The Occult Sourcebook
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ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: OCCULTISM Volume 2 THE OCCULT SOURCEBOOK THE OCCULT SOURCEBOOK NEVILL DRURY AND GREGORY TILLETT Illustrated by ELIZABETH TRAFFORD SMITH First published in 1978 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd This edition first published in 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1978 Nevill Drury and Gregory Tillett All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-0-367-33602-8 (Set) ISBN: 978-0-429-34389-6 (Set) (ebk) ISBN: 978-0-367-34913-4 (Volume 2) (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-32868-8 (Volume 2) (ebk) Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace. THE OCCULT SOURCEBOOK NEVILL DRURY and GREGORY TILLETT Illustrated by Elizabeth Trafford Smith ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL London, Boston and.Henley First published in igj8 by Routledge C Kegan Paul Ltd 3g Store Street, London WCiE 7DD, Broadway House, Newtown Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RGg iEN and 9 Park Street, Boston, Mass. 02108, USA Reprinted in ig8o Set in 11 on ijpt Ehrhardt by HBM Typesetting Ltd, Chorley, Lanes. and printed in Great Britain by Unwin Bros Ltd The Gresham Press, Old Woking, Surrey © Nevill Drury and Gregory Tillett igj8 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Drury, Nevill The occult sourcebook, 1. Occult sciences I. Title II. Tillett, Gregory 138 BF1411 78~4°393 ISBN o 7100 oog6 o (c) ISBN o 7100 8875 2 (p) for Colin Wilson . from two Outsiders Contents Introduction ix Part 1 Source Areas 1 1 ESP 3 Meditation and Biofeedback 12 Dreams 16 Reincarnation 21 The Origins of Magic 26 Supernatural and Occult Beings 28 Ritual Magic 33 Ritual Consciousness 38 Magical Equipment 43 The Golden Dawn 48 Magical Cosmology 52 The Qabalah 57 The Tarot 63 The Tattvas 72 Magical Attack 75 Sexual Magic 77 Vll CONTENTS Aleister Crowley: Lord of the New Aeon 82 Hypnotism, Auto-suggestion and Relaxation 88 Trance Consciousness 9i Out-of-the-Body Consciousness 95 Drugs and Mystical Consciousness 100 Shamanistic Magic 106 Ghosts and Hauntings in Spiritualism "5 Possession 121 Exorcism 126 Faith Healing 129 Vampires 136 Traditional Witchcraft 139 Modern Witchcraft 143 Traditional Satanism 149 Modern Satanism 152 Voodoo 156 Eastern Mysticism 158 Eastern Influence on the Occult 162 Theosophy 165 I Ching 169 Astrology 172 Numerology 176 Palmistry 179 Lost Continents 182 Inner Space Rock Music 184 Occult Art 189 Part Who's Who in the Occult 195 2 Index 233 viii Introduction The occult is no longer what it used to be. Only a few years ago, especially around the time of the Satanic film Rosemarys Baby, the term 'occult' would have been reserved for obscure, demonic and vaguely diabolical practices alone. In San Francisco at this time Anton Szandor La Vey, who starred as the devil in the above film, was establishing his Satanic Church; Charles Manson was incarnating the Devil and Christ simultaneously; Bishop Pike was endeavouring to communicate with his suicide son through a medium; and witchcraft was thriving. These days, we believe, the occult has a wider connotation. The Exorcist notwithstanding, the term 'occult' today includes ESP, Kirlian photo- graphy, reincarnation, palmistry, astrology, faith healing, white magic, Tarot, and even out-of-the-body experiences. The occult, too, is no longer disreputable. Scientists at Stanford investigate psychic Uri Geller; in California Professor Charles Tart carries out laboratory tests on Robert Monroe, a subject who can astral-travel at will; Arthur Koestler, previously doubtful about the powers of yogis, comes forth with a scientific rationale of the paranormal in his Roots of Coincidence•; Colin Wilson meanwhile coins the term 'Faculty X' to describe the psychic potential of man which he believes marks the next phase of man's evolution. In short, the occult is about man's hidden potential. Much of this, of course, relates to how he thinks and how he perceives. Many aspects of the occult dealt with in this book show how man can enlarge his con- sciousness. This sourcebook was compiled with the idea in mind that many people are for the first time becoming engrossed by the possibilities underlying the occult. It seemed a reasonable idea to produce a series of articles on key areas with specially chosen references for further reading. Each of these