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- From: ba@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (B.A. Davis-Howe)
- Subject: Re: Crowley and Gardner
- References: <1992Dec21.043151.9191@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> <72355@cup.portal.com> <1hhp4mINN91@cat.cis.Brown.EDU> <BzvowE.Ct0@news.cso.uiuc.edu> <1hkkmdINN7ec@cat.cis.Brown.EDU>
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- Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
- Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 23:51:33 GMT
- Lines: 49
-
- SL500000@brownvm.brown.edu (Robert Mathiesen) writes:
-
- >Br'anArthur mentions that Doreen Valiente received Gardner's own Book of
- >Shadows manuscripts (Texts A, B and maybe C in the Farrar's' _Witch's
- >Way_), and when I checked back I found two statements in Valiente's
- >_Rebirth of Witchcraft_ that Gardner had given her his original Book of
- >Shadows. -- I had assumed that they had remained in her possession
- >after Gardner's coven split in 1957.
-
- >Is there any published statement, beyond the brief mention in Valiente's
- >_Rebirth_, about how the manuscripts passed from Gardner to Valiente?
- >Have I, perhaps, overlooked a more explicit statement in one of the Far-
- >rar's' books? (What was *your* source, Br'anArthur? I am intrigued.)
-
- Hm, I suspect I did the same thing you did--I assumed. I checked myself, and
- could find no explicit refernce to how the documents got into Valiente's hands.
- She mentions several documents which she received, but never says when or how.
- I noted that there are *two* documents entitled Ye Book of ye Art Magical, the
- one Kelly (ab)used for his book, and one which Valiente has.
-
- Having no specifc statement to go on we can only speculate as to when she
- received the documents. I tend to suspect that it was at the time of GBG's
- death, since he would have had no reason to give her his copy of BAM. On the
- other hand, the Farrars' "Text C" is said to be the BoS which GBG and Valiente
- created together--Kelly says that Gardner continued to edit the BoS after the
- split with Valiente. However, Kelly states that there are differences between
- Text C and the pamphlet "Witch", which the Farrars treat as being the same as
- Text C. It is possible that the Farrars only distinguish between radically
- differing versions, since they also refer to Sander's BoS as practically
- identical with Text C.
-
- An interesting detail I ran into during the search was that Arnold Crowther
- was the person who introduced GBG to Crowley in '46, yet Crowther wasn't
- initiated until at least '56, when he introduced Patricia (who may or may not
- have become Mrs. Crowther yet) to GBG. I haven't found an initation date for
- the two of them, but they were initiated together, so it must have been at
- least '56 and before '64 (when GBG died).
-
- An amazing feature in this is that GBG was almost 70 when he initated Valiente,
- and 79 when he died--that man just kept going and going! :)
-
- Enjoy the journey!
- --Br'anArthur
- Queer, Peculiar, and Wyrd! :-)
-
- ******************************************************************************
- "We are secretly replacing the fine quartz crystals this medicine pouch maker
- usually uses with Folgers crystals. Let's see what happens...."
- --DACCrowell
-