyone who has acquired the necessary degree of skill in concentration and knows the symbols that are used for building the different forms, the method works, and back come the old gods to the altar fires re-kindled. definite results are obtained in the consciousness of the worshippers; and if they borrow the technique of the spiritualist, and a materialising medium is available, phenomena of a very definite kind are produced. 14. it is the method that is used in working the mass by those priests who have knowledge. there are two types of priest in the roman church: the beneficed parish clergy and the men who belong to monastic orders and undertake parish, and especially home mission, work as part of their service. the

DION FORTUNE PSYCHIC SELF DEFENSE

s once become well developed anyone who has had experience of lunatics has little difficulty in recognising it. each type of insanity has its characteristic facial expression and even gait. but it is not so simple a matter for even the expert to recognise an insanity in its incipient stages. lunatics are exceedingly plausible, and if they have picked up something of the jargon of the occultist or spiritualist, can make out an extraordinarily good case for themselves. even the experienced alienist often has to keep a case under observation in order to ascertain whether it is an actual insanity or not. in a field where experts are frequently in doubt, what is the layman to do who finds himself confronted by a case which rouses his suspicions? he cannot be expected to recognise insanity when

in us? what right have we to invade his spiritual privacy and thrust our tampering fingers into the wheels of his innermost being? it is so common a practice to send the names of people to healing circles with a request 64 of 103 that they should be concentrated upon, without taking the preliminary precaution of asking their permission, that i have heard it announced from the platform of a large spiritualist public meeting that only those cases could be taken up which gave their written consent. fortunately for all concerned, the proceedings at such "healing circles" are usually so futile that nobody need mind being concentrated upon by them even if they were attempting murder. the principle, however, remains, and i can only record my opinion once more, as i have already recorded it many

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OCCULTISM AND PARAPSYCHOLOGY VOL 1

o investigate reports of supernatural phenomena, especially reports of ghosts and hauntings. this sparked the formation in 1862 of the ghost club in england. during the next two decades, the growth of spiritualism provided a fertile field for investigation, and in 1882 a new generation of investigators founded the society for psychical research in london to study actual phenomena occurring during spiritualist seances as well as other incidents of psychic phenomena. ix encyclopedia of occultism& parapsychology. 5th ed. introduction the period from 1882 to the beginning of world war ii could be described as a stormy marriage between spiritualism and psychical research by some, while others might call it a scandalous, illegitimate affair. spiritualism, and the movements it spawned, most notab

work, even in the face of unquestioned evidence of guilt. it also implied that psychical researchers who produced any positive evidence were either naive, sloppy methodologically, or conspirators with the mediums. both spence s encyclopedia of occultism and fodor s encyclopedia of psychic science were published during a time when the interest in physical phenomena was peaking. spence wrote from a spiritualist perspective, and was very hopeful that scientists would find the means of proving the validity of physical phenomena. he fully accepted the existence of materializations, teleportations, and apports. fodor s work, written just a decade and a half later, acknowledged the element of fraud in spiritualism, while at the same time, retained the prominent psychical researcher s confidence i

was starting within the ranks of psychical research. j. b. rhine, a young biologist, suggested an entirely new direction for research. psychical research, rhine noted, had relied mainly upon the studied observation of phenomena in the field, and operated by eliminating possible mundane explanations for what was occurring. investigators visited ghostly haunts, sites of poltergeist occurrences, and spiritualist seances and then developed detailed reports of what they had seen and heard. after a halfcentury, this approach eventually eliminated a good deal of fraudulent phenomena. however, psychical researchers had been unsuccessful in convincing their scholarly colleagues not only of the truth of their findings but of the validity of their efforts. even though psychical research had attracted

oratory. only such experimental data would then be convincing to the modern, scientifically trained mind. superseding the older psychical research approach, rhine s new methods and early experimental successes provided inspiration for the study of parapsychology. it also furnished a means to build a positive expanding foundation for the field; while, at the same time, it distanced itself from the spiritualist community and the overwhelming evidence of its widespread fraud. parapsychology called for a reorganization of research around the primary commitment of building a firm body of experimental data on basic psychic experiences. a few psychical researchers continued the more intriguing work of investigating evidence of survival of bodily death, and for at least a generation, parapsycholog

n basic psychic experiences. a few psychical researchers continued the more intriguing work of investigating evidence of survival of bodily death, and for at least a generation, parapsychologists and traditional psychical researchers engaged in intramural warfare. a sort of reconciliation occurred only after parapsychology had proven itself, and psychical research s strong identification with the spiritualist community had diminished. today, laboratory research dominates the scientific study of the paranormal. psychics, mediums, and channels are still investigated; but they are now invited into the laboratory for x introduction encyclopedia of occultism& parapsychology. 5th ed. close observation.a dramatic change from the days when spence and fodor were writing about the paranormal. during

mber of accurate predictions of important world events, including the assassination of gandhi, the fall of khrushchev, the assassination of kennedy, and the watergate scandal. sources: abayakoon, cyrus d. f. astro-palmistry: signs and seals of the hand. new york: asi, 1975. rahu pimma [and] yama kalaya. delhi, india, ca. 1957. abbott, david p(helps (1863.1934) amateur magician and investigator of spiritualist mediums. he was born in falls city, nebraska, september 22, 1863. his early education consisted of three months a year in a country schoolhouse on nebraska prairies, and a final nine months in falls city high school. in later life abbott followed the trade of a money lender but took a great interest in science and philosophy. he also became an amateur magician, inventing and performin

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OCCULTISM AND PARAPSYCHOLOGY VOL 2

re held captive by the masters of trickery and illusion. in america, from the 19th century success of the american-born illusionist harry kellar to the modern-day magicians, such as doug henning and david copperfield, have captured the attention of the public. since the nineteenth century, when spiritualism took root and gained popularity among the general public, magicians have been skeptical of spiritualist and psychic claims. due to their expertise in the area of illusion, they have been at the forefront of exposing fraud within the spiritualist community. the impetus to the birth of the spiritualism movement in america was linked to two sisters, margaret and kate fox, who claimed to be receiving messages from beyond in their isolated farmhouse in 1848. it was the fox sisters, too, who

declared that the insinuations about them were false and malevolent. since the cabinet was completely isolated, all participation in the manifestations by strangers was absolutely impossible, he said. a professor jacobs wrote on april 10, 1881, to the editor of licht, mehr licht about the phenomena that occurred through the davenport brothers in paris: as a prestidigitator of repute and a sincere spiritualist, i affirm that the mediumimic facts, demonstrated by the two brothers were absolutely true, and belonged to the spiritualistic order of things in every respect. messrs. robin and robert-houdin, when attempting to imitate these said facts, never presented to the public anything beyond an infantile and almost grotesque parody of the said phenomena, and it would be only ignorant and obst

, but maskelyne refused. the challenge and its result were described by the inventor in a pamphlet, maxim versus maskelyne (1910. the descendants of j. n. maskelyne followed in his footsteps. capt. clive maskelyne issued a challenge in february 1925, when the visit of the medium margery (mina crandon) to england was reported, that he could produce any of the phenomena she had produced in america. spiritualist author h. dennis bradley, in an interview for the daily sketch, promised a hundred guineas to maskelyne if he could duplicate the valiantine phenomena. maskelyne at first accepted, but withdrew when he heard what was expected from him. in 1930 psychical researcher harry price offered one thousand pounds to any conjurer who could repeat rudi schneider s phenomena under the same conditi

ch claims, both sides have attempted to make use of the work of the magicians. skeptics have pointed to the exposures of fraud as a good reason to dismiss all claims of paranormal occurrences. believers, on the other hand, have pointed out that magicians have done a good job in helping them to uncover fraud and drive fakes from the arena of the genuine. the work of magicians and others within the spiritualist and psychic community in exposing fraud helps define the boundary of real psychic occurrences. it does not speak to the body of parapsychological research or to the experiences of hundreds of thousands of believers. sources: christopher, milbourne. esp, seers and psychics. new york: thomas y. crowell, 1970. houdini: the untold story. new york: thomas y. crowell, 1969. the illustrated

ed to an ancient african wonder-working brotherhood. in the nineteenth book of the moses scripts, a topaz is mentioned as the material counterpart of a spiritual jewel worn by magus, which was to be given to stainton moses to help him to see visions. the stone, set in a ring, was reportedly dropped from the air in stainton moses s bedroom. sources: moses, stainton. spirit identity. london: london spiritualist alliance, ltd, 1908. spirit teachings. 1883. reprint, new york: arno press, 1976. maharaj ji, guru (1957) teacher in the sant mat tradition and head of elan vital (formerly known as the divine light mission. guru maharaj ji, a title rather than a name, was born prem pal singh on december 10, 1957. he moved to the united states as a spiritual teacher in 1971, at the age of 14. he was t

ter founded by jean meyer, who also assisted the foundation of the institut metapsychique international (concerned with psychical research. the maison des spirites was located at 8 rue copernic, paris, and was intended to propagate knowledge of spiritism. it became the secretariat of the federation spirite internationale (international spiritualists federation) and hosted the second international spiritualist congress in paris in 1925 (see also france) maithuna sanskrit term for sexual intercourse, one practice espoused in tantric yoga. tantra differs from more ascetic forms of hinduism in eschewing the way of denial. instead of refraining from such things as alcohol and sex in order to attain spiritual realization, tantra suggests using items commonly denied as a tool to enlightenment. se

EXTRAORDINARY ENCOUNTERS AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EXTRATERRESTRIALS AND OTHERWORLDY BEINGS

d dolphins. besides these purely psychic connections with the otherworld, there are many who report direct physical meetings with beings from outer space, other dimensions, the hollow earth, and other fantastic places. not all of these ideas are new, of course. the hollow earth and its inhabitants were a popular fringe subject in nineteenth-century america, and in the latter half of that century, spiritualist mediums sometimes communicated with martians or even experienced out-of-body journeys to the red planet. in 1896 and 1897, during what today would be called a nationwide wave of unidentified flying object (ufo) sightings, american newspapers printed accounts of landings of strange craft occupied by nonhuman crews of giants, dwarfs, or monsters presumed to be visiting extraterrestrials

re flying saucers. perhaps the first of them was the swedish scientist and mystic em a n u e l swedenborg (1688 1772. in ea rths in the solar wo rl d (1758, swedenborg wrote of his astral travels to the moon and other planets. each of these worlds, swedenborg assert e d, is inhabited, and he described, at length, the people and civilizations there. in the nineteenth century, with the rise of the spiritualist movement, psychic communications with e x t r a t e r restrials, most often ma rtians, we re 68 contactees re c o rded on occasion. the most famous such case became the subject of a pioneering book in the emerging discipline of abnormal psyc h o l o g y, t h e o d o re fl o u r n oy s from india to the planet ma r s (1899. in various states of a l t e red consciousness, a woman given

iever in fairies. the wrights provided him with copies of the originals, which gardner showed to an acquaintance knowledgeable in photography. the expert stated, guardedly, that he could see no evidence of fraud. excited, gardner discussed the pictures in a lecture that may, and soon sir arthur conan doyle, the revered au- cottingley fairies 73 thor of the sherlock holmes stories and then an avid spiritualist, heard about the matter. doyle had gardner take the pictures to the kodak laboratory in london, where two experts neither endorsed nor repudiated them. in the summer, when gardner met the wrights for the first time, he provided elsie with a modern camera. in short order, she and frances had three new fairy photographs. doyle wrote two articles for the popular magazine the strand (dece

. subsequently, the others effected an escape by van. cyclopean beings can be classified into two subtypes, picasso writes. t h e re are short cyc l o p e a n s. and tall ones. the latter beings often behave aggre s s i ve l y (picasso, 1992. further reading picasso, fabio, 1992. infrequent types of south american humanoids. strange magazine 9 (spring/summer: 34 35, 55. cymatrili enid brady was a spiritualist medium who led a small church in holly hill, florida. in the early 1950s, she began to experience telepathic communications from the master teachers of venus. one of them was cymatrili. he and his companions were based in a giant ship in orbit above the southeastern united states. venusians look much like humans but are finer featured. their civilization is advanced, peaceful, and fre

63. book of the hopi. new york: viking press. williamson, george hunt, 1959. road in the sky. london: neville spearman. philip philip is an imaginary entity said to have been given a degree of physical reality when a toronto-based parapsychological group consciously invented him. he was part of an experiment intended to demonstrate that mental energies can create the sorts of entities reported in spiritualist s ances and poltergeist episodes. in september 1972, members of the toronto society for psychical research invented philip, laying out a detailed personal biography. a pro-royal aristocrat during england s civil war, philip fell in love with a gypsy woman but lost her when authorities tried and burned her at the stake as a witch. his failure to find a way to save her filled him with g

nd grief and prevented his soul from passing on to the afterlife, leaving it an earthbound spirit. the group, whose members included psychologist a.r.g. owen and his wife iris, began to meditate on philip in hopes that he would appear to them in some fashion. nothing happened for a year. then the group decided to try a different tactic. members decided to imitate the methods of nineteenth-century spiritualist circles, on the theory that skepticism inhibited the occurrence of paranormal phenomena. like the earlier spiritualist sitters, they sat in a circle, sang, or otherwise tried to create an atmosphere conducive to the manifestation of the unknown. within a few weeks, they began hearing raps from the table. they were able to communicate with the knocker by asking simple yes or no questio

GILBERT AE WAITE A MAGICIAN OF MANY PARTS

ut the united states.asmediums-thepersons supposedly acting as intermediaries between the worldsofthe living and of the dead-e-proliferated, the movement began to take on the rudimentsofformal organization and by 1852, when it appeared in england in the person of mrs hayden, the first visiting american medium, spiritualism as a definable sect was well established. england proved as susceptible to spiritualist phenomena as the united states, and although english mediums were at first few and far between, by the 1870s they were to be found in abundance, producing all the more spectacular effectsoftheir american counterparts: direct voice messages (in which the medium spokewiththevoice of the communicating spirit. levitation of objects, and materializations of. the hands,faces,orwhole. formso

stigating intellectuals, orthemerelycurious-sataround a table, linked handswiththemedium andwitheach other, extinguished thelights-andwaited. as a rule their patience wasrewardedwithphenomena, often spectacular andnotalwayseasy to explain, despite the frequent detectionoftrickeryamongbothprofessional and amateur mediums. both 'real' phenomena and exposures of fraud were faithfully reported in the spiritualist journals and in the multitude of books devoted tothesubject, for the devotees were eager to present a respectablefaceto the world and to establish their 'science, philosophy and religion of continuous life, based upon the demonstrated fact of communication, by meansofmedium ship,withthosewholive.in the spirit world'2as an acceptable faith. indeed, it was largely through the propaganda

and desperate need of the timeisthe proving of survival.ifonlyaspiritualist would begin a chronological productionofattested casesofevidence. i should like to see one old and one new caseofevidence of survival each week inlight.'8for himself it no longer mattered-spiritualism had long since given way to mysticism. even by the late 1880s,when .he was contributingtolight,already one of the leading spiritualist journals,waitewasexpoundingthe merits of mystical as opposed to psychic experiences. in .1890 he delivered a lecture to the london spiritualist alliance on'theinterior life fromthestandpoint of the mystics' 9. and dismayed. his spiritualist audience by insisting on thesuperiorityofthe 'transcendental-s-the inner experiencesofthemystic-overthemerely 'phenomenal, which included the phen

ous allegorical fairy255 tale 'prince starbeam, which had been published serially in its columns in 1889. this odd romance-had not the remotest connectionwiththeconcerns ofeverydayspiritualists, and a heavy-handed attempt. to interpret it in their terms,byapseudonymous critic 'ossian (almost certainlytheeditor, james burns, only increased their confusion. but even as his active involvementwiththe spiritualist movement faded, waitemaintained his academic interest and continued to write on both spiritualism and on psychical research in general (he read all the relevant journals as a matter of course for his regularperiodicalliteraturefeature intheoccultreview);he did not, of course,commithimself to a specific belief:there are, broadly speaking,twotheories based on the acceptation of the fact

cle-irithe plenary senseofthese_'whileyetaboyisoughtforghosts'55expressions-willobtain records from a 'dissociated personality" orfrom''theotherside, andthatthey will carry an. authenticnote,'atthesame time he disapproved stronglyoftreatingouijaboards as toys, condemningthemas 'about the last plaything to beputintothehandsofchildren'.12fortyyears after his first (lecture on. mysticism tothelondon spiritualist alliance waite spoke tothemagain on'therelationship between mysticism and psychical research' on 10 april 1930.heacceptedthepossibilityofspirit communicationbutreaffirmed the supreme importanceofmysticism andofthegoalofdivineunion.howhis audience reacted isnotrecorded,buttheassociation clearly liked and admired him; somuchso that in 1938 it was suggestedthathemightbecome editoroflight

ive conceit,butfully justified as far as waite and machen were concerned becauseofthe gloriousnatureoftheannus mirabilis-andbecause philip webby'was footingthebill__frateravallauniusand'theroadof excess'-1l after dora, waite contented himselfwithmorerespectable revels among machen's 'tosspots' and other bohemians. in november1902david gow,whomhe hadknownfor twenty yearsbothasapoet and asan ardent spiritualist, introducedhimto the pen and pencil club,whichmetat the napier tavern in holborn. waite was struck by its similarity to the rabelaisianorderoftosspots:bothhad elaborate mock-serious rules and regulations, andbothexisted primarily to enable their members to drink incongenial company. at the pen and pencil club, however, each member was required to write, draw, or compose something rele

