AMORC’s Egyptian Museum in San Jose, California

One of the things I remember about the public meetings was a statement at many of the rituals about the two great questions of existence:

Life, and what comes before, and
Death, and what comes after.

People seek to know that our very essence, our soul or spirit, will continue after death. The implication of this concept is that we were here before and had previous lives, and something must happen between lives.

These topics remain some of the most popular in the world. Llewellyn publishes numerous books that focus on these topics including:

• Beyond Reincarnation by Joe H. Slate
• Bringing Your Soul to Light by Linda Backman
• The Case for Reincarnation by J. Allan Danelek
• Death: Beginning or End? By Dr. Jonn Mumford
• Doors to Past Lives & Future Lives by Joe H. Slate and Carl Llewellyn Weschcke (forthcoming)
• How to Uncover Your Past Lives by Ted Andrews
• Practical Guide to Past-Life Memories by Richard Webster
• What Happens After Death by Migene González-Wippler
• Journey of Souls by Michael Newton
• Memories of the Afterlife by Michael Newton

Many other books, including my Modern Magick, have sections on the subject. Aleister Crowley referred to remembering events from past lives as the “magickal memory,” and he believed he had been Eliphas Levi in a previous life.

<— Left: Aleister Crowley in Masonic regalia, circa 1904

Right: Eliphas Levi in 1864 —>

Those who doubt the reality (or possibility) of past lives ask why people who remember past lives were always famous, like Cleopatra or Napoleon. That’s a myth. As a hypnotherapist, I’ve helped well over 1,000 people remember past lives and only one or two believed themselves to be famous…and they thought they had a famous past life before I worked with them.

Most people who claim they had famous past lives have their own psychological issues. As Dion Fortune put it, a famous past life doesn’t give glory to your current life so much as make one wonder what you did to have a current life in a lower state!

Past Lives and Fluffy Bunnies

The value of remembering past lives is not in what happened to you in the past, but how that memory helps you today! That means the objective reality of past lives is pretty much irrelevant! What matters is what you get out of the memory, real or not. If past life memories help you understand yourself better and overcome challenges, the reality of that memory becomes meaningless. It’s good to remember the past when you can use that memory to help your present and create a better future.

Sometimes, however, people can’t even remember their current lives. As a result, some magicians don’t remember what it was like when they were starting out. They don’t remember their flubs and failures on the way to their current level. Is it any wonder that some people see them as stuck up and self-centered?

I still remember some of the very basic books I read when I was learning. I remember going over them repeatedly. Today, some “experts” would consider those books as meant for “fluffy bunny” occultists. I consider such people as beginners on a path to excellence, not “fluffy bunnies.”

And some of those “experts” decry books intended for beginners. Llewellyn has long been a victim of such “experts”  on internet forums. “They only publish books for fluffy bunnies,” the critics say.

This is factually untrue. Historically, Llewellyn has published books for beginners— and intermediate and advanced magickal practitioners. This continues today. If you’re looking for advanced books, for example, just look at the brilliant books by Stephen Skinner and David Rankine.

But as people who have travelled further along a magickal path than beginners, just as it’s important to remember past lives, it’s also important to remember our past in this life. And that means, at times, going back and studying books we read or classes we took when we were neophytes. Often we can learn new things from books that are supposedly meant for beginners. We see the same material with new, more experienced eyes. We remember or discover different ways to express truths.

Even though I’m certified as a master practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, this weekend I’m taking a basic training in NLP from a different trainer. I’ll be getting the same information I learned some time ago but with a different approach. This weekend I’m walkin’ my talk.

How do you go over material you studied long ago? Do you feel you get something new out of it?

Part 3 of a 3-part Series

Read Part 1 HERE ………..Read Part 2 HERE

Going by the Gut. Massive Growth. Unlimited Potential.

