Tim,
    This might suffice to end this One Act impromptu having little interest
in spending much more time with his book. In his Intro. p.5 Surette writes,
    "My hope is to identify both the nature and the provenance of a set of
ideas, attitudes, and concerns that are ubiquitous in modernism and are
particularly strong in William Butler Yeats, in his protege, Ezra Pound,
and, to a much lesser extent, in Pound's sometime protege, T. S. Eliot.
These ideas, attitudes, and concerns I call 'the occult,' deliberately
choosing a strong term instead of more honorific terms such as the 'wisdom
tradition,' 'Platonism,' 'symbolism,' or even 'the literary tradition' - or
simply, and more obscurely, 'the tradition.' Although these terms are not
all equivalent, they are commonly used as a kind of code for beliefs that
might more properly be called the occult and are employed to darken a scene
that might not comfortably bear the harsh light of day."
    This "harsh light of day" directed toward Surette himself may very
likely reveal a rather Jesuit-like shepherded education. Thus follows the
superficial and prejudiced opinions of the author predisposed to defend his
own superstition (never really articulated but obviously meliorist) by
demonizing and attacking its critics whose questioning was both valid and
just but disliked by orthodoxy.
    Do you read me? The "adversary" (original name of Satan) is always
lurking about "the dark side". OOOOccult! But we all hope for Frodo's
success as with Brunhilde's that the ring goes back into the fire, pagan and
Christian alike.
    I suggest a better book, "The Origin of Satan" by Elaine Pagels.

Charles

"Luther could throw the inkpot at him (the Devil), but he has been passed
over in silence by perplexed Protestant theologians long ago. For the
'solitude' of the Faustian soul agrees not at all with a duality of world
powers." -Spengler

----------
>From: Tim Romano <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Pound and the Occult
>Date: Wed, Jan 29, 2003, 7:50 AM
>

> Again, I haven't read the book and request more detail from the impromptu
> reviewer. Does Surette "equate Modernism with the Occult"? Is that a fair
> summary of his position? That the modernists were occultists with artistic
> talent? Or does he say that certain authors affixed with the "modernist"
> label were to varying degrees devotees of the occult? Does he offer a
> working definition of "the occult"? FWIW, I don't see how Wyndham Lewis,
> for example, could ever be considered an occultist.   Does L.S. exclude any
> authors?
> Tim Romano
>
>
> At 06:38 AM 1/29/03 -0500, charles moyer responded to Tim Bray:
>>   Again, I did not write that. It is from Leon Surette's book on Modernism
>>and the Occult. p.285. I agree with you Tim [Bray]. Furthermore I think it
>>smacks
>>of witch-hunting taken to absurd lengths which was my point about equating
>>Modernism with the Occult and the negative connotations of the resulting
>>violence to existing "order" implied.
>>     Since we are on the subject of Modernism here is what I read in
>>yesterday's Cleveland Plain Dealer concerning our poet laureate's appearance
>>at John Carroll University tonight.
>>     "There's a waiting audience out there that was frightened away by
>>Modernist poetry in school. You feel alienated from your own language, which
>>is unpleasant," Collins says in phone call from his home in Somers, N.Y.
>>"There's a syllogism at work here. The syllogism goes like this: I can read
>>and understand English; this poem was written in English; I can't understand
>>this poem."
>>     Any comments?
>>
>>Charles
>>
>>----------
>> >From: Tim Bray <[log in to unmask]>
>> >To: [log in to unmask]
>> >Subject: Re: Pound and the Occult (was not
>> >Date: Tue, Jan 28, 2003, 11:54 PM
>> >
>>
>> > Carrol Cox wrote:
>> >> charles moyer wrote:
>> >>
>> >> "apparent immateriality of quantum physics and the apparent
>> >> irrationality of relativity theory"
>> >
>> > I missed that, but I object.  Nothing is more material than quantum
>> > physics, a hodgepodge of mathematics which seems to do a good job of
>> > predicting the observed material results of experiments; the violently
>> > counterintuitive nature of what the math seems to be telling us is a
>> > symptom of materiality - the world is what it is, not what we think it
>> > is, and if what it is seems weird, well that's just the way it is.
>> > Similarly for relativity theory, it's weird all right but there's
>> > nothing irrational about it.  And we lack alternatives.  And it is a
>> > good thing to try to understand the world. -Tim