GILBERT THE GOLDEN DAWN TWILIGHT OF THE MAGICIANS

t deny the reality of a spiritual order, and society as a whole maintained a solid belief in the supernatural.norwere all clerics equally hostile. some went so far as to holdseances-the'sittings' at which a medium, often in a trance, produces messages for those present-themselves, and one, the revd w. stainton moses, was fromi&]2until his death in1892a medium himself and the principal exponent of spiritualist thought in england. others were more circumspect and, whether from natural reticence or fear of episcopal wrath, carefully avoided publicity. one such group had affinities with the rosicrucians.theguild of the holy spirit was first brought to public noticein]anuary1881in the first issue of the spiritualist journallight,a brief note referred to the guild, saying:'theproceedings of the

ential movement made its appearance in new york and rapidly gained world-wide, enthusiastic, and utterly uncritical support. this was the theosophical society, the creation of madameb1avatskyand colonelh.s. olcott. helena petrovnab1avatskywas a remarkable person by any standards; by those of contemporary seekers after wonders andmarvelsshe was little short of a goddess, and her departure from the spiritualist22thegoldendawnmovement, where she had collectedenrouteboth fame as a medium and the dog-like devotionofcolonel olcott, to the more exotic shoresofeastemoccultism was inevitable. whether or not she had travelled in tibet, and whether or not she served hiddenmahatmas-indeed,whether or not such beings evenexist-isstill hotly debated, but what is unquestionable is thatherfollowers believe

to use only the first word when referring to fellow members; thus vestigia was mina mathers' name rather than the full 'vestigia nulla retrorsum' and yeats''demonest deus inversus' became simp255 ly 'demon. westcott was invariably s.a. rather than 'sapere aude. but before they obtained their mottoes, before even entering the order, candidates had to be approved by thechiefs-whodid not approve of spiritualist mediums orofany others who 'allow themselves to fall into a complete passive condition ofwill'255and were made to sign a pledgeofsecrecy in all things concerning theorderand an acceptance of the 'ordinances of the first orderofthe g.d. in the outer'.theyalso had to pay a ten shilling admission fee, an annual subscriptionof2s6d and the costofrituals and lectures. once initiated, the ne

she maintainedherenthusiasms in one form or another long after she had left the golden dawn behindherand acted outhermore significant part in life as a'newwoman. while florencefarrcame into the golden dawn through the accidentofphysical proximity to existing members, isabelle de steiger entered it becauseherown esoteric thinking ran so close to that of its founders. from1875she had been an active spiritualist, by 1880 she was a theosophist, and then she espoused the christian hermeticismofanna kingsford, writing regularly for their journals and producing portrait sketches and paintingsofthe principal figuresofeach movement as she passed through it. all this, however, was not enough and she became the 'sole friend and spiritual confidant'ofmrsatwood, absorbing both that strange woman's zeal

GILBERT THE MAGICAL MASON

ms in the night following. in addition to these causes of dreams we must recognise that a great proportion of all dreams are due not to impressions derived from the sensory or motor nervesbutfrom our thoughts, ideas, fancies, beliefs, memories, hopes and fears. these human functions are related by modern physiologists to the grey matter of the convolutions of the cerebrum, while the idealist, the spiritualist, and the theosophist allege that these faculties are duetothe presence of a human and spiritual soul184themagical masonas a separate, invisible, immaterial, semi-divine ego, which dwells in an astral form, and that again in an ethereal form, both alike invisible to the ordinary humanity,butyet indwelling in our material brain, organs, and body generally. however this may be, it is cer

GILBERT THE SORCERER AND HIS APPRENTICE

hrough these, sources' or others like them,thenumber of able men who. have recorded their convictions, after most searching inves255 tigation, under strictesttestconditions, would render any such denial. an impertinence. i can only say that such evidencehasnor-come to me, and until itcomesimust preserve an openmind:inconclusion i may perhaps be permitted to record an argumentionce heard between a spiritualist and a roman priest on. thesubjectof reincarnation, which the priest did not admit, but pursued the socratic method of questioning. his opponent 'you hold,'hesaid,'thatbetween incarnations' the soul passes to a kind of intermediate stateinwhich' it retains its consciousness, and its interest in those it has left behind 'undoubtedly''and inthatstate do you sayitis,active, or is it entir

y should not earth-dwellers also look back, and watch and help friends and comrades they100 the sorcererand his apprenticeloved, worked with, and left 'possibly there may be such memories. i never heardofthem. i might suggest, that those on the astral planeare'higher, purer, nobler, than those left behind on earth,andtherefore they require no help, while their friends here may, anddo.'whether the spiritualist fairly stated his case, or whethert( there were points he did not make that might have been made. i cannot say. but it seemed to me that the priesthadstated a difficulty that i have never yet seen adequately met. yet after all the difficulty may not be so great as at first appears, if we take the idea, held i believe by many spiritualists, that it is only for a measurable, and compara

GILBERT R A CHAOS OUT OF ORDER THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SWEDENBORGIAN RITE

f the sria (he was chief adept for yorkshire) and his opposition helped to cut off the potential supply of members from within that society. even greater opposition and uproar would have followed if the views of one less reluctant but equally prominent member had become known. the rev. william stainton moses (1840 1892) was the first supreme grand chaplain of the rite as well as being a prominent spiritualist medium and co-founder, in 1881, of the spiritualist journal, light. he was eager for a lodge to be established in london and told irwin (20 may 1877) that he knew, 4 or 5 friends (all spiritualists) who would join me. in a later letter (undated, but probably early in 1878) he explained why: i want to form a lodge in london entirely composed of sp[irituali]sts& to seek for communion wi

GILBERT R A THE MASONIC CAREER OF A

order, and including john yarker, who is also correctly described as head of the rite of memphis and misraim. by this time, and with such allegations, the controversy over diana vaughan had spread to england, where waite took a leading role in the counter-attacks upon this suppositious lady freemason. a series of detailed rebuttals of her claims was published in the correspondence columns of the spiritualist journal light29[29, and waite then analysed the whole of the literature about the palladium in his book devil-worship in france30[30, demonstrating conclusively the fictitious nature of the whole affair- and this a year before jogand-pages admitted that it had been a hoax designed to embarrass the french anti-masons. 27[27] there are twelve in all, the most important being revelations

please accept my best thanks for your kind offer to obtain for me the degree of doctor from the ecole hermetique. i shall value the distinction highly'46[46. the degree was quite worthless but waite did use it on one occasion much later when he wished to use a pseudonym-'doctor of hermetic science- to hide his connection with an anthology of the writings of andrew jackson davis, an early american spiritualist47[47. the first copy of the book on saint-martin sent to 'papus' had almost certainly been forwarded to edouard blitz, the head of the martinist order in america, who became a frequent correspondent of waite and who encouraged him to become a freemason. waite refers to blitz in his autobiography as one 'who had been long and intimately acquainted with the occult schools of paris, but

GNOSTIC CATECHISM

order, and including john yarker, who is also correctly described as head of the rite of memphis and misraim. by this time, and with such allegations, the controversy over diana vaughan had spread to england, where waite took a leading role in the counter-attacks upon this suppositious lady freemason. a series of detailed rebuttals of her claims was published in the correspondence columns of the spiritualist journal light29[29, and waite then analysed the whole of the literature about the palladium in his book devil-worship in france30[30, demonstrating conclusively the fictitious nature of the whole affair- and this a year before jogand-pages admitted that it had been a hoax designed to embarrass the french anti-masons. 27[27] there are twelve in all, the most important being revelations

please accept my best thanks for your kind offer to obtain for me the degree of doctor from the ecole hermetique. i shall value the distinction highly'46[46. the degree was quite worthless but waite did use it on one occasion much later when he wished to use a pseudonym-'doctor of hermetic science- to hide his connection with an anthology of the writings of andrew jackson davis, an early american spiritualist47[47. the first copy of the book on saint-martin sent to 'papus' had almost certainly been forwarded to edouard blitz, the head of the martinist order in america, who became a frequent correspondent of waite and who encouraged him to become a freemason. waite refers to blitz in his autobiography as one 'who had been long and intimately acquainted with the occult schools of paris, but

GREENFIELD ALLEN SECRET CIPHER OF THE UFONAUTS

don elkins ra, and others down to the present time. secret cipher of the ufonauts 23 in short, the rules of the game seem to have changed. what happened? did the expos of freemasonry by morgan, who was murdered for his trouble, and others have something to do with it? the rules were reaching public knowledge just at the time the fox sisters began to hear the spirit rappings that set in motion the spiritualist phenomena. the result was routine and widespread trance channeling supposedly in a straightforward manner, without initiation, ciphers or symbols. if a control calls itself katie king, one tends to accept the name as just that: a name, not a cipher key. but, with the decoding of liber al s cipher, this proved not to be the case. the names are meant to convey a second, more important m

HAMIL THE ROSICRUCIAN SEER

gan to emerge. my own opinion is that hockley, having avoided contact with the group practice of magical rituals, would22therosicrucianseermirror was the means by which man's earthly knowledge could be expanded to prepare him forthefinal journey in which perfection would be completed and man's earthly and spiritual goodness would be dissolved into oneness with the godhead in a perfect entity. his spiritualist definition of rosicrucianism is perhaps the true explanation of his standing apart from the sria, which has always been a forum for the discussionofideas and hasneverinvolved itself in practical experiments,whatever its members may have indulged in outside its meetings. those membersofthe sria who were drawn more towards practice rather than theory later joined the golden dawn. hockle

invented the religious and philosophical information hockley transcribed. many seekers after arcane knowledge sought initiation into freemasonry, in the erroneous belief that knowledgeofthe rituals of freemasonry would set them on the path to discovering the key to all knowledge. surprisingly, hockley did not take this step until his fifty-fifth year, although some of his contacts, professional, spiritualist and occult, must have been14therosicrucianseerspiritualism, occultism, and their practitioners. they reveal his depthofknowledge of occult literature (although davies states that hockley knew no other language than english) and the resultant ability to detect when an author was summarizing or merely plagiarizing a little known writer's work, as in his dismissive comments to irwin on m

much involved in spiritualism, coming into contact withmrandmrs everitt (who were to remain lifelong friends, lord stanhope, robert owen (the social reformer, d.di.home,the revd stainton moses.etal.whilst convinced of the veracity of somehe.was not unaware of the many charlatans, misguided enthusiasts (the 'harpies' as k. r. h. mackenziecauedthem) and the simple publicity seekers involved in the spiritualist movement. he was very free with his own knowledge and the contents of his library, with theexceptionof 225 the records of his own work with the crystal. whether or not. he hadactualpupils is difficult to determine. certainly mackenzie and davies both regarded him as their first master in matters spiritualist and occult. it was tohockleythat mackenzie immediately rushed on his return f

spiritualist and occult. it was tohockleythat mackenzie immediately rushed on his return fromseeing eliphas leviinparis, hockley recording mackenzie's account of the visit? in the1840she began to publish occasional reports of his.experiences with.the crystal and magic mirror in the form of letters to the editor ofthezoistand to robert owen'sthenewexistenceofmanuponearth.as the editors of the main spiritualist journals were all known to him it is surprising that he did not contribute more to them. surprisingly he published no books..theirwin letters infer that he was preparing a history of the grand stewards' lodge and definitely state that he was preparing for publication an edited version of the philosophical revelations of his principal spirit guide, the crowned angel of the seventh sphe

ely state that he was preparing for publication an edited version of the philosophical revelations of his principal spirit guide, the crowned angel of the seventh sphere. neither work appeared in print. in1864,at the relatively late age of fifty-six, he was initiated into freemasonry. this gave him an additional point of contact with irwin, to whom he had first been recommended by the everitts on spiritualist matters.theletters resulting from the introduction are the main source of information on hockley. they reveal him as a kindly man ever willing to share his knowledge and library and possessing the knowledge and kindness to take time to advise others on the forming of their own collections. they also show that, despite his deep involvement in spiritualism and his knowledge of and belie

uorcoronatorum,vol. 85,1972)asked for the hockley file, but it was not to be found. as a result i had to start from scratch to find the information he required. a strange picture began to develop. on the one hand, there emerged a typical middle-class victorian professional man who, late in life, developed an interest in freemasonry; on the other, an avid collector of occult knowledge, a practical spiritualist, and an acknowledged expert on all matters arcane. this phenomenon of a doublepersonacontinued to fascinate me long after mr howe's research was complete.thesearch proved difficult, for although hockley's name appears in studies of nineteenth-century occultism and spiritualism it isalwaysas a passing reference and never in detail. many details indeed have still proved elusive. to elli

