The article claims Bennett passed a third spiritual practice to Crowley – Witchcraft. Bennett was both a member of the Golden Dawn and a Buddhist and Crowley’s first teacher in these spiritual paths.
In “Gerald Gardner and his Detractors” Liddell (or the anonymous Witch) claims that Allan Bennett was one of Pickingill’s pupils. In 1994 Michael Howard assembled these articles in The Pickingill Papers, The Origin of the Gardnerian Craft. The articles discussed the activities of George Pickingill, 1816 – 1909, a Witch in a hereditary line eight centuries old who founded nine covens in Canewdon in Essex. Liddell himself claimed both Gardnerian and Hereditary initiations, making him a bridge between the two worlds.
REMEMBERING ALEISTER CROWLEY SERIES
(Bill) Liddell published a series of articles which he claimed were written by pre-Gardnerian Witches who wished to remain anonymous. There is however another source of stories about Crowley and Witchcraft. Heselton concludes that Crowley may have said something offhand about knowing about Witchcraft as a form of one-upmanship in his first meeting with Gardner. How unlikely is apparent to anyone who has seen a Gnostic Mass in which the priest kneels before the nude (if she chooses) priestess on the altar. Heselton immediately quotes sources who find this unlikely. Gardner also claimed that Crowley didn’t want to have to kneel to a High Priestess. Gardner also wrote to Cecil Williamson that Crowley was “in the Cult” but found the nudity distasteful, although he highly approved of the Great Rite.
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