 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
A rough draft of the spiritual autobiography of Joseph B Wilson. The history that lead to Toteg Tribe.
Copyright 2003 by Joseph B Wilson
- Sometime in early 1972 I bought a mimeograph machine, wrote and duplicated an outline, a few
basic instructions, and a reading list, and placed a classified advertised a free witchcraft
correspondence course in Fate magazine. I don't remember how many people responded,
probably in the neighborhood of 50. To those I sent my prepared material, and encouraged them
to develop their own ceremonies devoted to whatever mythology they were most drawn to and
suggesting they could use the Pagan Way material as an outline. I soon added Paul Huson's
Mastering Witchcraft to the list. When Llewellyn Publications published Lady Sheba's Book of
Shadows I added that to my recommended reading list as an additional source for ceremony
outlines. I recognized the author, Jesse Wicker Bell, as being one of the seekers I had
corresponded with and referred to others in the mid 60s, and the material as being from the
Gardnerian tradition. I found it amusing that Jesse had gone from knowing absolutely nothing
about the Craft to being a "hereditary witch initiated by her grandmother" in such a few short years.
In the summer of that year I began to feel as though I was becoming more and more paranoid.
Things in general were going wrong and I couldn't seem to control them. I went to the base hospital
and got a prescription for Librium for my nerves, and tried to return to work. However in August,
without warning, the security police picked me up at my office and escorted me to the base
hospital. From there I was escorted to a medical aircraft and flown to a base in Turkey to be
evaluated by a psychiatrist. He informed me that a complaint had been lodged against me by a
Greek national who claimed that I was doing weird Satanic ceremonies in my office. I explained to
him what had gone on, gave him the same Jungian talk I gave the psychiatrist in England, and was
released back to duty with a relatively clean bill of health.
Shortly after I returned to work, further things happened to put me under pressure. A couple of
weeks later I got a telephone call at home from the Chief of Security Police. He said there was
some kind of emergency and asked me to return to my office. When I got there I found him, the
Deputy Base Commander, and an OSI agent waiting for me. The Deputy Base Commander
claimed that he was walking by my office, looked in and saw the sign on my safe, which contained
classified information about the group's mission, reading OPEN, checked it and found it unlocked.
I was certain that I had locked the safe before leaving that day. The Chief of Security Police and
the OSI agent both confirmed that the safe was unlocked when they got there. It's important to note
that the Deputy Base Commander was the only person on base other than myself who had the
combination to that safe. He wanted a complete inventory of the classified information, but would
not allow me to do the inventory. If any of certain documents were found to be missing I could be
courts marshaled and sentenced for up to 20 years in federal prison. Fortunately they didn't "find"
anything missing.
He removed my access to my classified source material, then ordered me to write the history
anyway, under the supervision of the administrative officer. If I needed to look at a document I was
to tell Captain so and so what that documents was, he would go get it, bring it back, watch me
read it, then take it away while I wrote. This was an impossible situation. I felt like I was being set
up for something by the authorities on base, I didn't know what, but I was sure it wouldn't be
pleasant.
My nerves were shot. I went back to the hospital and got stronger prescriptions for Librium, which
didn't seem to help even when I was taking 50mg every two hours. During those few days I
became so anxious that my hands sweat so bad that I couldn't accomplish anything. In the doctors
office I would pick up a tissue to dry my hands and literally be able to wring water out of it almost
immediately.
A few days later I snapped. I'd drunk heavily the night before, got up early and went in to the base
cafeteria. There I had a hangover cure breakfast of steak and eggs, hash browns, toast, and
alternating cups of black coffee and tall glasses of ice water. At 6:30 AM the Stars and Stripes
Book Store, adjacent to the cafeteria, opened and I went in and bought the new Playboy. When I
returned to my table I couldn't concentrate on it and began rapidly flipping through it. A friend of
mine who worked as a medical technician at the base hospital came and sat with me and tried to
calm me down. I laughed at him, said I was OK, and began tearing pages out of the magazine and
handing them to him, and to others who were near. I started shaking uncontrollably. He tried to
touch me to calm me down, but I shook him off. I told him I had to go to work and write that history
or they would put me in jail. He told me I was in no condition to go to work. I insisted. He went and
telephoned the hospital, and a few minutes later two men in white coats and two security
policemen came and carried me to the emergency room where I was injected with a heavy dose of
thorazine, then admitted as an inpatient.
During the few days there before being transferred to a psychiatric ward in Turkey I had time to
think, though I'm not sure how clear my thinking was since they kept injecting me with thorazine and
supplementing those injections with pills of some kind.