HELENA BLAVATSKY THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY

curate knowledge of nature's secret workings; but a theosophist, practicing the powers called abnormal, minus the light of occultism, will simply tend toward a dangerous form of mediumship, because, although holding page 16 the key to theosophy- hp blavatsky.txt to theosophy and its highest conceivable code of ethics, he practices it in the dark, on sincere but blind faith. anyone, theosophist or spiritualist, who attempts to cultivate one of the branches of occult science-e.g, hypnotism, mesmerism, or even the secrets of producing physical phenomena, etc.-without the knowledge of the philosophic rationale of those powers, is like a rudderless boat launched on a stormy ocean -ooo- the difference between theosophy and spiritualism q. but do you not believe in spiritualism? a. if by "spiritu

r nor more devoted champion, says of them and their philosophy. this is what "m.a. oxon" one of the very few philosophical spiritualists, writes, with respect to their lack of organization and blind bigotry: it is worthwhile to look steadily at this point, for it is of vital moment. we have an experience and a knowledge beside which all other knowledge is comparatively insignificant. the ordinary spiritualist waxes wroth if anyone page 18 the key to theosophy- hp blavatsky.txt ventures to impugn his assured knowledge of the future and his absolute certainty of the life to come. where other men have stretched forth feeble hands groping into the dark future, he walks boldly as one who has a chart and knows his way. where other men have stopped short at a pious aspiration or have been content

ractical way, what is the result? very curious and very disappointing. he is so sure of his ground that he takes no trouble to ascertain the interpretation which others put upon his facts. the wisdom of the ages has concerned itself with the explanation of what he rightly regards as proven; but he does not turn a passing glance on its researches. he does not even agree altogether with his brother spiritualist. it is the story over again of the old scotch body who, together with her husband, formed a "kirk" they had exclusive keys to heaven, or, rather, she had, for she was "na certain aboot jamie" so the infinitely divided and subdivided and re-subdivided sects of spiritualists shake their heads, and are "na certain aboot" one another. again, the collective experience of mankind is solid a

and disciplined, a rabble becomes an army, each man a match for a hundred of the untrained men that may be brought against it. organization in every department of man's work means success, saving of time and labor, profit and development. want of method, want of plan, haphazard work, fitful energy, undisciplined effort-these mean bungling failure. the voice of humanity attests the truth. does the spiritualist accept the verdict and act on the conclusion? verily, no. he refuses to organize. he is a law unto himself, and a thorn in the side of his neighbors. q. i was told that the theosophical society was originally founded to crush spiritualism and belief in the survival of the individuality in man? a. you are misinformed. our beliefs are all founded on that immortal individuality. but then

ion of intelligence can survive the physical brain. what would you answer them? a. i would not even go to the trouble of answering, but would simply say, in the words given to "m.a. oxon" intelligence is perpetuated after the body is dead. though it is not a question of the brain only it is reasonable to propound the indestructibility of the human spirit from what we know. q. but "m.a. oxon" is a spiritualist? a. quite so, and the only true spiritualist i know of, though we may still disagree with him on many a minor question. apart from this, no spiritualist comes nearer to the occult truths than he does. like any one of us he speaks incessantly of the surface dangers that beset the ill-equipped, feather-headed muddler with the occult, who crosses the threshold without counting the cost

set the ill-equipped, feather-headed muddler with the occult, who crosses the threshold without counting the cost. some things that i do know of spiritualism and some that i do not. our only disagreement rests in the question of "spirit identity" otherwise, i, for one, coincide almost entirely with him, and accept the three propositions he embodied in his address of july, 1884. it is this eminent spiritualist, rather, who disagrees with us, not we with him. q. what are these propositions? page 72 the key to theosophy- hp blavatsky.txt a. they are: 1. that there is a life coincident with, and independent of the physical life of the body. 2. that, as a necessary corollary, this life extends beyond the life of the body. we say it extends throughout devachan. 3. that there is communication bet

HOWE THE ALCHEMIST OF THE GOLDEN DAWN

ad been one of madame blavatsky's converts in india, published his occult world. sixty years later a. e. waite recalled its 'remarkable account of strange phenomena and yet stranger claims 'i remember very well the strange crew that filled sinnett's drawing room at theosophical gatherings' he continued 'the astrologers, the mesmerists, the readers of hands, and a few, very few only, of the motley spiritualist groups" when westcott founded the hermetic order of the golden dawn in 1888 he intended it to be a secret and highly-exclusive alternative to the theosophical society; in fact a school of occultism based on the western hermetic-qabalistic tradition, and hence without any hindu or buddhist elements. the theosophical society was open to all who wished to join it, but the door that led t

allowance for possible delays, we will have dinner ready at 7. you do not say whether you are vegetarians. we shall 33 chacombe vicarage 18 june 1889 the letters 10 1 vegetarianism- the vegetarian societywas formed at ramsgate in 1847. the dietetic reform society was founded in london in 1875. members abstained from alcohol and tobacco as well as meat. 2 i.e, the religio-philosophical journal, a spiritualist periodical published at chicago 'the letters' referred to the correspondence between dr elliott coues and mabel collins. coues was a prominent american theosophist who was currently intriguing against william q judge, the head of the american section of the theosophical society. mabel collins had recently been ejected from the blavatsky lodge (see p. 32 above. the cones-collins letter

looks as if the fates were propitious. i have seen nothing about the newcastle affair. i am too busy now and shall be for some months. sinnett, of course would take the first opportunity of shewing his spite to the blavatsky lodge' i h ve heard. o.f col. olcott at bradford and neighbourhood lectunng and grvmg great satisfaction there. i a. p. sinnett, editor of the allahabad pioneer and already a spiritualist, met madame blavatskyand colone.l olcott soon a ter they landed in bombay in 1879. his new theosophical preoccupations led to his dismissal from his editorial employment and he returned to london to write about his communications with the mahatmas in the occult world (1881) and esoteric buddhism (1883. the british theosophical society now changed its name to the london lodge of the th

tly, for xmas brings me such multifarious duties& interruptions that i am not my own master. in your letter, i think there is a solution of continuity, in your having omitted one or two words necessary to the full understanding of your meaning. however, you allude to davidson and thomas. i assume you mean peter davidson of the h[ermetic] b[rotherhood] of l[uxor& thomas, of frodsham, cheshire, the spiritualist and medium. as you did not belong to the h.b. of l. and i did not send you the particulars of the smashing-up of the whole wretched affair [sic. it came to my knowledge that burgoyne, the secretary, of whom i had always been suspicious, was no other than a man i had known previously under the name of d'alton who made such a confession of black magic that i rejected him altogether as b

ISIS UNVEILED

twin-brothers, whose origin must be sought for in the earliest infancy of ancient india, chaldaea, babylonia, egypt. persia, and greece. he proves the existence of 'spirits' whether these be angels or devils, with such a clearness of argument and logic, and aucfa an amount digitizecoy google 16 isis unveiled of evidence, historical, iir^utable, and strictly autheaticated. that little is left for spiritualist authors who may come after him. how unfortunate that the scientists, who believe neither in devil nor spirit, are more than likely to ridicule m. des mousseauz's books without reading them, for they really contain so many facts of profound scientific interest! but what can we expect in our own age of unbelief when we find plato, over twenty-two centuries ago, complaining of the same "

curiosity had developed itself and settled into an unabated interest, and finally ebbed into religious mysticism; when the echoes aroused by the first raps of rochester, crossing the oceans, spread until they were re-percussed from nearly every comer of the world then, and only then, the latin church was fully awakened to a sense of danger. wonder after wonder was reported to have occurred in the spiritualist-circles and the lecture-rooms of the mesmerists; the sick were healed, the blind made to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear. j. r. newton in america, and du potet in france, were healing the multitude without the slightest claim to divine intervention. the great discovery of mesmer, which reveals to the earnest inquirer the mechanism of nature, mastered as if by magical power org

LEWIS JAMES SATANISM TODAY AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION FOLKLORE AND POPULAR CULTURE

the 1850s. levi over the next decades became the teacher of members of such diverse groups as rosicrucians, ritual magicians, and witches. in mid-nineteenth century england, spiritualism and what was to become theosophy were having a major cultural impact.members of these groups said they received messages from the world of the spirits. by 1855, the yorkshire spiritual telegraph, england s first spiritualist newspaper, was being published. this helped to stir popular interest in the supernatural. around this time, the societas rosicruciana in anglia (sria) was formed in england in 1865 by robert wentworth little. it was based on eighteenthcentury rosicrucian texts. among its members were kenneth r. h. mackenzie, dr. wynn westcott, and w. r. woodman. members of the societas were required t

ire at a local quarry. police seized items associated with black magic from the parents houses. these included a book of erotic poetry, an oriental statue of a couple making love, a letter written to the tooth fairy by one of the children, and a guy fawkes mask (howard 1992) the raids roughly coincided with a failed parliamentary attempt to make it illegal for children to attend pagan gatherings, spiritualist church services, new age events, or psychic fairs. following a typical pattern in such cases, none of the children were found to show signs of sexual abuse and no physical evidence was ever discovered. in at least one case, one of the children confessed to fabricating information at the prompting of social workers. the independent on sunday hypothesized that children s reports of danc

ther kinds of guidelines are that new people should only very cautiously be included in a regular meeting circle. to avoid becoming too obsessed with spirit contact, meetings should be restricted to two or three per week and, under normal circumstances, for periods of two hours or less. sitters must also respect the medium by not grabbing or jarring her or him. like the ceremonies in contemporary spiritualist churches, such gatherings often began with prayers and hymns to set the proper mood. the home circle was a type of popular s ance, oftentimes not involving a medium, which helped make spiritualism a popular movement extending well beyond spiritualist denominational boundaries. low lighting, it was claimed, was necessary for spirit communications. skeptics naturally felt that this part

hite cultus satanas, is founded by herbert arthur sloane of toledo, ohio. 1950 the legend of the devil s triangle also known as the bermuda triangle begins with an associated press article calling attention to the many ships that had mysteriously disappeared between florida and bermuda. 1951 the very last british antiwitchcraft law which had been enacted in 1736 is repealed because of lobbying by spiritualist churches. 1963 the process church of the final judgement (or the process) is founded in england by robert de grimston and his wife,mary anne maclean. 1966 anton lavey announces the formation of the church of satan. the existence of the church of satan provides a concrete target for conservative christians with vague fears about the machinations of the prince of darkness. 1968 release

MICHAEL WYNN THE SOUL TRAVELERS

ng theory regarding ghosts is that they are the souls of the departed who weren t ready to move on. consequently, with unfinished business in our world, they continue to roam the place where they perished. attached to each, of coarse, is this traumatic, tear-jerker story of how the person died, and why they have unfinished business. this theory has been screamed and echoed from the hills by every spiritualist and self-proclaimed psychic out there. while i was researching the spirit world, i ignored these spiritualists and psychics. even if they were indeed psychic, and even if they honestly, and accurately relay to me all they knew about the spirit world, they demonstrated no control. their knowledge was limited to what information a spirit, or environment would volunteer; a merely subject

NAUDON PAUL THE SECRET HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY

the cistercians, and the templars. 3. trade-based freemasonry, which was born under the aegis of these associations and followed the form of lay brotherhoods or guilds. the history of freemasonry and its origins will form the first part of this book. in the second part, we will study the evolution of the professional organization; its purposes, both operational and speculative; its initiatory and spiritualist nature; its gradual transformation from an organization of those who worked in the art of building to those who engaged in a stricto sensu art of thinking and living; and the creation of modern freemasonry under the influences of and in circumstances connected to british history. the greatest common denominator that we can distinguish across the centuries, truly the millennia, is the

ioned and laudable beginning. still, it was necessary for freemasonry to act as the centralizing factor of deist sentiments and the catalyst of their transcendental unity around aspirations for betterment. eventually, a surprising development occurred within this presumptuous objective: excess acted as compensation for doubt. under the pretext of reforging its bonds with the order's origins, this spiritualist catholic freemasonry fabricated during the eighteenth century and beyond a veritable swarm of degrees and rites. every historical or legendary delusion of mysticism found a home therein. this movement was followed next by protestant and catholic germany and ultimately supplied a source of inspiration for romanticism. this was in turn relayed to the americas in the form of the dreams o

ROBERT KIRK WALKER BETWEEN WORLDS

mentioned (in our preface, that edited by stewart sanderson for the folklore society [2, though there are a small number of incomplete or confused editions based on the nineteenth-century versions.[5] although researchers and experts from the nineteenth century onwards have regarded second sight and fairy lore as aspects of folk tradition, or in the case of lang as an early source of psychic and spiritualist evidence, such attitudes were certainly not those taken by kirk, or indeed by a number of his contemporaries s. we shall examine kirk's own comments and his underlying beliefs on the subject as we proceed, but the main interest in the sight among his contemporaries was one that seems only too modern: it was investigated as a possible source of espionage. in lord tarbett's letter to th

eassuring messages from entities claiming to be our dead relatives in fantastical heavenly realms is not present in any of the pagan or pagan-christian traditions of seership: they operate in a quite different set of metaphysical dimensions with different symbolic language. furthermore, the ancestral contacts that form an important part of such ancient lore (and may seem superficially to resemble spiritualist contacts, are not described as ethereal but contemporary stereotypes of daily life, as they are in spiritualism. they are frequently of a terrifying and cathartic nature rather than reassuring and kindly. all of the foregoing will unfold as we progress through kirk's text, as will other strands of magical tradition, for like all collective lore, there are several traditions interwoven

RUBY TABLET OF SET

a pale reflection. spiritualism was built around the belief in the possibility of contacting the spiritual world, specifically the spirits of the departed, through the use of the talents of very special people called mediums. spiritualism became a fad in the 1850s and then settled into a quieter existence as a new religious movement. the universal church of the master described below is a typical spiritualist group. theosophy grew out of spiritualism but directed its contact to a more evolved group of spiritual being who comprise what was thought of as the spiritual hierarchy of the cosmos. these masters spoke to the leaders of the theosophical society, which became the source of a number of groups as new claims to contact with the masters were put forth. the "i am" religious activity and

SZYMANSKI GREG SEARCHING FOR THE ILLUMINATI DEEP WITHIN THE BOWELS OF THE VATICAN

inctions, so much as it is a bare-knuckled lust for power. but, everybody has sort of a worldview that they use to justify their actions. and of course, it's a most un-conservative, humanistic social engineering agenda on a far larger scale. now you mentioned about these people, basically, and it's as rare as hen teeth. gs: quick, roger. rg..yeah, to find somebody that's not oxymoronically both a spiritualist and an occultist, and also a, what do you call, a hardcore rationalist. or maybe that's just [a] republican assumption, right? sv (sighs) gs (slight laughing in delivery: i know there was a question in there somewhere, roger. rg: yeah. gs: but anyway, thanks for calling. let me, i've only got a minute. i've got to finish with svali. svali, tell us in your own words, you've got about a

