For the "Hard of Understanding" ...

Recently I have had something of a whale of a time watching my elder Bill finally outlining some information to those whose repetitive whinging suggests they desire it most.

Some of this info is going out for the first time and it is all doozey stuff that further allows for other paths to be made back into the past for the careful and serious seeker.

On several occasions I have felt like wading in there myself but have stopped myself on account of the fact that frankly, Bill has no need of saving.

He has repetitively been pleasant and polite in the face of downright rudeness and baffled the masses consistently by NOT being the "ranty crazed addled old fool" that certain members of the Federation have made him out to be to people over the years in order to strengthen fairly tenuous arguments against the information he has given over the years. Featuring heavily in here is of course Steve Wilson under the nom-de-plume "Sethur" - a name that turns up in the oddest places as a websearch revealed to me years ago and yes I still have the screen captures to prove it! LOL

One little gem I saw from the very same that I felt SHOULD be addressed by me however was:

"drop the "descendants of Cain" stuff that was borrowed from a role-playing game (I know this isn't part of Barbarosa's stuff) and there is a plausible theory emerging"

This part is interesting as it is a quiet stab at me. *G* Oh goody well here goes ...

What Steve is referring to here is a section of a website I had on the net years ago that was quite separate from the Pickingill site I put up for Bill (indeed it existed for years prior to my even meeting Bill!) This wee line in the post either to be simply derogatory to Bill (making him look foolish) to try to work out if it perhaps is not me under the pseudonym (which I would not even presume to do - for some years now all my net info and screeds have been under my actual name!) or it simply escaped the attention of this earnest scholar that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the Pickingill information. In short it was either the result of shit stirring or simple ignorance. The "I know it wasn't Barbarosa's stuff" strikes me simply as a variant of the ever popular series of tactics used to back away from something that could conceivably blow up in one's own face.

The website I refer to that was not the site for Bill was of course the House Astaroth site which garnered the attention of people in various circles world wide - much to my shock. It had a section in it on Vampirism that contained many references to the White Wolf Role Playing Game "Masquerade".

The website also had two other very important things in it.

1. the quote: "Herein lies fact and fantasy - discriminate with care" and
2. the statement: "Yes I know that is a role playing game but frankly if you haven't got the wherewithal to wade through fantasy and make it work; what makes you think you'll be capable of doing so with anything real!?"

After that was a sealed, passworded section that had various rituals in it from orders I had information of. So this leaves us with simple ignorance (which no one likes admitting to when they have tried so hard to build a reputation for academia and scholarship) or simply the fact that these above two very important points were missed entirely and so the reader actually believed that I felt the words of White Wolf Role Playing games to be fact (even though repetitively throughout that section this information is given in manners that leave no doubt to anyone with a modicum of basic grade school comprehension skills that it is used in an exemplary fashion!)

No, let us cut through the mustard and say that this was simply a petty ham fisted attempt at second hand character assassination. Pretty lame really. After all I have seen text on the subject of Doctor Who with the name Steve Wilson attached but I didn't assume he thought Old George was a dalek! Furthermore, on the subject of the occult I have made use of quotes from Star Wars ... but again I don't think old George had a light sabre. Perhaps I am just not up to the level of academic brilliance required to make such fearless leaps from subject to allegedly connected subject. Oh well I suppose I am still young! LOL

It is also quite indicative of the individual concerned. As are the following edits from the back and forth:

• "Well, I have a letter from you admitting that you put stuff in the Pickingill Papers that you knew was false, but your "elders" insisted. So I have no reason to accept anything you say, quite frankly. Witchcraft is a search for truth, when one version of it has to rely on lies I lose interest."
• "Interesting to see how proven liars keep muddying the waters. "
• "Please also note that Bill Liddell admits including information in the PPs that he knew to be false, but did so at the insistence of his elders, who, in my opinion, set him up to be the fall guy in this nonsense."
• "As for my position on Lugh - it hasn't changed. I just regarded "Lugh" as a group rather than Bill Liddell."

The fact remains that it has - if nothing else it has finally been admitted publicly that Steve has not for some time believed that Bill made it all up by himself (a favourite underlay for Steve's position over the years) ... oddly enough no one else seemed to know this before now.

And this is of course from the source that on one hand says that:

"Witchcraft is a search for truth"

when those who have watched him for a while remember quite clearly another quote from Aisling No 9. earlier that said:

"As most readers will have realised by now, the publication of the first part of the New Forest Papers was deliberately sensationalist and academically premature, being carried out in order to 'smoke out' further information."

Well so much for thr search for truth. What was that mate of Steve's quote ... ahh yes:

• 'Yes, okay, I admit I made stuff up, but these made-up people I made up made me do it.'

and then later:

• "Would you mind re-iterating, publicly and for the record, that you have knowingly provided information for publication that you knew to be false? I don't particularly care if you maintain that your alleged Elders made you do it. That's by the by. I'm much more interested in the admission that you deliberately gave false information. Not 'problematic', but false, and moreover known by you to be false."

So number one tells us that the stance understood over there for some years has been that Bill made it up and that furthermore so are his Elders (because he made it up) and now this has changed .... the emphasis is now the difference between what is said and what is believed. Sounds to me like a charge that cuts the other way too ....

Of course we must remember that this same individual sticks in my mind for the words:

"bear in mind that witches didn't really exist"

so how far we accept the stances of either is of course open to debate. To be entirely fair however, I do have to place all this in it's proper context. Both are something of a well known tag team in the UK and the wider umbrella I feel that all their words should be considered as sheltering under is the one that seems these days to be somewhat synonymous with the U.K Federation - a stretching of Huttons implied conclusions from Triumph of the Moon.

As I understand it "witches didn't really exist" is something of a long leap from where he left off and exactly how this equates with the oft repeated statement that this group is, at it's heart, a great recruiting cover for Gardnerians is of course something for others to pass judgement on and sucklike as myself merely to hear ... often.

None the less, let me here and now agree with at least one thing that those who think little of me would say reading this: "Yes frankly it is all a bit petty and certainly not to my usual standard. Fact is that even though I do try to only play the ball and not the men - I too occasionally have days when I just get plain old snakey and need a vent."

No further questions your honour ....