Moral Cretins

A guest post from Mogg Morgan

The so-called Kidwelly Sex Cult Case probably raises all sorts of mixed emotions amongst the UK’s many occultists and Pagans. It has just the kind of lurid details that make it difficult to focus on the core issues in the case and the temptation must surely be to keep one’s head down and hope the scandal blows over. And after all, rational discourse largely stops as soon as the boogeyman of Aleister Crowley or to give him his full name “Mr Aleister Satanist Crowley” or “Sir Aleister Notorious Crowley”, enters the narrative.

Let me say right out that I think the culprit Colin Batley and his accomplices are moral cretins (The same term was applied to Karen Mathews – who faked the kidnapping of her own neglected daughter in order to claim some putative award). People like Colin Batley claim they are following the imperatives of the Devil, Satan or Aleister Crowley for the bad they do. And the courts and the media are happy to accept that the long dead libertine Aleister Crowley and his works are somehow responsible for the wrong people do. I’m not sure if they ever bother to discover which came first, the Batley’s violent, abusive personality or his interest on Crowley and his Thelemic religion – it is just assumed that one must have caused the other. But I say that in the end the evil people do is down to their own moral failings.

The details they are reported from the trial show to my admitted practice eye that these people have misinterpreted and misunderstood Crowley and more especially his Thelemic Religion that has many thousands of law abiding modern disciples. Contrary to what you may hear in the press and indeed even in some Pagan commentary, in my opinion Thelema is not an immoral creed. Its famous axiom “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law” (reported as “Do what thou wilt” in some new reports) is an ideal intended for an enlightened community of refined adults. Its core myth is found in the Early European novels of Rabelais, where he envisions an ideal community as an escape from the chaos, crime and madness of the times. Its motto is indeed “Do what thou wilt” (Fais ce que voudras) but this commune can only function if certain kinds of behaviour are excluded. In other words perverts such as Colin Batley would be excluded from the Thelemic community, for the simple reason they are dominated by their most base desires.

Crowley emphasises this very point in a pamphlet called Liber II, widely circulated amongst all true seekers of the Thelemic religion. He is at great pains to emphasis that “Do what thou wilt” is not the same as “Do what you want”. In comparative religion this approach is more akin to yoga and indeed it is in the widely despised Tantrik texts that the explanation of Crowley’s system really lays. But in short Thelema aims to develop enlightened, compassionate human beings.

For a more modern version of the rules of an ideal community – see John Rawls’ “A Theory Of Justice” which contains a “thought experiment” not unlike Rabelais’s “Abbey of Thelema”. The whole is the subject of the Harvard University’s first freely available online course on Justice – see www.justiceharvard.org/

For press reports of the trail see http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2011/03/13/aleister-crowley-s-influence-on-colin-batley-and-his-followers-91466-28326466/#ixzz1GToHTpW9

The Kidwelly group’s actions show them to know none of this. They are merely venal criminals who use the widespread fear and ignorance of Paganism and magic as a smokescreen for their abusive personalities. This case has very little to do with any genuinely held religious beliefs but is about one person using his power over others to fulfil his own perverted needs. I venture to guess that his personality was formed long before he ever heard the name Aleister Crowley and absorbed the popular myths about Satan and the Devil, As 'cult leader' he found a way to gain power over other gullible or otherwise vulnerable people.

It is easy for us to be sidetracked by the sensational details, which shows just how powerful the image of “cult leader” is in mainstream society. The details of the trial make me seriously doubt that he ever had contact with a genuine, Thelemic or Crowleyian group or was aware of the appropriate training in the tradition. His knowledge of Thelema is superficial and minuscule and based on unsupervised reading and uninformed secondary sources, perhaps even the media. I have no problems condemning what Colin Batley has done and feel sure I am not alone in my condemnation.

Mogg Morgan with contributions from Kym and Floortje

Lost Lambs?

I'm sorry for the horrible non-editing on this post - for some reason blogger won't allow me paragraph returns or a decent font size. Life can be that random. Thanks for bearing with it.

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Here we have a number of people who have done absolutely dreadful things over a long period of time, to each other, to children and to other adults. In March and April 2009 I wrote two entries for this blog, one about my principal that, given particular circumstances, I am as capable of heinous acts as any other person and that to forget this puts criminals into the role of Radical Other. Making people Other denies their humanity and limits the expansion of our own capacity to make contact: if I claim to be in contact with the Spirit of Tree or Land or Ancestor, how can I not be in contact with these people who raped and prostituted children?        

The April entry was about my understandings of Pagan theology which helps me define my own personal boundaries. Because I believe that the sexual aspects of our life are sacred then sex crimes become exceptionally dreadful. Because I believe that the people I visit are essentially my equals and not little lost lambs, then my role is not to save them. Because there is no hell then there’s no eternal damnation to save them from. Because there’s no hell I can’t grant absolution; each individual has to seek our own right relationship with the world and with ourselves.       

It’s well within the bounds of possibility for one of these people to request a Pagan chaplain. They’ve used the The Book of The Law and Egyptian iconography to dominate and control their victims, I’d put a fiver on a bet that they’ve used the pentagram, circle and quarters. They’ve demonstrated the need to feel different from the rest of their community, as well as the sense of superiority that the Occult can offer. Since our definition of A Pagan is someone who calls themselves A Pagan, then aren’t they entitled to a Pagan Chaplain?       

I’d say a very definite no. Paganism is not a religion of turning the other cheek, wise though that Christian philosophy can be. Paganism is not a religion of unconditional love, no matter what our New Age members say. Neither are we a religion of retribution, an eye for an eye has no place in our way of being. Since we share a concept of some kind of peaceful learning after death, then we can trust that learning to take place peacefully after death if it doesn’t happen before. Since we need no intermediary between our Gods and ourselves we can communicate with those Gods for ourselves.   Should this be a once and for all decision? Probably not. Perhaps after some years of good therapy and personal introspection these people might be ready to take full responsibility for what they did, without excuses, becoming changed in a manner that allows them to be useful and positive in the world again. The veracity of these feelings is incredibly hard to judge: to survive prisoners have to manipulate people and the Batleys are already past masters at this game, a game that the manipulator has to make themselves believe for the deception to be successful. People who have truly accepted their culpability, who have stood in the crucible of public and private shame and guilt, are rare. Might it be appropriate for what is in effect shunning or excommunication to be reversed so that being genuinely contrite (for crimes committed rather than for getting caught) has a purpose? Otherwise, why bother with painful introspection and personal growth?       

If we are anything, we are a religion of interconnectedness, relationship and balance. This doesn’t mean that we have to accept and absorb all human behaviour, it means we have to attend to the balance of our connections and relationships. Some people put themselves beyond the pale in one group and find healthy connection and relationship in others, but there are some behaviours that, on a purely ecological level, damage all human groups. Rape is one. Child sex is one. Massive abuse of power is one. Not all societies agree with those limitations, but all varieties of Pagans do, and it’s what makes Paganism as a philosophy more healthy than many others.       

When Colin and Elaine Batley, Shelly Millar and Jackie Marling were caught they woke up from their reality in which they were all-powerful. It was a lack of balance and interconnectedness that allowed their world to exist at all and now, being back in relation with the rest of the world, they’re suffering the rebalancing effects of imbalanced actions that all Pagans, all thinking people, find abhorrent. Who am I to get in the way of that natural law? Apart from anything else, who on Earth do I think I am, if I believe I can?