THE GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE UNUSUAL UNEXPLAINED VOL 1

n because of their ability to communicate with the spirit worlds, to influence the weather, to heal the sick, and to interpret dreams. shamans entered a trance-like condition separating them from life s mundane existence and allowing them to enter a state of heightened spiritual awareness. according to anthropologists, shamanic methods are remarkably similar throughout the world. in our own time, spiritualist mediums who claim to be able to communicate with the dead remain popular as guides for contemporary men and women, and such individuals as john edward, james van praagh, and sylvia browne issue advice from the other side on syndicated television programs. t h e g a l e e n c y c l o p e d i a o f t h e u n u s u a l a n d u n e x p l a i n e d xiv introduction monsters and night terro

eland to travel freely and widely throughout the world, exploring the occult wisdom and teachings of many traditions. in 1858, blavatsky arrived in paris, where she met the famous spirit medium daniel dunglas home (1833 1886. by this time, she had herself acquired a modest reputation for mediumship, and she began to practice these talents more openly. in cairo, egypt, in 1871, blavatsky founded a spiritualist group that was forced to disband after accusations of having produced fraudulent phenomena to deceive its patrons. in 1873, she settled in new york city and resumed the practice of her mediumship in association with the brothers william and horatio eddy, two wellknown materialization mediums. her participation in numerous seances in new england brought her to the attention of henry st

rises, apparently lifted by spirit hands, and the voices of the departed are heard speaking through the instrument. theoretically, these voices manifest independently from the medium. trumpet t h e g a l e e n c y c l o p e d i a o f t h e u n u s u a l a n d u n e x p l a i n e d mediums and mystics 87 a group of men and women levitating a table (archives of brad steiger) mediums are popular at spiritualist camps, and husband and wife teams often travel the circle of summer camps giving demonstrations. skeptics suggest that the reason for such male and female partnerships among trumpet mediums is the simple fact that many more voice tones may be imitated by the mediums during the course of a seance. the materialization of an old coin, a ring, a bracelet, or a semiprecious stone from the

u n e x p l a i n e d 92 mediums and mystics autosuggestion in the trance state, assume the guise of the spirit communicators who have come to speak to the sitters in the seance circle. professional hypnotists have often claimed that all the phenomena of mediumship can be duplicated through their subjects by suggesting to them that they are under the control of discarnate entities. a medium or a spiritualist might counter such an assertion by saying that certain spirits may actually take possession of a hypnotic subject when they receive permission to do so, and that the subject may then truly be said to be in the control of the souls of the deceased. parapsychologists who have tested both the hypnosis hypothesis and the possibility of spirit possession have found that, in some instances

hip progressed rapidly, and within a short period of time, she was conduct- t h e g a l e e n c y c l o p e d i a o f t h e u n u s u a l a n d u n e x p l a i n e d 98 mediums and mystics channel sylvia browne (1936) has been on numerous talk shows, including the montel williams show (sylvia browne corporation) ing dramatic demonstrations of spirit phenomena at meetings of the dalston society, a spiritualist group. at some of these meetings the phenomena became so powerful that cook was levitated above the heads of the sitters. it was at this time that the teenaged medium met the spirit personality of katie king, who claimed to be the daughter of john king, alias henry owen morgan, the infamous buccaneer. king promised to be cook s spirit control and to produce many types of remarkable ph

ce in his life, the entity fletcher, who would become his spirit control. in this particular instance, it was more a matter of reacquaintance, for fletcher was a boyhood friend of ford s who had been killed in action in europe during world war i. with the advent of fletcher as his spirit guide, ford began a lifepath that would soon lead to world fame. in the late 1920s, ford established the first spiritualist church of new york, the first of numerous churches and spiritual organizations that he would found or lead. such luminaries as sir arthur conan doyle (1859 1930) called him one of the most amazing mental mediums of all times. in 1929, ford received a message that he believed to have originated from the spirit of the late master magician harry houdini (1874 1926) and conveyed it to mrs

THE GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE UNUSUAL UNEXPLAINED VOL 3

n because of their ability to communicate with the spirit worlds, to influence the weather, to heal the sick, and to interpret dreams. shamans entered a trance-like condition separating them from life s mundane existence and allowing them to enter a state of heightened spiritual awareness. according to anthropologists, shamanic methods are remarkably similar throughout the world. in our own time, spiritualist mediums who claim to be able to communicate with the dead remain popular as guides for contemporary men and women, and such individuals as john edward, james van praagh, and sylvia browne issue advice from the other side on syndicated television programs. t h e g a l e e n c y c l o p e d i a o f t h e u n u s u a l a n d u n e x p l a i n e d xiv introduction monsters and night terro

rder sauropoda, a latin word meaning lizard foot. schizophrenia a severe psychiatric disorder which can include symptoms of withdrawal or detachment from reality, delusions, hallucinations, emotional instability, and intellectual disturbances or illogical patterns of thinking to various degrees. the term comes from greek words meaning split mind. seance a meeting or gathering of people in which a spiritualist makes attempts to communicate with the spirits of deceased persons, or a gathering to receive spiritualistic messages. semidivine possessing similar or some of the characteristics, abilities, or powers normally attributed to a deity and/or existing on a higher spiritual level or plane than common mortals yet not completely divine. shaman a religious or spiritual leader, usually posses

THE GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE UNUSUAL UNEXPLAINED VOL

because of their ability to communicate with the spirit worlds, to influence the weather, to heal the sick, and to interpret dreams. shamans entered a trance-like condition separating them from life fs mundane existence and allowing them to enter a state of heightened spiritual awareness. according to anthropologists, shamanic methods are remarkably similar throughout the world. in our own time, spiritualist mediums who claim to be able to communicate with the dead remain popular as guides for contemporary men and women, and such individuals as john edward, james van praagh, and sylvia browne issue advice from the other side on syndicated television programs. t h e g a l e e n c y c l o p e d i a o f t h e u n u s u a l a n d u n e x p l a i n e d xiv introduction monsters and night terro

the royals discussed dire consequences with diana if she continued the relationship. conspiracy theorists maintain when rumors circulated that diana might be pregnant with dodi fs child, the royal family ordered her death. princess diana paid the ultimate price for dabbling in the dark arts. it was well known that princess diana and sarah ferguson, ex-wife of prince andrew, sought the counsel of spiritualist mediums and psychic-sensitives. some conspiracy buffs have suggested that the death of diana and dodi was a result of occult practices that backfired on the princess and that curses she had directed against her enemies had somehow boomeranged and unleashed their energy upon diana and her lover. diana was killed because she had offended a powerful secret society. some theorists insist

a l a n d u n e x p l a i n e d magic and sorcery 79 neo druids gathered around stonehenge (archive photos, inc) british ministry of health. in his spare time stanley buckland wrote, and had published, plays, short stories, poetry, and music, and he influenced and encouraged raymond in the same pursuits. at the age of 12, buckland was introduced to spiritualism by his father fs brother, george, a spiritualist. this led buckland, an avid reader, to investigate that subject and to move on to such related subjects as ghosts, esp, magick, witchcraft, voodoo, and the occult generally. over time his interest focused on witchcraft. buckland was educated at nottingham boys high school, then at king fs college school, wimbledon. he holds a doctorate in anthropology from brantridge forest college, i

ore spiritual options. buddhism was popular then, in the early 1960s, but she could not get comfortable with it. spiritualism entered her awareness, with its dark- t h e g a l e e n c y c l o p e d i a o f t h e u n u s u a l a n d u n e x p l a i n e d magic and sorcery 83 yvonne frost (archives of brad steiger) ened rooms, psychic development, mediumship, and native american spirit guides. in a spiritualist seance in 1965, a voice came to her through the medium fs trumpet: gcan i be your little girl? h single as she was, yvonne was taken aback. still she managed to answer, gyes. you come when it fs time. h bronwyn frost was born in 1969. in an apport seance yvonne fs spirit guide at that time, dr. alfred russel wallace, brought her a green cabochon stone. she had it set into a bracelet b

r sauropoda, a latin word meaning lizard foot. schizophrenia a severe psychiatric disorder which can include symptoms of withdrawal or detachment from reality, delusions, hallucinations, emotional instability, and intellectual disturbances or illogical patterns of thinking to various degrees. the term comes from greek words meaning gsplit mind. h seance a meeting or gathering of people in which a spiritualist makes attempts to communicate with the spirits of deceased persons, or a gathering to receive spiritualistic messages. semidivine possessing similar or some of the characteristics, abilities, or powers normally attributed to a deity and/or existing on a higher spiritual level or plane than common mortals yet not completely divine. shaman a religious or spiritual leader, usually posses

THE GOLDEN ESSENCE

compassing realityexperience of the true trance to the essence of the dead person about or below, and allowing the boundary lines between themselves and the deceased to become blurred and overlapping. in this manner, the dead person can participate, on a very real level, in this housle, which itself is the occurrence of a real and ongoing miracle. some people worry about the dangers of this minor spiritualist/necromantic practise, and to this, i say there is none; this housle is done in the name of the son of light, which protectively seals the rite and ensures that the dead who are called to or by the rite (or its participants) emerge as the holy ones, purified in his light already. a cup of red wine and a plate or bowl of wheat or rye bread is needed for the housle. the housle participan

THE STAR IN THE WEST BY CAPTAIN FULLER A CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE WORKS OF ALEISTER CROWLEY

ing the further bank in safety. it would perhaps seem safer to forego such an attempt altogether, but so alloyed have these mystical ideas become with the general structure of his philosophy, that such a course is rendered impossible, so that the failure of safety would be only more ignominious than the failure of attempt. aleister crowley as we have seen is no christian, neither is he a gullible spiritualist, nor a gross materialist. seeking an answer to the mystery, he first finds it in the ontology of the qabalah, and then finally through mysticism and agnosticism, to their reconciliation in a neo-hermeticism, a neo- rosicrucianism. which we have already called crowleyanity *not only has crowley succeeded in finding all the scattered pieces of osiris which isis discovered, but also his

TYSON DONALD NEW MILLENNIUM MAGIC

he body of the disease to quickly decay. if the soul is thought of as a series of numbers that make up a modern digital recording-a very apt metaphor--destroying the soul is akin to mixing up the order of the numbers, which results in so much white noise. none of the individ- ual numbers has actually been destroyed, but the music is gone. similarly, at the point of death nothing is actually lost, spiritualist assertions to the contrary, yet a change occurs from order to chaos. take cancer. when a tumor appears it is a physiological response to a deeper, invisible process. the tumor has no reason for growing in the human body. it is not naturally a part of the human form. yet it suddenly appears and starts to grow. assuredly it cannot come from nowhere. something impels it to grow and pro

TYSON DONALD SOUL FLIGHT

tion above, robert kirk expressed the opinion of his century that women are less adapted to seership than men. this was a prejudice of the same sort that once held men to be better weavers than women, and that continues to assert that they make better cooks. experience has demonstrated the falsehood of all these beliefs. if anything, 52. kirk and lanp, 7-8. chapter three: the land of fairy 45 the spiritualist movement has proven women better seers than men-at least, there seem to be more female mediums in modern times than male mediums, and they have attracted a larger share of attention. the same walking abroad of the fairies occurs, on a smaller scale, at twilight, the transition between day and night, when fairies are most often to be glimpsed or their music and laughter heard in the fi

modern spiritualism movement started in the spring of 1848, at hydesville, a small community in new york state located twenty miles or so from the city of rochester. as with most things generally agreed upon, this information is only partially correct. communications with spirits have occurred continuously since the beginning of human history, and the incident that marked the nominal start of the spiritualist movement was in many ways typical of its kind, though given more publicity than had previously been the case. uncanny rappings were heard by the family of john d. fox, who had just moved into a house in hydesville that had been vacated by the previous tenant due to strange noises in the middle of the night. efforts made to find a natural cause of the sounds were met with failure. 64 s

benefactor, h. h. day, who paid young kate fox twelve hundred dollars a year to conduct them. 71. fodor, 146. chapter five: spiritualism 65 shades of the dead spiritualism soon developed into a kind of alternative religion that gave evidence of survival beyond the grave, and allowed the living to communicate with the beloved dead. it is significant that almost all of the spirits who spoke through spiritualist seances identified themselves as souls of the dead. this is a departure from the spirit communications of preceding centuries. in earlier times, the spirits who communicated had identified themselves more frequently as angels, or spirits of the natural world, or even as demons, but seldom as the dead. however, the religion of spiritualism, and its french version known as spiritism, ar

t, since the astral double has no material existence. it appears to be material. it can be seen, felt, even conversed with, but it is not material. it is always projected into the astral world, never the physical world. it merely appears at times to be present in the physical world. it is difficult to know how to view the physical manifestations that are almost the invariable accompaniment of the spiritualist skance. they are a part of the materialism of the spiritualists-their need to reduce everything to the physical level while at the same time preening themselves on their enlightened emancipation from a materialistic 76. muldoon and carrington, projection of the astral body, 32. 77. fodor, 100. chapter five: spiritualism 69 outlook. most of the phenomena can be dismissed as deliberate

he body a link which cannot be defined, but which keeps up its union with the perispirit and the soul. the perispirit then appears in the place where the spirit desires to show himself.80 79. kardec, mediums' book, 130. 80. ibid. 131. chapter five: spiritualism 71 the method of astral projection described by the spirit that assumed the identity of saint alphonsus was the method most often used by spiritualist mediums during the nineteenth century, without the component of prayer or the advantage of moral improvement. fodor wrote "the usual method of such experiments is to determine before going to sleep to visit someone during the night. the experiment may succeed when the least expected, and the agent may be totally unaware of the success."81 the male medium stainton moses decided to visi

on how to actually project the astral body.86 there is a mingled tone of impatience and contempt when carrington writes of theosophy. 86. muldoon and carrington, projection of the astral body, 25. 78 soul flight theosophists, for their part, gave forth a remarkable account concerning the origins of spiritualism that indicates by its content the condescending attitude with which they regarded the spiritualist movement. it is related by charles webster leadbeater (1854- 1934) in his book the astral plane: its scenery, inhabitants and phenomena. according to leadbeater, the modern spiritualism movement began as an experiment conducted by the enlightened spiritual chiefs of a secret occult lodge known as the divine rulers of the golden gate, which leadbeater claimed was associated with atlant

UNLEASHING THE BEAST

gardie, the eye in the triangle: an interpretation of aleister crowley [st. paul, mn: llewellyn publications, 1970, 417. xlvon the charges of sex magic brought against the cathars and later the templars, see francis king, sexuality, magic and perversion (secacus: citadel, 1971, 170-71. xlvifranklin rosemont, foreward to john patrick deveney, paschal beverly randolph: a nineteenth century american spiritualist, rosicrucian and sex magician (albany: suny, 1997, xv. as deveney observes, largely through randolph's influence the genie had been released from the bottle. a multitude of sexual mysticism flourished (paschal beverly randolph, 252 -178- xlviiirandolph, the mysteries of eulis, 337. randolph lists over 100 uses for sexual magic, which include everything from acquiring money to the secr

WICCA WITCHCRAFT TODAY

n as women, but in english a witch is always called 'she, so i will use that word, and the reader must understand it to mean either male of female [2] see note 1 (page 188- i must first explain why i claim to speak of things note generally known. i have been interested in magic and kindred subjects all my life, and have made a collection of? magical instruments and charms. these studies led me to spiritualist and other societies, and i met some people who claimed to have known me in a past life. here i must say that, though i believe in reincarnation, as most people do who have lived in the east, i do not remember any past lives, albeit i have had curious experiences. i only wish i did. anyhow, i soon found myself in the circle and took the usual oaths of secrecy which bound me not to reve

priest who had led the fertility rites, and the people said they had not been told it was wrong; in fact the priest said it was right. at first only penances and fines were imposed, but as the church grew stronger torture and fire were used. the old religion made one great mistake. it had stated that paradise was reserved for the initiates; that the ordinary folk when they died went to a kind of spiritualist heaven, a happy hunting-ground: but it was one where they had to work, as only initiates could obtain the required learning which took them to a paradise where they were rested and refreshed, till they were ready to be reincarnated on earth again. christianity at first promised what has been irreverently called 'salvation on the cheap 'abjure your heathen gods, believe in the three go

ZALEWSKI SECRET INNER ORDER RITUALS OF THE GOLDEN DAWN OCR

shows that the golden dawn and its inner order the r.r. et a.c. hinges on interpretations. the first is that series of cyphers (based on an alchemical treatise and published in the polygraphiae of johann trithemius, was found in a book stall; while the second says that these papers found their way into wescott's hands through the papers of fred hockley (1808-85, a prominent mason, rosicrucian and spiritualist. at any rate once wescott had the papers, he asked mathers to translate and expand them into workable grade rituals. it is said that with these cyphers was an address of a certain s.d.a. in germany to whom wyn wescott wrote, and in return received a charter promoting him and two others (mathers and woodman) to the rank of 5=6 grade. these original cyphers when translated are skeletoni

