Magick/Occultism/Esotericism

As a child in the 1960s I grew up in a seaside resort town on the east coast of England and in the summer holidays I would cycle down to the seafront to walk among the holiday-makers, watching them feed coins into the slot-machines in the penny arcades along the esplanade (while my hard-earned 2/- a week pocket money remained secure in my pocket) and listening to the calls of the roustabouts on the fairground rides that rang-out over the cacophony of pipe-organ music and blaring top-20 pop tunes blasting out from each pitch. But my favourite of all these attractions were the mock auctions, cornucopias of seemingly high-value goods offered at knock-down prices that drew crowds of people as the "auctioneer" barked out descending values of money for each item held aloft by his assistants until the sea of raised hands waving folded £1 and £5 notes in the air halted the "auction". Where upon those proffered notes would be plucked from willing hands in exchange for plain white boxes in opaque plastic carrier bags that contained perhaps not an exact duplicate of the item being sold, but its close approximation. Not then the prestigious goods sold in upmarket West End stores as promised, but the low quality knock-offs hawked in any street market. As an eight year old, this fascinated me for even at that age I could see this was a con so presumed that all those who waited patiently to snaffle the bargains the "auctioneer" was selling also saw through the subterfuge and knew that these were mock auctions. Yet still they waved their paper money in the air at the prescribed moment his litany of decreasing prices reached the selling price he always intended. I would stand and watch them for hours, then return on another day and watch the show all over again, because that is what it was, a show, carefully scripted and played; over time I noticed that some of the audience were there every day, yet their waved notes where never taken and goods were never exchanged for they too were actors in the show and the "auctioneer" was the star.