I apologise in advance to all of my long standing friends that you are once again (and again and again) subjected to this ridiculous drama. But once again I find myself accused in public of being a liar and a law breaker. I really have had enough of this misogynist passive aggressive bullying.
Since the year 2000, RJ Stewart has repeatedly attacked my good name in public and attempted to undermine my work as a writer/teacher. This has been happening ever since we divorced and continues to this day, fourteen years later. These attacks happen whenever I write, teach, publish or even mention anything even remotely connected to the work both he and I developed during the 1990’s.
In 2005 the attack he launched using the internet via a massive website dedicated to destroying me was so bad I ended up losing my day job, and I had mouths to feed, children to support. My employers felt that his and his friends’ statements called my integrity into question and as my job was teaching teenagers, my director felt that I would be a bad influence. So I was fired on the spot. This was my sole income with which I provided for my family. As a result we lost our home.
I withdrew from public, took my own website down and had my publisher withdraw my books (which obviously had a bad knock on effect for the publisher). I had no choice as I had to protect my children and grandchild.
Since 2008 I no longer have dependants, so I am free to write, publish and speak out. In 2012/13 it was brought to my attention that RJ Stewart had been continuing a smear campaign verbally in the magical community, which was starting to affect my standing in the magical community from the point of view of an author’s integrity. (Various publishers and magazine editors were questioning the validity of my work based upon what they had heard from RJ Stewart). So I placed a website on the net simply outlining the work I did with him and also alone during the 1990’s. That site can be viewed at http://emettruth.weebly.com/
I had hoped that would be the end of it. I do not threaten his work in any way and have no wish to interfere with his rights to market any of the work. His copyright product is under no threat: this is about his ego and misogyny. But he has continued to add to the campaign and now openly accuses me of illegal plagiarism. If I was not a published author I would not waste my time with this silly drama, but sadly I do have to, yet again, defend my good name and the integrity of the work. I am also tired of the constant stream of abusive and insulting on line attacks, nasty emails and messages that I receive on a regular basis from the students of RJ Stewart.
It is also important to keep that old work out in the public eye freely, which is what I do via my old websites: the work is there freely for people to use. This is a clip of his most recent statement.
In 2013 Ms Dunne/McCarthy has made further untruthful claims to owning copyright in the Inner Temple Traditions InnerConvocation ® material, and has re-published her plagiarized or minimally adapted items taken from my original work, stating inaccurately that they are her copyright from 2001.
http://www.innerconvocation.com/images/short-statements.pdf
My answer is, put up on the net, on your slander website, clear evidence of work in published or publication form that states clearly the work you are contesting. What exactly am I supposed to have plagiarised? Is it work that you wrote before we were a partnership? Is it work you developed on your own while we were in the partnership? Or is it the work we both developed, that you feel you should ‘own’ now? Please be clear.
More statements from your friends are irrelevant; I would like to see some proof to back up your accusation that I am a plagiarist. Show me copyright material of your work and its date (or the Library of Congress registration), and put along side it the pages of my books or pages of a website that plagiarise it. It is very simple and an easy thing to do.
Let’s be clear about this. I am a professional writer/author, published by two publishing houses. Your accusations in public once again call my integrity into question and accuse me of breaking the law. That is not acceptable and I am not willing to be the meek little woman and slink away. The work in my books is my own work. The work on my current website is a mix of my current work and also an archive of my (and our) old work.
I worked very hard throughout the 1990’s (and beyond) developing work, mediating work and teaching it. It is my magical history; it is work I developed both alone and with you. I have every right to make that work freely available, as do you. My rights regarding that work did not end at divorce as you seem to think.
If you wish to accuse me of breaking the law, go see a lawyer.
I am also doing this for every woman in the magical community who has gone through similar situations. Sadly in some magical partnerships it is expected that when the magical partnership breaks down, the woman will slink off quietly and allow the man full rein of all the work to bolster their standing. Not this time and not this woman.
This is the website that is supposedly full of work plagiarised from RJ Stewart www.innerconvocation.co get his books that pre date 2001 and see if you can match up a page of his books to text on this website. And I would suggest RJ Stewart, that you read up on copyright law a bit more closely. It may educate you a little.
