From: Steven Craig Area: Night Side To: Q 7 Sep 93 14:00:00 Subject: Scaling UpdReq Thanks for the info - I already am somewhat familiar with modal theory, but it was news to me that the Locrian mode was verboten by the church... I first got turned onto Our Friend the Flattened Fifth after reading an interview with Henry Rollins' bass player in "Musician", who called it the "Black Sabbath note". :-) I like the way that, depending on the context, it can sound either bluesy or diabolical... ___ X MMST 2.09 UnRegistered * This heart makes each name sear away... 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Steven Craig Area: Night Side To: Ismark 7 Sep 93 14:03:02 Subject: Re: Shamanistic C.M. UpdReq I> of the C scale, that's about it. Why some old hymns are I> written in A minor I could never figure, always seemed I> rather gloomy to me. I write a lot of stuff centering around Am & Dm, and while it has a very definite "sound" (which I get sick of after a while and move on to Major Key Action), I don't know if I'd define it as necessarily gloomy - more kind of mystical... I always think of something like "All Along The Watchtower" as a good example of this... ___ X MMST 2.09 UnRegistered * 31: it's not just a good idea, it's the LA! 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Steven Craig Area: Night Side To: All 7 Sep 93 23:52:02 Subject: SATAN! UpdReq I just got a chance to watch the HBO documentary "In Pursuit of SATAN!" which someonone mentioned a couple of days ago, and thought I'd throw in my impressions of the thing. The first ten minutes or so left me thoroughly unimpressed, giving the impression of Yet Another Tabloid TV documentary about the International Satanic Conspiracy. They talked to Bob Larson, interviewed a Murderous Teen Satanist in jail, the usual stuff. However, the focus soon changed to how, despite any hard evidence of an International Satanic Conspirarcy, there are lots of therapists, social workers, ministers, etc. who make a living treating victims of RITUAL SATANIC ABUSE. The program did a good job talking about therapists who specialize in patients with Multiple Personality Disorders, a pattern which shows up often in Satanic Abuse victims - one clinic had over 100 patients, all of whom fit this pattern, NONE of whom had been diagnosed of mult. personality disorders, and NONE of whom had memories of childhood Satanic Abuse until these memories were "dug up" by therapists. In any event, some of the cases the film looks at are hellishly appalling examples of how fear and superstition can cause people to ruin other people's lives, in the name of Doing Good. I recommend the thing to anyone who has a chance to see it; it is quite well done for this sort of thing. (BTW, they mentioned that the Satanic Conspiracy is an international network, with some secret means of cultists being able to communicate over great distances. hmm... :-) ) Incidentally, I am vehemently opposed to Satanic Abuse - maybe if people would give the guy a break, he wouldn't be so mean and nasty all the time... 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Fra.: Apfelmann Area: Night Side To: Kayla Block 5 Sep 93 14:31:38 Subject: RIOT UpdReq Hi Kayla, > can anyone tell me anything about RIOT? ie. purpose of RIOT, > contact address, etc. if there is a contact address in the > southern california area, that would be especially helpful. I lately posted 2 or 3 addresses.... Look backwards in this folder. With fractalic greetings and laughter * Fra.: Apfelmann * 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Fra.: Apfelmann Area: Night Side To: Eulenspygel 5 Sep 93 15:33:42 Subject: Chaos Theory/Magic UpdReq Hi Eulenspygel, > It looks like you didn't receive my 1st post, which I send a > couple of weeks ago. not arrived here :-( > Anyway, tell me do you know Fra.:U.:D personally? Yes, for a lot of years... (I was member of the "Bonn-group" mentioned in next messages.) > day I read a rather interesting article from him in a > German magazine 'Esotera' So you are able to read German ? (Might be you'll like to Edition Magus, Postf. 1245, 5358 Bad Mnstereifel, Germany; there you can a lot of material from U.:D.:) > Is Fra.: U.:D.: a member of the same Temple as you by any > chance? We _were_ in the same temple(s), but he is rather busy with his "Ice-Magic"; so we have contact only twice a year... > Another question: does your Temple, Order or Lodge have > members outside of Germany? See the addresses I posted lately... > Would you recomment to use a sigil _plus_ a chant for _one_ > certain goal or would it be a waste of effort? A sigil is sufficient... But your idea would never be a waste... > Good luck with your chaos box. Tnx, have a look into it... :-))) With fractalic greetings and laughter * Fra.: Apfelmann * 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Fra.: Apfelmann Area: Night Side To: * 5 Sep 93 17:43:54 Subject: Letter from Germany 1 UpdReq *LETTER FROM GERMANY No. 1* by FRATER U.'.D.'. =============================================================== =============================================================== FRATER U.'.D.'