Historic Overview of Growth of
Occultism and Spirituality

In my previous posts in this series I have associated historical events with the advancement of spirituality in the West and the growth of Llewellyn. I contend that to really understand what was going on requires this three-fold approach. Therefore, to fully comprehend the development of Llewellyn and its impact on worldwide (and especially U.S.) spiritual growth between 1961 and the present begins with understanding the changes over time in the numbers of people interested in spirituality and the occult.

To illustrate this I’ve created the chart below. To the best of my knowledge there have been no surveys resulting in specific numbers of spiritually oriented people over time. However, based on the number of books and articles appearing in magazines and newspapers, I believe the relative concepts revealed in the chart are generally valid.

An important aspect to notice is that there are two classes of people interested in occultism. The first is what I refer to as “occult faddists.” These are people who are interested in the latest fads. They flit from one fad to another. They follow whatever their popular idols are into at the moment. And when interest wanes, they are quick to leave one fad for another. Amongst some Wiccans these occult faddists are called “fluffy bunny” Wiccans.

The number of faddists is consistently much larger than the group I’m calling “hard core occultists.” Their numbers change much faster and the line representing the hard core occultists has changes that are far less radical than those of the faddists.

Some people look down on the faddists. I do not. When fads die out, some of the faddists shift to becoming part of the dedicated, hard core of spirituality and occultism. The faddists include valuable, hard core occultists in training.

Note in the chart some basic trends. An increase in numbers based growing popularity of  Spiritualism and New Thought, as well as the loss of life with WWI and the flu pandemic at the beginning of the 20th century. This number falls with the debunkers appearing in the 1920s and 1930s, and falls even more with WWII and the need to rebuild families and the social structure. Massive growth begins again with the Baby Boomers in the 1960s, but falls with the “me” generation of the late 1970s and early 1980s. A sudden rise occurred with a few fascinating books such as Shirley Maclaine’s Out on a Limb in 1983. Although in 2006 the book and movie The Secret was popular, with the growth of the internet and the almost instant mocking and negativity that appeared, it did not achieve the popularity of previous fads, and since then little has really made it to fad level.

There are two things that are apparent from the chart:

First, as stated above, there are far more faddists than hard core occultists. For any business focused on spirituality to survive, there is a need to appeal to both groups. Although Llewellyn has published more books that would appeal to hard core occultists than any other publisher, they have also published more good books directed toward the faddists than any other publisher. Unfortunately, some people ignore the more in-depth books and criticize (falsely, in my opinion) Llewellyn for providing books to a market that has some members who will eventually become hard core occultists. In many cases, if it were not for those popular books a publisher such as Llewellyn could not afford to publish books for hard core occultists.

Second, overall, the number of occultists and people interested in spiritual topics continues to grow.

Llewellyn is Purchased
Everything Changes…and Stays on the Same Evolutionary Path

There are only a few reasons why a business owner sells the business. They don’t know how to run it and are losing money or not making much. Ill health or retirement. Being swallowed by a bigger company. That’s about it. By 1961, the founder of Llewellyn, Llewellyn George, had died and a printer was desperately trying to keep the company running. When you don’t have a lot of money, trying to run more than one business, even if they are related, can be difficulty or even impossible.

So the printer who owned the rights to the name Llewellyn Publications and the right to publish works owned by Llewellyn decided to sell. In Minnesota, even though he had been told that publishing books on astrology and occultism would be a losing proposition, Carl Weschcke decided to go with his “gut” feelings. He purchased Llewellyn and all of its holdings (except the sign from the old building as shown in my previous post in this series) and brought it back to his home in Minnesota.

Sometimes, things just happen at the right time and the right place. Perhaps it was Carl’s use of astrology to figure out the timing, but the bottom line is that the occult world was about to explode, and Llewellyn Publications was going to be the spiritual center of that growth.

Especially at that early stage, Llewellyn and Carl Weschcke were the same. He literally did everything from editing and acquisitions to sales and marketing. I have the greatest admiration for Carl and years ago called him the “Father of the New Age.” This isn’t because Carl was at the front of every new movement and writer, but because without his work with Llewellyn Publication, there wouldn’t have been a market for all of those others (or it wouldn’t have been as big as it became).

