stalked by Basil Crump

The initiate once lent me a copy of a wonderful book called The Occult Causes of Diseases by W Wolfram, a Paracelsian in-depth study. I saw he'd written on the inside of the beautiful light blue and gold cover a date next to it an expression of his heartfelt thanks that this book had come to him on that particular date.

He was saying that this book had been meant to come to him then - a bit like the old esoteric tradition that when the time is right - when you are  ready - your teacher will mysteriously appear at your shoulder.

I was reminded of this when I went to Lewes to climb Mount Caburn and see my old friend. A few weeks ago I'd come across Basil Crump's book on ancient esoteric understanding of the evolution of the species in an Oxfam shop in London. I'd never encountered the name before but now in Lewes I fell upon another book by him, Lohengrin and Parsifal, a commentary on Wagner's operas.

In it he shows how Wagner adapted Bulwer Lytton's concept of the Dweller on the Threshold - the guardian between the worlds - and he also made me realize that Wagner, like Blavatsky, had been a key figure in th e late nineteenth century, re-introducing oriental ideas like reincarnation back into the stream of occidental, secret history. One of the influences on Wagner, he shows, was Schopenhauer.

Later in the Lewes Arms my friend and I were listing some of things that in retrospect seem to have been a complete waste of life:

reading so many of the novels of Kingsley Amis - yes, some of them, like One Fat Englishman and Jake's Thing, are very good, but there are many others in which you can read page after page without finding a single joke.

Watching Osibisa in concert. I saw this highly enthusiastic African whistle-blowing, multi-drumming band once on purpose at around the time they had their hit single Sunshine Day, and then on another occasion they stood in for a band that had backed out at the last minute.

Visiting celebrity cemeteries. At Pere Lachaise you're given a map so you can tick off Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde etc - but what's the point? What do you expect to experience? I remember that particular cemetery turned out to be a gay pick up point. Lank young men would peer round the corner of tombstones.

One thing I was glad to spot there was an inscription on the tomb of the Princess de Noailles. Her tomb caught my eye because she was a friend of Cocteau's. I can't remember the French, but in translation it went something like this:

Helas, I wasn't meant to be dead!

Immediately you get - with a rush - a sense of her love of life.  Something the initiate emphasized to me on more than one occasion was a difference between the western and eastern esoteric traditions. The western tradition has no world-hating elements. It teaches us to love the material world and to work with it and on it. We are meant to consider such questions as Did Kingsley Amis sometimes fall short when it came to his care for language, his commitment to making every sentence express his thoughts as clearly as possible? What are the qualities of authentic African tribal music?  If Bulwer Lytton was a great initiate, why was his prose so wooden?

Finding the spiritual meaning behind Osibisa and Roy Orbison and Jordan, behind the flotsam and jetsam of modern trash culture IS part of the esoteric tradition, taught to us by the initiate-masters who inspired Dada.

After a while in the pub some elderly Swampy types came in - rough-living environmental protesters -and one of them came into the side room where David and I were drinking and began to play some moody music - Liszt maybe - on the upright piano.

Later i heard one say to the other 'It's ridiculous, innit? He says he owns the land, but the land's been there for fousands of years..'

I told David about this later and we laughed. Then I remembered that that's what esoteric philosophy teaches - that matter finally solidified into the form we know today just thousands of years ago, not millions of years ago.

We must be vigilant and not allow common sense to sneak in by the back door.

Comments

[RicK]

It's funny you should mention Jim Morrison; he's the impetus that drew me into reading your book after I randomly picked it up out here at Barnes and Nobles in Boston. (Although they have it curiously in the World History section, don't really get that.)

I'm a big fan of his and so many of his references and allusions corresponded to yours - Rimbaud, Blake, Schopenhauer, alchemy, ancient Shadow Plays, Shamanism, Ars Magna...I could keep going ad infinitum.

I thought for sure you would mention him somewhere, but not so unfortunately.

He totally immersed himself in esoteric, mind before matter thought and applied it to his art - not just his pop songs but his writings. Pay no attention to the pretty boy image divested in mass media. He was a post-modern mystic.

Consider : he went from never playing an instrument and writing songs on an abandoned rooftop whilst basically homeless - to meteoric fame and setting the archetype for a "rock star". Dark, surly, enigmatic. He immersed himself in the fecundity of the derangement of the senses, not just in a room alone but in front of the world. Not to mention an obsession with death, coupled with a mysterious death. All within the span of seven short years.

Check out some of his works, sir. They correlate and complement yours.

http://www.ournia.com/msn/view-121184-doors_the_lords.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wr_i3Y9_c4

[jonathan black]

Thanks, RicK. I'll certainly follow that up. I know and like his music. My favourite track is Crystal Ship, which reminds me of another great occultist, neglected in my book for reasons of space - Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was described as voyaging on strange seas of thought alone.

Crystal Ship seems to me to suggests it's possible to do it in the company of the like-minded!