articles, we hope, may be a 'leaping off point' to a more detailed study in ix INTRODUCTION those areas which the reader finds most interesting or useful. Finally we have incorporated a lengthy 'Who's Who of the occult' to provide pocket- size biographies of some of the more amazing figures who have already travelled down the mystic path. Some of these were inspired, some of them were charlatans, but all those who have been included are important in one way or another. The occult has now moved out of the realm of superstition into the area dealing with what man can become. This is its relevance. It may also explain why, for many, the occult has replaced orthodox institutional religion as the pathway for man in the Age of Aquarius. Nevill Drury and Gregory Tillett Part 1 Source flreas ESP Extrasensory perception is the ability to transmit and receive information by means other than the recognized senses. People often surprise them- selves by simultaneously referring to obscure thoughts in conversation, or perhaps a person acts upon an intuition about an unforeseeable course of action which later proves to be correct. Another will dream of, or foresee, an event before it occurs or perhaps is able to receive 'mental impressions' from a friend while concentrating. All of these occurrences could be cited as examples of extrasensory perception, which is normally divided into three areas: clairvoyance', the extrasensory perception of events; telepathy', the direct 'transmission' of ideas; and precognition, the perception of future events. Although such phenomena have always had a mystic tinge about them, and have been regarded traditionally as the faculties of soothsayers and oracles, the serious, scientific study of ESP occurrences is less than a century old. In Victorian times, ESP was considered to be a possible 'sixth sense' and was researched by a number of important scientists, including Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge and Alfred Wallace. In 1882 the famous Society for Psychical Research was founded at Cam- bridge University with Henry Sidgwick as its first president. It has to be admitted, that like a number of spiritualist and occult phenomena, for every possible genuine occurrence there are countless falsifications and the SPR got off to a bad start. In July 1882 Sidgwick prematurely announced that he had found conclusive evidence for ESP in a clergyman, Reverend Creery, his five daughters, and their servant. Later, embarrassingly, it was discovered that they had been using a code to trick the researchers. Another such case followed hard on its heels: that of Messrs Smith and Blackburn. Smith would hold Blackburn's hands, and concentrate, and seem to read his thoughts as Blackburn imagined them. Sidgwick and two ESP of his colleagues, Edmund Gurney and Frederic Myers, with whom he was later to share fame as a spiritualist researcher, investigated the case. Myers derived a test whereby he would make a detailed picture and show it to Blackburn who would in turn attempt to 'transmit' it into the mind of Smith, behind whom he stood. Smith, who was shrouded in a blanket, was able to reproduce the pictures fairly accurately, and Myers and his colleagues had to admit they were convinced. Accordingly, the SPR recorded the case in its annals as genuine. Years later, in 1908, Blackburn made the sensational admission that he had cheated during the sessions. He had hurriedly copied the drawing onto a cigarette paper and concealed it inside a propelling pencil which he managed to pass to his partner unseen. Since Smith had been concealed beneath a blanket for secrecy purposes, he was able to rummage for the picture in the pencil. There was sufficient light for him to reproduce a reasonable 'telepathic' copy. The test conditions in the early investigations were very poor, and the SPR decided to try to improve and regulate its experimental procedures. From this time onwards, research into ESP took the form of experimental testing whereby subjects had to attempt to record above-chance odds in telepathic guessing sessions. In England, G. N. M. Tyrrell constructed a device made up of five boxes each containing a light bulb. The circuitry was designed so that a certain bulb would light up when the lid of its box was lifted. Basically, the experiment tested possible telepathic communication between the subject and the experimenter, who decided which light would come on, on each occasion.