Her occultist villain Esmé Scarron is a
classic, textbook case. Much of what he says and does is scripted; it is all
very predictable. Changing for the better is not part of the script, but it is an
interesting exercise to think about things that he could have done and people
who could have shown him the way.
What does Esmé Scarron really need?
Scarron needs to think about the inner
differences between him and healthy, wholesome, decent human beings. He may be
far above most people in some ways - wealth and scholarship for example - but
he is far below in others.
Scarron needs to learn how to get what he
wants using normal methods, not manipulation, psychological black magic and the
‘neutral force’ that he allows to run through him. He says that this force
gives him his power and enables him to heal people, but he uses it to influence
them against their will and best interests and to damage them.
He needs to realise that this force is a
two-edged sword. Using it may have a damaging effect on him. For example, by
influencing people around him so that they can’t make connections, he may be blocking
himself from making some key connections.
Esmé Scarron needs to realise that he is on a
path that leads to Hell.
In theory, he could redeem himself by losing
some arrogance, showing some humility and looking at what other people have
done to get off this path. People like him rarely do this though. In any case,
he is a prisoner and hostage. The evil forces he has called up may not let go
of him that easily.
Some positive role models
Esmé Scarron could have learned a lot from
people he probably wouldn’t have given the time of day to. It is amusing to imagine
him taking tea with and advice from a few fictional witches - not that he
ever
would.
Linwood Sleigh’s witch Miss Heckatty comes
to her senses and cleans up her act after facing some unpleasant truths about
herself and her life. She reminds herself that she has a good reputation in
fields other than black magic: she is a scholar, a botanist who like Scarron is
interested in herbs, and can focus her life on that in the future.
She admits that she doesn’t know how discuss
things with people because she has always just given orders. This is a very
good point. Scarron could have learned to make a good business case for his
views as opposed to just making pronouncements.
Nicholas Stuart Gray’s witch Huddle is
another one who admits that she has been a horrible person. She gives up trying
to practise black magic and decides that in future she will use only her herbal
knowledge, and that to heal people.
Similarly, Esmé Scarron could have
concentrated on his biography of Paracelsus.
As an ardent alchemist like his idol, he
could have concentrated on transmuting the base material in himself into gold.
He could have taken Paracelsus’s views about
evil to heart:
"As humans must ward off the influence of evil
spirits with morality, they also must ward off diseases with good health."
He could have used his knowledge of herbs in
a positive way and stopped experimenting on his friends and his daughter by
forcing them to drink his horrible potions. These activities may have been
inspired by this quotation from Paracelsus:
More about revenge
Esmé Scarron is the sort of person who
inflicts terrible damage on people and expects them to just endure it, but
takes his revenge for even a minor injury or perceived insult. We have seen
what happened to people who laughed at him.
The woman who runs the guesthouse/language
school where Meg Lambert and her mother are staying was involved with Scarron
many years earlier - only mentally though. She wanted to marry Scarron and
share his life of learning and luxury. It
amused and flattered him to have a follower at his command, a disciple who believed
everything he said and whom he could influence and subvert.
She eventually found enough strength of
character to decide to forget him; this made him very angry, and from then on he
hated both her and the man who became her husband.
Nicholas Stuart Gray’s witch Barbara uses sorcery to summon up a very eligible young man.
She doesn’t take revenge when he rejects her,
even though this means that she will be alone for the rest of her life. She accepts
that he came because he had no choice, and is ethical enough to send him back.
Even the demon Balbarith says that people who
take up sorcery usually do it for power, money and revenge. They are rarely
happy and would be better off without it. He should know!
Sources for the sorcerer
The Shadow of a Sorcerer was first published
in 1955.
Much of the material in the book was taken
from Stella Gibbons’s personal experiences. She visited Austria and Venice in
1953; her daughter was 18 years old at the time.
Stella Gibbons may have known a lot about the
young people of the day and their interests and problems because of her daughter
and her acquaintances, but how on earth did she know what a typical black
magician says and does and what effect it has on him and his victims? How did
she know about the big anomalies in the lives of such people?
As mentioned in the first article in this
series, Aleister Crowley may have been the inspiration for Esmé Scarron. Stella
Gibbons’s brief sighting of him combined with her imagination and intuition may
have been enough to provide her with the metaphysical material for her book.
Perhaps she sought information from books and acquaintances too.
Could she have been a victim herself, perhaps
of something on another dimension? Could her family demons and her awful father
have provided some of the material?
Whatever the sources, The Shadow of a
Sorcerer has generated more articles than any other book to date, and there may
be more references to come in articles about other topics.
Stella Gibbons in later life:
