Rick,

    There may be wisdom which surpasseth all understanding, as we commonly
know it, i.e. in a probable supernatural as Santayana acknowledged and
intuitively felt by Bergson as we come to know a thing by entering into it,
but the descending soul by its defluxion is drawn out of the spherical, the
sole divine form, into a cone as Macrobius would have it.
     My objection is not so much that Surette confuses the definition
of the occult regardless of the fact he can't seem to decide whether to
include werewolves and vampires in the company of more obvious occultists
such as Frazer, Weston, Pound and Possum, but that he has a confused idea of
what the real tradition, the ars regia, or Love's Lieges really is. What he
seems to see is that which appears suspiciously occult to him and good
enough to ball together into a book which doesn't seem to be able to
ride the wake of best sellers like Ravenscraft's "The Spear of Destiny" or
Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum". If the poets could only speak for themselves!
But wait! Is that a golden bough I see before me?
    I would have recommended to him that he read Evola's "The Mystery of
the Grail: Initiation and Magic in the Quest for the Spirit". Here he might
find  clearer demarcations to lead him to a more adept appreciation of
Pound and Modernism regardless of the latter's fragmented nature and the
former's fragmented poetry.
    Take it from a REAL occultist, a true Ghibellin, Evola, who writes;

    "In more recent times Hermeticism and Rosicrucianism have inspired
various sects and authors who have illegitimately claimed to be the
representatives of these traditions, but who militate in the ranks of
Theosophy of occultism, of Anthroposophy, and in analogous by-products of
the contemporary pseudo-spiritual deviation. Thus the majority of people,
who ignore even the principles behind these matters, are led to think of
these sects as soon as they hear mention of Hermeticism and Rosicrucianism.
The truth is quite the opposite, however: these sects have nothing to do
with the traditions the names and the symbols of which they have usurped.
Moreover, the authentic representatives of these traditional organizations
have not resided in the Western world for quite some time. The relationship
between these organizations, on the one hand, and the Theosophical Society,
Anthroposophy, and the like, on the other hand, is the same as that between
Wagner's mystical-Christian and romantic-musical portrayal of the Grail in
'Parzival' and the authentic tradition of the Lords of the Temple." p.165

    I was first able to get the glance at what Evola is saying when I read
in Pound's "Spirit of Romance" - "Art is a fluid moving above or over the
minds of men....the future stirs already in the minds of the few. This is
especially true of literature, where the real time is independent of the
apparent, and where many dead men are our grandchildren's comtemporaries,
while many of our contemporaries have been already gathered into Abraham's
bosom, or some more fitting receptacle."
    This I feel is more than an aesthetic, and links Pound to those adepts
who dwell as Evola would have them on the White Island (leuka nasos) where
there is only the one time, and the Kali Yuga, the Dark Age, is only a bad
dream which they see but to which they do not condescend to offer their
participation other than the casual stroll with Virgil and Dante through the
divine comedy. O Mantuan!

Happy Chinese New Year and new mooniness,
Charles

    And, yes, WCW was a fine imagist.

    "Twenty sparrows on a scattered turd,
    Share and share alike."

----------
>From: ricks <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Pound and the Occult
>Date: Fri, Jan 31, 2003, 10:39 AM
>

> To all first, and then to Charles and Tim R. separately:
>
> This discussion's heart beat seems to be an intellectual distaste for the
> word occult.  I have provided a quick easy dictionary definition.  I would
> recommend that everyone at least use a some dictionary definition of the
> word.
>
>
> Charles
>
>> >Tim,
>> >     Perhaps this will help explain the use and misuse of "occult" in B
> of M.
>
> Since you seem to believe that Surette is misusing the word "Occult",
> perhaps it would help for you to give a succinct usage and show how that is
> the accepted one and Surette's usage is not.
>
> I see nothing in your quotes that reveal a misuse of the word occult by
> Surette.  In fact they seem to support his central thesis and the dictionary
> definitions of occult.
>
>
> Tim:
>
> Sedition and conspiracy theories are secondary characteristics of the belief
> in "secret history", available only to initiates. associated with the
> Occult.  In "Royalty and All That" in "Guide to Kulchur",  which I
> previously recommended, see page 263;  "A conspiracy of intelligence
> outlasted the hash of the political map.",  Ezra Pound.
>
>
> Rick Seddon
> McIntosh, NM