NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/alt/magick/6520

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-26 | 11.4 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Robert Mathiesen)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Crowley and Gardner (was re: pentagrams)
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1992 09:10:46 EST
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To reply briefly to Thyagi's good questions:

(1)  On the Toronto Manuscript.  This is a rather large handwritten manu-
script,  written in Gerald Gardner's several handwritings (i.e. several
calligraphic hands and one every-day hand), on what looks to me like
large-size artist's paper inserted into a leather bookcover that had been
removed from a 17th-century lawbook.  It was in Gardner's Museum in the late
'60's, where Ray Buckland saw it.  When Gardner's heirs sold the museum, it
went with the rest of the contents to Ripley's Believe It or Not (head-
quarters in Toronto), where Aidan Kelly saw and studied it.  Later it was
purchased, along with Gardner's whole library, by Richard James (HP of the
Wiccan Church of Canada), who now owns it.  I enjoyed the hospitality of
Richard and Tamara James some 13 months ago, and was able to spend several
days working on it at their house.

The Toronto manuscript does not call itself a Book of Shadows; its name,
engraved on its cover, is "Ye Bok of ye Art Magical."  Nevertheless, it
is a primitive Book of Shadows in that it contains most of the oldest
texts which are found in Gardnerian Books of Shadows.  It also contains
a great many other texts, which are to the best of my knowledge NOT now
normally part of a Book of Shadows, even among strict Gardnerians.  Most
of these other texts are adaptations of Crowley's published writings,
with references to Witchcraft and Witches added.

There are, of course, a very large number of Books of Shadows now in
existence, and they all -- I suppose -- differ at least slightly from
one another.  Since they are personalized books for many witches, they
*may* differ widely from one another; and some may have few or none of
the texts in the Toronto manuscripts.  To trace this whole evolution
would now be very difficult.  Nevertheless, to the best of my knowledge,
the very oldest extant Books of Shadows are several in Gerald Gardner's
handwritings; and these are all closely related.  In addition to the
Toronto manuscript, I know of three or four others:  Two or three of
them are now owned by Doreen Valiente, and are the manuscripts called by
Janet and Stewart Farrar "Text A," "Text B" and "Text C."  Of these
three, "A" seems to be the oldest, and appears to represent an extract
from the Toronto manuscript: it is not a full Book of Shadows by
comparison with the others, but contains only certain texts.  "B"
appears to be much fuller, and seems to derive from the Toronto
manuscript also; but logically parts may have been copied from "A"
rather than directly from the Toronto manuscript.  "C" was assembled by
Gardner and Valiente together, and is even fuller than B, for it
contains Valiente's rituals as well as what she inherited.  It isn't
clear to me whether any of "C" is in Gardner's handwriting, or whether
it is all in Valiente's.  Hence my caution about "two or three"
manuscripts above.  --  I haven't seen any of these yet, but would like
to, and mean to ask their owner as soon as the press of other business
allows.  What information I have derives entirely from Valiente's own
books plus two by the Farrars: _Eight Sabbats for Witches_ and _The
Witch's Way_, I think they are called (titles from memory -- what I
actually own is the paperback reprint published by Magickal Childe under
the title _Witches Bible Compleat_).

Doreen Valiente writes about the early history of Gardner's coven, and
tells us that it split into two covens around 1957 (hers and another),
and that subsequently Gardner left the other coven and proceeded to
initiate people on his own.  She kept Texts A, B and C as a legacy of
these events; and the other coven also appears to possess at least one
Book of Shadows in Gardner's own handwriting as coven property.  About
this manuscript I have even less information than about Texts A, B and
C; but my source for its existence appears trustworthy.  I am not sure
whether it would ever be possible for me to see this manuscript.

One might imagine a critical, scholarly publication of the text of all
of the Book of Shadows manuscripts that are in Gardner's own
handwriting, which presumably would give a good basis for studying the
post_Gardnerian history of the Book of Shadows.  I am inclined to do
this edition, if I can get access to the manuscripts, or to most of
them; if I am able to see them, I should be able to prepare this edition
in only a few years.  This, of course, would be a very diferent thing
from an edition giving the texts now used in various traditions; I have
heard that another scholar is working on the latter project.

Until such an edition appears, the interested student has three sources
for a reasonably full Gardnerian Book of Shadows.  (1) the two books by
the Farrars cited above; (2) Aidan Kelly's study of the Toronto
manuscript, _Crafting the Art of Magic,_, vol. I [Llewellyn], or better
yet, the longer unpublished version with footnotes and scholarly
apparatus; and (3) a small pamphlet privately printed in England by the
Carlyon's called _Book of Shadows_ which reproduces Alex Sander's own
personal manuscript of the Book of Shadows (which pretty clearly derives
from Gardner's manuscripts at one or two removes).

