Theos-Talk Archives (April 2004 Message tt00090)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "John Plummer" <jplummer@b...> 
wrote:
> While DF was definitely a hermetic qabalist, she was also for many 
years a
> member of the TS

Many thanks for the information. There is no discernable Blavatsy 
inbfluence un her books, which are all GD stuff, so I did not see her 
as a theosophist.

> The promotion of Krishnamurti as the vehicle of the
> Maitreya Buddha was the focus of her departure from the TS.

Good for her. I am liking her better allk the time.

> Steve also wrote:
> >Her best book was PSYCHIC SELF-DEFENCE, which has to
> >be one of the weirdest books ever written. I have not read it 
>yet,
> 
> If you haven't read it, how do you know?

You are th one who did not read - my -email. I said I did not read 
Stanislas de Guaita's CLEF DE LA MAGIE NOIRE, not that I did not read 
PSYCHIC SELF-DEFENCE. I have Guaita's book but have not go into it 
yet.

> Most of DF's students, then and
> now, would disagree that Psychic Self-Defense is her best book.

Well, that is a subective judgement. We must distinguish here 
between fact and opinion. I found the book enormously entertaining 
and weird. It made me downright paranoid for awhile, the same as 
King's novel SALEM'S LOT.

> In my own
> opinion, Psychic Self-Defense is an interesting book, and still 
worth
> reading, although it has suffered from being rather sensationally 
titled.

The title is positively bland compared to the contents.

> I don't find it particularly weird.

A book that deals with demons, werewolves, exorcisms, poisons and 
curses and suggests that all this is to be taken as fact does not 
strike you as a little different from the norm?

> If you want DF at her weirdest -- go
> for something like Secrets of Doctor Taverner.

Thanks for the tip. If it is weirder than SSD I will surely put it 
on my reading list.

If you are an Hermetic Kabbalist, your opinion please on the 
following comments from Paul Foster Case, which I found on a web site 
a year or so ago. This is from my notebook. The original comments 
are in a PDF file found on the Internet. Reference is made here to 
the GD material, which DF essentially purloined:

"The magical ceremonials, aside from the pseudo-Egyptian 
interpretation of [the neophyte ceremony and the Vault ceremony] 
revolved largely around Dee's and Kelly's tablets. Now I am far from 
denying that one gets results of a kind by the use of these 
tablets. ... My criticism of this part of the GD work is ... that I 
have personal knowledge of more than twenty-five instances where the 
performance of magical operations based on Order formulae led to 
serious disintegrations of mind or body. ... Perhaps the most 
conspicuous example of the unfortunate consequences of the use of 
these formulas is A.C. himself; but there are plenty of others that I 
know personally whose shipwreck has been just as complete. ... Let me 
say again, then, that I do not question at all the magical efficacy 
of some of the formulas. S.R.M.D. [Mathers] knew a lot about magic 
(more than he did about Qabalah, it seems to me), but there was a 
twist in his makeup that made him a most dangerous guide, as many 
have found to their cost. The Enochian procedure is indubitably 
potent. ... Even as ... it is not necessary to burn down a house to 
roast a pig, so, I fear, will those who rely on G.D. formulas for 
magic learn to their cost, perhaps too late, that there is far more 
to magic than getting results. ... There are actually true formulas 
among the hotch potch of good and bad and indifferent which one finds 
in the 'esoteric' literature of the G.D. ... What I object to in the 
G.D. is the subtle mixture of really poisonous material with so much 
that is of value. And to get rid of the poison has been my principal 
undertaking for more than ten years. The consequence has been that I 
have been obliged ... to formulate the rituals anew."

Someone on another list represented to me that Mathers was a good 
dude or some such thing as that. However, the following quote from 
THE BOOK OF THE SACRED MAGIC OF ABRA MELIN THE MAGE seems to suggest 
that Case was not far off. This also is from my notebook but I 
believe the quotes are good:

"Abraham the Jew it appears to me, in his anxiety to save his son 
from dangerous errors in magical working, has preferred to endeavour 
to fill him with contempt for any other systems and methods of 
operation than the one here laid down. For also besides the 
unintentional perversions of magical symbols I have above mentioned, 
there was further the circumstance not only possible but probable of 
the many black magic grimoires falling into his hands, as they 
evidently had into Abraham's, the symbols in which are in many cases 
intentional perversions of Divine Names and seals, so as to attract 
the evil spirits and repel the good."

It should be said that Mathers' copy of ABRA MELIN did not show the 
correct construction of the magic squares avvording to more complete 
copies. Nonetheless, in his historical book RITUAL MAGIC IN ENGLAND, 
Francis King says that the squares are quite powerful and have caused 
considerable trouble to everyone who has worked with them. He also 
repeats a long story from THE OCCULT REVIEW by some fellow who worked 
with the magic squares and had some really striking and alarming 
results.

It appears that later the ABRA MELIN system was replaced by 
the "Invocation of the Bornless" ritual, which is intended to invoke 
one's "genius" (Higher Self). The only problem being, some of the 
barbarous names employed are suspect. Aleister Crowley "corrected" 
this ritual and filled it with references to satanism, some of them 
covert.

Exceot for the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram, which is 
extraordinarily powerful, by the way, I do not work with this system, 
since the whole thing seems to have been assembled by people with 
questionable motives.

I am not suggesting that I have the answers (only questions.) I am 
curious what your take on all this is?