"The Crowley 'Joke' & My Allergic Reaction to Occultism"

[coffin_dodger]

I openly admit knowing little about Peter Levenda - whether he's a good guy or bad guy - but in the exchange above he appears generous and gracious in communication with you.

Guru - have you had any experiences of (so-called, encompassing an enormous field) Sex Magick, personally?

In a wider sense, I suppose yes.

PL was generous in terms of time, certainly. That's about as far as I'd go with it.

What do you mean by 'in a wider sense'?
'I suppose yes' doesn't sound very definite.

[guruilla]

I mean that I have combined sex with healing ceremonies in the past.

[PufPuf93]

I openly admit knowing little about Peter Levenda - whether he's a good guy or bad guy - but in the exchange above he appears generous and gracious in communication with you.

Guru - have you had any experiences of (so-called, encompassing an enormous field) Sex Magick, personally?

In a wider sense, I suppose yes.

PL was generous in terms of time, certainly. That's about as far as I'd go with it.

I read all of your exchange with Levenda and agree with coffin_dodger only to add that Levenda was patient as well as generous and gracious with you and I would take Levenda's side in the exchange and in Levenda's place would not have been as patient gracious or generous.

Crowley was not a particularly savory man and was moral only as far as his own values, Crowley exploited people but in the sense that Crowley considered it was their will to be exploited. Crowley exaggerated, lied, deliberately shocked, and did things that were illegal and immoral to most then and now.

You make an argument that Crowley is a satanic pedophile and note some supporting evidence in Crowley's voluminous writings and diaries. Crowley was reviled by many in his time and has been the subject of a huge amount of material about his life, writings, and teachings, a more than fair amount by serious scholars.. I don't know of anyone but you that has focused on Crowley as a child abuser or killer except those that stumble on the same passages and see it through a biased lens, usually fundamental Christian who were a target of Crowley's jibes and who Crowley intended to replace with Thelema.

IMO Crowley abused women and men who were his lovers. Crowley frequently used prostitutes. Crowley was very much a man of the imperial British Empire and as such was an elitist who looked down on and exploited the poor and POC. Crowley treated his sherpas poorly and probably killed a man in India. Crowley sacrificed some animals in ritual. In Crowley's use of prostitutes, he with little doubt had sex with adolescence in his world travels that would be considered statutory rape by today's laws and morals.

Crowley actually had rare interaction with children. The circumstances of the death of his first child with Rose probably was a tipping point in their failed relationship as the young child died while Rose was experiencing alcoholism and Crowley was still in China and blamed Rose for the death. The treatment of the children at Cefalu was probably much like what happened with children at hippie communes in the 60s and 70s, not to say that was a safe or wise way to raise children. There is nothing in Crowley's writings or amply recorded life to suggest Crowley was a pedophile. He may well have sampled pedophile experiences (this I doubt) as he was an experimenter but Crowley did not have the profile of a pedophile in that he did not place himself in a profession or social position where he had frequent contact with young children.

One could take your absence of evidence of not "sacrificing" children and claim the reason that there were not many children around Crowley was because after all he "sacrificed" and "used the blood" of 150 children a year - HE KILLED EVERY CHILD THAT CAME IN HIS PRESENSE!!!!

Crowley spent the vast majority of his life with adults. Most pedophiles are drawn to positions where there is authority over and easy access to children; examples being Saville, the Sandusky / Penn State crimes, the Catholic church, Boy's Town and Franklin cover up, McMartin and Presidio preschools (I have doubt as to the substance of these two cases), the criminal pervert who establishes a relationship with a single mother for access to children, etc. I have little doubt that organized pedophilia and sometimes ritual pedophilia occurred or occurs in some cultures, religions, the MIC, and various social strata (and find these instances personally sickening and archaic).

