Mr. Seddon's distinction between the mystic and the occult reminded me
of a book on my shelf.  *W. B. Yeats: Twentieth-Century Magus* by Susan
Johnston Graf is not really a good book, but it is the only of its kind
I've seen.  I purchased it at an occult bookstore near the place I used
to have on Chicago's North side.  It dishes all the dirt on Yeats's
occult involvement, including all the details of his feud with Aleister
Crowley for control of the Order of the Golden Dawn, a ritual magic
group.  The details and chronologies that Graf presents are fairly
convincing, at least on the factual level, that Yeats was serious about
his ritual activity, and seriously pursued occult studies within a
curriculum of sorts.

"A Vision" makes a lot more sense through this kooky sort of lens, I
must say.  On the other hand, once I had read about all the robes and
incantations and levels of magical initiation, it was terribly
difficult to read Yeats with a straight face, or even to appreciate the
efforts of critics and scholars writing about him.  There's something
about this hidden business that doesn't like to see the light of day...

It's my impression that Pound would have no truck with Order of the
Golden Dawn hogwash (or "mysterium", in the unlikely event some fell
spirit subscribes to this list).  It seems to make a difference if one
is reading historico-mythic proto-structural studies like Weston or
Frazer, rather than spellbooks or tarot cards.  It's important that
Madame Sosotris had a nasty cold, even while predicting death by water,
and was more than eager to receive payment for her work with the
dimensionally handicapped.  Figures in the Modern period, in lots of
ways, display some anxiety about what to do with their multiplicitous
mythical heredity.  (And at the same time, Edgar Rice Burroughs is
writing Tarzan.)  It seems to me that the decades after Darwin, Freud,
Marx, etc. pushed Xianity (as my colleague so aptly abbreviates) off
the main stage of intellect, leaving open a vaccuum of indeterminate
proportions to be refilled quickly, and with whatever tools were
closest to hand.

Maude Gonne would have nothing to do with the Order of the Golden Dawn
after a while.  Graf offers that Gonne "thought she was being disloyal
to Ireland by belonging to what she saw as a pseudo-masonic, English
organization."  One handy ideological complex (or vortex?) for filling
the existential void is the nation-state, or, failing that, the
colonial struggle to bring a nation-state into existence along ethnic
lines.  Myth becoming race becoming state is one possible progression
at the dawn of the century, and the aestheticized politics of the 3rd
Reich are enough to show what a potent progression it could be.

What's most interesting to me about all this (getting away from the
British Isles and all the glyphs and arcana and Crowleys) is that the
American myths seem only to sputter into existence, and never quite
take consistent form without Hollywood Help.  I think about Stevens'
early poem about the firecat and the herds of buffalo running away; or
I think about Tarzan; or about Zane Grey's cowboy novels; and see the
coordinates of a myth in the making.  The internationality of Pound and
Eliot permit a level of mythic discourse that their more nationalist
counterparts do not attempt to imitate.  But their American-ness (which
I still do not understand) underwrites that very internationality:
Yeats is confined in comparison, while EP ranges far and wee (so to
speak).

(I did not plan out these comments very thoroughly, as you no doubt can
tell.  Any response is welcome.)

Cheers!
-Jon W.
Oak Park, IL

On Tuesday, January 28, 2003, at 09:33  AM, Richard Seddon wrote:

> 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
>