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Wm Gray letter #1Ta ever so for your interesting letter. Like yourself, I enjoy writing. I have even had gear published in the New Statesman, but apart from personal correspondence, I never write anything connected with witchcraft. I have to discuss everything like that with the boys, and as such it will be a decision of the group. Thanks a lot for the suggestion, though, very kind of you. I will probably post the article to you, since you know the address.Shakespeare really knew his witchcraft. I have a wild theory that he spent some time in one of the more advanced clans; and that it was during his service that he first gave birth to the silver tongue. Nearly all witchcraft of the school I belong to, wrap its secrets in blank verse and kennings. Robert Graves in his 'White Goddess' writes a great deal on nonsense about many things, (mainly because he tries to explain everything), but he was absolutely accurate when he wrote that the protean Goddess was the true inspirer of the poet, and that all real poetry must deal with the themes that She is Mistress of. Shakespeare never deviated from these themes, and in many of his works, paganism is far more apparent than Christianity. His 'Wives' for instance, derives from a very ancient Keltic legend, and give an accurate description of rural witchcraft at its simplest. The same theme appears in 'Lear' which for me is pure paganism at its noblest and best. The characters of Lear are archetypes of the major legend. The fool is by no means a fool, but very much the simple god. Lear is the old god of death. Even Geoffrey of Monmouth could not quite confuse the issue, and the essential truth still remains in his hodge podge of mythology and racial memory. The latter day wica should read Shakespeare, then throw the Aradia overboard. Our land of the dead, Apple Island, Avalon, Caerochren. . . is a place that to the image fixed mind, appears as a wooded countryside, with a bleak sea shore. Across deep pasture, lie hills that rise blue heads to the lowering sky. By the sea and across the woods is a small hamlet; The woods are dark and terrible, and must be entered by crossing a stream. There the coward withers, the faintheart retreats, for it is there that Childe Rolande must blow the snail horn trumpet, and face the enemy whom no man can ever unhorse. (Browning). The other planes I have no knowledge of, except in the unconscious as all of us do. My mind is almost totally directed day in, day out to the Akashics, where I unravel the silver thread. There has been so much lost, and so very little time to find it again.'There you and I my loves To work witch magic properly one must work out of doors, buildings, unless ectoplasmic displays are required, are useless and destroy 'Virtue'. Outdoors is the law for us, and it is also the law of correspondence necessary to the higher ritual. Nudity, although we do not practice it, has a good psychological effect, for the inhibited types who are the latter day pagans. I understand, although this may not be correct, that they also regard nudity essential as a means to what they describe as power. Obviously scourging is also strongly favored because of this. It again is supposed to produce 'Power'. Probably something to do with the release of adrenaline and its decayed byproducts to produce psychological effects. Since they seem to run until they are in a thoroughly suggestive state, the suggestion plays a greater part in this than the scourge. I personally have very little time for such primitive behavior from subtopians. It is 'all in the blood' as one of them told me. In the past the whip was used because of its symbolic correspondence. The 'Devil' or his summoner chased the others in a grim game of 'Hare and Hound'. It is a good way of bringing home the attraction of death, as well as the attraction of life, and a better way of imprinting a 'party line' I have never yet come across. Once someone has learned the symbology that way, they are very unlikely to forget it again. Forbid that we should use it today though. Nothing can ever remain still. Thought must either grow or corrupt. To retain a primitive pattern is to corrupt civilized minds and souls. The path we have chosen was thrust upon us. (How's that for mangling English). "Thereby," he said, filling his pipe, "Hangs a strange story." "Tell me, Sir Humphrey," she whispered, her china blue eyes opening slightly..... My great granddad was the last grand master of the Staffordshire witches. It has evidently been in the family since at least the seventeenth century, since there are definite records from that period. Even the house my father was born in, was between the borders of Staffordshire and Warwickshire, so that when there was danger of arrest, the family moved from one section of the house to the other. Anyway in the arch age of materialism, my grandparents decided to renounce the Gods and took up Methodism instead for Sunday afternoons. Thereupon my great grandfather was very angry and cursed them. This curse has decimated my family through the years and generations. Nearly all of them died in misery or violence. Whereupon I was born, which was probably the curse at its worst. My father who was agin witchcraft, took one look at me, and said "Gawd, the old bastard's come back;" (My father was a Guard's R.S.M.) and promptly made my mother swear never to tell me the terrible truth of my heritage. However I had my first mystical awareness of the Gods at the age of five, and since then have progressed in my career. I am a professional, it is not because I am interested in it, but because it is interested in me. However after I learned the truth from my mother, after my father's death, and then went to see my aunt Lucy, who is a terrible old woman. She taught me the five arts and the tradition. However, the witch teaching officiallinis, is that witch blood must be possessed to gain the ear of the Gods, and that witch blood reoccurs every second or third generation, and in the same pattern physically. In other words only witches can bear witches, and to be without the heritage is the most terrible experience of all for a witch. It is literally slow torture. I personally would rather do anything than face the thirteen years of the wilderness again; but only another witch would understand me. The information about the nine foot magic circle sounds a bit false. I am very disinclined to believe it as a possible historical event. Everything in the theory points towards a labored nineteenth century hand, inventing primitive man all over again. No twentieth century man likes to admit the possibility that it has all been done before; But in a different way with different means. However, this is literally what a witch's compass is, a highly efficient and scientific machine, and it requires science to use it properly. The Kelts built in stone and wood, the rush huts that were used until the sixteenth century for milking and cheese making were called 'wiccens', which is a word that derives from the Saxons, and means salt. It may well be that charms were used in the building of these. Against the simple rural craft it must be remembered that another tradition existed, of which very little is recorded. This is the Key of Kings. The witches blue band of hope and comradeship has been invented mainly by Mrs. Leek for her own amusement. They sent me a form to fill in which wanted to know all sorts of odd things. I very nearly returned it signed Mathew Hopkins. They would never have seen the joke or the danger. I can only say The Unknown God help them if they ever meet a master of the black art. As it stands I have kept the form as evidence of my contention that they are out to make witchcraft respectable; which will kill it outright. Mrs. Bone is the bosom pal of Charlie Cardell who describes himself as Rex Nemorensis, enough said. Incidentally, we sometimes all go out on Sundays for a run in a friends car. Perhaps with your kind permission we could drop in and see you for an hour. My birthdate 26.1.31. Time, 3 a.m. Place, London. Our regards to your wife and yourself, Flags and Flax, |
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