. is considered to be Germany's most prolific contemporary writer on magical topics. He has worked - and written - in a variety of disciplines ranging from yoga and tantra via the classical, hermetic tradition to shamanism, combat magic, sigil magic and chaos magic. He is acclaimed as one of the founder of modern Pragmatic Magic and has developed the theoretical and practical principles of Cyber Magic. He has authored an internationally widely renowned anecdotal biography of Aleister Crowley (*Aleister Crowley. Die tausend Masken des Meisters* - "Aleister Crowley. The Thousand Masks of the Master" -, Knaur Verlag, Munich, 1990) and has translated - among other texts - Crowley's *Book of Lies* into German. Presently, he is engaged in unfolding what he terms "Ice Magic, beyond doubt the most efficient approach to practical magic ever", a discipline rooted in the magical practices extant in the Polar regions of Europe and North America, and is preparing a book in German on the subject which will also be published in English. A number of FRATER U.'.D.'.'s works have been translated into English, French, Spanish and Dutch. Two of his books have been published in America: - *PRACTICAL SIGIL MAGIC* (Llewellyn's Publications, St. Paul, Minn.) - *SECRETS OF THE GERMAN SEX MAGICIANS* (Llewellyn's Publications, St. Paul, Minn.) and a third book in English is forthcoming: - *DANCE OF THE PARADIGMS. A CHAOS MAGIC PRIMER* (Llewellyn's Publications, St. Paul, Minn.) FRATER U.'.D.'. is currently living in the marshes near the Danish border on the west coast of Northern Germany. =============================================================== =============================================================== *In these letters I will take a diachronic look at German occultism past and present, mixing current news with historical titbits illustrating among other things the strong relationship between German magic and the Anglo-Saxon world. (For linguistic reasons as well as for convenience's sake I will generally include Swiss and Austrian occultism under this heading - no imperialistic takein intended!)* Ever and again in the history of magic Germany has been considered to be the stronghold of the Black Arts. Alchemy, Astrology, the Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, Illuminism, esoteric Freemasonry, Xtian mysticism, Rune magic - name what you want in the Western tradition and you will find at least some German influence behind it. While the Golden Dawn had to fake its Cipher documents purporting to prove its German origins, the O.T.O. was a genuinely German (or, more precisely, Austrian) creation. Aleister Crowley himself spent some time on and off in Germany, and everyone will remember that notable conference in Weida, Thuringia, in 1926, where the Master Therion attempted, albeit unsucessfully, to have himself proclaimed World Saviour by the German Pansophic Movement. Rumours about the occult connections of National Socialism have abounded ever since the war, and in spite of Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke's excellent study *The Occult Roots of Nazism*, which ought to have put a positive end at least to the worst hearsay in the style of Trevor Ravencroft's tabloid press type books, lots of people still fondly nurture the belief that Hitler was basically little more than a black magician gone bonkers. Anyway, interest in Germanic occult thought has never really diminished in the English speaking world. Indeed, German occultism is currently undergoing an even wider international revival, vide the United States, where Llewellyn's publishers have cornered the market with their *Teutonic Magick* series under the advisory editorship of German speaking Runelore expert Edred Thorsson. One of their latest publications, Flower's *Fire and Ice*, is the first time ever English language history of Germany's number one magical order, the famous and infamous *Fraternitas Saturni* (FS), and things being as they are, it is to be expected that this will lead to a rise of imitation orders and lots of Germanic kitsch, marketed under pseudo magical labels. The Fraternitas Saturni proper, however, of which I have the privilege to be a member, still exists and has never ceased doing so since its formal foundation in 1928, going underground during the Nazi dictatorship. It does not advertise itself and doesn't have to, either, as there are plenty of applicants and standards of acceptance are very stiff. Today, it maintains several lodges in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The FS is best known for its sex magical practices, which is unfortunate as this view tends to distort the picture. For while one of its degrees does indeed cover sex magic, this discipline is certainly not the mainstay of its system. Similarly, it would be highly unfair to presume that the O.T.O.'s one and only concern was sex magic, which is in truth only one of its many facets and certainly not even its most important one. Apropos: the Caliphate O.T.O. has a number of strongholds in Germany now, but it has recently come to light that the Swiss O.T.O. under the lately deceased Mezger, for all practical purposes long defunct, is finally coming out of its beauty sleep of many decades again and is being rejuvenated and revived. So we may expect to hear from it fairly soon and it is everybody's guess what spirit of competition may yet develop between the two. 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Fra.: Apfelmann Area: Night Side To: * 5 Sep 93 17:44:14 Subject: Letter from Germany 2 UpdReq Mainstream occultism in present day Germany covers the usual fare from Rosicrucianism (notably *AMORC* and the *Lectorium Rosicrucianum*, but including a whole range of smaller and more obscure groups) via irregular Freemasonry to the odd group of Kabbalists. On the hard core magic front the *Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT)* is certainly the most active and largest group. (At present, the German speaking world covers about 75 percent of the Pact's total membership.) It is employing electronic bulletin board systems for fast communication, online rituals etc. Thus Chaos magic is getting fairly high coverage and its influence on magical theory and practice is undeniably on the increase. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that the recent exhaustive reform of the Pact, in the course of which its degrees and all forms and remnants of hierarchy and inquisition were abandoned in favour of a fully democratic structure, was the result of a German based initiative and was indeed decided upon at the 1991 All Pact Meeting in Essen, Germany. Israel Regardie's tome *The Golden Dawn* having recently been published in translation by Germany's number one occult publisher, interest in the GD is certainly mounting; but as yet there are, to my knowledge, no groups or organizations working exclusively in this tradition. However, its magical pioneer work, though primarily of a compilatory nature, has a had quite a bit of impact ever since the fifties, when the pseudonymous Fra. Peregregius published his booklet *Tattwas, Hellsehen, Astralwallen* ("Tattwas, Divination, Astral Travel") - a concoction of G.D. material derived, it seems, from Regardie's earlier American editions. And then, of course, one must not forget Franz Bardon! He is not unknown in the English speaking world but my impression is that though many people have heard of him, only few have taken the trouble to actually read his books which have been available in English for over a decade now. If they find his style execrable and extremely turgid in translation already, it may hardly comfort them to know that it is no better in German either. Nevertheless, Bardon, a one time German illusionist of Czech extraction, is still Germany's probably most commonly read magician. His dogmatic, simplicistic approach which describes magic (in no certain terms, at that) as a technology of "astral electro-magnetism" involving the manipulation of the polar powers of electricity and magnetism, is really not quite as modern as the layman tends to believe. In fact, it was Bardon's teacher, Ra-Ohmir Quintscher, who back in the twenties invented not only battery magic and his notorious *Tepa* (sometimes erroneously termed *Tepaphone*), an electrical device for long range magical manipulation involving the target persons' photographs, but produced practically everything else as well on which Bardon's later fame was molded. Bardon, however, did not deign to give Quintscher his due credit, as is so common, unfortunately, with magical authors of secondary intellectual import. Instead, his secretary Otti Votavova presented the situation topsy turvy by claiming, in her novel on Bardon's life, *Frabato* (a classical example of devotees' kitsch), that in fact it was Quintscher who had been Bardon's acolyte and not vice versa. She even purported that Quintscher spent the last years of his life in concentration camp (some of them in Bardon's company), an insinuation bitterly denied by Quintscher's now deceased son, with whom I had a conversation on this matter a few years ago. In fact, according to his son, Quintscher never even visited a concentration camp. Rather, he died in the very last hours of the war on May 8th, 1945 in Silesia, where he was also buried. But to be fair to Bardon, let it be known that I have it on the word of reliable witnesses that Bardon, when he saw the *Frabato* manuscript, was quite aghast and gave strict injunctions never to publish it - unfortunately to little avail. Contrary to Quintscher, Bardon succeeded in becoming a very popular author if only posthumously, for most of his work was published after his early demise in the year 1958 in the dungeons of the Tchechoslovakian secret police at the peak of the Cold War. In spite of his quite sophisticated system he is essentially a "people's magician" and his real stronghold lies with the working classes, while more intellectually minded magicians have feigned to shun him since the seventies. One reason for this may lie in the fact that the influence of Anglo-Saxon authors with their more pragmatic approach towards practical magic did not set in before that time. Today, it is not unfair to say that Bardon seems to have lost all influence on the continuing evolution of modern magic. In his own, quite ideosyncratic way he was little more than derivative, a second Agrippa so to speak, born too late for his times; but there can be no doubt that any history of German magic after the war would be incomplete without mentioning his import. (To be continued) UBIQUE DAEMON .'. UBIQUE DEUS .'. * 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Fra.: Apfelmann Area: Night Side To: * 5 Sep 93 17:44:44 Subject: Letter from Germany 3 UpdReq LETTER FROM GERMANY No. 2 by Frater U.'.D.'. =============================================================== =============================================================== *In these letters I am taking a diachronic look at German occultism past and present, mixing current news with historical titbits illustrating among other things the strong relationship between German magic and the Anglo-Saxon world. (For linguistic reasons as well as for convenience's sake I will generally include Swiss and Austrian occultism under this heading - no imperialist takein intended!)