I have mentioned that I was once an associate (non-initiated) member of the Caliphate OTO and attended various OTO functions and knew OTO members in the San Francisco Bay Area and Portland, OR socially and as a book collector. The taboos that were apparent to me were heavy drug use in general and drug use in ritual and folks that were interested in the OTO as a sex cult. I own all nine and have actually read the first eight of Kenneth Grant's trilogies and there is not a single mention of ritual pedophilia or human sacrifice other than Crowley referring to solitary sex magick (masturbation) as sacrificing a male child. There is nothing in the Golden Dawn corpus about ritual pedophilia or child sacrifice. There is nothing I know of in the western mystery traditions of ritual pedophilia or child sacrifice. Perhaps there are instances in some crannies of Freemasonry but nothing I have observed excepted in sensationalism or David Icke. Note that I have never been a practitioner in any of these cults.

I am not going to apologize for Crowley as he is probably guilty of about everything except ritual sexual murder of children but think it unfair to link OTO members with pedophilia or human sacrifice. Like Levenda, I think your efforts at exposure are down a dead end that verges on slander of believers in Thelema. There is no "there" there. There has been plenty of time for serious researchers better connected than you to have discovered and expounded if fact. One thing that has been discovered by serious researchers is the inconsistencies regarding Crowley's narrative of the provenance of The Book of the Law. The idea that the paper was not old enough by watermark to meet the alleged dates is new to me. Crowley was inconsistent in his own tales of provenance and there are differences in various early sources. Crowley and most followers of Thelema would say the actual BOL provenance is immaterial in the whole of practice.

[American Dream]

PufPuf93, you seem thoughtful and well-informed to me. I would add only the abuse of specifically negative and destructive drugs (e.g. meth) at Caliphate functions, as well as the torture and killing of animals. It's fucked up but neither is it the fantasy-projections of right wing xtians and others.

[PufPuf93]

PufPuf93, you seem thoughtful and well-informed to me. I would add only the abuse of specifically negative and destructive drugs (e.g. meth) at Caliphate functions, as well as the torture and killing of animals. It's fucked up but neither is it the fantasy-projections of right wing xtians and others.

Thank you AD

Are you saying that you know of meth use at the Caliphate?

I knew second hand of some controversial meth use but it was of people subsequently shunned (why I said heavy drug use and drug use during ritual was taboo). I found the OTO folks liberal and interesting but oddly conservative about their practice.

The folks I specifically knew were in Berkeley and all tended to be scholars as well as practitioners of Thelema, several were published non-academic authors in the field, as was my main connection in Portland, OR. RAW and Leary made me aware of Crowley starting in the late 60s. I met socially some OTO members while a grad student at Cal Berkeley in the mid 1980s. In the mid 1990s I bought a lot of 60 some odd books from an offer in alt-magick of usenet. Many are collectibles including a 1st edition of Magick in Theory and Practice. The books had been collected by the original owner in the 50s and 60s and early 70s. I have often wondered about their history. The seller included a blank (magickal) diary with the two boxes. It became a hobby in learning about the various systems and collecting books to where I have maybe 1500 books on ceremonial magick, hermeticism, mysticism, and the like; most collected between 1994 and 2009; some older to my library such as I Ching, Taoist texts, early Christian texts, and Native American anthropology. I have book 13 of the original OTO printing of the Book of Thoth where the blank pages have personal tables and sketches and have wondered if someone in the documented early history of the Caliphate owned the book. I found it in a used book store in Redding CA (not a hot bed for occult books).

For several years before and after 2000 I was a member of an email list of academics that studied the hermetic sciences (from a post to usenet) out of New York State University Syracuse. I applied for a membership saying I was interested in Crowley Leary, and RAW and was turned down for membership. I reapplied citing my academic background (BS and Masters from Cal and at the time a PhD candidate at Oregon State, my library, and a statement that I was not a practitioner and did not intend to be and was then welcomed and given a password. Several years later the email list went defunct but one could still access a large compilation of indexed topics but now that is also defunct.

One personal criticism about Crowley and Thelema is that the philosophy is fascist in the tiered structure and the idea that the strong shall rule the weak. Some of the more lurid and genocidal language, I tend to view in the same light as the more lurid and genocidal parts of the Bible.

