1.28.2008
Slow Time and Secret Societies
A couple of interesting book-related articles to check out this morning, the first comes from the San Francisco Gate, who interviews Pagan author Waverly Fitzgerald concerning her new book "Slow Time: Recovering the Natural Rhythm of Life".
"Spiritual teacher and author Waverly Fitzgerald believes we'd all benefit by changing our ideas and relationships with time. In her new book, "Slow Time," Fitzgerald, who has written for Beliefnet and Sage Woman magazine, provides exercises and ideas intended to inspire people to align themselves with nature's natural rhythms - night and day, the monthly lunar cycle and the yearly solar round - rather than living their lives to the frenzied beat of industrial time."
For Fitzgerald, connecting religiously with the changing seasons is one way to "slow" your conception of time from the "frenetic" pace of our industrialized world.
"Most of the major religions have a seasonal liturgy, even though it may be sort of buried. If you look at Christianity, with the Easter cycle and the Christmas birth, there is this lovely use of the seasons to tell a story, and the same is true in the Jewish religion. And, of course, the pagan religion really works with this notion of the seasons and the cycle. So there is a very deep connection between this notion of cyclical time and spirituality. And there is a message of hope that things will come around again, that we may feel despair but spring will come again. It is a pretty profound metaphor that is embedded in our lives."
Meanwhile, over at Salon.com, Laura Miller rips apart Mark Booth's uneven examination of the history of the world through the eyes of esoteric secret societies.
"...you might conclude that "The Secret History of the World" is a truckload of drivel, and you would be right. It is a mess of a book, disjointed and rambling, rife with puzzling non sequiturs that are obviously meant to be suggestive or evocative but that more often read like the symptoms of an advanced case of Attention Deficit Disorder ... Booth is forever intimating that he's about to explain something important to the reader and then abruptly dropping the subject. He has all the smoke and cymbals of the Great and Terrible Oz, but can rarely muster even the fake disembodied head as a crescendo ... Furthermore, much of the "information" Booth chooses to supply is either incorrect or, frankly, untrue. Some of these errors seem to be the result of simple ignorance."
So if you are looking for the inside scoop on the importance of secret societies, and what they believed, "The Secret History of the World: As Laid Down by the Secret Societies" may not be the book for you. You might be better off with a work like "Hidden Wisdom", by former Gnosis editors Richard Smoley and Jay Kinney, if you want to understand what contributions esoteric secret societies have made to our culture.
Labels: books, Freemasonry, gnosticism, Mark Booth, Paganism, Salon.com, secret societies, Waverly Fitzgerald
11.14.2007
New Books of Note
There are some new books of interest to Pagans, Heathens, and occultists of many stripes that I would like to spotlight today. The first is "Fire Child", the long-awaited autobiography of English "Witch Queen" Maxine Sanders. Sanders is well-known in Witchcraft circles as a co-founder of Alexandrian Wicca, and for the many striking photographs taken of her performing rituals with Alex Sanders and their coven in the 1960s.
According to Sanders, the book is a way of answering the many questions she encountered from Witches about the history and development of the Craft."Last year I met American witches from different traditions of modern Craft who asked good questions and were not afraid to ask the sensitive ones. They made me see the impact Alex and I have had on the Craft. They had the right to ask and I felt obliged to answer. Writing 'Fire Child' was the perfect opportunity."
This release should be a unique treasure, autobiographies from Pagan elders are rare, especially from figures who had as large a role to play as Sanders. The book will be released on November 23rd from Mandrake of Oxford Press.
On a similar Witchcraft-related note, a new book takes a deeper look at the history of initiation rituals within the Western esoteric traditions. "Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation" by Henrik Bogdan, a Religious Studies and Theology professor at Goteborg University in Sweden, explores the ties and similarities between Freemasonry, and later esoteric initiatory paths, including modern Witchcraft.