* The accentuation of this second letter will lie on the more contemporary aspects of magic in the German speaking countries. The pre-war magical setup had been a very lively affair: a colorful hotpotch of irregular freemasonry and theosophy; yoga; astrology (of an intellectual calibre never surpassed internationally since, if we can trust an English expert like Ellic Howe); Mazdaznan, a quasi-yogic religious cult originally founded by Otto(man) Hanish in the USA, with its myriad of dietetic rules and a strong emphasis on physical exercise and pranayama, purporting to have derived from Iranian Zoroastrism and still rumored to be extant in some of the more obscure corners of the Western world; thelemic lodges of the O.T.O., and other Crowleyites; the Fraternitas Saturni (FS); the Order of Mental Building Masters (under Ra-Ohmir Quintscher), which later fused with the FS; a variety of groups (often quite tiny organisations with a cultural impact reciprocal to their actual size) of the "blood and soil" flavor espousing runic lore and racial/Arian mysticism, the most notable being the Guido von List Society (which included the Armanen Order) and Jrg Lanz von Liebenfels's ariosophic Ordo Novi Templi (Order of the New Temple, ONT); plus the usual riffraff aspiring to more or less vaguely defined "spiritual" or "esoteric" goals with a strong Eastern bias, to name but the highlights of this era. With the arrival of Hitler and National Socialist rulership all "secret orders", whether genuinely clandestine operations or "secret" only by claim, where banned along with political parties (barring, of course, the NSdAP) and where consequently deprived of all publicity. This process was basically completed by 1935 with the exception of the astrologers' associations, which in 1937 even became part of the workers' union temporarily, until they, too, were abolished and persecuted in 1941 following Rudolf Hess's misguided flight to England which was purported to have been incited by his personal astrological counselor. In a later letter I will cover the question of Nazi Occultism in a more comprehensive manner. Suffice it here to state that the magical scene in Germany and Austria was practically defunct from 1935 at the latest and was unable to recover until well after the war when the more dire material needs in these devastated countries had been coped with. Gregor A. Gregorius (1888-1961), the Berlin bookseller whose conventional name was Eugen Grosche, had founded the FS in 1928, as mentioned in my *Letter from Germany No. 1*. He had been a communist of sorts with a one year arrest during Nazi dictatorship to prove it. (He had even moved into Swiss exile and later went to Italy where he was arrested by the fascists and turned over to the German authorities on their categorical request. Interestingly enough, his Gestapo arrest warrant declares his "contacts with the internationally renowned Freemason Aleister Crowley" as one of the prime reasons for his internment.) Immediately after the war he became a "cultural commissary" of the German Communist Party in the then time Soviet Zone (the - Eastern - *German Democratic Republic* was only founded in 1948, as was the - West German - *Federal Republic of Germany*) but was later expelled on reasons of "bourgeois tendencies", a standard accusation in Stalinist times. He next moved to West Berlin, where he set up a bookstore and renewed his international contacts, getting together a number of pre-war members and re-registering the FS as a formal institution in 1948. In 1950 he started publishing the monthly *Bltter fr angewandte okkulte Lebenskunst* ("Magazine for Applied Occult Arts of Life"), a curious title veiling the most comprehensive, extensive and encylopedic periodical on the magical arts in Western history. While openly sold in bookstores, it was the official organ of the Fraternitas Saturni and included inlets (handed out to members only) covering internal affairs such as graduations, membership lists, syllabi &c. The publication mode of this foretime monthly magazine was later changed to bi-monthly appearance and it existed till 1963, totalling 164 issues of some 3,500 pages of text and illustrations. Gregorius retained editorship until his death and it was only in concurrence with internal squabbles and schisms within the order itself that it ceased publication two years after. It has never been published in English (or any other language apart from German, for that matter), though Stephen Flowers quotes extensively from it in his excellent *Fire and Ice* (Llewellyn Publications). 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Fra.: Apfelmann Area: Night Side To: * 5 Sep 93 17:45:12 Subject: Letter from Germany 4 UpdReq The English speaking world would really be in for a surprise or two should this magazine be published in translation one day. True to say, the general tenor of its articles is biassed towards the more traditionalist approach to magic and the majority of essays may well be considered to be somewhat pedestrian, as magazines generally go; but then again never before (or after) has Western magic produced such a treasure house of knowledge surpassing even Aleister Crowley's famous *Equinox* in scope, practicability and diversity. There is many a pearl of wisdom to be found here for anyone interested in the conventional mode of magic, and it is to be hoped that some American or English publisher will be bold enought to take the risk of publishing it in translation one day. Nor where the *Bltter* the order's only publication. Well before the war Gregorius edited the magazine *Saturn Gnosis*, which was taken up again after the FS's post-war reconstitution and is still being published on an irregular basis; other magazines included *Vita-Gnosis* and *Der magische Weg* ("The Magical Path"). However, these periodicals were strictly promulgated for members only and are very hard (and costly!) to come by for outsiders. Today, order membership has decreased considerably compared with the fifties, but