When I last lived in Berkeley in the mid 1980s, the sacrifice of animals by practitioners of Santeria in Oakland was a live issue. Personally I am repelled by mistreatment of animals (but hypocritically do eat meat). I was raised with cows, horses, pigs, and chickens in a hunting and fishing family culture. I haven't hunted since 1970 nor fished since 1986. Fly fishing was the closest thing my parents and grandfather had to religion.

I have "played" on several occasions with magical ritual each time with women that were interested in my library and they made the suggestion to "play". I can't say that I would recommend the practice in hind sight. Lost my autographed copy of Cathy Obrien's Transformation too. Rats.

[American Dream]

The main things I know about the Berkeley OTO are online- allegations of meth use, torture/sacrifice of frogs and/or other animals etc. I read these claims on articles documenting the period when you lived there. I may have met one of the meth people from that era later on, but I'm not positive of that.

I was initially turned on to RAW by people deep inside the underground and once put great stock in everything he said and wrote. Quite honestly, I'm very disillusioned now and consider it entirely possible that he was part of a sophisticated psy-op agenda. That's just me though- I can't claim to be sure about these things.

[guruilla]

Thanks PuffPuff; I'm not drawn to engage your points, except to say that evidently I didn't make my own points clearly enough & that this perhaps has to do with them being removed from the context of the book itself, which includes my own personal experiences.

There is nothing that can be called even borderline slander of Thelemites in anything I have written, however, and the whole "pedophile" question is missing the point entirely, IMO. The point has to do with the overarching & underlying MO of AC's methodology & philosophy and that of occultism in general, insofar as it pertains to transgression (taboo-breaking) as the means to attain liberation. I think this is what Savile was up to and I see AC as being cut from similar or identical cloth.

I don't personally see any clear line dividing the somewhat known beliefs and practices of the pedocracy, as explored at countless threads at this forum, and those of Crowley, Thelema, and occultism in general, which as you point out, at the very least are in perfect accordance with fascist ideologies. ("Pedophilia" so-called, tho really child rape, is also endemic to British aristoracy, of which AC was part.)

There seems to be very little awareness about, or even desire to understand the ways in which organized child abuse comes about, the underlying patterns of ideological belief that support & give rise to it, and act as a cover for it. Levenda and others seem more concerned with the dangers of some imagined "witchhunt" in which innocent witches will be burned than they do with what is happening to children. I have been on the wrong end of that sort of attitude myself (i.e., seen as a dark sorcerer), so I know it exists; but is it really comparable as a danger to that of worldwide, systematized ritual abuse of children? I don't see how that can be argued.

As for looking for direct or even coded references to "pedophilia" in occult tracts, this may very well be simply missing the point. But if such are desired, they certainly exist. Kazsynski (AC biographer) mentions how two children are listed as a central part of Crowley's Gnostic mass; he places "children" in inverted commas, as if to deflect any fears the reader might have that such would be taken literally.

I would agree about the overly hysterical point of view of Christian fundies, of course, as well as the exaggerations of Icke; however, I personally think their viewpoints, however distorted, are significantly closer to the social reality than that being pushed by occult-fraternity-friendly but supposedly "exposing" voices such as Levenda's.

My goal isn't to prove this, or even that AC committed child abuse, but to demonstrate the chain of associations and discoveries by which I have come to see culture at large, as well as the underlying subculture of the occult, to be all of a piece, regarding organized ritual abuse and child traumatizaton as an occultic practice to attain power both worldly and otherworldly.

I'm argued out after that bout with PL, however, so I don't intend to discuss it further here, barring at least the arrival of a couple more sympathetic voices.

I would encourage discerning reader to go through PL's replies carefully and look for clear inconsistencies, dissembling, and avoidance (such as the McMartin tunnel question), not to mention the overall sustained mantra of "where's the proof" as a means to belittle and discredit all arguments about a case that, if it happened, would have happened a hundred years ago, making the question of proof almost entirely moot.

[PufPuf93]

The main things I know about the Berkeley OTO are online- allegations of meth use, torture/sacrifice of frogs and/or other animals etc. I read these claims on articles documenting the period when you lived there. I may have met one of the meth people from that era later on, but I'm not positive of that.

