VL-IV pgs. 98/99: Postmodern Mysticism

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

> But I detect the influence of Crowley's commentaries in "Book of Thoth"
> in Pynchon's "Weissman's Tarot" episode.


Please demonstrate!
Got a German copy of Crowley's book by my side.

There's one philological argument speaking for your thesis, true.

On page 588 of GR it says: "(Check out Ishmael Reed. He knows more about
it ['Masonic Mysteries', that is.kfl] than you'll ever find here.)"

And in the 'Partial Bibliography' of "Mumbo Jumbo" --- in my Scribner
Paperback Fiction edition it's page 220 --- we do indeed find:

"Crowley, Aleister: The Book of Thoth: An Interpretation of the Tarot.
Berkeley, Ca.: Shambala Publications, Kashmarin Press, 1969"

We also have there two books by Dion Fortune, yet none by Waite.
 
In general, I agree with Simon that Pynchon's take on these matters IS
superficial. Yet now there's your chance to show the contrary!
 
(And let's not forget that Weissmann is a quasi-mythological mirror-figure
for Wernher von Braun ...)
 
" ... what, a dialectical Tarot? Yes,indeedyfoax! A-and if you don't think
there are Marxist-Leninist magicians around, well YOU better think AGAIN!"
(GR, p. 748)
 
 
kfl