collapse

* Recent Posts

"Christ Is King" by Altair
[Today at 01:09:34 am]


Re: Cill Shift Schedule by SunflowerP
[Yesterday at 11:04:57 pm]


Re: Stellar Bling: The Good, the Bad, the OMG! by SunflowerP
[March 21, 2024, 11:21:37 pm]


Re: Spring Has Sprung! 2024 Edition by SunflowerP
[March 21, 2024, 10:24:10 pm]


Stellar Bling: The Good, the Bad, the OMG! by Altair
[March 21, 2024, 02:52:34 pm]

Author Topic: Llewellyn Worldwide Chair Carl Weschcke Has Died  (Read 2995 times)

Anisaer

  • Apprentice
  • ***
  • Join Date: Sep 2015
  • Posts: 37
  • Total likes: 2
    • View Profile
Llewellyn Worldwide Chair Carl Weschcke Has Died
« on: November 10, 2015, 02:39:29 pm »
Quote
Carl Llewellyn Weschcke, owner of the Minnesota-based spirituality publisher Llwellyn Worldwide for more than half a century and currently holding the title of chairman, died on Saturday. He was 85.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/Obituary/article/68626-llewellyn-worldwide-chair-carl-weschcke-85-has-died.html

RandallS

  • Site Admin
  • *
  • Join Date: Jun 2011
  • Location: NE Ohio
  • Posts: 10311
  • Country: us
  • Total likes: 296
    • View Profile
  • Religion: Hellenic Pagan
Re: Llewellyn Worldwide Chair Carl Weschcke Has Died
« Reply #1 on: November 10, 2015, 04:00:43 pm »
Quote from: Anisaer;182146
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/Obituary/article/68626-llewellyn-worldwide-chair-carl-weschcke-85-has-died.html

I always found Carl to be a good person with interesting ideas and -- and at least during the 70s and 80s -- far too much energy. While his publishing company gets a lot of knocks from the Pagan community as it has printed a lot of garbage over the years, it has also published a lot of very good books and kept a number of important books in print and easy to get. Carl will be missed.
Randall
RetroRoleplaying [Blog]: Microlite74/75/78/81, BX Advanced, and Other Old School Tabletop RPGs
Microlite20: Lots of Rules Lite Tabletop RPGs -- Many Free

Darkhawk

  • Senior Staff
  • *
  • Join Date: Jun 2011
  • Posts: 5219
  • Country: us
  • Total likes: 1123
    • View Profile
    • Suns in her Branches
  • Religion: An American Werewolf in the Akhet; Kemetic; Feri; Imaginary Baltic Heathen; Discordian; UU; CoX; Etc
  • Preferred Pronouns: any of he, they, she
Re: Llewellyn Worldwide Chair Carl Weschcke Has Died
« Reply #2 on: November 12, 2015, 09:39:08 am »
Quote from: RandallS;182150
I always found Carl to be a good person with interesting ideas and -- and at least during the 70s and 80s -- far too much energy.

 
Elysia's obituary on the Llewellyn blog rather suggests that "far too much energy" continued until the end - apparently when he couldn't come in to oversee things at the publisher anymore he stayed home and wrote lots of books instead.  She suggested that "rest in peace" is perhaps not a thing he is inclined to do...
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

RandallS

  • Site Admin
  • *
  • Join Date: Jun 2011
  • Location: NE Ohio
  • Posts: 10311
  • Country: us
  • Total likes: 296
    • View Profile
  • Religion: Hellenic Pagan
Re: Llewellyn Worldwide Chair Carl Weschcke Has Died
« Reply #3 on: November 12, 2015, 06:57:27 pm »
Quote from: Darkhawk;182220
Elysia's obituary on the Llewellyn blog rather suggests that "far too much energy" continued until the end - apparently when he couldn't come in to oversee things at the publisher anymore he stayed home and wrote lots of books instead.  She suggested that "rest in peace" is perhaps not a thing he is inclined to do...