I was initially turned on to RAW by people deep inside the underground and once put great stock in everything he said and wrote. Quite honestly, I'm very disillusioned now and consider it entirely possible that he was part of a sophisticated psy-op agenda. That's just me though- I can't claim to be sure about these things.

What you say about meth is not inconsistent with what I related. I first met OTO folks and last lived in Berkeley in 1987 but last went to an Bay Area OTO Gnostic Mass in 2002 and that was in Santa Clara county (see below). The Temple was not marked but was in a house in the Rockridge neighborhood and I was last there is 2000 or 2001. I went to a Portland OR Rite of Mercury in 2003 and that was my last face to face with OTO. My last OTO contact of any sort was circa 2005.

Note that I recorded that my impression was that "heavy" drug use and ritual drug use appeared to be taboo (not as a breaking of a taboo for ritual purposes) and those that were involved were shunned. I was a guest of people I knew that were angry and repelled and who subsequently shunned the users of meth. IIRC one of the folks who had been expelled had been one of the live in "house managers" not long before my visits. The anger of the folks who had not been meth users (and who had made me welcome) towards the users of meth is what made the impression that has lasted all these following years. Personally, I have never used meth and have only seen the drug twice in my life.

My favorite RAW books are Cosmic Trigger (esp. volume 1), the Historical Illuminatus Series, and Prometheus Rising. RAW was my introduction to Pound and Reich and resulted in my actually reading some Crowley. I related elsewhere at RI I went to a Gnostic Mass near San Jose performed for RAW when he was in a wheel chair and the priest was Lon Milo DuQuette. I briefly spoke to RAW and was able to relate that I had enjoyed his writing for many years.

I never have considered reading this material anything more than stimulating entertainment and never looked for nor experimented with in a belief system other than having an open mind and being drawn to unusual and smart people (pretty much why I like RI). I am pretty much a child of the late 60s and 70s mix of politics, rocknroll, nature, and hippie drugs.

[American Dream]

I never got into any Thelemite practice or group at all, though RAW did inspire me to get various books. RAW's Cosmic Trigger pointed me to more problematic sources than helpful ones, though.

Besides his role in New Orleans with the Garrison investigation, he seems to have urged hippies to read from far right wacko sources and endorsed even sketchier figures associated with SRI, Esalen and whatnot. I'm more amenable to Jack Sarfatti's "Illuminati" expose, actually.

[Project Willow]

I looked over your exchange with Levenda, and issues on both sides stuck out for me.

You can't assert that just because a society is secret that it automatically implies their members are pedophiles. It's just the rankest conspiracy theorizing. False equivalencies, guilt by association, and all the sins committed by the Alex Jones of the world to further an agenda and get more followers as mindless as their leader. Are there groups of individuals who abuse children? Of course, there are. Are celebrities involved? Not just possibly, but probably. Are some of these nutcases employing occult symbols they've found in a book by Crowley, or Levi, or Montague Summers or A. E. Waite? Of course. Why not? There is evidence of much of this, as we have seen to our horror the past several decades. But AC specifically? I don't see it. I haven't seen it. No one I know has seen evidence of it. And more to the point, why would we care? AC is dead. There are a lot of other people to focus on in this field, people still alive. The Franklin group; Jimmy Saville; the Belgian cult, Finders, etc. AC's influence over today's crop of pedophiles has got to be non-existent, or nearly so.

I agree with the spirit of this of this paragraph. While I don't regularly follow your blog, I do read what you post here. What troubles me is your tendency to focus on public figures, building cases that are essentially formalized speculation, often based on questionable sources. Alternately, you could be interviewing credible survivors and researchers, compiling and examining what evidence does exist in the public record. For example, if you wished to challenge Levenda’s rather terrible recounting of satanic panic propaganda, it could be done in a scholarly manner. The case files are available, and the shift in media accounts is traceable to specific sources. Frankly, this kind of work is sorely needed, as is the amplification of credible survivor voices. Speculation over celebrities may generate clicks, but it is counter productive, to say the least.

THAT SAID, Levenda is definitely applying a differential burden of proof for SRA in general (I can't speak to AC, that is a topic I do not care to speculate about).

Here we disagree. And the tunnels are old news and, in fact, their alleged connection with ritual abuse have been debunked as you know.

Debunked by whom, Mr. Levenda? Here we see how successful is the strategy of muddying the waters. The tunnels were "debunked" by people who have no expertise whatsoever in archeology, and who've been very public in their denial of ritual abuse. In other words, no, they haven't been "debunked".

And, no, I am not lying or misinformed on this. I've been to SMART meetings, I've been to countless encounters with AC believers, with satanists, etc. and you can extend that to include intelligence types, military personnel (in more than one country), etc etc. In the SMART conference some years ago, for instance, all I heard about the ritual abuse was that it was conducted by Josef Mengele and George Bush, as well as Henry Kissinger. I am a fan of none of those guys, but still ... some claims strain credulity for a lot of reasons. And not once was Crowley mentioned, by the way. It was all Nazis and Republicans. Go figure.

The CIA itself tracked sightings of Mengele in the US and Canada during the public hunt for him that eventually led to Paraguay, spanning nearly a decade over the 1970’s-1980’s. The documents are available online. Interestingly, the story of Mengele’s life after WWII was written by Gerald Posner, the same author who penned “Case Closed” and various PR pieces for people on the CIA’s payroll.

Survivor accounts about certain high level figures (and they are confined to very specific figures, which belies other arguments) make sense given the overlap of trafficking rings servicing powerful offender groups and security state human experimentation programs. Generally, what Levenda is contending is itself incredible, that the Finders case was real and was quashed by the CIA, but it’s impossible the former head of that agency had any knowledge of or connection to such activities involving children. Also, that the CIA would import 600 German/Nazi scientists under Project Paperclip to carry out secret research, but they’d somehow draw a line when it came to employing Mengele. The only line needed there was with PR.

There seems to be a propensity to dismiss rather than further explore survivor accounts, unless someone else has already done the work, and then that work is further disconnected from contextual analysis.

So, what you're saying is, I should accept at face value the claim that Mengele -- who has been dead a long time -- was abusing children at an air base in the US a decade later?

Not at face value. Levenda could read the extensive evidence connecting Mengele to various figures in the US military and intelligence agencies, and review the CIA’s own list of sightings. The publicly accepted account of his death is that he drowned off the coast of Portugal in 1979. A survivor of the Holocaust (not an SRA survivor) Eva Kor, along with other researchers and journalists, called into question that date, and whether the body in the grave in Embu Brazil (dug up and tested in 1985) was actually Mengele’s. This story was covered in the mainstream press:

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/on-the-trail-of-josef-mengele/Content?oid=883306

Declassified doc on Mengele:

[Agent Orange Cooper]

Given that he's written numerous books on post-WWII Nazi activity (including the most recent about Hitler himself surviving) I'd be shocked to learn he wasn't aware of such material regarding Mengele. Alas, I haven't read those books, and we don't have him here to get his take on the matter, which was barely even touched on in the given correspondence, so who knows what he knows or why he holds the position that he does.

I'm a big fan of PL, but in Sinister Forces II he discusses the Vince Foster case against the Clintons and seems to dismiss the whole thing as a 'right-wing conspiracy' that had no actual evidence to back it up. Not that I know much about the details of that case, but I do have a fairly certain conviction that the Clintons were up to no good in Arkansas. He seems to have blind spots around certain subjects, particularly those that have been taken up so wholeheartedly by hysterically right-wing media sources, SRA and Vince Foster being two examples.

I would agree that a really good book—one that is as rigorous + intuitive in its research as Levenda's are—ought to be written on the subject.

[guruilla]

@ProjectWillow:

While our interests & concerns overlap significantly in this area (that of ritual abuse), this doesn't mean we share the same methods, styles of approach, or even goals; so it's hardly fair to criticize me for not addressing this subject in the way you would like me to, especially since you admit you don't follow my work outside of this forum (books, blogposts, and podcasts). It's a bit like telling a folk singer to go home for not bringing his electric guitar....