A Little-Know Story of Llewellyn Publications

Only a few years after Carl Weschcke purchased Llewellyn, a young man and recent UCLA college graduate submitted a manuscript for consideration. The topic was shamanism, something that was perfect for Llewellyn’s core topics. Carl realized that another publisher could do a much better job of promoting this important work. Llewellyn passed on the book, allowing the writer to submit it to another publisher. That writer: Carlos Castañeda. The book: The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

Although it is really impossible to separate Carl Weschcke from Llewellyn Publications, there are other articles about Carl and the important role he’s played in everything from Minnesota politics to the birth and growth of the New Age. I’ll leave that to others to tell. For this blog post, I want to focus on what Llewellyn Publications has done. Although it could not have been done without the force of Will possessed by Mr. Weschcke, we can also look at what Llewellyn has done for spirituality and occultism and frankly, be astounded!

Rapid Growth

In the 1960s, Llewellyn continued to publish updated versions of some of George’s books and calendar.

In 1962, Llewellyn published Grant Lewi’s Heaven Knows What. Out of print for over a quarter century, this book, a modern simplification of astrology that was far above the simple sun sign astrology found in newspapers, Lewi’s book not only sold well but interested tens of thousands of people in exploring astrology, resulting in the opening of the modern interest in the subject. As a result, Lewi has been called “the father of modern astrology in America.”

Israel Regardie had published major books in the 1930s, selling the rights to the publisher, Aries Press. Llewellyn purchased the copyrights and published the second editions of some of his books which had been ignored for three decades. The Golden Dawn was published in a boxed, two-volume version rather than the original four volumes. Over the years, this became one volume with added notes and an invaluable index. Llewellyn also re-published Regardie’s The Middle Pillar, and A Garden of Pomegranates, both classic magickal and kabalistic works. Although Llewellyn had purchased the copyrights and literally owned the books, they contacted Regardie and paid him royalties on the books. Llewellyn had also purchased from Aries Press Regardie’s fourth classic book, The Tree of Life. Regardie informed Llewellyn that he had promised another publisher permission to publish that book and Llewellyn continues to allow them to do so. It was only in the year 2,000, long after Regardie’s death, that Llewellyn published an edition of that book.

Original Llewellyn two-volume Golden Dawn set.
Books one and two of Regardie’s original are combined in volume one.
Books three and four comprise volume two.
Not shown: Original slipcase

Single Volume Edition with “Psychedelic” Cover

Current Expanded Edition of The Golden Dawn
Not Shown: a Different Cover to the Hardbound Edition. Simple Blue with Gold Stamping

The communication with Regardie and the nascent “Caliphate” O.T.O. resulted in popular publishing of Aleister Crowley’s works, including Regardie’s collection of the magickal texts from Crowley’s enormous journal entitled Gems from the Equinox. Several of Crowley’s works were published by Llewellyn at this time, often with notes and comments by Regardie. Llewellyn also published Regardie’s important psychological profile of Crowley, Eye in the Triangle.

Perhaps the most famous publication of a Crowley item from this period was 1969′s first color publication of Crowley’s Thoth Tarot. Although the printing in Hong Kong was somewhat washed out, the deck, 40 years later, is still highly desired, in part because of its amazingly high quality box, a Tarot deck box with quality that few decks have ever had.

Closed Box, 1969 Thoth Tarot. Note the Publisher.

The box opened. Inside the outer box was another full box, covered with gold-colored paper.
The deck would go into the gold box, and the gold box would slide into the outer box.

Here you see the open sides of the heavy, cardboard boxes with a deck inside the gold box.
On the right is the outer box, showing its back.

But Llewellyn didn’t stop with republishing some of the 20th century’s most important magickal books, often making those works available to more people for the first time ever. Llewellyn worked to provide information from modern writers and contemporary magickal thinkers. One way to do this was in a journal of brilliant articles. This journal, called New Dimensions, was edited by Gareth Knight who went on to write the two-volume A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism.