this is not, as one might suppose, due to lack of interest. On the contrary: while fluctuation in the order's purported heyday used to be exorbitant (appr. 50% per year!), it has been reduced to almost nil now due to its rigid initiation policy. For unlike the O.T.O., the FS is not obliged by its own constitution to accept any candidate willing (or purporting) to give it a try. Consequently, only very few applicants ever make it into the order's august ranks, and it is safe to say that the Fraternitas Saturni still constitutes the paragon of traditionalist, conventional magic in the German speaking world of today. However, magic comes in many masks. Especially the younger generation amongst today's magicians has lost interest in the dogmatic and traditionalist approach or is, at least, striving to incorporate more modern techniques and beliefs as well. This is mainly the doing of what I have named the "Bonn Group" of magicians operating between 1979 to 1981 in a formal framework and individually actively contributing to the advancement of magical theory and practice ever since. When I founded the Horus Bookshop with two partners in Bonn, in 1979, the current wave of esotericism had not quite begun yet, and while interest in the occult arts was undeniably mounting, business then was sluggish enough to provide ample time for other activities. Thus, a group of some fourteen people (male and female) interested in practical magic assembled in the bookshop's backroom every other week or so to constitute what was tentatively termed the "Working Group for Experimental Magic". Most of us were then still studying at university (as did I beside my career as a not yet quite successful entrepreneur in the book business), and quite a few have later finished their academic studies with doctorates or masters' theses in various fields running from Physics to Comparative Literature, from Indology via German and English Literature to Comparative Religious Studies, Medicine, Psychology and Social Studies; while the tiny minority of our professional people were all working in the medical field. Thus, intellectual standards were pretty high even by the academic yardstick and a wide reading knowledge could be relied upon. A few members where well worn experts of some ten years' standing, some, such as myself, had only begun to work on practical magic proper about a year or so before, complete beginners being only few. Our group convened primarily for practical work in various traditions covering a broad spectrum ranging from Franz Bardon's system via the Golden Dawn, Freemasonism and Kabbalism to Crowleyan, Tibetan, Voodoo, Wiccan, neopagan and shamanic techniques. Experiments included telepathy, hypnosis, astral travel, kabbalistic path workings, rune magic, tarot readings, sigil magic, the use of astrology for practical magic and rituals, rituals, rituals. Rituals indoors, rituals outdoors, rituals in caves and basements in the woods and in the living room (only a few could afford their own temple rooms then, and these were usually too small to encompass us all), rituals for love and for healing, for death and for smiting foes, for fun and profit, rituals with drugs and without, and lots of rituals just to gain experience or for the pure, uninhibited heck of it. 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Fra.: Apfelmann Area: Night Side To: * 5 Sep 93 17:46:22 Subject: Letter from Germany 5 UpdReq In addition to our regular meetings practical research was augmented by additional work on a more individual basis or in smaller groups which gladly reported on their results and discussed new and old approaches towards the Black Arts. Topics thrashed out covered physics and Thelema, trance techniques and sigil magic, Crowley and Gurdjieff, the pro and cons of hallucinogenics in ritual, the psychological rationale behind analogies and correspondences, behind the synchronicities of oracle readings from tarot cards to horoscopes (most of us sporting a strong Jungian bias at that time), sex magic, and a pile of others - far too many to list here. Most important was our basic tenet, "if it works, use it; if it doesn't work, don't believe it", which made all the difference when compared to the more dogmatic, cramped and inhibited approach to be noted in traditional magical orders, of whom none of us was a member then. Yet, it was not so much the existence or the practical and theoretical work of the Bonn Group as such but rather the publicistic impetus it created, which came to be responsible for the German magical scene as we know it today. While formal meetings had been abandoned by 1982, a few members having moved, lost interest or concentrated on more eremitical work, a hard core of some ten people continued to work together casually in a different format, and it was at my instigation that Jrg Wichmann (a former Wiccan) began to publish the now almost legendary *Unicorn* magazine in the same year, which concentrated on mythology and practical magic on a quarterly basis. Granted that *Unicorn* was never a commercial success, it wasn't quite a loss making venture either. It was right here, in the very first issue, that I formulated the basic tenets of what I termed "Pragmatic Magic" in contrast to "Dogmatic Magic". Having been influenced, as had been all members of the Bonn Group sooner or later, by the English and American authors of the seventies (notably Regardie, Conway, Butler, Skinner, King, Grant plus the only then rediscovered Austin Osman Spare), and based on our own varied practical experiences with all sorts of creeds and techniques, it was not hard to propagate