A Tribute to the Ghosts of OF Past

I thought I would do an article about "Occult Forums," a site that is still just barely up, that I was involved in going back to around 21, which was almost ten years ago. I recall the site when it was on a sort of "ez-board," type of service. I had just dived into Mark Hedsel's "The Zelator," and was looking for information on what is called, "epoptic symbolism," when I happened on the site at this dependent-forum base in a google search.

The next move was to an independent ISP, when the Admin's of OF ran the "Golden Age of OF," and the NORA site - or National Occult Research Association. The NORA collected post-copyrighted or original contributions - most of those contributions being from OF members. The next era was when OF was flooded by Canadian members, which I called the "'Nadian Age of OF." After that OF barely ran, and it is still up and barely running.

Today I'm aware of forum scams, and most people are. There are a set few types of these scams and most people are aware of all of those types. If you aren't, you will have to get old and cagey and learn the hard way - as I did. However, even at the time, I knew that about 9 out of 10 people at even the Golden Age of OF were simply at OF to lie and cause trouble and were not interested in the New Age or "occult research," - at all. That much my rather poorly operating brain caught on to quite quickly.

Probably the first individual to mention was Rev. Rev was a super-mod at the OF forums, and mostly Rev deleted spam, deleted offensive posts, edited offensive posts, and banned offensive members from the rolls. In short, Rev spent most of his time doing what a super-mod of a forum ought to be doing. Rev was pretty much running OF single-handedly, simply because he put a great deal of time and effort into the forum.

The thing was, that there would be a thread, and Rev would drop a solid paragraph in. Then I would be left thinking, "I am indeed scenting a reality. This guy knows something worth knowing." Rev was very quiet, an authority figure people loved to hate, and not a guy who I would have wanted to see scuttle the Tornadoes armed with their exocets.

I would love to turn that guy up today. I've got 100 dollars worth of Christmas money, and I'd be willing to pay the entire dollar amount in hard money for a few e-mails or documents from the guy. He was an amazing man.

The second guy was Caradoc. Caradoc was an esoteric Christian and a native of Wales. Part one, people love to hate on Christians just because they are Christian, and Caradoc did not back down on his profession of faith even once. Part two, from what I understand, most of the UK's massive welfare state goes to Wales today.

Remember, the UK is pretty big, and Wales isn't much bigger than Rhode Island. Apparently somewhere around 60 or 70% of the UK's welfare rolls that goes to this teeny area of the UK. The joke is, "We don't even know how the welshers waste so much money!"

So Caradoc took a lot of heat. Caradoc was near 60, or perhaps over 60, did not lie about his age, and had metastatic cancer. He had been in a wheelchair 10 years, and had been given 6 months to live 6 years before I met him. He was a tough SOB, and he was a real grump. Also, Caradoc was all-heart. He just loved people and he just loved helping them out.

Now remember, just as Wales is a sorry problem today, on the other hand these same Welsh used to impale Roman legions by the hordes with a longbow, and that wasn't all it was with the Welsh either. Caradoc was all-heart, and consequently - people made the mistake of trying to chump him.

Caradoc might have been an old, terminally ill, Christian, Welsh grump, but he was no one's chump. People were looking for the crag where Caradoc was impaling them from when his back was finally up, and the spirits bless Caradoc! He has probably passed away today, and boy would I like to turn that old boy up as well.

Well, the Golden Age ended, and the 'Nadian Age arrived. One very noteworthy individual of that era, which was a good time, was still floating around under his old handle even a year ago, "Nuhad418." My one critique of Nuhad was that his largest influence was the Big Al, commonly known as Alleister Crowley. However, as much as I may have disagreed with Nuhad, he wrote in English, had academic training, and was willing to discuss disagreements with respect and rationality. I liked Nuhad, whatever my disagreements with him may have been - or whatever they may continue to be.

I have a full article on Crowley, and it could use revision in light of some of my latest work, but I would like to get my ducks in a row and see if I've published an earlier version at the site. To be honest, there are two or three of Crowley's principles that remain very important to me today, but I do not feel I need to make time for Crowley's actual texts in my studies. Nuhad and I rip phonebooks apart in private when we come into contact, but we've never had to get out the artillery either.

Another personality worth mentioning is Frater Luciferi. "Frater," in Latin is not "Father," it is "brother." "Pater," was the most common Latin word for "father." Frater Luciferi was one of the two people I have ever met in my life who even claimed to be a Luciferian. He was a performance-artist and used to post photos and short clips of his shows - the guy was way bizarre!

Also, Luciferi read the Bible constantly. He was a proponent of a fairly common Gnostic belief that the serpent arrived and gave the apple to Adam and Eve to give them knowledge to free them from their tyrannical creator. He also believed that Christ was one of Lucifer's "avatars," and had come to the earth for the same reason. Some of this he did just to wind Christians up and be an SOB, but I think these were some of his actual beliefs.

If I'm remembering right, Luciferi considered himself a direct descendant of Angelic blood, or in Otherkin terms, "Angelkin." The great thing about Luciferi was that he was every bit the image of a Luciferian Angel, just sneaky and mocking and cunning - also a great guy - and a very bizarre guy. I haven't seen him or any of his masks recently, but he was worth knowing - very interesting type of guy.

That about sums up what is on the top of my head about OF at the moment. I talked about superbook at the other blog, and the next article will bring up some more interesting points about what exactly the, "occult underground," is - and it does exist.