Although it seems odd to think of it today, it was only in the late 1960s and 1970s that Wicca began to become popular in the U.S. Most of the books available in the U.S. were either republication of old books or total nonsense such as 1971′s The Do-It-Yourself Witchcraft Guide by Luba Sevarg (AKA Evelyn Silverman Graves) or 1975′s hysterical, The Naked Witch by Gay-Darlene Bidart. Llewellyn, for its part, published the first public version of Gardner’s full information in Lady Sheba’s The Book of Shadows and The Grimoire of Lady Sheba. Combined with works by authors such Raymond Buckland, no publisher, then or now, introduced more people to real Paganism than Llewellyn.

In the 1970s, Llewellyn started a school (The Gnostica School), and held some of the first Pagan festivals in the U.S. The newsletter for the school and new shop became a small newspaper and finally a magazine, perhaps the best occult-oriented magazine ever published in the U.S., Gnostica.

Llewellyn continued republishing valuable but relatively ignored books such as many of Dion Fortune’s works and Regardie’s edit of Crowley’s Magick Without Tears.

New titles were also published including Godwin’s Cabalistic Encyclopedia, a thorough updating and expansion of Crowley’s 777. Never abandoning its roots, Llewellyn published more modern books on astrology as well as one of the first modern astrological magazines, Astrology Now.

Other topics included graphology, palmistry, and the book Sexual Occultism by Dr. Jonn Mumford.

This was an amazing and important book for two major reasons. First, to the best of my knowledge it was the first modern popular explanation of ancient Traditional Tantric concepts of spirituality as well as the more popular sexual aspects of Tantra. Second, it was (and remains) one of the only books that compares and contrasts Tantric magickal concepts with those of Western magick. The book was eventually expanded and retitled Ecstasy Through Tantra, and I was honored to be allowed to write a chapter for the new edition of this book.

Contraction and Expansion

In the 1980s, things changed. The “Me Generation” wasn’t as interested in occultism as were the Baby Boomers. Llewellyn had expanded faster than was financially justifiable. The store was long closed. Others were holding Pagan festivals so Llewellyn no longer needed to do so. Llewellyn downsized. The magazines folded and were replaced by Llewellyn’s New Times, a combination catalog and magazine…with the emphasis on catalog. Still, there was enough valuable information in it that issues of New Times are now valued collectors’ items.

The popularity of occultism eventually began to grow again, and Llewellyn was ready to grow with it. A young author on Witchcraft, Scott Cunningham, become popular and prolific. He helped create the concept that people need not be part of a coven to practice Wicca, opening the religion and practices to millions of people and paving the way for authors such as Silver RavenWolf and Christopher Penczak. Denning & Phillips opened the Ogdoadic tradition of magick with their revelation of the magick of the Aurum Solis and the popular “Practical Guide” series of books they wrote on individual topics such as creative visualization, astral projection, and the first modern book on psychic self-defense.

Two other events happened in the late 1980s that I think were very important. In 1988 Llewellyn published the first edition of my Modern Magick. This has become the most popular step-by-step course of magick ever published. The other thing that happened is that FATE magazine was purchased by Llewellyn. After learning my craft by spending three years as the Editor-in-Chief of Llewellyn’s New Times, I became the new editor of FATE.

In the following years Llewellyn specialized in developing and continuing to develop authors who have become Occult, Pagan, and New Age superstars. Some of these authors include Ted Andrews, D. J. Conway, Amber K, Michael Newton, Raven Grimassi, Anodea Judith, Richard Webster, Ellen Duggan, Guy Finley, and Michelle Belanger. Llewellyn began developing its own line of Tarot decks and teamed with Italy’s Lo Scarabeo to become one of the world’s largest distributors of unique Tarot decks. FATE was eventually sold to Galde Press.