ALEISTER CROWLEY MAGICK IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

your body of light may wander away uncontrolled, and be attacked and obsessed. you will become aware of this through the occurrence of headache, bad dreams, or even more serious signs such as hysteria, fainting fits, possibly madness or paralysis. even the worst of these attacks will probably wear off, but it may leave you permanently damaged to a greater or less extent. 147 a great majority of "spiritualists "occultists "toshosophists, are pitiable examples of repeated losses from this cause. the emotional type of religionist also suffers in this way. devotion projects the fine body, which is seized and vampirized by the demon masquerading as "christ" or "mary, or whoever may be the object of worship. complete absence of all power to concentrate thought, to follow an argument, to formula

ALEISTER CROWLEY THE SWORD OF SONG

ther guide. all the facts science has so busily collected, varied as they seem to be, are in reality all of the same kind. if we are to have one salient fact, a fact for a real advance, it must be a fact of a different order. have we such a fact to hand? we have. first, what do we mean by a fact of a different order? let me take and example; the most impossible being the best for our purpose. the spiritualists, let us suppose, go mad and begin to talk sense (i can only imagine that such would be the result) all their facts are proved. we prove a world of spirits, the existence of god, the immortality of the soul, etc. but, with all that, we are not really one step advanced into the heart of the inquiry which lies at the heart of philosophy, what is anything? i see a cat. dr. johnson says i

ALEISTER CROWLEY EQUINOX EQ I 3 3

he is probably as well fitted to carry on his s.p.r. work as any student in england. and to those who are unacquainted with the phenomena of spiritualism "the survival of man" is as useful a book as could be read. but to the student of religion its value is "nil" because the occult knowledge is "nil" in fairness it should be added that this review is written from the point of view of a mystic; to spiritualists the book will be welcome as yet another "proof" of "spirit-return "thought-transference" and so on. v. b. neuburg. this book is a singularly lucid and complete statement of the work of many noble lives. we believe that the s.p.r. has taken up a most admirable position, and wish greater success to their work in the future. if they would only train themselves instead of exercising pati

ALICE A BAILEY04 A TREATISE ON COSMIC FIRE

tists admit already the fact of etheric matter; the success of photographic endeavor has demonstrated the reality of that which has hitherto been considered unreal, because (from the standpoint of the physical) intangible. phenomena are occurring all the time which remain in the domain of the supernatural unless accounted for through the medium of etheric matter, and in their anxiety to prove the spiritualists wrong, scientists have aided the cause of the true and higher spiritism by falling back on reality, and on the fact of the etheric body, even though they consider it a body of emanative radiation being concerned with the effect and not having yet ascertained the cause. medical men are beginning to study (blindly as yet) the question of vitality, the effect of solar rays upon the phys

ALICE A BAILEY08 A TREATISE ON WHITE MAGIC

to be done, the work of the lodge is often hindered. the point reached at this time might be expressed as a swinging from the rank materialism of the past into a growing and profound realization of the unseen worlds without the balance that comes from self-acquired knowledge. the forces that have been set in motion by the thinkers the scientists of the world, the truly advanced religious men, the spiritualists, the christian scientists, the new thought workers, the theosophists and the modern philosophers and workers in other fields of human thought are gradually and steadily affecting the subtler bodies of humanity and are bringing them to a point where they are beginning to realize three things: a. the reality of the unseen worlds. b. the terrific power of thought. c. the need for scient

all its defects and yet with all its indicated divinity. out of these instincts carried forward into infinity, and out of the process of their transmutation into their higher correspondences the full flower of soul expression will emerge. i would like to point out the following: the instinct of self-presentation finds its consummation in assured immortality, and of this the work undertaken by the spiritualists and psychic investigators right down the ages is the mode of approach and the inevitable guarantee. the sex instinct has worked out and finds its logical consummation in the- 359- a treatise on white magic copyright 1998 lucis trust relationship- consciously realised- of the soul and the body. this is the keynote of mysticism and religion, which is today, as ever, the expression of t

ALICE A BAILEY09 A TREATISE ON THE SEVEN RAYS VOLUME I ESOTERIC PSYCHOLOGY I

at the present era in which we live will come to be looked upon as the dark ages. science will penetrate deeper into the realm of the intangible, and work in mediums and with apparatus hitherto unknown. the release of the potencies in an atom will mark a revolutionary era, and science will have much to discard and much to give as it works with energies and forms of life hitherto unrecognised. the spiritualists will make a discovery whereby the means of contact with those who function out of the physical body will be greatly facilitated, and a group of mediums will begin to act as intermediaries for a number of scientists on the inner side of life and those who are still in physical bodies. through the activity of the real esoteric schools, a technique of training will be instituted which w

lectrical energy which we know as modern electricity, produced to serve man's material needs. the seventh ray period will familiarise man with that type of electrical phenomena which produce the coordination of all forms. g. the sixth ray influence produced the emergence in men's minds of the following knowledges: 1. knowledge of physical plane light and electricity. 2. among the esotericists and spiritualists of the world, knowledge of the existence of the astral light. 3. an interest in illumination, both physical and mental. 4. astro-physics and the newer astronomical discoveries. the seventh ray will change the theories of the advanced thinkers of the race into the facts of the- 224- a treatise on the seven rays- volume i: esoteric psychology i copyright 1998 lucis trust future educati

ire which we call the kundalini fire. the cosmic rays of which the modern scientist is aware constitute aspects of the planetary kundalini, and their effect will be the same in the body of the planetary logos, the earth, as it is in the human body; the etheric web between the physical and astral planes is in process of destruction, and it is of this event which the sensitives of the world and the spiritualists prophesy as an imminent happening [page 371) much of profound interest is on its way as a result of this seventh ray activity. for one thing, though the animal kingdom reacts but little to this type of influence, yet there are going to be very definite results within the soul of the animal form. the door of individualisation or of entrance into the human kingdom has been closed since

ALICE A BAILEY10 FROM BETHLEHEM TO CALVARY

e of our survival as influences perpetuated in the race to which we belong has also been developed, emphasising a selflessness which is admirable, but is also the negation of the individual. the orthodox christian doctrines are three in number, and consist of the doctrine of eternal retribution, of universal restoration, and of conditional immortality. to these we must add the speculations of the spiritualists, with their various spheres, corresponding somewhat to the subtle worlds, seven in number, of the theosophists and the rosicrucians; and also the extreme theory of annihilation, which does not find much response from the healthy-minded. the value of all these doctrines consists in attracting attention to the eternal interest of man in the hereafter, and his many speculations as to hi

ALICE A BAILEY13 PROBLEMS OF HUMANITY

hese groups within the churches or outside them is to be found the nucleus of the new world religion. to this should be added the activities of the spiritualistic movement, not from the angle of its emphasis upon phenomena (much of it is spurious or imaginative, but some of it realistic and true) but from the angle of its surety about human immortality and the evidence which it has collected. the spiritualists have not yet succeeded in proving immortality; they have succeeded in proving survival and have thus made a valuable contribution to the structure of the new world religion- 91- problems of humanity copyright 1998 lucis trust the slowly developing powers of telepathic communication and the recognition of extra-sensory perception by science are also playing their part in demonstration

ALICE A BAILEY14 THE REAPPEARANCE OF THE CHRIST

masters of the wisdom, the disciples of the christ, and who will not be surprised when this group of sons of god, surrounding their great leader, the christ, makes its appearance on earth. the churches in all countries have familiarised the public with the phrase "the kingdom of god; the esotericists and occultists everywhere have publicised the fact of the hierarchy during the past century; the spiritualists have laid the emphasis upon the aliveness of those who have passed over into the hidden world of being, and their guides have also borne testimony to the existence of an inner, spiritual world. all this creates a unique preparedness which presents the christ with unique opportunities and unique problems. all these spiritual forces and many others, both within and without the world re

ALICE A BAILEY20 A TREATISE ON THE SEVEN RAYS VOLUME IV ESOTERIC HEALING

iple or initiate is functioning in the three worlds and the various energies of the whole man are "grounded" in the- 91- a treatise on the seven rays- volume iv: esoteric healing copyright 1998 lucis trust earthbound man, then the situation becomes clearer. i use the expression "grounded" in its true and correct sense, and not as the description of a man who has discarded his physical body as the spiritualists use the term. certain recognitions in time and space become possible; certain effects can be noted, certain ray influences appear more dominant than others; certain "patterns of being" appear; an expression of a spiritual being at a certain point of conscious experience emerges into clarity and can then be spiritually diagnosed. its aspects and attributes, its forces and energies, ca

ctioning upon the more advanced levels of the astral plane) sentient of outgoing love and aspiration; the man is engrossed with what engrossed his attention and involved the kamic principle during his incarnated experience. may i again remind you that there is now no physical brain to respond to impacts generated by the inner man, and also that sex, as it is physically understood, is nonexistent. spiritualists would do well to remember this and so grasp the foolishness as well as the impossibility of those spiritual marriages which certain schools of thought in the movement teach and practice. the man, in his astral body, is now free from the strictly animal impulses which, upon the physical plane, are both normal and right, but which now have no meaning to him in his kamic body. therefore

ANATHEMA OF ZOS

in all. there is no greater virtue than good nourishment. feed from the udder, and if the milk be sour, feed on. human nature is the worst possible! once i lived among ye. from self-decency now i habitate the waste places, a willing outcast; associate of goats, cleaner far, more honest than men. within this heterogenousness of difference, reality is hard to realize; evacuation is difficult. these spiritualists are living sepulchers. what has decayed should perish decently. cursed are they who supplicate. gods are with ye yet. therefore let ye who pray acquire this manner: self my god, foreign is thy name except in blasphemy, for i am thy iconoclast. i cast thy bread upon the waters, for i myself am meat enough. hidden in the labyrinth of the alphabet is my sacred name, the sigil of all thi

BLAVATSKY H P ANTHROPOGENESIS

cret books, as it would only lead to speaking of facts hitherto unknown to the profane world, and hence to their being misunderstood. an "adam" made of the dust of the ground will always be found preferable, by a certain class of students, to one projected out of the ethereal body of his creator; though the former process has never been heard of, while the latter is familiar, as all know, to many spiritualists in europe and america, who, of all men, ought to understand it. for who of those who have witnessed the phenomenon of a materialising form oozing out of the pores of a medium or, at other times, out of his left side, can fail to credit the possibility, at least, of such a birth? if there are[[vol. 2, page] 87 man not created perfect. in the universe such beings as angels or spirits

n of the occult teachings. the whole issue of the quarrel between the profane and the esoteric sciences depends upon the belief in, and demonstration of, the existence of an astral body within the physical, the former independent of the latter. paul d'assier, the positivist, seems to have proven the fact pretty plainly* not to speak of the accumulated testimony of the ages, and that of the modern spiritualists and mystics. it will be found difficult to reject this fact in our age of proofs, tests, and ocular demonstrations. the secret doctrine maintains that, notwithstanding the general cataclysms and disturbances of our globe, which- owing to its being the period of its greatest physical development, for the fourth round is the middle-point of the life allotted to it- were far more terrib

d orthodox christian conceptions about the "fallen" angels or satan, are as remarkable as they are absurd. about a dozen could be cited, of the most various character as to details, and all from the pen of educated lay authors "university graduates" of the present quarter of our century. thus, the author of "earth's earliest ages" j. h. pember, m.a, devotes a thick volume to proving theosophists, spiritualists, metaphysicians, agnostics, mystics, poets, and every contemporary author on oriental speculations, to be the devoted servants of the "prince of the air" and irretrievably damned. he describes satan and his antichrist in this wise "satan is the 'anointed cherub' of old. god created satan, the fairest and wisest of all his creatures in this part of his universe, and made him prince of

-atlantean race, three and a half races after the genesis of man, the earth, man, and everything on the globe was of a still grosser and more material nature, while such things as corals and some shells were still in a semi-gelatinous, astral state. the cycles that intervened since then, have already carried us onward, on the opposite ascending arc, some steps toward our dematerialization, as the spiritualists would say. the earth, ourselves, and all things have softened since then- aye, even our brains. but it has been objected by some theosophists that an ethereal earth even some 15, or 20,000,000 years ago, does not square with geology, which teaches us that winds blew, rains fell, waves broke on the shore, sands shifted and accumulated[[footnote(s* it must be remembered that the "last

e temple of pachacamac or the ruins of tia-huanuco in peru("the countries of the world" by robert brown, vol. 4, p. 43; and that they are in the cyclopean style. the first large cities, however, appeared on that region of the continent which is now known as the island of madagascar. there were civilized people and savages in[[footnote(s* our best modern novelists, who are neither theosophists nor spiritualists, begin to have, nevertheless, very psychological and suggestively occult dreams: witness mr. louis stephenson and his dr. jekyll and mr. hyde, than which no grander psychological essay on occult lines exists. has the rising novelist, mr. rider haggard, also had a prophetic or rather a retrospective clairvoyant dream before he wrote "she? his imperial kor, the great city of the dead

ual and mental evolutions, the great gift of kriyasakti* remained the heirloom of only a few elect men in every age. spirit strove vainly to manifest itself in its fulness in purely organic forms (as has been explained in part i. of this volume, and the faculty, which had been a natural attribute in the early humanity of the third race, became one of the class regarded as simply phenomenal by the spiritualists and occultists, and as scientifically impossible by the materialists. in our modern day the mere assertion that there exists a power which can create human forms- ready-made sheaths for the "conscious monads" or nirmanakayas of past manvantaras to incarnate within- is, of course, absurd, ridiculous! that which is regarded as quite natural, on the other hand, is the production of a fr