a pragmatic spirit. This, however, had been totally unheard of until then in the conventional magical scene of the German speaking countries (embracing, let us not forget, some 74 million people then and appr. 90 million people today, after German reunification). It is no exaggeration to say that we virtually *created* the German magical scene. For while of course lots of people all over the country had been working in more or less splendid isolation before, it was only now that the thread had been put in the brine for a real scene to crystallize. Though the lion's share of published material was covered by members of the Bonn Group such as Jrg Wichmann, the editor-in-chief, myself, Peter Ellert, Harry Eilenstein and Mahamudra, *Unicorn* was able to gain the favour of a number of internationally renowned high calibre authors as well, in spite of the fact that articles were remunerated only symbolically. Moreover, many leading figures in the magical and fringe-magical scene such as Alex Sanders, Michael Harner and Harley Swiftdeer were presented in comprehensive interviews in the mag, thus exerting a notable influence by way of popularizing their teachings. The magazine lasted for three happy years until it ceased publication in 1985 after 13 issues. Readers' participation and loyalty to the mag turned out to be unusually high - which again paved the way to its successor, *Anubis*, founded, edited and published by myself at the end of 1985 and handed over to another editor-cum-publisher the following year. This magazine is still extant albeit in a more sporadic publication mode and has put out 15 issues to date. It may be regarded as characteristic for the evolution of a magical scene that I was able to introduce a column titled "Golems Gossen Glosse" ("Golem's Gutter Glossings") much on the same line as the British *Lamp of Thoth*'s column "Golem's Gossip" - right from the very first issue of *Anubis* for there would have been hardly any point in trying to report on internecine affairs without the appropriate social foundation for such gossip, i.e. a scene lively, colorful and diversified enough to supply the necessary information and interested in it as well. Golem's Glossing soon became the mag's most popular column, and while I myself am no contributor to the now Vienna based *Anubis* any longer, the continued existence of this periodical goes to show that the German magical scene has matured enough to compete with the - nowadays far less - picturesque setup in the U.K. (which used to be *the* prime benchmark for comparison well into the eighties). Thus, the "Bonn Group" may well be viewed as the instigator and nucleus of the modern German magical scene in the eighties. The influence of the Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT) and of Chaos Magic will be covered at some length in the next Letter from Germany, so before I end this instalment I would like to give a short summary of Wicca and Paganism in the German speaking world today. Wicca, at least in its formalized aspects (schools, traditions &c.), being a strictly English phenomenon from its inception, it is not surprising that the German Wicca scene has done little but imitate its compeers in the British Isles. Contacts with the U.K. were and still are pretty strong, but it is a moot point whether the majority of German speaking Wiccans are adherents of the Gardnerian or rather the Alexandrian school. My impression is that these distinctions, hotly debated though they were in the England of the seventies and early eighties, have been watered down on the Continent, while there is hardly any "hereditary" scene worth mentioning at all. If German pagans do pretend to being "hereditary" (whatever such claims may be worth), they are usually on the ariosophic or runelore side and not involved in the craft. 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Fra.: Apfelmann Area: Night Side To: * 5 Sep 93 17:47:02 Subject: Letter from Germany 6 UpdReq Wicca, at least in its formalized aspects (schools, traditions &c.), being a strictly English phenomenon from its inception, it is not surprising that the German Wicca scene has done little but imitate its compeers in the British Isles. Contacts with the U.K. were and still are pretty strong, but it is a moot point whether the majority of German speaking Wiccans are adherents of the Gardnerian or rather the Alexandrian school. My impression is that these distinctions, hotly debated though they were in the England of the seventies and early eighties, have been watered down on the Continent, while there is hardly any "hereditary" scene worth mentioning at all. If German pagans do pretend to being "hereditary" (whatever such claims may be worth), they are usually on the ariosophic or runelore side and not involved in the craft. German Wicca used to be strictly a closed shop affair dominated by cliqueish squabbles and infights, until the well known Hamburg based lady journalist Gisela Graichen published a bestselling hardcover, *Die neuen Hexen. Gesprche mit Hexen* ("The New Witches. Conversations with Witches") in 1986, in which she claimed (albeit misguidedly) that there were some 20,000 active Wiccans in Germany alone, while 200 would then have been a more realistic figure. Little did she fathom that the handful of people she had interviewed constituted about half of the then active and articulate Wiccan set in Germany. However, facts published commonly being regarded as facts true, (paradoxically *especially* by the publishing profession, who should really know better, strange as this may sound to the layman), other German publishers