I just read it (and its a wonderful piece that everyone should read: Thank you, Carl), and she's probably right "rest in peace" is unlikely. "Rest" of any kind is probably unlikely. However, if she thinks he was active and had his fingers in everything during the 10+ years she's been at Llewellyn, she should have seen him in the 60s and 70s. I suspect he considered what she saw as active as "much slowed down".

Carl's newsletter and later, the Gnostica magazine, were the major communication line for Pagans, magicians, and new-agers for years. Yes, there were specifically Pagan, and Wiccan-oriented zines, but there were much harder to get than Gnostica and not nearly as big. As I understand it, Carl did much of the work on the newsletter and then Gnostica  (at least at first) himself, every month. If I could bring anything I wanted back from the  1970s, it would probably be Gnostica with someone with a wide of interests as Carl as editor. Finding someone like Carl to edit it would be the hardest part.
Randall
RetroRoleplaying [Blog]: Microlite74/75/78/81, BX Advanced, and Other Old School Tabletop RPGs
Microlite20: Lots of Rules Lite Tabletop RPGs -- Many Free

Gigi Kiersten

  • Sr. Apprentice
  • ****
  • Join Date: Oct 2014
  • Posts: 96
  • Total likes: 2
    • View Profile
    • http://www.cheapskatewitch.com
Re: Llewellyn Worldwide Chair Carl Weschcke Has Died
« Reply #4 on: November 12, 2015, 06:59:35 pm »
Quote from: Anisaer;182146
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/Obituary/article/68626-llewellyn-worldwide-chair-carl-weschcke-85-has-died.html


I have bought some titles from Llelweyen and there have been a lot in rubbish books in recent decade or so. However, Llewellyn has helped in making paganism more accessible to everyone.  So I tip my hat off to him for that. May Carl dance into the afterlife and be reunited with his loved ones in the Summerlands.

SunflowerP

  • Host
  • *
  • Join Date: Jun 2011
  • Location: Calgary AB
  • Posts: 9909
  • Country: ca
  • Total likes: 732
  • Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs!
    • View Profile
    • If You Ain't Makin' Waves, You Ain't Kickin' Hard Enough
  • Religion: Eclectic religious Witchcraft
  • Preferred Pronouns: sie/hir/hirs/hirself
Re: Llewellyn Worldwide Chair Carl Weschcke Has Died
« Reply #5 on: November 13, 2015, 12:03:56 am »
Quote from: RandallS;182150
I always found Carl to be a good person with interesting ideas and -- and at least during the 70s and 80s -- far too much energy. While his publishing company gets a lot of knocks from the Pagan community as it has printed a lot of garbage over the years, it has also published a lot of very good books and kept a number of important books in print and easy to get. Carl will be missed.

 
Though I didn't have any sort of direct acquaintance with him, the impression I picked up many years ago, and that has been consistently confirmed by everything I've read about him since (including the various obituaries/remembrances - here's another, from the Wild Hunt blog), is one of boundless enthusiasm for all things pagan, magical, and/or New Age.

I use the word 'boundless' for its ambivalence, to encompass not just the energy you mention, but his inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to limit either his own interests or his publications to the 'best' material, the soundest and most reliable. To Carl, it seems, it was all interesting and exciting. I've never been able to see this as anything but charming, no matter how aggravated I might be about dubious books.

And aggravating though that dubiousness can be, ultimately I don't think it's a bad thing. For one, much of the material in question addresses things that are not matters of objective and universal fact: what's fluffy nonsense (or pretentious theatricality, or whatever) in context of one pagan religion/school of magic(k)/etc might be perfectly sound in a different context. For another, it's a vehicle by which the individual reader can learn for themselves - if they're willing to do the work to do so - how to read critically, and be selective about what information is sound in context of their own practice and paradigms, and what isn't.

Carl Weschchke didn't - quite - build the neoPagan movement; that was done by many, many neoPagans, of whom he was just one (a particularly prolific one, but I can think of others similarly prolific). What Carl did do was make sure we had a large and varied supply of building materials with which to do so.

May he ascend, and may his loved ones be comforted.