My interest in "celebrities" has to do with wanting to get to the roots of the larger cultural contamination which I believe is both a root and an effect of organized abuse, as in the case of Savile, and how we can observe the effects upon our own interior spaces. It is the thinnest end of the institutionalized abuse wedge that reaches the deepest parts of society. I was never a fan of Savile, but I was still influenced by him in ways yet unknown to me. I was overtly a follower of Crowley's ideas in my 20s & 30s and I am currently tracing how that influence exacerbated patterns of abuse within myself, patterns that can also be followed outward, into the culture at large.

As it happens, I do talk to survivors (Ann Diamond, Cathi Morgan) for my podcast, as well as off the record; I even invited yourself to do one some time back, via PM, tho I never received a response. Regarding who or what is credible, that's an especially subjective question, and one I pay special attention to for the podcasts.

I do not find Levenda credible in terms of being someone who simply has "blind spots," which of course we all have. There seems to be a pattern to what he allows himself to advocate and endorse, in terms of narratives, and what he dismisses. Also to the ways in which his forms of argumentation changes according to need. Rightly or not, I felt after our exchange like I had been the victim of what Raimond Gaita calls "illegitimate persuasion." For someone who purports to have an exacting standard of journalistic integrity(and who disparages conspiracy extremists such as Alex Jones), his tendency to do interviews on what to my mind are no more credible shows (Coast 2 Coast, etc), not to mention his continuing gushing endorsement of Whitley Strieber, ought, I think, to raise a few questions.

[Project Willow]

While our interests & concerns overlap significantly in this area (that of ritual abuse), this doesn't mean we share the same methods, styles of approach, or even goals; so it's hardly fair to criticize me for not addressing this subject in the way you would like me to, especially since you admit you don't follow my work outside of this forum (books, blogposts, and podcasts). It's a bit like telling a folk singer to go home for not bringing his electric guitar....

Despite push back over the years on this very forum, I contend that since the quality of my daily life is directly impacted but what people say and believe about the subject, it is absolutely fair for me to be critical. My goal is to expose and eradicate this form of organized crime, to the best of my ability, which is extremely hampered, because I am still subject to retribution from perpetrators. That's why it's imperative for bystanders to speak out.

My interest in "celebrities" has to do with wanting to get to the roots of the larger cultural contamination which I believe is both a root and an effect of organized abuse, as in the case of Savile, and how we can observe the effects upon our own interior spaces. It is the thinnest end of the institutionalized abuse wedge that reaches the deepest parts of society. I was never a fan of Savile, but I was still influenced by him in ways yet unknown to me. I was overtly a follower of Crowley's ideas in my 20s & 30s and I am currently tracing how that influence exacerbated patterns of abuse within myself, patterns that can also be followed outward, into the culture at large.

As it happens, I do talk to survivors (Ann Diamond, Cathi Morgan) for my podcast, as well as off the record; I even invited yourself to do one some time back, via PM, tho I never received a response. Regarding who or what is credible, that's an especially subjective question, and one I pay special attention to for the podcasts.

I don't agree that it's subjective. It's entirely possible to exercise discernment and judgement with sources, develop a bullshit detector, and follow some fairly basic rules of journalism. I agree with Levenda that it's always problematic to begin with a narrative and then try to shape the evidence (or lack there of) to fit it, even though it's incredibly tempting when faced with the vacuum of info surrounding secret and taboo criminal activities. Honest ambivalence can be your friend. I also agree with him that it would be far more interesting, and fruitful if you tied your explorations firmly to your own path and experiences.

There are two reasons why I didn't respond to your pm. In general, it's not safe for me to go fully public, it may never be. I can only ever speak in generalities. The other was the context that prompted your inquiry. I had posted a list of tortures I'd been subjected to, and the topic was turned to disincarnate beings by another poster with whom I believed you were working at the time. Honestly, that just screamed "unsafe" to me. I'm not interested in exploring imagined or possible metaphysical phenomena manifest by overwhelming human stress, I'm interested in exposing organized crime, torture, and human rights abuses, very real, concrete things. I'd be happy to make some suggestions along those lines if you like.

I do not find Levenda credible in terms of being someone who simply has "blind spots," which of course we all have. There seems to be a pattern to what he allows himself to advocate and endorse, in terms of narratives, and what he dismisses. Also to the ways in which his forms of argumentation changes according to need. Rightly or not, I felt after our exchange like I had been the victim of what Raimond Gaita calls "illegitimate persuasion." For someone who purports to have an exacting standard of journalistic integrity(and who disparages conspiracy extremists such as Alex Jones), his tendency to do interviews on what to my mind are no more credible shows (Coast 2 Coast, etc), not to mention his continuing gushing endorsement of Whitley Strieber, ought, I think, to raise a few questions.

Agreed. Rather troubling actually.

[guruilla]

Honest ambivalence can be your friend. I also agree with him that it would be far more interesting, and fruitful if you tied your explorations firmly to your own path and experiences.

Honest ambivalence is especially difficult when one's version of reality is being belittled or dismissed illegitimately. I don't recall PL saying that ^^^, because in fact my explorations are always firmly tied to my own path and experiences, as anyone who reads me knows. Some would say to a fault.

With Levenda, what began as an inquiry of an "expert" so I could get it on record for the book snowballed into an adversarial exchange, partially due to my own feeling of being invalidated by a superior-voiced "elder", and the corresponding compensation on my part. I didn't consciously set out to expose Levenda and yet in a way I did, since I expected him to give me an example of the way debate gets closed down, or never entered into, around the question of highly-respected figures and their possible affiliations with organized abuse. I thought he would just ignore me again, or give me a brief dismissal. That he took so much time and energy when there is clearly no real affection or even much respect between us in itself is curious, since he is clearly a very busy guy.

The other thing I wanted to mention, been thinking about, is PL's accusation that I am on a witchhunt, and even the use of this term at all in the present day context of organized abuse. Does it really add up? There is no modern day Inquisition, there are no powerful political forces trying to root out child abusers, on the contrary. So what sort of Inquisitional flames am I supposed to be fanning by my arguments?

PL has to know about the UK revelations (during which PM Tony Blair warned about a "witchhunt"!), that children were and are being trafficked via care homes to political and cultural elite; so why is he downplaying it so much that he can simultaneously make points as if organized abuse was all just unsubstantiated rumor and Christian hysteria? Isn't it a case of choosing to align with the structures of power?

[guruilla]

Despite push back over the years on this very forum, I contend that since the quality of my daily life is directly impacted but what people say and believe about the subject, it is absolutely fair for me to be critical. My goal is to expose and eradicate this form of organized crime, to the best of my ability, which is extremely hampered, because I am still subject to retribution from perpetrators. That's why it's imperative for bystanders to speak out.

I have a probably neurotic aversion to explaining myself, as it always seems self-serving and hence counter-productive; but I think the disagreement does still lie in having a set idea of what methods work or what working methods look like. At the risk of over-simplifying what I "do," I have two primary aims in exploring this material. One is to reach other survivors and signal to them, by speaking out, that it is normal to be afraid and that nonetheless it is safe to speak out. I don't want to cast myself in the role of survivor or victim (or anything else) and so my speaking out about my own experiences (which are very nebulous) isn't obviously central to my overall output but appears to be just one key element of it ~ while also being probably the driving force behind it, for those paying attention. So perhaps there's also the hope of communicating that, while speaking out about organized abuse, we do not need to be defined or limited by that role, or by whatever was done or is being done to us.

The other aim is more macro, and that is to introduce, however slowly and subtly, the discussion to the, for lack of a better word, mainstream, or at least into areas that normally don't allow it at all, such as by forging relationships with people of cultural influence (I won't name names) who normally don't touch on these subjects at all, and are or seem to be largely oblivious to them. These people are drawn to speak to me to some degree despite my interest in these things, because I have established a somewhat formal identity as a "creative" doing stuff out there in the culture, however marginal a presence I may be.

It's possible this might have been better as a PM, but I prefer not to stay transparent (include everyone) even tho I don't really think this interests, or concerns, most people here. But there it is. I hope it clarifies something for you, at least.