And yes, the website name is identical to his website… the domain address of which, was the domain name of my original site: RJ Stewart bullied me into dropping that site/domain name, which he then snatched up and locked down the web history of it (so if for example he released the web history of his website, you will see that it used to be mine). Later he also bought up every domain he possibly could with innerconvocation (dot net/org/co.uk etc). But he missed one.
It is a long and sordid tale and I hate these types of net dramas. But I cannot stand by to be wrongly and nastily accused in public of committing a crime. And I truly do not understand why this man continues to behave in such a way, which is beneath dignity and most certainly unjust.
And to RJ Stewart and associate playground bullies – By the Laws of Ma’at, May You Reap What You Have Sown.
Josephine McCarthy 
One of the things I love about your work, Josephine, is that you lay out a very vivid map of where your ideas and aha! moments come from. Nor do you have the hubris that is so endemic in pseudo-intellectual and magical circles, feeling that you own an idea, or a thought, or even a strain of magic. You are immersed in your work, which is your life. It is interesting how anyone propose to own something of this nature, unless they are disassociated from the “object” to some degree?
More and more often as I do research, your name comes up, and always in a positive light. Even those that don’t agree with you, will acknowledge the strength and validity of your work. All during my years of work and personal research, I have not come across the name of your former associate, except by your necessity.
Hank Williams wrote a great song roughly 75 years ago, and there’s a line in there that goes, “If you mind your own business, you’ll be busy all the time”(Mind Your Own Business”-H. Williams). Somebody ought to let the other fella hear that song.
Lending my support however you may need it,
-Dan
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Thankyou Dan, for your kind words, they are much appreciated. It is a very sad affair and the song line you quoted has very good wise advice for any magician anywhere.
J
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The problems seem to start when teaching becomes a kind of salesmanship, and what is taught a ‘product’ rather than knowledge – something which is an entirely logical development in a capitalist system where people try to patent the human genome and farm animals are ‘units of production’. But real magic has about as much to do with capitalism as it has with the cult of celebrity – however much certain people may confuse the two.
There is one and only one response to this kind of nonsense: ‘put up or shut up.’ If your ex believes he has a genuine grievance, let him sue.
June
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I’m sorry to hear you are going through another round of this bullshit. No one can place a copyright on the inner worlds. Thanks for making available in your online papers a map for getting to the real inner convocation. This has enhanced my work immeasurably. It “belongs” to every priestess and magician who has earned the right to be in that space. Spying on people in their dreams isn’t cool either -just saying!
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This is very true Justin and this person justifies by saying that although the inner worlds are not copyright his particular version of is. That is true. My version is different and that is legally all well and good. It’s like trying to copyright the Tree of Life, which RJ Stewart has also tried to do in the past. it is just craziness.
And yes, trying to spy on ppl in their dreams is pretty pathetic. Rather than unnerving, I find that sort of behaviour laughable: if that is the best they can do, they are less than a gnat magically.
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I have helped Josephine with her inner convocation website since around 2001, taking over from the first web designer (he created the website around 2000).
In addition, I attended workshops with Josephine and RJ starting in around 1994-1995, the work then was always presented as a partnership, they both had their name on the copyright of printed materials that went with the workshops. I also attended a retreat they gave in the Gold Country, (CA) in the 90s, Josephine and RJ presented their vision work separately in that retreat. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Josephine’s work was unique from RJ’s even if the realms we worked in were in similar places.
I continued to work with Josephine (in Northern California) after their divorce, she would always astound me with the depth, power and uniqueness of her work, even if we worked in the Inner Temples as I had previously with her and RJ. We went to different levels completely.
I will say this as someone as a visual artist, graphic/designer, and at times, a publisher, I always need to be aware of copyrights and fair use. I don’t see any issues with what Josephine is presenting, however more importantly… how can a place be copyrighted? It can’t be. The Inner Temples cannot be copyrighted any more than Paris France can be copyrighted. A photographer can copyright his picture of Paris, but not Paris itself and he certainly cannot stop others from taking a picture of it either. By his actions this is what RJ seems to think he can do.
Josephine’s magical work is hers, it is a new work and it is brilliant. I support her completely.
Signed,
Gabrielle Laney-Andrews
webmistress and webhost for innerconvocations.co
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Wow Gabrielle. thankyou… I hope this does not put you on his very long ‘hit list’, though I think the fire has been taken out of that ass.
