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Gardner-Crowley Influences/Meeting?

To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.wicca,alt.religion.pagan,alt.pagan,alt.magick.order,alt.religion.wicca
From: lorax666 
Subject: Gardner-Crowley Influences/Meeting?
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2003 02:47:05 GMT

50030302 VII Happy Nulatix!!

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bard:
>> Gardner was a retired civil service office at the time he wrote
>> _Witchcraft Today_  He claims to have joined a Wicca coven in 
>> 1939 ( http://www.religioustolerance.org/wic_hist.htm ) when he 
>> would have been 55 years old.  It is known that he was a Mason, 

apparently a Co-Mason.

>> a nature worshiper )o.e.
>> nudist), that he did corespond with Crowley 

affirmed and substantiated by correspondence known to the OTO.

>> and did meet him face to face at least once.  

there is a fantasy of this online somewhere which appears, 
unless I'm mistaken and forgetting something, to be the
basis for the stories about a face-to-face meeting between
these two (Crowley and Gardner). it may have been the story
constructed as an imagined meeting by Greenfield. I'm not
entirely sure but this subject's come up numerous times in
email and usenet and has probably be resolved a while back.
my recall is that they NEVER met face-to-face, that a proxy
initiated Gardner to IV' as stated in this thread, and that
he had authority to foster OTO in his local region under
the dispensation of Crowley and his central office in the UK.

>> When in active servive Gardner did serve in the
>> East, which certainly could have had an influence on him 
>> (the use of the [term karma for] example).  

>> The largest debate about his statements
>> centered on how much contact he had with existing covens 
>> as oposed to the orders he belonged to.  

not only that, his dyslexia contributes to controversy over
what portions of the Books of Shadows come from what places
and whether he got terms (like 'athame') or others from
classic sources (as maintained by authors like Aidan Kelly)
or actually received something from the Sprenglish Dorothy
Clutterbuck and Co. at New Forest.

Romauld:
> ...a) he was a civil servant in the Far East, b) he was 
> associated with the Rosicrucians in the New Forest after 
> he retired there, c) he claimed to have been initiated 
> into a coven by an old woman putatively named Dorothea 
> Clutterbuck, who's historical veracity is dubious at best.

that all sounds about right. I didn't remember her first
name being Dorothea, but it wouldn't surprise me much.

> I hadn't ever heard that he had travelled in America, 
> and while he was clearly familiar with Crowley's writings, 

lifted vast portions of them for initial books of shadows
and thereafter transferred and fabricated them, and this
may be discerned in works like the Charge of the Goddess,
which contains pieces of Crowley's Gnostic Mass, 
if my memory on this remains intact.

> I'd never heard that the two met.

the story is quite popular, but I think it is false. my
memory is that a fictionalized version hypothetical to
a possible meeting was constructed and that this has
led to the proliferation of the notion that they did 
in fact meet face to face. you asked about where it may
be found online. 

try

	* the Lucky Mojo Curio Co. archives on Wicca/OTO
	* Google search on Greenfield and the story.

blessed be!

lorax666

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