took her at face value and felt attracted by this seemingly vast and expanding market. Thus bookshops were suddenly inundated with literature on the topic in the following year or two and witchcraft became the dernier cri with those mainstream people who were either totally new to the occult or had only been dabbling with it on the fringe. While not a Wiccan myself, I, too, was instrumental in getting an anonymous paperback on the cult published in 1987 with one of Germany's major paperback and mass market publishers, a minor bestseller which was to give some spunk to the hitherto somewhat parochial, simplicistic Wiccan scene, reducing the strong goddess-bias in favor of a more balanced approach *including* the male element on an "equal rights" basis, giving hints on magazines to read and modes of contacting covens: *Das Hexenbuch. Authentische Texte moderner Hexen zu Geschichte, Magie und Mythos des alten Weges* ("The Witches' Book. Authentic Texts by Modern Witches on History, Magic and Myth of the Ancient Way"; now out of print). It was also during this post-feminist era that museum exhibitions centering on witches, traditional herbal medicine and "Wise Women" began to crop up like mushrooms overnight in all three German speaking countries, especially so in holiday resorts, as if sponsored by various Boards of Tourism ... and a Wiccan biassed German magazine like *Mescalito* gained hordes of new subscribers attracted by the boom. Today, interest in the craft has waned again like the moon, but it is anybody's guess how many people have really stuck to their guns and would consider themselves to be active Wiccans. As in other countries, most contemporary German adherents of pagan ideals are primarily concerned with ecological and ethnic issues, tending to opt for Green politics, and the majority are certainly suckers for the Gaia hypothesis and Rupert Sheldrake's once so popular, rather overestimated "theory" of morphic fields (which he himself seems basically to have renounced in the meantime). But these fairly simple doctrines seem to represent the acme of intellectuality within this scene already. Both, the Wicca cult and neopaganism in general, being primarily of an avowedly *religious* nature, they do not tend to develop original magical theories and practices of their own and may thus be fairly disregarded in a history of magic proper. Their influx on modern magic has been negligible, not to be compared with the influence of neoshamanism as presented by popular American workshop speakers, the most notable amongst whom have certainly been Don Eduardo Calderon Palomino from Peru and Alberto Villoldo and Michael Harner from the USA. ================================================================== With fractalic greetings and laughter * Fra.: Apfelmann * 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Rose Dawn Area: Night Side To: Kayla Block 6 Sep 93 09:57:04 Subject: Re: SHAMANISTIC C.M. UpdReq Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Kayla, > wow! voodoo man sounds like quite a sight! (wish we'd had one of > him in my neighborhood!) he also sounds pretty bold! I don't know about bold...we had a little bit of everything wild in Southeast. I still have no idea if he was actually "doing something" if you know what I mean, or if he just enjoyed having everyone's attention! The kids would line up in front of him and mimick his moves and yell "Hey Voodoo Man, stick a pin in your {depended on the mood of the kid that day}!" and, as soon as he so much as glanced at them, run screaming down the street. It was pretty amusing. Some of the parents were actually convinced that their car breakdowns and hot water heater explosions were Voodoo Man's doing and started telling their kids not to make fun of him anymore. My daughter and two of her friends liked to just watch him and one day he asked if they'd like to learn more about his rituals, but this was a couple years back and she was more timid and declined, while Joselito and Marialinda were scared out of their wits. Bummer, I'd like to have heard what he had to say but he made a practice of ignoring the adults on the block. We also had a _bruja_ living in my "housing section" (weird setup, somewhere between an apt. complex and a tribal villiage, seriously--it was a bunch of dope houses condemned and bought out by a guy from Africa); and along with the ubiquitous Nation of Islam bigots there were some friends and relatives of the owner who were trying to interest the neighborhood kids in "the customs of your ancestors" and various types of African spirituality. Those are some of the reasons I truly miss that neighborhood! It was the gangbangers, drive-bys, 8-year-olds with Mac-10's and such things that I definitely *don't* miss, at least not as they applied to myself and family. Jeeze, that was long-winded. See what happens when I wax nostalgic, Kayla, LOL! > yes, it's not so much that they would have a problem with it. it's > really more my problem. (when i lived alone in an apartment, it was > easier. mostly anaonymous neighbors didn't really bother me. > somehow, though, roomies who i know present a different story for > me.) it's something that i really need to work through, because it > really keeps me from doing alor of ritual much of the time. i > rarely have the house to myself. seems like someone's always > around. > i've thought about setting up a large tent in the back yard and > going out there when i want some privacy. who knows? I do know exactly what you mean. This is right around the time of my "first anniversary of independence from roommates!" I married young and have lived