I came across the author James Webb by accident, earlier this year. This much esteemed author, heir to a Scottish estate no less, shot himself in 1980 at the age of 34. He was supposedly a very clever , but troubled person (his own father committed suicide), who wrote academic occult books,amongst other things, originally as a non believer and virtual atheist fact finder and then suddenly, he got drawn in and started to believe in everything he had previously scoffed at as representing a load of misguided baloney that had hood winked the great and the good.
There is an ebook available on Kindle called The Occult Webb by Colin Wilson and Joyce Colin-Smith which is quite factual but also threw up a lot of mystery.
James Webb was supposedly overworked and his explorations led him to have some kind of nervous breakdown. Not a term liked by the medical profession these days but highly accurate nonetheless. His wife, (who he fell out with his family in order to marry), was a total non believer and gave him short shrift and, according to the author,not much support. He had a few psychotic episodes and was convinced his publisher was persecuting him (he was contracted to write several books, including a history of Scotland and was under pressure). He also believed some French Freemasons were after him. He obviously spoke several different languages fluently so translating things wasn't a problem.
So I was intrigued and dived in to the world of the Belle Epoque. My great uncle was French and was born in Paris. He would have been a youngster in 1890's Paris and might even have seen some of the French magicians, or even Toulouse-Lautrec in the street. Even as a kid he must have known of the Moulin Rouge and the Chat Noir Club.
Anna Kingsford became a medical doctor in Paris because she was not allowed to do this in England in Victorian times. She fought hard against vivisection, a common practice of the day and was also very esoteric. She was a friend of one of the founders of The Hermetic Order Of The Golden Dawn.Webb mentions her in his book.
I managed to find details of Webb's last home and even a photo of it inside.I wanted to know if there was any truth in what he said or if he was just ill for a bit.
To be a good medium it is necessary to disassociate and psychic work requires both depersonalisation and derealisation so it can affect the mind. Both well respected Dion Fortune and even Aleister Crowley had their mentally affected moments.
So what happened with James Webb? Well on the surface he was stressed, overworked and did not have a good support network to hand. He lived in an isolated spot which is terrible for anyone with those kind of problems - too much not going on outside. He felt obliged to meet certain standards but he was changing due to his research and perhaps did not fit in with his old group of friends any more. He knew an older esoteric lady as a friend but whether that did him good or not in the long run is unanswered. Certainly his wife didn't like this friendship.
There could be something in what he said. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn't totally off the page with it, but I still feel someone could have saved him in any case. What a waste of a talented life.
The Pippins got in on the investigative journalism with some serious study.
