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I think the effective ones, are those that don't age or fade from even the appearance of being useful or connected. The more blatant of Crowley's works, Morrison's 'The Invisibles' and 'The Filth', RAWilson's stuff for the most part... all seem to absorb and reiterate material that's come since. They may feel like their time, or a time, in communiations form, but they aren't limited to that timeframe's information or tactics. They don't die, don't feel locked off, but seem to take on new relevance as they age.
The same's true for all useful, and most 'good' books, too, though. Most of Shakespeare's plays. And the films of Edward D Wood, Jr.
To use an example of thought from last night: Thomas Wolfe died and thirty-eight, and his works still feel very alive and, yes, magickal. Tom Wolfe is still breathing and publishing, and that thing of his, the coed (I hate that word!) first-person-narrative thing? Bad. Magickally, literarily, and literally.
William Burroughs, especially that mid-period, the cut/ups and all, never seems particularly old or locked away to me. And they are always instructive, even when not blatantly giving directions or suggestions.
I think Emily Bronte or Christina Rossetti or Grant Morrison are extremely more magickally useful, practically useful, and genuinely trying to commmunicate useful and workable possibilities to their audience than, well, Silver Raven Wolf or the guy who probabl still hangs around the ouskirts of West Hollywood, outside magick-book-selling shops at three in the morning, exposing himself in extraordinarily lowriding jeans and trying to force pamphlets on the unwary about how they can be made ubergods by submitting as his chelas/loveslaves/bootlickers in the exploration of the 'abyssical' (I'm never gonna forget that word) realms.
But everyone above is suspect. And to be trusted. And if somebody gets a Carlos Casteneda book's techniques to work for them? Great, so long as they don't believe it's historically accurate or some sacred Native tradition. Historical value isn't really, though, is it? Efficacious or practical or entertainment value I can buy, but historical? Nah.
Anyway, Castaneda, Crowley, Hine or Blake or the latest memoir of the last pope before this one, and even, even, even Silver Ravenwolf, being effective for someone, as far as inspiration, technique, or trial goes, good for them. More power to. But as historically or factually accurate on all fronts... no more than the Book of Mormon.
I mean, the thing that makes the oldschool Christian Rosenkreuz stuff so effective, is that it's very, very vacant but uses guidepost-like symbols to get us, the reader, to do the work. A lot of early twentieth-century kabala writings are - as parodied/celebrated in Durrell's 'Justine' - structured to get the reader to put as much meaning or find their meanings within the text, rather than an entirely egotistical lecturing. Although the vagueness can be just as ego-inflating, as those of us with sometime vague writing styles may well know. |
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