alone with my kid since that split up, but last summer a friend was in a bad situation, hopped a train out of Seattle and I let her crash at my place "for a few weeks till she got on her feet." She ended up finagling me into moving another person in and the few weeks turned into the end of fall and the whole damned summer! It was awful in terms of privacy--nobody had any. My yoga, prana and meditation practices took a serious nose dive, and the friend's own practices (neo-pagan variety) did as well. One vow I never intend to break is: No more room mates, EVER! As for a tent in the yard, it doesn't sound bad to met at all! When we lived in a rented house, I spent a lot of time in the back yard. I actually think the tent could be a valuable 'ritual tool.' I take it the roomies have no interest in or understanding of, your magick practices? > hmmm...i missed that parson's story! sounds pretty funny. where > did you read about it? I'm pretty sure it's included in a file here called PARSONS.ZIP or something like that (Biography of an Angry Young Magician), but I'm just beginning to unscramble things at this moment! There were a couple Parsons stories in the old 77-79 newsletters we have here as well so it could've been there, but I'm purdy sure it was the bio file. I'll try to remember to check for you. Namaste/93! 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Rose Dawn Area: Night Side To: Steven Craig 6 Sep 93 10:07:58 Subject: Re: SHAMANISTIC C.M. UpdReq Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. > Yah, in the apartment I used to live in, we had a bunch of guys in > the apartment next door who used to throw fairly loud parties every > weekend, so I didn't feel too self-concious about making noise. > Still, I get the impression they were kind of freaked out whenever > I'd be bellowing in Enochian or drumming & chanting - when I was done, I > could always hear that they had turned their TV up way loud... I > think a couple of them were Latin-American Catholics, too, so I can > only imagine what was going through their head... ROTFL!! Yeah, that'd tend to do it. Not the drumming so much, but I can't begin to feature the reactions of people with the type of acoustic walls I have hearing someone bellowing in Enochian. Although as far as Latin American Catholics go, you might be surprised...they may have had a few skeletons dancing in the closets themselves. ;> > And then there was the time a wonderful ritual climaxed with our > hurling a flaming copy of Liber AL off the balcony at about 2 AM... > (and yes, we went down and made sure it was out...) ;-) Sounds like you have some fun rituals. ;> Actually, I think my neighbors, knowing that I'm both a professional writer and yoga instructor expect me to do weird things...though the old hag next door is still convinced that "Namah Sivaya" means "Get the behind me satan...and PUSH!" in some heathen tongue. ;> 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Steven Craig Area: Night Side To: Deep Black 8 Sep 93 04:12:00 Subject: Re: Shamanistic C.M. UpdReq Thanks for the info... The "Yuggoth" scale has a sort of middle-eastern feel; my scale book is on loan at the moment, so I can't dig through that for sake of comparison. When I integrate music into ritual, it usually forms the focus of the working, rather than just using it for mood music. As such, I tend to fluctuate between techno/house music and abstract industrial stuff (Coil, Einsturzende Neubauten, etc.) 'Course, I've done ritual to everything from Beethoven to trashy heavy metal... ___ X MMST 2.09 UnRegistered * This heart makes each name sear away... 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Steven Craig Area: Night Side To: Deep Black 8 Sep 93 04:19:02 Subject: Re: Sick, Sick Catalogs! UpdReq DB> Yeah, that came to mind when I started _Bones_. The magazine DB> _Fangoria_ advertized a catalog called _Foxx Entertainment_ which I DB> refered to earlier. Their catalog sells human bones. Not too DB> steep either (compared to what I thought.) A complete skull is DB> under 200$. Just about every bone is offered. So much for the DB> skin trade, eh? I wrote down the address for Foxx, but haven't sent off for the catalog yet. Not much interest in collecting human bones, but a catalog that sells them sounds like a must-read... My best Item Of Questionable Taste From A Dead Thing is the phallic bone of a raccoon which I bought a couple of years ago at a pagan festival, with the thought of making a necklace out of it (the fellow who sold it to me informed me that the raccoon and walrus are the only animals who have boned phalli). Alas, it is still sitting in a baggie in my dresser along with some fish vertebrae I was also going to incorporate into the same necklace, and some skull beads carved from bone that actually _will_ get made into earring/s in the near future... :-) Anyone wanna make a bid on Anton Lavey's skull? ___ X MMST 2.09 UnRegistered * Eat it with ketchup! 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Whitefang Area: Night Side To: Steven Craig 8 Sep 93 22:40:08 Subject: HBO thang Sent UpdReq You're right; when they got about 20 minutes or so into it, the "maybe this is all a load of horse hockey" idea came across. But I still think that those soft in the head might have their little beliefs helped right along by that special. I think their attempt to "debunk" the SRA thing was half-hearted at best. Maxilla and Mandible is a good place for bones, here in NYC. I think they're still on Columbus Avenue. What makes you think Anton LaVey would give up his skull? 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718