Llewellyn Publications moved from Portland Oregon to Los Angeles to Minnesota. In Minnesota it began as part of a large house in Minneapolis (a haunted house, of course!), moved to take over a floor of a large building in St. Paul, then moved to take over a remodeled soft drink plant. In 2005 Llewellyn built a new campus in Woodbury, Minnesota. It continues there, publishing some of the most important spirituality-oriented books. Note that I just wrote “important,” not “famous.” Some of Llewellyn’s authors are world famous. Some have the potential for fame. Some are not famous but have influenced writers who have achieved greater fame. The books by those authors may have reached more people, but are not more important than those published by Llewellyn.

Some people may disagree with that. Without the more famous authors, people wouldn’t know those ideas. I must respectfully disagree. As I wrote in the first of this series,

Ideas alway precede actions. Those ideas may come from our unconscious minds or from something we have seen or read. Thus, although Llewellyn is “just a publishing company,” Llewellyn has helped change the world. No, Llewellyn didn’t publish any books that started a physical revolution. Rather, from a limited beginning focused on astrology, the books published by Llewellyn have helped fire the spiritual hopes, dreams, and aspirations of millions of people, eventually coalescing into what is currently called the New Age.

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I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to any of the important people I may have accidentally omitted in these three posts. I’m sure I missed several very important authors and books, and I meant no slight or insult to you or your works. I’d also like to apologize for any mistakes in dates and history that may have occurred in these posts. Any fault is solely mine.

Of all the books Ted Andrews wrote, perhaps none was as well-known—or as often recommended—as his seminal work on neopagan animal totemism, Animal Speak. Like so many non-indigenous totemists, it was the first book I ever picked up on the topic, back in the mid-1990s when all I had access to in my small town of origin was a little hippie-owned health food store. While texts on Wicca and ceremonial magic were a bit too “spooky” for these rural folks, the warm, cuddly topic of animals was alright, wasn’t it?

Okay, maybe “warm and cuddly” isn’t the right description. But Andrews had this way of making the information accessible to just about anyone who picked it up. Additionally, he managed to find a good balance between detailed entries on what he had learned from dozens of totems, and instructions on how to apply that information in creating your own relationships with them. And while I didn’t appreciate it as much at the time, one of the things that I respect about him is that he never claimed to be doing things “like the Indians do”. Andrews presented his work as his own, and we’ve lost a wonderfully creative mind with his passing.

Perhaps most important of all was Andrews’ dedication to the animals themselves. Through his writing it was apparent that the natural world and its denizens were incredibly important to him. I always envied him his volunteer work in animal rescue and rehabilitation, too, as well as his experience in falconry. These experiences shone through in the more esoteric writings as a reminder that the spiritual information we have on totems is inextricably tied to the traits and behaviors of their physical counterparts. In short, he walked the talk, and grounded his spirituality in the living world.

My much-loved copy of Animal Speak now sits on a shelf dedicated to practical totemism and animal magic, where it keeps company with other of his works on animal magic. It’s survived eight moves, a flood, and numerous culls of my library (in which less interesting copycat dictionaries ended up getting the proverbial axe at the used bookstore). I was fortunate enough to get it signed at PantheaCon 2007, at which time I had my one and only, brief, but memorable encounter with the author himself. Since becoming an author myself a few years ago, I’ve had the privilege of getting to meet a number of authors whose works I cut my teeth on.  I really regret, especially with all the positive stories people have been telling about him, that I didn’t get the chance to talk to Andrews more than that one time.

But I am grateful for that moment, and for the springboard that his writing gave me in developing my own system of neopagan totemism. While his writing wasn’t flawless (whose is, really?), Andrews was one of those authors whose strengths—and sheer enthusiasm—more than made up for anything that could be criticized. While I can wonder what else he might have shared with his readers had he remained here longer, I am deeply thankful for what he did give us.

Lupa is a neoshaman and graduate student living in Portland, OR. She is a contributor to several of the Llewellyn annuals. She has written books on animal magic and totemism, among other topics, and may be found at http://www.thegreenwolf.com.

