a character

[Chris Fleming]

No fucking way I'm going to read all that Tom. Just love the picture of the guy jump kicking and about to get a machine gun butt strike right to the groin.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

all legends have a little bit of truth in them.

a little bit.

[lazyboxer]

Kenneth, what is the frequency?

[cerebus]

Echanis was a very interesting individual. I believe there was much more to him and his abilities than his enemies and detractors would have us believe, but at the same time I don't believe he was a nearly "superhuman" as some of his legends portray. The truth often lies between the two extremes.

And the articles Tom quotes are worth reading. Very entertaining and informative. I've read all of them in various magazines over the years from the 70s onward...

[Michael]

Isn't that the same thing you said about Aleister Crowley?

[cerebus]

Isn't that the same thing you said about Aleister Crowley?

Probably, because it's as true about Crowley as it is about Echanis. The real problem with people like Crowley and Echanis (and Count Dante too for that matter) is that they attracted such cults of personality about themselves that it can be difficult to skim the fact from the fiction unless you do alot of reading both pro and con about them. Fortunately for me I do a tremendous amount of reading and study on subjects that interest me...

[Josealb]

Echanis was as tough as a coffin nail. But then there were these guys...

[lazyboxer]

http://www.rense.com/general88/menwho.htm
And so we're back to [Philip K.] Dick's paradox. The Empire is mad, and we don't want to share in its madness and recreate its enslavements in our opposition to it..

Be in the world but not of it:

But it's made our consciousness part of its dominion, and it exploits our ignorance of ourselves and our power to maintain us in a state of false weakness. We shouldn't want to stop hearts with a burst of psychic energy - that's what they're about - but we should know that, however unlikely, it's possible that we could. And then we should try to do something better

[lazyboxer]

Isn't that the same thing you said about Aleister Crowley?

Probably, because it's as true about Crowley as it is about Echanis. The real problem with people like Crowley and Echanis (and Count Dante too for that matter) is that they attracted such cults of personality about themselves that it can be difficult to skim the fact from the fiction unless you do alot of reading both pro and con about them. Fortunately for me I do a tremendous amount of reading and study on subjects that interest me...

The real problem with people like Crowley and Echanis (and Count Dante too for that matter) is that they were all vain poseurs who enjoyed being at the centre of their own self-created mythologies.

The difficulty with remaining at the epicentre of collective delusions is that their instigators eventually undermine themselves, and the whole thing starts to unravel. All that then remains of the mission is damage limitation by any remaining disciples. Hitler, Crowley, and his follower L. Ron Hubbard are good examples of this. Their lives ended in paranoia and disillusionment; Hubbard was probably incurably insane.

Crowley was too intelligent and well educated to stay completely deluded for long, but his love affair with heroin and bad sex exacerbated his personality disorder. Echanis, like Hitler, Crowley and Dante, may also have encouraged hero-worship, either tacitly or implicitly, and also had to blow himself up in the end.

Such strong character types can be very attractive and interesting. The trick is to get just close enough to see what they're about and then to withdraw to safety once the vortex starts to become irresistible.

[cerebus]

How much do you know about Crowley, Echanis and "Count Dante" (John Keehan)? If you know much about them at all, then you know that they were all far more than just vain poseurs. Yes they were all vain and they did all help to perpetuate larger-than-life myths about themselves, but the amazing thing about all of them is that their real lives weren't much less impressive than the myths they liked to foster about themselves.

Crowley was a world-class mountaineer who (before exploding into the tabloids in infamy) had received praise from some of the legendary names in mountaineering. He could play 3 games of chess simultaneously while blind-folded... and win. He trekked across Asia and Mexico, owned a manor house on the shores of Loch Ness, introduced Aldous Huxley to mescaline in Berlin, and wrote a volume of verse (titled "Rodin in Rime") in collaboration with artist Auguste Rodin. He was the brother-in-law of Sir Gerald Kelley of the Royal Academy and was one of the most colorful members of a group of artists and intellectuals in Paris with whom W. Somerset Maugham used to spend a great deal of time (leading to the writing of his novel "The Magician" based on Crowley).These are just some of the things that come to mind off the top of my head. Crowley was actually far more multi-faceted than many people realize. They prefer to concentrate instead on his bisexuality, his drug addictions, and what an ass he could be at times.

Echanis was a Vietnam war vet who was decorated for bravery as well as having been injured in combat and told that he would remain disabled as a result. He refused to accept that and went on to recover completely with the aid of acupuncture treatments from Hwarang Do master Joo Bang Lee. He was, by accounts of many who had met him, a certifiable bad-ass before he ever started training in Hwarang Do.

And John Keehan, in spite of his "comic book" persona was an authentic 5th Dan in Okinawan Karate, a fighting champion with only one loss (to Gary Alexander, by disqualification) and was the recipient of numerous awards for top instructor/coach in the US back in the '50s and '60s. He was also a former Army veteran who went on to join the Marine Corps. As a teenager he was an amateur boxer who trained under former world champion Johnny Coulon as well as having been an amateur wrestler.

What made these men, who could easily have gotten by on their authentic abilities, try to puff themselves up into something even more? Who knows. But even though they did so, and even though they could all be complete assholes at times, they were all definitely more than just "poseurs"...

[lazyboxer]

Cerebus,

I didn't say that that were "just" vain poseurs, and went on to say how attractive such gifted characters can be.

I know a great deal about Crowley, quite a lot about Keehan, and not so much about Echanis. My father, who was a poet and musician, also had a passing interest in the Beast, and it was from him I first encountered A.C. when I saw John Symond's biography on his desk aged 12. I started collecting Crowley first editions aged 16, met Israel Regardie in London, and had not a few friends who took up Crowley's magickal system, at least one of whom died mysteriously. (Interestingly enough, they were almost all heroin users, which presumably was a requirement of true discipleship. I, a mere humble pothead, remember the romantic awe in which junkies were then held, as the aristocracy of addiction.)

Keehan, whose menacing countenance and claws of doom were all over Black Belt mag in the 60s when I took up martial arts, is also someone I spent a fair bit of time researching. I must qualify my statements about Echanis, since as I said I know less about him, but his story has many of the defining characteristics of quackery, although doubtless with a solid foundation somewhere.

I find Crowley's boastfulness particularly repulsive, quite apart from his general shittiness. I like the story about his first meeting with Austin Osman Spare, whom I find a far more original and creative personality, although less well known. Crowley approached him at the London opening of Spare's latest paintings and introduced himself as Aleister Crowley. "Really?", Spare is said to have replied. "You look more like an Italian pimp to me!"

Crowley grew up in an age of many other equally remarkable polymaths - the British educated classes really were something then. It just "wasn't done" to talk about it.

[cerebus]

Ah, sorry I see what you mean. Yes, they were definitely all "vain poseurs" in addition to being very accomplished in their chosen fields. Do you still have any of those Crowley first editions? I've owned most of his major works at various times, but I don't think I ever had any first editions. Regardie is someone I think I would have enjoyed meeting. He seemed much more human and "humane" than his former employer. I think Regardie's expansion of the Golden Dawn's basic "Middle Pillar" ritual is one of the most powerful methods of what amounts to "western chi gung" that I've ever experienced. In many ways Regardie (in my opinion) surpassed Crowley, at least as a teacher and expounder of the Golden Dawn teachings, though Crowley did contribute some valuable works on the subject as well.

[cerebus]

LOL!