BLAVATSKY H P COSMOGENESIS

y in which it can be used correctly "a two-dimensional species" the processes of natural development which we are now considering will at once elucidate and discredit the fashion of speculating on the attributes of the two, three, and four or more "dimensional space" but in passing, it is worth while to point out the real significance of the sound but incomplete intuition that has prompted- among spiritualists and theosophists, and several great men of science, for the matter of that- the use of the modern expression "the fourth dimension of space" to begin with, of course, the superficial absurdity of assuming that space itself is measurable in any direction is of little consequence. the familiar phrase can only be an abbreviation of the fuller form- the "fourth dimension of matter in spa

rsting for a fourth dimension to explain the passage of matter through matter, and the production of knots upon an endless cord, what they were really in want of, was a sixth characteristic of matter. the three dimensions belong really but to one attribute or characteristic of matter- extension; and[[footnote(s* professor zollner's theory has been more than welcomed by several scientists--who are spiritualists- professors butlerof and wagner, of st. petersburg, for instance "the giving reality to abstractions is the error of realism. space and time are frequently viewed as separated from all the concrete experiences of the mind, instead of being generalizations of these in certain aspects (bain, logic, part ii, p. 389[[vol. 1, page] 252 the secret doctrine. popular common sense justly rebe

c fragments that belong bodily to the secret doctrine. the latter teaches that the whole universe is ruled by intelligent and semi-intelligent forces and powers, as stated from the very beginning. christian theology admits and even enforces belief in such, but makes an arbitrary division and refers to them as "angels" and "devils" science denies the existence of such, and ridicules the very idea. spiritualists believe in the spirits of the dead, and, outside these, deny entirely any other kind or class of invisible beings. the occultists and kabalists are thus the only rational expounders of the ancient traditions, which have now culminated in dogmatic faith on the one hand, and dogmatic denials on the other. for, both belief and unbelief embrace but one small corner each of the infinite h

ruths have a chance of becoming scientific! but truth, however distasteful to the generally blind majorities, has always had her champions, ready to die for her, and it is not the occultists who will protest against its adoption by science under whatever new name. but, until absolutely forced on the notice and acceptance of scientists, many an occult truth will be tabooed, as the phenomena of the spiritualists and other psychic manifestations were, to be finally appropriated by its ex-traducers without the least acknowledgment or thanks. nitrogen has added considerably to chemical knowledge, but its discoverer, paracelsus, is to this day called a "quack[[footnote(s[[footnote continued from previous page] of ether to akasa may be defined by applying to both akasa and ether the words said of

t opens limitless horizons to substance informed by the divine breath of its soul in every possible state of tenuity, states still undreamt of by the most spiritually disposed chemists and physicists. the above views were enunciated by an academician, the greatest chemist in russia, and a recognised authority even in europe- the late professor butlerof. true, he was defending the phenomena of the spiritualists, the materializations, so called, in which he believed as professors zollner, and hare did, as mr. a. russell wallace, mr. w. crookes, and many another fellow of the royal society, do still, whether openly or secretly. but his argument with regard to the nature of the essence that acts behind the physical phenomena of light, heat, electricity, etc, is no less scientific and authorita

this force to become the common property of all men alike? what mr. keely has already done is grand and wonderful in the extreme; there is enough work before him in the demonstration of his new system to "humble the pride of those scientists who are materialistic, by revealing those mysteries which lie behind the world of matter" without revealing it nolens volens to all. for surely psychists and spiritualists- of whom there are a good number in the european armies- would be the first to experience personally the fruits of such mysteries revealed. thousands of them would find themselves (and perhaps with the populations of whole countries to keep them company) in blue ether very soon, were such a force to be even entirely discovered, let alone made publicly known. the discovery in its comp

BLUE EQUINOX

eat many elementals are to be found in human form today; they are nearly always women, or such men as are not men. such beings are imitative, irresponsible, always being shocked, without any standard of truth, although often extremely logical; criminal without a sense of right and wrong, and as shameless as they are prudish. truth of any kind frightens them. they are usually christian scientists, spiritualists, theosophists, or what not. they reflect the personality of a man with extraordinary ease, and frequently deceive him into thinking that they know what they are saying. l vi remarks that .the love of the magus for such beings is insensate and may destroy him. he had had some. this doctrine is magnificently expounded in wagner.s parsifal. the way to redeem such creatures is to withsta

CHIREAU YVONNE BLACK MAGIC RELIGION AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN CONJURING TRADITION

hes, also promoted ritual healing, actively conjoining supernaturalism and christian piety. with the rise of pentecostalism in the late 1800s, and the black spiritual churches after the turn of the twentieth century, healing became a central concern in african american religious life. certain parallels between the healing practices of black conjurers and\ 93\ those of black pentecostals and black spiritualists point to common sources. practitioners of all three traditions held similar assumptions about the body and embraced analogous visions of misfortune, conceptions of disease, and the uses of spiritual power for extraordinary cures. these traditions emerged in response to the intractability of black oppression in the united states, and all drew momentum from cultural sources that had ro

ns "all present day mothers [spiritual church leaders] deny they practice voodoo, and many of them don't" claimed robert tallant, a local writer "however, others use many of the oils and powders and sell a mild sort of gris-gris" outside new orleans, in cities like chicago, detroit, and harlem, the supernatural orientation of the black spiritual religion was also well known "the attraction of the spiritualists was their straight-forward utilitarian use of religion" asserts one source "magical objects in the form of charms or amulets were used to guard against any possible evil or attain some cherished good"[50] despite its highlighting of the supernatural, spiritual worship was virtually indistinguishable from that of black pentecostals and holiness practitioners. like african american chu

ht-forward utilitarian use of religion" asserts one source "magical objects in the form of charms or amulets were used to guard against any possible evil or attain some cherished good"[50] despite its highlighting of the supernatural, spiritual worship was virtually indistinguishable from that of black pentecostals and holiness practitioners. like african american churchgoers in these traditions, spiritualists participated in expressive singing, jubilant dancing, shouting, and glossolalia. a hallmark of black spiritual liturgy was possession by the holy ghost, an activity demonstrating the dynamic influence of protestant revivalism. furthermore, like their pentecostal counterparts, black spiritualists incorporated prayer, the laying on of hands, and anointing with oil into their healing se

singing, jubilant dancing, shouting, and glossolalia. a hallmark of black spiritual liturgy was possession by the holy ghost, an activity demonstrating the dynamic influence of protestant revivalism. furthermore, like their pentecostal counterparts, black spiritualists incorporated prayer, the laying on of hands, and anointing with oil into their healing services. a primary difference between the spiritualists and other afro-christian churches concerned the emphasis that the former placed on human mediation with the diverse forces of the spiritual world. in the black spiritual tradition, a pivotal event was the believer's interaction with divinities, sacred entities, persons who had "passed on" roman catholic saints, or other powerful beings. while some spiritual churches instituted public

ists embellished older conjuring techniques by utilizing the dramatic visual impact of miraculous healings. for instance, according to witnesses, mother catherine seals, a legendary spiritual leader in the early twentieth century, removed a black cat, a wasp's nest, and an assortment of other rustic creatures from the bodies of afflicted patients at her church in new orleans.[52] african american spiritualists also stimulated the advent of an active public economy of store-bought supernatural merchandise. spiritualists and their clients traded and sold amulets, accumulated charms, and created talismans in order to fend off evil forces and ensure the presence of positive spiritual forces. the most popular items of spiritual practitioners were black magic page 72 of 144 http//content.cdlib.o

hicago offered similar insights into the relationship between her congregants f afflictions and the quality of their lives "people around here are very insecure" she claimed. there is nothing so upsetting as fear of losing your job. a lot of people are troubled and nervous, and i'm here to help them. c what i do is advise people what to do to better themselves" an ethic of responsibility informed spiritualists f approaches to healing. coupled with the emphasis on supernatural empowerment, black spiritual healing traditions offered a multifaceted approach to affliction in the human condition.[55] correlations with other supernatural traditions are rarely acknowledged by ministers in the present-day black spiritual churches. like the black magic page 73 of 144 http//content.cdlib.org/xtf/vie

DICTIONARY GLOSSARY OF OCCULT TERMINOLOGY

d goblet used as the tool of elemental water. the magickal weapon of elemental water and the west. channeling: the process by which a spirit is allowed to take control of the consciousness of a medium or channeler, and speaks through the mouth of that person. identical to the practices of trance mediums, but it tends to dispense with the traditional paraphernalia of the seance. used by modern day spiritualists. uncontrolled and unprepared invocation (q.v. a practice generally avoided and frowned upon by modern ceremonial/ritual magicians. chanting: the rhythmic repetition of sounds or words to induce an altered mental state and produce magickal effects. chaos magick: magickal practices based on the presumptions that the universe is uncertain and that natural laws are not everywhere and alw

he eyes to rest on a plain surface so that the mind becomes stilled, and receptive to imagery which arises from the unconscious. a method of utilizing the psionic discipline of clairvoyance, via means of a crystal ball, black mirror, or bowl of water, etc. seance: from the old french "seoir" from the latin "sedere" meaning "to sit. in spiritism (q.v, or spiritualism, a session or meeting at which spiritualists attempt to contact with the spirits of the dead. secret chiefs: supernatural beings who preside over the rosicrucian (q.v) and other occult (q.v) and esoteric (q.v) currents and communicate occult teaching to men and woman who seek to follow that path. the head of the hermetic order of the golden dawn, s. l. macgregor mathers (q.v, was said to be in communication with them, though he

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OCCULTISM AND PARAPSYCHOLOGY VOL 1

hought movement. this minority movement impacted every level of intellectual and theological thinking at that time. theologians regularly began their courses with proofs of the existence of god; preachers debated village atheists; evangelists strengthened their efforts to reach the godless masses. in the midst of the debate between traditional religionists and freethinkers, a few people (known as spiritualists) proposed a different viewpoint in which the distinction between this life and the life beyond became a somewhat artificial intellectual construct; everything was part of one larger natural world. to demonstrate and prove scientifically the existence of this larger universe, spiritualists turned to mediums.people with special access to those realms once called the supernatural. enter

re and hereafter, on the truth of these manifestations; rational medicine recognizes their existence, and while she attributes them to morbid and exceptional influences, confesses her want of more exact knowledge, and refrains from barren theorizing. let us follow her example, and hold it enough to show that such powers, whatever they are, were known to the native priesthood as well as the modern spiritualists and the miracle mongers of the middle ages. their highest development is what our ancestors called second sight. that under certain conditions knowledge can pass from one mind to another otherwise than through the ordinary channels of the senses, is shown by the examples of persons en rapport. the limit to this we do not know, but it is not unlikely that clairvoyance or second sight

eprint, new hyde park, n.y: university books, 1966. philostratus. the life of apollonius of tyana. translated by f. c. conybeare. london: macmillan, 1912. apollyon the destroying angel or prince of the underworld (rev. 9:11, synonymous with abaddon. sources: barrett, francis. the magus. 1801. reprint, new hyde park, n.y: university books, 1967. apostolic circle a sectarian group of early american spiritualists that claimed to be in communication (through the mediumship of mrs. benedict of auburn) with the apostles and prophets of the bible. the sect also believed in a second advent. james l. scott, a seventh day baptist minister of brooklyn, joined the group in 1849. he delivered trance utterances in the name of st. john and edited, jointly with the rev. thomas lake harris, a periodical of

rest and curiosity for their own sakes, psychical researchers have valued them chiefly as throwing light on modern occurrences and beliefs. the belief in apparitions, for example, has been a root principle of spiritualism and is characteristic of religions that postulate the existence of a human soul. many indi- apparitions encyclopedia of occultism& parapsychology. 5th ed. 66 viduals who are not spiritualists in the accepted sense have had experiences that render belief in apparitions inevitable. some typical examples of apparitions the true nature of apparitions is not really known. as andrew lang stated: only one thing is certain about apparitions, namely this, that they do appear. they really are perceived. how are they seen? when lord adare submitted this question to the control of th

actual news of death arrives. phenomena of sound are often recorded in place of a visual apparition. sometimes they attempt to prove identity, imitating the professional work of the departed. they differ from poltergeist phenomena, as the latter do not coincide with death. if no definite message is conveyed, the apparition may be explained by a spirit s continued interest in earthly occupations. spiritualists often suggest that some spirits of the deceased apparently cannot adjust immediately to their new surroundings, and they may be seen for a while in favorite haunts or at their usual work, being somehow enabled, when recently freed from the body, to enjoy a fuller perception of earthly scenes than it is afterward possible to retain. knowledge and memory are the two main characteristic

e widespread involvement of materialization mediums in fraudulently produced phenomena became widely accepted] the ancient belief that the soul itself can become visible is not generally accepted, since it is thought that pure spirit cannot be perceptible to the physical senses. but a compromise has been made in the idea of a psychic body, midway between soul and body, which theosophists and some spiritualists theorize clothes the soul at the dissolution of the physical body. the psychic body is said to be composed of very fine and subtle material particles, perceptible as a rule, only to the eye of the clairvoyant. it is this astral body, and not the soul, that is seen as an apparition. experimental evidence for these and various alternative theories has proven far from conclusive. since

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OCCULTISM AND PARAPSYCHOLOGY VOL 2

, they have been at the forefront of exposing fraud within the spiritualist community. the impetus to the birth of the spiritualism movement in america was linked to two sisters, margaret and kate fox, who claimed to be receiving messages from beyond in their isolated farmhouse in 1848. it was the fox sisters, too, who encouraged the beginning of what would become a long history of debate between spiritualists and magic advocates. the first important challenge to spiritualism by a magician occurred right as the movement was just beginning. in 1853 j. h. anderson of new york offered a thousand dollars to any poverty-stricken medium who would come to his hall and attempt to produce raps. spiritualists were already becoming notorious for calling up the spirits of the dead, often in seances wh

were seated. the fox sisters accepted anderson s invitation immediately, and were accompanied by judge j. w. edmonds and a dr. grey. however convinced anderson might have been, he backed out as they were about to appear. amid the hisses of the audience, he refused them admission to the stage. magicians confounded a few of the most famous magicians acknowledged having witnessed genuine phenomena. spiritualists took such acknowledgement as their blanket approval, and seized upon it. the clairvoyant powers of alexis didier stupefied the famous conjurer robert-houdin. his signed declaration, as published by edwin lee in his book animal magnetism (1866, reads: i cannot help stating that the facts above related are scrupulously exact and the more i reflect upon them the more impossible do i fin

at http//www.material4thought.com. sources: material for thought. http//www.material4thought.com. march 8, 2000. materialization the claimed manifestation of temporary, more or less organized, apparitions in varying degrees of form, often possessing human physical characteristics and said to be shaped for a temporary existence from a substance called ectoplasm. materializations were attributed by spiritualists and some psychical researchers to spirit agency, although a few postulated that they might arise from some unknown natural force independent of departed spirits, but emanating from gifted psychics. most modern parapsychologists believe that materializations were simply performances staged by mediums and their accomplices to deceive the people sitting with them, who had hoped to come

normal organism. finding itself ousted, the visitor took refuge with madame s other part, and proceeded to operate on it in the way generally known as transfiguration. succeeding in this operation, it is not difficult to believe, as madame says, that it seemed to be regarding the proceedings with great complacency and satisfaction. to account for the variant phenomena from one seance to the next, spiritualists hypothesized that if the health of the medium was weak or the power, for any other reason, low, materialization usually did not progress beyond the stage of resemblance to the medium. in line with this hypothesis enrico morselli proposed a psychodynamic theory (psycologia e spiritismo, 1907) according to which the ectoplasmic substance resulted from a kind of human radioactivity and

dium has come forward with comparable phenomena to be tested in the more rigorous atmosphere of present times. until they do, materialization must be consigned to the dustbin of rejected phenomena. no evidence of fraud was ever discovered on the part of one medium, d. d. home, whose seances produced some of the most extraordinary phenomena, but his career now stands as an anomaly. in his book the spiritualists: the story of florence cook and william crookes (1962, trevor h. hall seeks to show that not only was the mediumship of florence cook fraudulent, but that william crookes became her accomplice because he was infatuated with her. crookes s psychical research occurred at the beginning of his career, before the unquestioned scientific accomplishments for which he was justly honored. hal

of a medium is a unique sensitiveness that enables the medium to be readily controlled by spirits. mediums thus stand in contrast to sensitives or psychics, terms applicable to psychically gifted individuals who are not controlled by spirits of the dead. if one accepts the possibility of mediumship, the next question is whether mediumship is an inherent faculty or whether it may be acquired. some spiritualists hold that all individuals are mediums to some degree, and consequently that everyone is in communication with spirits, from whom proceeds what is called inspiration. those who are ordinarily designated mediums, say the spiritualists, are gifted with this common ability to a higher degree than their fellows. what came to be known as mediumship in nineteenthcentury spiritualism is an a

