Tim & Charles

First, the Occult is alive and well written about.  Visit any bookstore and
you will find a large section devoted to Tarot cards, Crystals and the
Secret writings of (fill in the blank).  People write (usually not well) of
the occult and secret history/tradition all the time.  The secret and the
mystical seem to fascinate.

Second,   W.B. Yeats was a self-acknowledged occultist.  Denying Yeats as an
Occultist is to deny objective fact.  There is absolutely no more question
of his beliefs and practices than there is of Blake's.

Third;  at times, Surette, Materer and Tryphonopoulos have chosen  to study
the Modernists in terms of the Occult.  This should not earn them the
reprobation that Charles is so ready to hurl.  I would definitely recommend
at least the introduction of Materer's book "Modernist Alchemy" to anyone.
These studies are at least as valid as the methodology of Marxist critical
theory that is so often recommended on this list.

The references that Charles had picked from Weston were baldly Occult.  They
referred to secret history and access to that history by initiates only.
Since he was speaking of Weston in terms of "The Waste Land" and had
referenced the Occult through his quotes,  I thought it appropriate to
suggest an essay that studied all three.

What is Mystical and what is Occult?  Where does one start and the other
end?  I think often the same person is both Mysticist and Occultist which
gives rise to the confusion of which he/she is.  He or she is actually both.
But an Occultist can be not Mystical and a Mysticist can be not Occultist.
Julian of Norwich is an example of a Christian Mystic who was not into the
Occult.  Neo-Platonism can be mystical and is usually not Occult.  Supposed
discoveries, from secret maps passed through the ages to initiates only, of
tunnels under the pyramids can be Occult and not Mystical.  Much of UFOlogy
is Occult without being mystical.  Mystical involves a union with God.  The
Occult involves secret history/tradition/ritual available only to initiates.
Where the two join is in secret theurgies, available to initiates only,
which promise union with a God.  The Eleusian mysteries were Occultist in
their secret rituals and mystical in their suggestions of union with the
Gods.  Pound can be legitimately read to be deeply interested in both
Mysticism and the Occult.  Pound's recommendation of Alan Upward's "The
Divine Mystery" can be taken as an interest in mythology or as also an
interest in the Occult or both.

Pound was a regular attendee at Mead's "The Quest" society, as was Dorothy
Shakespear.  He wrote essays for "The Quest" and delivered papers at the
meetings.  Pound's "Psychology and Troubadours" was initially published in
"The Quest" an avowed Occultist journal.

A worshiper of Progressivism may use studies or belief of the Occult and
Mysticism as a pejorative.  I do not.  This denial does not imply support
for the Occult or Mystical.  It simply means that I will not damn someone
for his legitimate beliefs or interests.

Rick Seddon
McIntosh, NM