Doreen Valiente was a Witch, one of the High Priestesses of Gerald Gardner's "rediscovery" of what is now called today "Wicca". Gardner apparently got a lot of his ideas from Aleister Crowley (per Ronald Hutton in _Triumph of the Moon_ which traces out the formation and history of Wicca in the UK). Valiente's own influence on the developing religion of Wicca cannot be underestimated as well. She died in 1999. (There is a website about Valiente at http://www.doreenvaliente.com).

In 1986, Valiente exchanged a series of letters to a Dr. Greenfield, who had purchased some documents from Ripley's Believe it or Not! about Gerald Gardner. These letters can be found here:

http://www.geraldgardner.com/index/valiente.shtml

Letter 2 is dated 28 August 1986. On page 4, there is a long paragraph about Crowley, Parsons and, in passing, LRH. It says:

I don't know anything about any court case regarding the O.T.O. in your country. [USA] It wasn't reported over here. It sounds very interesting! But I did know about the existence of the O.T.O. chapter in California at the time of Crowley's death, because I believe his ashes were sent over to them.

He was cremated here in Brighton, you know, much to the scandal of the local authorities, who objected to the "pagan funeral service." If you are referring to the group of which Jack Parsons was a member (along with the egregious Mr. L. Ron Hubbard), then there is another curious little point to which I must draw your attention. I have a remarkable little book by Jack Parsons called MAGICK, GNOSTICISM AND THE WITCHCRAFT. It is unfortunately undated, but Parsons died in 1952. The section on witchcraft is particularly interesting because it looks forward to a revival of witchcraft as the Old Religion. My copy was published in 1979 by 93 Publishing of Quebec, Canada. I don't know if there has been any previous publication. I find this very thought-provoking. Did Parsons write this around the time that Crowley was getting together with Gardner and had perhaps communicated with the California group to tell them about it?

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It's odd to think about...given that the general consensus among reputable scholars is that there was no survival of "witchcraft" as it is presently known into the 20th century, that LRH may have been at least peripherally involved in the creation of another religion, the earth and nature centered religion of Wicca. But then again, Wicca, with the threefold law (your actions will come back upon you three times) and the Wiccan Rede ("An it harm none, do what you will"), wouldn't have appealed to LRH. He was much more into control and power over others.

Mirele mirele@sonic.net

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