EXTRAORDINARY ENCOUNTERS AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EXTRATERRESTRIALS AND OTHERWORLDY BEINGS

, tx: mutual ufo network, 1987. the chase for proof in a squirrel s cage. in hilary evans with john spencer, eds. ufos 1947 1987: the 40-year search for an ex- planation, 145 155. london: fortean tomes. swords, michael d, 1997. roswell: clashing visions of the possible. international ufo reporter 22, 3 (fall: 11 13, 33 35. dentons s martians and venusians in america during the nineteenth century, spiritualists and other psychics proliferated. among the most prominent were william denton and his son sherman. they called themselves psychometers, which meant that they could discern any truth, however distant in time and space, by touching a physical object or, if it were out of reach, at least focusing on it. in this way they learned that mars and venus were inhabited. as the elder denton put

GILBERT THE GOLDEN DAWN TWILIGHT OF THE MAGICIANS

iritualism is a belief in the continuing, post255 humous existence of the individual human being in spirit form, the ability and willingness of spirits to communicate with the living, and the existenceofan orderly, happy and permanent spirit-world, in which the dead lived out their after-lives in an idealized mirror-image of contemporary society. in this spirit255 world hell had no place and many spiritualists were undoubtedly converted to the cause by a desire to evade the probability of eternal damnation that victorian popular theology offered them. further, spiritualism offered the novel attraction, which no church could offer, of conversation with one's departed relatives, either by mechanicalmeans-suchas ouija boards and table255turning-ordirectly, through the voice of a medium who co

nglican variety at least, within freemasonry, but the existence of the guild of the holy spirit indicates the rudimentsofa willingness to be partofa hierarchical society devoted to occult pursuits on the part of clergymen without a masonic background. besides communication with the departed there were other aspectsofspiritualism which were well known and enthusiasti255 cally supported not only by spiritualists at large but also within the confinesofthe s.r.i.a. clairvoyance (the ability to 'see' distant events by extra-sensory means) had been frequently demons255 trated in the1840sby proponents of mesmerism who claimed to obtain starding results from subjects placed in a trance. another, and far older, method ofinducing clairvoyantvision was by means of gazing into a mirror or a crystal ba

GILBERT THE SORCERER AND HIS APPRENTICE

ome psychic memoriesa strong wave of interest seems to have set in recently concerning the possibility, or otherwise, of communication with those who have passed over, and i have been often asked to record a few, and perhaps not very remarkable, experiences that have occurred to myself. it may well be that the conclusions i have arrived at are not those which would commend themselves to convinced spiritualists. in fact some spiritualistic friends have told me that i have seen enough to convince the most hardened doubter, but instinctively i have always applied the old lawyer's habit of weighing evidence, and where two or three possible explanations present them255 selvesi do not pledge myself to the acceptance of one only and reject the rest. i hold the view of the old friend of my boyhood

GILBERT R A THE MASONIC CAREER OF A

h. i shall look forward to the receipt of the third. i trust that i shall prove useful, as i shall certainly endeavour to be active, in the diffusion of the order among occult students who are not masons'40[40. no correspondence with 'papus' survives from this period and it is not possible to determine whether or not waite applied for a charter but, in an address to the international congress (of spiritualists) in 1898 'papus' referred to the progress of his order, which had added two new martinist 'formations' in england during 189741[41. one of these may well have involved waite, although in 1902 he broke completely with 'papus' when he learned of the bad odour in which the latter was held by orthodox masonic bodies. however his enthusiasm for the doctrines of saint-martin remained and i

GNOSTIC CATECHISM

h. i shall look forward to the receipt of the third. i trust that i shall prove useful, as i shall certainly endeavour to be active, in the diffusion of the order among occult students who are not masons'40[40. no correspondence with 'papus' survives from this period and it is not possible to determine whether or not waite applied for a charter but, in an address to the international congress (of spiritualists) in 1898 'papus' referred to the progress of his order, which had added two new martinist 'formations' in england during 189741[41. one of these may well have involved waite, although in 1902 he broke completely with 'papus' when he learned of the bad odour in which the latter was held by orthodox masonic bodies. however his enthusiasm for the doctrines of saint-martin remained and i

GNOSTIC HANDBOOK

r a real appraisal of esotericism and gnosis, they are bitter and incisive attacks on both theosophy and spiritualism. these two works offer an insightful rejection of the syncretism and bourgeois indulgence that had become the occult movements of the period. he documents the stupidities and extremes of both movements and intimates that it is not the spirits of the dead who are communicating with spiritualists but subversive forces. he believes that these forces of counter gnosis and antitradition were offering counter-initiations in an attempt to degrade the real and essential gnosis. when the assault against counter gnosis was completed guenon turned his gaze to the very soul of western man. in orient and occident (1924, crisis of the modern world (1927 and the reign of quantity and the

H SPENCER LEWIS ROSICRUCIAN MANUAL AMORC 1990

serious situations and sorrows into the lives of those who are being guided by them. furthermore, rosicrucians know that departed "souls" do not return to earth in a material form, that departed "spirits" do not make materialized demonstrations as entities, and that communications received from the cosmic, or through the psychic bodies of living persons, are not always what they seem to be to the spiritualists. subconscious.the entire stream of consciousness with its various levels which are subliminal, that is, which he behind our realizations of self and of the external world. the objective and subjective consciousness are but two of the levels of the stream of consciousness. the subconscious is directly related to the cosmic or universal mind. subconscious mind.the mind in man may not b

HAMIL THE ROSICRUCIAN SEER

students in theoccultsciences,"t"is rather unfortunate in his 'most approvedmodemauthor' barrett was a mere book-maker, and hismagus(the original ms of which was for years in my possession) is a transcript from agrippa and a msofrabbi solomon, and the conjurations therein given were never intended for crystal work.[proverbsxvi.,16.contributionsto the zoist185your readers, whether rationalists or spiritualists, notwithstand255 ing the rhapsodies of the above learned and reverend gentle255 man, may feel desirousofinvestigating those occult laws of nature which, in spite of the poet, yet 'lie hid in night' i have been induced, upon a perusal of gamma's article in the last number but one ofthezoist,to offer the following notes upon the subject, trusting they may prove the germ of a more full

HELENA BLAVATSKY NIGHTMARE TALES

n day- bootzoo, with its giganticbell; tzeonene, enarino-yassero, kie-missoo, higadzi-hong-vonsi, and many other famous temples. several years passed away, and during that whole period i was not cured of my scepticism, nor did i evercontemplate having my opinions on this subject altered. i derided the pretensions of the japanese bonzes andascetics, as i had those of christian priests and european spiritualists. i could not believe in the acquisition ofpowers unknown to, and never studied by, men of science; hence i scoffed at all such ideas. the superstitiousand atrabilious buddhist, teaching us to shun the pleasures of life, to put to rout one's passions, to renderoneself insensible alike to happiness and suffering, in order to acquire such chimerical powers- seemedsupremely ridiculous in

HELENA BLAVATSKY THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY

, to many whose attention has been awakened, but who, as yet, are merely puzzled and not convinced. some care has been taken in disentangling some part of what is true from what is false in spiritualistic teachings as to the postmortem life, and to showing the true nature of spiritualistic phenomena. previous explanations of a similar kind have drawn much wrath upon the writer's devoted head; the spiritualists, like too many others, preferring to believe what is pleasant rather than what is true, and becoming very angry with anyone who destroys an agreeable delusion. for the past year theosophy has been the target for every poisoned arrow of spiritualism, as though the possessors of a half truth felt more antagonism to the possessors of the whole truth than those who had no share to boast

ver religion or philosophy they like, or none if they so prefer, provided they are in sympathy with, and ready to carry out one or more of the three objects of the association. the society is a philanthropic and scientific body for the propagation of the idea of brotherhood on practical instead of theoretical lines. the fellows may be christians or muslims, jews or parsees, buddhists or brahmins, spiritualists or materialists, it does not matter; but every member must be either a philanthropist, or a scholar, a searcher into ryan and other old literature, or a psychic student. in short, he has to help, if he can, in the carrying out of at least one of the objects of the program. otherwise he has no reason for becoming a "fellow" such are the majority of the exoteric society, composed of "a

e one of the branches of occult science-e.g, hypnotism, mesmerism, or even the secrets of producing physical phenomena, etc.-without the knowledge of the philosophic rationale of those powers, is like a rudderless boat launched on a stormy ocean -ooo- the difference between theosophy and spiritualism q. but do you not believe in spiritualism? a. if by "spiritualism" you mean the explanation which spiritualists give of some abnormal phenomena, then decidedly we do not. they maintain that these manifestations are all produced by the "spirits" of departed mortals, generally their relatives, who return to earth, they say, to communicate with those they have loved or to whom they are attached. we deny this point blank. we assert that the spirits of the dead cannot return to earth-save in rare a

ntirely subjective means. that which does appear objectively, is only the phantom of the ex-physical man. but in psychic, and so to say "spiritual" spiritualism, we do believe, most decidedly. q. do you reject the phenomena also? a. assuredly not-save cases of conscious fraud. q. how do you account for them, then? a. in many ways. the causes of such manifestations are by no means so simple as the spiritualists would like to believe. foremost of all, the deus ex machina of the so-called "materializations" is usually the astral body or "double" of the medium or of someone present. this astral body is also the producer or operating force in the manifestations of slate-writing "davenport"-like manifestations, and so on. q. you say usually-then what is it that produces the rest? a. that depends

orce in the manifestations of slate-writing "davenport"-like manifestations, and so on. q. you say usually-then what is it that produces the rest? a. that depends on the nature of the manifestations. sometimes the astral remains, the kamalokic "shells" of the vanished personalities that were; at other times, elementals. spirit is a word of manifold and wide significance. i really do not know what spiritualists mean by the term; but what we understand them to claim is that the physical phenomena are produced by the reincarnating ego, the spiritual and immortal "individuality" and this hypothesis we entirely reject. the conscious individuality of the disembodied cannot materialize, nor can it return from its own mental devachanic sphere to the plane of terrestrial objectivity. q. but many of

order, in which undeniable intelligence and knowledge are exhibited. as to the lower order of manifestations, such as physical phenomena and the platitudes and common talk of the general "spirit" to explain even the most important of the teachings we hold upon the subject would take up more space and time than can be allotted to it at present. we have no desire to interfere with the belief of the spiritualists any more than with any other belief. the responsibility must fall on the believers in "spirits" and at the present moment, while still convinced that the higher sort of manifestations occur through the disembodied souls, their leaders and the most learned and intelligent among the spiritualists are the first to confess that not all the phenomena are produced by spirits. gradually the

INITIATION INTO HERMETICS

d in it. therefore, in the astral plane there is to be seen an emanation of the eternal, having neither a beginning nor an end, as it is timeless and spaceless. the adept who sees his way about this plane may find everything here, no matter if the point in question be in the past, the present or the future. how far this perception will reach depends on the degree of his perfection. occultists and spiritualists and most of religions name the astral pane the world beyond. however, the adept knows very well that there is no such thing as hence and beyond and feels no fear of death, which concept is quite strange to him. if, by the disintegrating work of the elements or a sudden breakup, the astral matrix which is connecting matter between the grossly material body and the astral body has got

nt at full speed. magical physical training (v) in this step i shall quote some exercises that render possible a deliberate passive communication with the invisible ones from a magical point of view. in a certain way the methods resemble the spiritualistic ones, but the magician will soon notice that he is not training himself to become a person without any will of his own, called a medium by the spiritualists. the magician may not become a plaything of uncontrollable powers; on the contrary, he directs his powers consciously and also learns to use them deliberately. in this respect, he considers the laws of the invisible world as well as those of the physical world. to further the passive communication with invisible beings, there are recommended mainly the levitation exercises with the p

nto the carnal one and finish the exercise. repeat this several times until you succeed in exteriorizing the hand as described for at least five minutes. you can work on the other hand in the same manner. as soon as you have managed this very well, you are prepared to take up the communication with the invisible ones. we can see by now that the magic preparation is very different from that of the spiritualists who behave passively insofar as they take a pencil into their hands and write or paint. whether the messages that are asked for by the medial writing or painting of the spiritualists are actually coming out of the fourth dimension or the way they say it, from the world beyond or whether they originate only in the subconsciousness of the medium in question is entirely left to the judg

ready passed away to the world beyond. remembering, praising, mourning the deceased, any memory of or tribute to them will create and enliven imaginary pictures of the dead, which as a result of frequent repetition have a rather long duration of life. we call these pictures, created by the living ones, phantoms. it is this kind of phantom that manifest themselves in great numbers to the so-called spiritualists, evokers, diviners, etc. the spooks and hobgoblins also are nothing else but phantoms preserving, condensing and thriving on the affection and attachment of the bereaved ones, as it happens in the case of the shadows. this can be stated without difficulty by citing a being that manifests itself in different places at the same minute at once through so-called mediums, which is nothing

rish revengeful feelings towards each other for professional jealousy or for better knowing. the genuine magician will feel nothing but pity for people and creeds like that, but he will never hate or despise anyone. whosoever seeks god, and whatever may be the way he chooses to lead him toward this goal, shall be paid his due respect. it is a pity but also the truth that the clergy, theosophists, spiritualists or whatever they are called are antagonistically inclined just as if only their chosen path leads to god. all men seeking this path to, and union with, god should always remember the words of jesus christ, the great master of the mystics who said, love thy neighbor as thyself. this sentence ought to be a sacred command to any seeker of illumination on this spiritual path. many of the

ISIS UNVEILED

t denominations only. one presbyterian church in new york cost a round million; a catholic altar alone, one-fourth as much! we will not mention the multitude of smaller sects, communities, and extravagantly original little heresies in this country which spring up one year to die out the next, like so many spores of fungi after a rainy day' we will not even stop to consider the alleged millions of spiritualists; for the majority lack the courage to break away from their respective religious denominations. these are the back-door nicodemuses. and now with hlate let us inquire. what is truth? where is it to be searched for amid thb multitude of warring sects? each claims to be based upon divine revelation, and each to have the keys of the celestial gates. is any one of them in possession of t

sented a curious aspect. society seems from that time to have been ever balancing itself upon one leg on an unseen tight-rope stretched from our visible universe into the invisible one; un- certain whether the end hooked on faith in the latter mi^t not suddenly break and hurl it into final amiihilation. the great body of nominal christians may be divided into three unequal portions: materialists, spiritualists, and christians proper. the materialists and spiritualists make common cause against the hierarchical pretensions of the clergy; who, in retaliation, denounce both with equal acerbi. hie materialists are as little in harmony as the christian sects themselves the comtists, or, as they call themselves, the positivists, being despised and hated to the last degree by the schools of think

v. digilizocb, google the biographebs op the devil 15 a mcmt this is an unexpected honor indeed, for our american 'controls' in generalt and the innocent 'indian guides' in particular. to be thus introduced in borne as princes of the empire of eblis, is more than they could ever hope for in other lands* without in the least suspecting that she was working for the future welfare of her enemies the spiritualists and spiritists the church, some twenty years since, in tolerating des mousseaux and de mirville as the biographers of the devil, and giving her approbation thereto, tacitly confessed the literaty copartnership. m. the chevalier gougenot des mousseaux. and bis friend and coua- borateur, the marquis eudes de mirville, to judge by their long titles, must be aristocrats pur sang, and the

and that had been confided to no one. then a feeble voice, a strange voice, which had nothing of human character about it, made itself audible in this poor little martyr's head" the sorcery availed nothing; the king died, and catherine remuned the faithful daughter of rome! how strange that des mousseaux, who makes such free use of bodin's materials to construct his formidable indictment against spiritualists and other sorcerers, should have overlooked this interesting episode! it is a well-attested fact that pope sylvester ii was pubhcly accused by cardinal benno with being a sorcerer and an enchanter. the brazen 'oracular head' made by his holiness was of the same kind as the one fabricated by ajbertus magnus. the latter one was smashed to pieces by thomas aquinas, not because it was th

finally, he "stretched his paws in the bands of the saint, followed him like a dog through all the towns in which he preached, and became half a chris- tian* wonders of zoology! a horse turned sorcerer, a wolf and a dragon turned christians! these two anecdotes, chosen at random from among hundreds, if rivaled are not surpassed by the wildest romances of the pagan thau- maturgists, magicians, and spiritualists! and yet, when pythagoras is said to have subdued animals, even wild beasts, merely throu^ a power- ful mesmeric influence, he is pronounced by one-half of the catholics a 152 see the lumtite selected from the 'golded legend' by alb&n butw; ftbo j. bolluidus, s. j: ada tanetomm, jajnaarii, torn. i, p. 271: paris. 153. see tlu golden legend; lafe of st. francu; rsautier: aious beati f

that course of initiation whose highest adepts, or hierofiluuits, are the sanny&sts, or members of the ancient supreme council of seventy. moreover, in book i of the hindo qenetu, or book of creation of manv, the pitru are called the lunar ancestors of the human race. hiey belong to a race of beings different from ourselves, and cannot properly be called 'human spirits' in the sense in which the spiritualists use this term. this is what is said of them "then they [the gods] created the yaktkaa, the r^lahatas, the pitdckaa* the gandharvaa" the apaaraaea, the amraa, the jvd* the sarpaa, the supamaa, and the phria" lunar anceatora of the human race (see institviea of manu, i, iloka 37, and also where the pitria are termed "progenitors of mankind" iii, 201. the pitris are a distinct race of s