Sunflower
I'm the AntiFa genderqueer commie eclectic wiccan Mod your alt-right bros warned you about.
I do so have a life; I just live part of it online!
“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” - Oscar Wilde
"Nobody's good at anything until they practice." - Brina (Yewberry)
My much-neglected blog "If You Ain't Makin' Waves, You Ain't Kickin' Hard Enough"

RandallS

  • Site Admin
  • *
  • Join Date: Jun 2011
  • Location: NE Ohio
  • Posts: 10311
  • Country: us
  • Total likes: 296
    • View Profile
  • Religion: Hellenic Pagan
Re: Llewellyn Worldwide Chair Carl Weschcke Has Died
« Reply #6 on: November 13, 2015, 08:07:19 am »
Quote from: SunflowerP;182238
Though I didn't have any sort of direct acquaintance with him, the impression I picked up many years ago, and that has been consistently confirmed by everything I've read about him since (including the various obituaries/remembrances - here's another, from the Wild Hunt blog), is one of boundless enthusiasm for all things pagan, magical, and/or New Age.

My "direct acquaintance" is limited to a exchange of letters in 1976 or 1977. I had written a short letter to Gnostica magazine with a couple of paragraphs of comment on one of the articles (with some South Texas info) aimed at the lettercol. I was surprised to get a reply from Carl -- several pages of reply -- which lead to a couple of more letters.

Quote
I use the word 'boundless' for its ambivalence, to encompass not just the energy you mention, but his inability, or perhaps unwillingness, to limit either his own interests or his publications to the 'best' material, the soundest and most reliable.

I think it was unwillingness as I have no doubt from reading his own material that he could filter out less sound and less reliable info. I think he just assumed everyone else could and would and published stuff because it was interesting and there were a few gems that could be dug out of even the least reliable book. I think in the early days this was true, but as the numbers of Pagan and New Age people grew you got greater numbers of people who weren't used to having to hunt up and dig the info out for themselves and were therefore less likely to think as critically about the content of a book or article. Ironically, the success of his own company was one of the things that made this possible.
Randall
RetroRoleplaying [Blog]: Microlite74/75/78/81, BX Advanced, and Other Old School Tabletop RPGs
Microlite20: Lots of Rules Lite Tabletop RPGs -- Many Free

Tags:
 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
5 Replies
1858 Views
Last post October 14, 2011, 10:49:46 am
by KittyVel
5 Replies
3707 Views
Last post November 18, 2014, 07:27:58 pm
by Castus
4 Replies
2900 Views
Last post January 19, 2016, 12:01:38 am
by Juniperberry
1 Replies
1117 Views
Last post January 07, 2018, 12:52:57 am
by Emma Eldritch
4 Replies
1613 Views
Last post August 16, 2018, 08:46:34 pm
by MadZealot

* Who's Online

  • Dot Guests: 176
  • Dot Hidden: 0
  • Dot Users: 1
  • Dot Users Online:

* Please Donate!

The Cauldron's server is expensive and requires monthly payments. Please become a Bronze, Silver or Gold Donor if you can. Donations are needed every month. Without member support, we can't afford the server.

* Shop & Support TC

The links below are affiliate links. When you click on one of these links you will go to the listed shopping site with The Cauldron's affiliate code. Any purchases you make during your visit will earn TC a tiny percentage of your purchase price at no extra cost to you.

* In Memoriam

Chavi (2006)
Elspeth (2010)
Marilyn (2013)

* Cauldron Staff

Host:
Sunflower

Message Board Staff
Board Coordinator:
Darkhawk

Assistant Board Coordinator:
Aster Breo

Senior Staff:
Aisling, Allaya, Jenett, Sefiru

Staff:
Ashmire, EclecticWheel, HarpingHawke, Kylara, PerditaPickle, rocquelaire

Discord Chat Staff
Chat Coordinator:
Morag

'Up All Night' Coordinator:
Altair

Cauldron Council:
Bob, Catja, Chatelaine, Emma-Eldritch, Fausta, Jubes, Kelly, LyricFox, Phouka, Sperran, Star, Steve, Tana

Site Administrator:
Randall

SimplePortal 2.3.6 © 2008-2014, SimplePortal