To: alt.magick
From: rcbright@astro.ocis.temple.edu (Robert C. Bright)
Subject: Frabato, the Magician (9406.fbardon.rcb)
Date: 49940624

Thanks, Mr. Tuttle.

However, having recently read _Frabato_ and worked through
some of _Initiation into Hermetics,_ I must disagree on at
least a few points.  First, Frabato clearly lived some where
in Austria or Germany during the Weimar years - 1920s to 30s.
Too, Otti Vottavova, who is Bardon's literary executor, 
repeats the story of Bardon's inadvertant betrayal, arrest,
and internment in one of the Nazi Concentration Camps.  All
the books I have seen indicate that Bardon's four extant
works were published in the mid to late 1950s.  A Fifth 
book exists in outline as an appendix to _Frabato._  
That Bardon intended to publish five 'serious'
books can be inferred from the astral journey Frabato
takes in the last section of the novel and his supposed
commandment to write these books.  Anyway, Vottavova says
in the introduction to _Initiation_ that Bardon died in
unusual circumstances in Czechoslovakia in 1958. (or '57?)
Anyway, _Frabato_ is a novel so I certainly don't take
it at its face.  I do appreciate the gravity Bardon 
expresses concerning the taking of magickal oaths - he
does not impress me as too cautious on this point.

More or Less Confused in Philadelphia
93/93