JENNINGS HARGRAVE ROSICRUCIANS RITES MYSTERIES

to set in motion the logan, or rocking, stones, whether these balanced masses are found in wales or elsewhere. we think that there is very considerable ground for concluding that all these mounted stones were oracular, or, so to express it, speaking; and that, when sought for divine responses, they were caused first to tremble, then to heave, and finally, like the tables of the modern (so-called) spiritualists, to tip intelligibly. to no other reason than this could we satisfactorily refer the name under which they are known in wales: namely, bowing-stones. for the idea that they were denominated bowing-stones because to the people they formed objects of adoration is a supposition infinitely less satisfactory. the reader will perceive that we admit the phenomenon, when the mysterious rappo

JESSUP MK THE CASE FOR THE UFO

is replete with stories of another great category of phenomena: the mysterious and ghostly disappearances of people, singly and in groups, publicly or in unobserved obscurity. these skin-ting-ling episodes seemed at first to have little in common with the falls of objects and the antics of storms. many are incidents which, if their reality has been admitted at all, are in the view of scientists, spiritualists, and students of the occult, considered to belong to or border on the socalled supernatural. within these segregations we must place the disappearance of the crews of ships, such as the sea bird and the marie celeste; the disappearance of individuals while in the company of their peers. there is not much hypothecating to be done with these. the stories can be told, and the cases lump

LIBER LXVII THE SWORD OF SONG

ther guide. all the facts science has so busily collected, varied as they seem to be, are in reality all of the same kind. if we are to have one salient fact, a fact for a real advance, it must be a fact of a different order. have we such a fact to hand? we have. first, what do we mean by a fact of a different order? let me take and example; the most impossible being the best for our purpose. the spiritualists, let us suppose, go mad and begin to talk sense (i can only imagine that such would be the result) all their .facts. are proved. we prove a world of spirits, the existence of god, the immortality of the soul, etc. but, with all that, we are not really one step advanced into the heart of the inquiry which lies at the heart of philosophy .what is anything. i see a cat. dr. johnson says

MORALS AND DOGMA

uthor of their powers and performances, the origin of all things, the light of heaven, the _father, the _intelligence, the _soul_ of all beings, the mover of all spheres" god, in the view of pythagoras, was one, a single substance, whose continuous parts extended through all the universe, without separation, difference, or inequality, like the soul in the human body. he denied the doctrine of the spiritualists, who had severed the divinity from the universe, making him exist apart from the universe, which thus became no more than a material work, on which acted the abstract cause, a god, isolated from it. the ancient theology did not so separate god from the universe. this eusebius attests, in saying that but a small number of wise men, like moses, had sought for god or the cause of all, o

RABBI MOSHE WISNEFSKY APPLES FROM THE ORCHARD THE ARIZAL ON THE PARASHAH

s, an instance of trying to skip the second stage, of trying to sweeten evil without first gseparating h it out, i.e, destroying its evil context. sweetening evil is possible only because of the inner core of good that is present within it, and this can be revealed only if we crush the outer shell or context of evil within which the inner good is trapped. the mistake of all would-be but misguided spiritualists, says the ba fal shem tov, is being reluctant to slay the evil context before trying to sweeten the good, inner core. instead, they try to sweeten the outer reality, but this outer reality is not ready to be sweetened; in fact, it exists only to be resisted, rejected, and destroyed by being identified for what it is. only when this is done can we proceed to sweeten reality by reveali

RUBY TABLET OF SET

ile and less difficult of the two. it is also less of a strain upon the consciousness. per the above definitions, all of the rituals contained in the satanic bible and satanic rituals are examples of white magic. by its very definition, black magic may not be standardized or even described as a consistent routine. white magic is practiced today on a fairly widespread basis by monotheists, pagans, spiritualists, rosicrucians, thelemites, and satanists/setians. only satanists/ setians, according to my experience, actually know the "machinery" of the technique they are using and why it works. an understanding of and proficiency in white magic is one prerequisite for recognition of a setian as an adept ii. an understanding of and proficiency in black magic is an identifying characteristic of a

SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON ZANONI A ROSICRUCIAN TALE

of the peculiarities of bulwer was his passion for occult studies. they had a charm for him early in life, and he pursued them with the earnestness which characterised his pursuit of other studies. he became absorbed in wizard lore; he equipped himself with magical implements, with rods for transmitting influence, and crystal balls in which to discern coming scenes and persons; and communed with spiritualists and mediums. the fruit of these mystic studies is seen in "zanoni" and "a strange story" romances which were a labour of love to the author, and into which he threw all the power he possessed, power re-enforced by multifarious reading and an instinctive appreciation of oriental thought. these weird stories, in which the author has formulated his theory of magic, are of a wholly diffe

SPENSER THE CULT OF THE ALL SEEING EYE 1960

isters; the buddhist pope; members of the world court; the governors of maryland and oklahoma; senators kenneth keating and john sherman cooper; the president of cbs news and the vice- president of nbc; the president of time, life, inc. and the president of the herald tribune; the president of paramount pictures; officials of the theosophical society, world union, world brotherhood, international spiritualists, vedanta society, and the cited fellowship of reconciliation; identified members of the communist party and many long-time communist-fronters (see e.k.r. columns; the head of the socialist party, norman thomas; financiers such as john d. rockefeller iv; lawyers like eustace seligman of sullivan and cromwell; religious figures: ralph w. sockman, james a. pike, maurice n. eisendrath, h

THE GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE UNUSUAL UNEXPLAINED VOL 1

ong contributed to the layperson s skepticism toward mediums is the fact that few areas of human relationships are so open to cruel deceptions. it has taken neither scientific training nor orthodox religious views to expose many spirit mediums as charlatans preying upon such human emotions as grief and sorrow over the loss of a loved one. beginning in the latter decades of the nineteenth century, spiritualists and spirit mediums began to contend with an increasingly materialistic and mechanistic science that did a great deal to obliterate the idea of a soul and the duality of mind and body. the concept of an eternal soul was being steadily eroded by an emphasis on brain cells, conditioned responses, and memory patterns that could exist only while the body remained alive. when the british s

elaborate wooden structures or they may simply be blankets strung across wires in order to give the medium some privacy while in trance. the miracle of materialization, maurice barbanell (1902 1981) writes in this is spiritualism (1959, is that in a few minutes there is reproduced in the seance room the birth which normally takes nine months in the mother s womb. numerous researchers, as well as spiritualists, have claimed to have seen a nearly invisible cord which links the materialized spirit figure to the medium and have all made the obvious comparison to an umbilical cord. if, indeed, disembodied spirits are capable of fashioning temporary physical bodies for their ethereal personalities, just what kind of substance could be used for such a remarkable materialization? the name that sp

t for anyone to claim the ability to talk to the dead. at best, in this view, such claimants are frauds and charlatans. at worst, they are committing a grave sin. and if the phenomena of the seance room is really due to as-yet unknown faculties of the human mind, then the sins of mediums are doubled if they claim that manifestations originating in their subconscious come from discarnate entities. spiritualists will answer such charges by stating that the more conservative religions promise their congregations a life eternal, but spirit mediums offer tangible proof that the human soul does survive the act of physical death. they will assert that millions of stricken hearts have been healed by the consolation afforded by the conviction that they have truly communicated with the spirits of lo

nicated with the spirits of loved ones who have gone on before. they will argue that the sincere medium is no more a fraud than the sincere pastor, priest, or rabbi. and when parapsychologists claim that the phenomena of the seance room are controlled t h e g a l e e n c y c l o p e d i a o f t h e u n u s u a l a n d u n e x p l a i n e d mediums and mystics 89 by the subconscious of the medium, spiritualists insist that these researchers are basing their conclusions on a hypothesis influenced by mechanistic psychology and a materialistic society. parapsychologists counter by stating that the subjective mind of the medium operates under the suggestion that it is being controlled by the spirit of a deceased person. the medium has conditioned his or her subjective mind to that pervading pre

jenkins, 1959. carrington, hereward. the case for psychic survival. new york: citadel press, 1957. fodor, nandor. an encyclopedia of psychic science. secaucus, n.j: citadel press, 1966. garrett, eileen. many voices: the autobiography of a medium. new york: g. p. putnam s sons, 1968. hart, hornell. the enigma of survival. london: rider& co, 1959. matthews, robert. scientists becoming believers in spiritualists paranormal powers. http//www.telegraph. co.uk. 6 march 2001. mysteries of the unknown: spirit summonings. alexandria, va: time-life books, 1989. rhine, louisa e. esp in life and lab: tracing hidden channels. new york: collier-macmillan, 1969. smith, alson j. immortality: the scientific evidence. new york: prentice hall, 1954. spence, lewis. an encyclopedia of occultism. new hyde park

stoutly maintained that florence cook had produced genuine spirit phenomena under the strictest of controls imposed upon her. when he learned of her death, he expressed his deepest sympathy for her family in a letter dated april 24, 1904, and declared that for many people their belief in an afterlife was strengthened because of the mediumship of florence cook. m delving deeper brandon, ruth. the spiritualists. new york: alfred a. knopf, 1983. fodor, nandor. these mysterious people. london: rider& co, 1935. mina margery stinson crandon (1888 1941) mina margery stinson crandon ranks as one of the most thoroughly investigated and controversial mediums of the twentieth century. psychical researchers put the ever-cooperative woman in uncomfortable situations, encased her in awkward contraption

THE GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE UNUSUAL UNEXPLAINED VOL 3

an diego specters. san diego: sunbelt productions, 1999. may, antoinette. haunted houses and wandering ghosts of california. san francisco: san francisco examiner division, 1977. norman, michael, and beth scott. historic haunted america. new york: tor books, 1996. smith, susy. prominent american ghosts. new york: dell, 1969. ghosts in the movies from the very beginnings of photography and cinema, spiritualists and psychical researchers have hoped to be able to capture evidence of ghosts on film and thereby offer proof of the survival of the human spirit. while there are thousands of alleged spirit photographs that psychics claim to be authentic; reel upon reel of ghostly phenomena caught on film that investigators purport to be genuine; and, more recently, an increasing number of videocass

TYSON DONALD SOUL FLIGHT

6, achieved notable success, particularly in the production of physical events, such as the levitations or sudden apports (materializations) of physical objects. like the witch, the spiritualistic medium relied on a guiding spirit, called a control. it fulfilled duties similar to the familiar of the witch and the tutelary spirit of the shaman. however, in keeping with the religious beliefs of the spiritualists, the control was the spirit of a dead person, who aided the medium in finding and communicating with the spirits of other dead. the control also protected the medium from the malice of evil spirits-the dead who found pleasure in deceiving and giving emotional distress to the living. sometimes, an evil spirit would attempt to take over the medium through possession, and the control of

demonstrates to us that the living force is independent of matter, and that our individuality is composed of a physical body and an intelligent soul-and a vital link, the astral body. 2. since this phantom can exist and function apart from the physical body, it may also exist after death. that is, immortality is a fact which is thus proved cientifically. reality of the astral body was equated by spiritualists with tangibility. it does not seem to have occurred to the experimenters that a thing might appear tangible to the senses, yet not be physically present in space. they were obsessed with capturing the material characteristics of the astral body. two researchers named malta and van zelse actually claimed to have weighed it! according to their findings, the astral body weighs just unde

it neglected to describe that action. it also asserted that the double can be projected while awake, but that during projection the body is never in a completely normal state; it is always more or less entranced. notice that the spirit characterized the link between the projected astral body and the physical body as one that "cannot be defined" suggesting that the silver cord, so popular with the spiritualists of the last two centuries, is no more than a visual metaphor for the actual connection. trying to investigate another myth of astral projection popularized by spiritualism, kardec asked the supposed shade of saint alphonsus what would happen if a person whose astral double was away from the body were to be suddenly awakened. the popular belief was that the person would die. the spiri

al body, so that the two overlap-that is, it is possible to make them distinct without separating them. sylvan muldoon the man most responsible for the two popular myths about astral travel examined abovethat of the silver cord, and the belief that to awaken the body when the astral double is- 82. kardec, mediums' book, 133. chapter five: spiritualism 73 absent causes death-was the darling of the spiritualists, sylvan muldoon (1903-1971, perhaps the greatest astral traveler, at least by his own accounts, who has ever lived. the well-respected psychic researcher hereward carrington (1880-1958) devoted a good portion of his career to studying muldoon's ideas concerning soul flight. as a boy and young man, muldoon suffered from weak health. his first experience of soul flight occurred when he

hieved through austerity and denial of the urges of the flesh such as sexual desire, hunger, and fatigue. it is certainly the case that spontaneous astral projection happens most often to those who are either ill, and thereby weakened in the body, or who experience a sudden intense shock to their physical systems, such as a fall or a car accident. in the first class of spontaneous separation, the spiritualists assumed that the lowering of vital energy allows the astral body to slide out of the physical body. muldoon theorized that it was because the lowered vitality made the silver cord weaker. in the second class of spontaneous separation, the astral body seems to be violently knocked out by a great nervous shock. of course, the astral body is not really outside the physical body any more

byrinth. since it is natural to imagine some tangible link between the physical body and the apparently detached and separate astral body, perception of a cord, beam, cable, rope, thread, ribbon, channel, pathway, trail, or conduit of some sort may arise in a natural way, as the consciousness struggles to make sense of the experience, but its perception is not an essential feature of soul flight. spiritualists would explain away the absence of the silver cord from many records of soul flight by saying that it requires a heightened and unusual degree of psychic perception to see it. however, after the ideas of spiritualism concerning astral travel permeated the culture and became predominant over older concepts, such as those involving witchcraft and fairies, accounts of the silver cord beg

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