"For more than three hundred years the practice of Masonic rituals of initiation has been part of Western culture, spreading far beyond the boundaries of traditional Freemasonry. Henrik Bogdan explores the historical development of these rituals and their relationship with Western esotericism. Beginning with the Craft degrees of Freemasonry - the blueprints, as it were, of all later Masonic rituals of initiation - Bogdan examines the development of the Masonic High Degrees, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn - the most influential of all nineteenth-century occultist initiatory societies - and Gerald Gardner's Witchcraft movement of the 1950s, one of the first large-scale Western esoteric New Religions Movements."The book seems like a must-read for anyone wanting a deeper understanding of where some ritual elements found within religious Witchcraft, and in turn many modern Pagan traditions, originated. You can preview the first chapter at the SUNY Press site.
Finally, we come to a book that has made it onto my Yule list, "Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes" by Chris Knowles (with illustrations by Joseph Michael Linsner). Knowles delves deep into comic-book history to explore the mythic, occult, and religious backgrounds for many of the crime-fighting icons we know and love.
"Was Superman's arch nemesis Lex Luthor based on Aleister Crowley? Can Captain Marvel be linked to the Sun gods on antiquity? In Our Gods Wear Spandex, Christopher Knowles answers these questions and brings to light many other intriguing links between superheroes and the enchanted world of estoerica. Occult students and comic-book fans alike will discover countless fascinating connections, from little known facts such as that DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz started his career as H.P. Lovecraft's agent, to the tantalizingly extensive influence of Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy on the birth of comics, to the mystic roots of Superman. The book also traces the rise of the comic superheroes and how they relate to several cultural trends in the late 19th century, specifically the occult explosion in Western Europe and America. Knowles reveals the four basic superhero archetypes--the Messiah, the Golem, the Amazon, and the Brotherhood--and shows how the occult Bohemian underground of the early 20th century provided the inspiration for the modern comic book hero."Anyone who has spent time dissecting "The Invisibles" or "Promethea" should definitely give this a look. As a longtime comic-book fan with an interest in the esoteric, this looks like a treasure-trove of information. You can listen to a podcast interview with the author, here.
Labels: books, Chris Knowles, Comics, Freemasonry, Henrik Bogdan, Maxine Sanders, Myth, occult, Witchcraft
5.06.2007
Return of the Masons
NPR has a story about the changing face of Freemasonry. While much smaller than in its glory days (membership is around 1.8 million down from 4 million in the 1940s and 50s), the society with secrets is attracting a younger demographic interested not only in the fraternal aspects, but in reviving its esoteric rites.
"...the current renewed interest in Freemasonry has brought in men who take a more serious approach to the ritual than older generations did, and who want to tighten initiation standards and raise dues. But he says the fraternity must watch out for men who sign up because of misguided theories linking Freemasonry to 'divine secrets.'"
This is tied to a larger push to revive the organization and attract new members.
"The lodge also hired a public relations firm to spread the word about its 225th anniversary, which was last month. And the Masons have run advertisements in movie theaters and run one-day classes to award the first three Masonic degrees in a single session. Until then, would-be Masons had to spend months learning what they needed to know to rise from Entered Apprentice to Fellowcraft to Master Mason."
It would be interesting to see how the Masons navigate a middle ground between a more open membership and recruitment while pleasing newer members who want to return Freemasonry to a more ritualistic society with stringent entrance requirements.
Of course the history of Freemasonry is deeply entwined with the history of modern Pagan Witchcraft. According to several Pagan historians and scholars, including Ronald Hutton author of "The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft", many terms and ritual aspects found in religious Witchcraft (and in the occult societies that preceded the emergence of Wicca) can be traced back to Freemasonry. One wonders if a renewed interest among younger people in Freemasonry will in turn spark a renaissance of occult societies and magical orders? Will our generation see a new Samuel "MacGregor" Mathers or William Westcott?
Labels: Freemasonry, Paganism, The Freemasons, Wicca