This summer when orders for our calendars and datebooks were coming in fast and furious, our warehouse manager Chuck asked the rest of the Llewellyn staff if any of us wanted to be trained in to pitch in a few days to deal with the rush. Of course I jumped at the chance, as did several others, because I love learning how all the nuts and bolts of this company come together. (And because Chuck thanked us with ice cream bars.)

So one nice summer day, a group of about seven or eight of us left our quiet cubicles and computer monitors for the bustling activity of the warehouse. Luckily we’re all in the same building, unlike Llewellyn’s previous premises. Chuck trained us all how to read a packing slip and navigate our way around all the shelves stocked with boxes and boxes of books, picking the correct books and putting them all together in an order. After the picker initials the packing slip, the entire order is scanned with a bar code scanner to make sure it’s correct, and the scanner initials the slip. Finally, the packer packs up the boxes and also initials the packing slip, and puts the customer’s copy into the box.

The books that sell the most are all right up front for easy access… and the less popular a book is, the farther back it gets pushed in the grand scheme of things. While out there, we found some really old books covered with dust that we didn’t even know existed…seriously, I would link to them here but they’re not even on our website! So I don’t know how they get ordered at all, or if they are just there for posterity. Maybe I’ll blog about them another day…

Anyway, today I went out to the warehouse because we’re getting slammed with pre-Halloween orders. And this just gave me so much satisfaction, it’s hard to put into words. First, to fill orders with multiple copies of our annuals – the Witches’ Cal, the Astro Cal, the Herbal Almanac, the Magical Almanac. The brand new Sabbats Almanac which I helped develop. And of course, tons and tons of Scott Cunningham books in every order, multiple copies of Buckland’s “Big Blue” in several orders, Silver RavenWolf, Christopher Penczak, Ellen Dugan, Raven Grimassi, Ted Andrews, Michael Newton, Richard Webster, Thuri Calafia… it was almost like seeing the living heartbeat of Llewellyn, pulsing right there before my eyes, in my hands. This is good stuff! This is the lifeblood of the company! This is the “other side” of the business!

Yes, it was really therapeutic for my soul. I spend my days considering new books, reassuring new authors, letting down quite a few would-be authors, worrying whether manuscripts are good enough to publish, agonizing over why some of our books simply aren’t selling, breaking hard news to authors when things aren’t going so well…because what I see in books is potential. The potential to connect with the right reader and help them with some aspect of their life. The potential to make waves in the fabric of reality. The potential to do really well in stores because the writing or the concept is so good. And to this day it’s hard to understand why sometimes perfectly awesome books go absolutely nowhere, but that’s the business.

But on the other side of potential is realization, and that’s what the warehouse is all about. This is the opposite end of the line – not the incoming manuscripts that I deal with, but the output that is eventually created. In the warehouse I get to touch (again and again!) physical books that I acquired, that I worked on, that I am invested in, and actually put them together with other books and mail them to a customer. It is a great feeling, and it really brings home the reality of what we’re doing here. My work does not live and die on my hard drive – it becomes a book and is shipped to places like Virginia, New York, Florida, Montana. I mean, how lucky am I? I’m not sure there are too many other acquisitions editors out there who get to work in the warehouse for a couple hours here or there and actually see, first-hand, the other side of the equation.

After picking countless Scott Cunningham books today, I returned to my desk to find out that his Book of Shadows just arrived to the warehouse. There are thousands of pre-orders on this book but since it just arrived today, I didn’t get to “pick” any while out in the warehouse. Too bad! It is an amazingly gorgeous book. It’s a hardcover with an emerald green dust jacket, done in a matte finish with spot gloss on the text and some of the symbols. The paper is beautiful and it just has a nice weight to it when you hold it in your hands. You are going to love this book when it finally gets shipped from our warehouse. I actually worked closely with the editor and designer on this book, especially with queries, since sadly Scott is no longer with us to provide his own input. I really hope we did it justice. I think we did. Because at the end of the potential that was found in that beat-up manila envelope is realization. I just held it in my hands and was thrilled, and I think Scott would be thrilled too.