People whom Gardner initiated towards the end of his life often received
typewritten extracts from the Book of Shadows which he had prepared, or
had a typist prepare for him; and these also survive in a small
quantity.  Some ended up the property of Carl Llewellyn Weschcke, and
are given by Aidan Kelly; others were printed in a very rare pamphlet
called _Witch_, written by "Rex Nemorensis" (Charles Cardell) and
printed in two editions shortly after Gardner's death in 1964.  These
also should be taken into account in an edition such as I hope to make,
but as extracts they give only a partial sense of Gardner's own Books of
Shadows.  In any case, _Witch_ is the fourth published source for Gardner's
own Book of Shadows.

(2) On quotations in Gardner's Book of Shadows.  Of course I haven't
read everything occult published after 1929, and surely I haven't
identified every last extract and quotation in the texts of the Toronto
manuscript and the published Book of Shadows texts.  But there's not a
large amount of unidentified text left at this point, and everything for
which I have identified a source was in print by 1929.  This is why I
suppose the texts in Garnder's own Book of Shadows were substantially
complete by the 1930's.  Had they still been growing much in the 1940's
and 1950's, there might have been extracts and quotes from later
published occult writings.  --  This is, of course, not conclusive, only
suggestive.  I have other reasons, as well, for supposing that Gardner
really was initiated (as he claimed) into a pre-existing coven.  None of
these reasons are more than suggestive, however; and in any case I don't
believe this coven pre-existed Gardner by more than about 10 years at
the most.

As an example of my other reasons, consider Gardner's term "athame."
This, I am certain first appeared as the name specifically of a
*witch's* knife only in the writings of Grillot de Givry, who wrote the
word as "arthame."  This scholar took the term from a Paris manuscript
of one of the several forms of the Key of Solomon, and it is in some
other manuscript Keys of Solomon also; but there it is a magician's
knife, not specifically a witch's knife (as in Grillot de Givry and
Gardner).  Now if Gardner had been working directly from a written
source here, he would have spelled it with the "r".  Since he never
spells it with that "r", it is likely that he heard the term before he
ever saw it written, and heard it a lot.  This then implies that someone
before him had borrowed it from Grillot de Givry, and that that someone
had used it in Gardner's hearing.  Now curiously enough Sybil Leek, who
seems to me to have NO indenepdent Book of Shadows tradition, but to
have later become familiar with Gardner's, nevertheless always calls the
witch's knife an "athalme" (pronounced with a silent "l," as I have
heard from people who knew her); and the little that she had independent
of Gardner's materials seems also to have been acquired in the New
Forest area.  The easiest way of accounting for all this is to suppose
that Gardner had a lot of contact, and Leek a very little contact, with
a pre-existing coven in the New Forest area, and that each heard the
word arthame" for the witch's knife pronounced something like
"AH-THAHM-EE" (British silent "r"), which he or she then spelled as well
as he or she could manage (athame and athalme).

As I said, this kind of reasoning is suggestive only, not conclusive.

(3)  The term "witchcraft."  As I used it in my original posting, I
meant to refer only to those traditions which use a Book of Shadows
deriving from Gardner's Book of Shadows.

There are traditions which originally were independent of Gardner, and
these did not have a Book of Shadows (so called) containing the texts in
Gardner's Book of Shadows, although they may well have had written books
of their own rituals which they may have given other titles to.  These
traditions are rare and reclusive, but as another poster said, they do
exist.  They do not look much like Gardner's witchcraft -- or did not,
before the Gardnerian materials became widely available in print.  About
these I was not talking in my posting.  By now the Faerie tradition
seems to have picked up Gardnerian materials, e.g. the Charge; and the
Alexandrian tradition was clearly NOT independent of Gardner's Book of
Shadows (indeed, since the publication of the Carlyon's pamphlet one can
see that Alex S. had a post-Valiente form of Gardner's Book of Shadows).
Most Witchcraft in the United States derives from Gardner or from
Saunders, but not all; by now, however, almost all of it has adopted
material from Gardner's Book of Shadows, which makes it hard to
unscramble the history.

(4)  About Dorothy Clutterbuck there is some published information now:
see Doreen Valiente's appendix to the Farrar's' _Witch's Way_, where she
prints what she has been able to recover concerning Clutterbuck.
Gardner's initial contact with the coven that initiated him was in the
context of the New Rosicrucian Theatre, run by a number of co-masons
grouped around Annie Besant's daughter Mabel; one of the leading lights
was "Brother Aureolis" (mis-named "Brother Aurelius" in all the
published accounts, all of which seem to come from what Gardner told
Valiente).  Brother Aureolis seems to have been an actor when he wasn't
an occultist, and his stage name was Alex Matthews.  His real name I
have forgotten for the moment, but I did not have any trouble finding
out what it was once I knew his stage name.  This individual was also a
moving light in another magical or fraternal order, called (I think) the
Order of the Waterbuffaloes, or something of the kind, and for this
order he wrote a pamphlet on visualization as a magical technique.  I
have not yet managed to get a copy of this pamphlet, but know where one
it to be seen and copied in England.

I hope this is of use, Thyagi.  -- Robert

(Robert Mathiesen, Brown University, SL500000@BROWNVM)