You point out something very relevant – that he is attempting to copyright a concept. He is hiding that under the guise of accusations of plagiarism, but in fact he is trying to be the one and only, that only he can ever use those concepts. Sorry RJ, that is not how the law works and you should know as most of your books come from the work of WG Gray, Katherine Briggs, Hamlets Mill, and that large batch of Kabbalah books that you bought in 2000.
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I wish you the best of luck in your difficulties Josephine and that you may overcome this slander and libel which others seem determined to sling. “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth.”
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thankyou Chris that is very kind of you, and so very true!
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Perhaps simply ignoring Stewart and devoting the energy to your life’s work (assuming having a warrior-ess initiation via this method is not part of it and there is no unfinished business in the personal relationship that this is symptomatic of) and leave him to the karma of his own stew of stuff – fools that lack impeccability have a way of self imploding and given what my very Plutonic nose has always sensed i am sure he will be no exception. The gods will welcome time spent in service to the Work and certainly these Piscean era “patriarchal ownership” actings out are really passe in the evolving Aquarian consciousness. Conscious people can sense who has the transmission and easily see past words over which the consternation exists. And why worry about such a battle if it will laughed out of the courtroom. Perhaps the real question is “How can I (we) help ?”
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Yes, is there any way we can help?
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no Dan, but thanks for the offer. I have made my statement and that’s it. There is nowhere for this to go, which is why I do not get his constant garbage. He just needs to swallow it and move on. If he finds a lawyer stupid enough to listen to him, they will advise him that I have not broken any law and I am perfectly within my rights. He does not seem to understand that the law and what he thinks is right are two very different things. It is very sad to see this as he was a very talented man.
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HI Ray, Ignoring him has been a strategy I have used many times – don’t forget, he has been doing this for 14 yrs, so I am getting pretty good at handling the shit he throws my way, verbally, in text and magically. These days in personal terms it is water of a she ducks back. But when it comes to my job/work, then I have learned by bitter experience to deal with it. He lost me my job before with this, and publicly/ specifically accusing a published author of plagiarism has to be dealt with for many different legal reasons. If I do nothing I am complicit.
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Ye gods… this STILL going on?! You have my deep support and sympathy, Josephine.
I am an outsider to all this and it is perfectly clear that on the documents provided by both ‘sides’ you are simply being slandered and maligned without proof. He’s had plenty of years to provide it.
Sadly this lowers my estimation of the effects of his work – if it has not worked on him, its creator, to produce an honest, rational and loving person, how can it work better on others?
Hang in there… the juices in the stew of his own making wherein he sits must be getting pretty rank by now…
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Hi Peregrin and thankyou. It is sad in its deeper implications for his work and the way this situation reflects upon it: his work is very valid and there is a need in the world for it. I don’t think he truly understands the damage he is doing to his work by acting in this way. I don’t want to damage his work in any way, which would be terrible as he has done some very good stuff, I just want him to stop this constant bullying.
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14 years is a long time; its also a half Saturn return (quarter return is the ‘7 year itch’, of course).
Sounds obsessive-compulsive to me. Maybe a fixed sign T square either on his native chart or the synastry between your chart and his ? Try not to get yourself locked into it, ANY response to that kind of fixation simply inflames the obsession (nb Saturn currently in Scorpio about to go retro and remain so for some time )
June
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HI June and thanks for the advice. There is a lot of obsessive stuff in his chart if I remember rightly. Sigh! Most of the time I do ignore this stuff, but I do have to shout loud when it becomes a legal danger to my work. Life gives us these things to teach us, make us fitter, smarter, stronger and wiser. I am trying to do my best with this but sometimes it gets tough!
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It is a shame to see his talent wasted on personal attacks. I’m a huge Shirley Collins fan, and on one of my last radio shows I was guided to play a song off an album of hers I hadn’t listed to much, “Adieu to Old England”. Turns out the song had RJ playing psaltery. I felt a real magical transmission from the song. Being a folk music buff his work exploring the Underworld tradition via the ballads really spoke to me. But again, what he synthesized into an original work, came down through the folk tradition, just as the inner worlds are available are part of a tradition. The way a writer expresses these traditions can be their own, and your way is certainly your own. The unfortunate thing outside of you having to deal with this, is it becomes harder to separate the work from the man, and after I learned of these attacks I had to set the books of his I had acquired aside for the time being. Still, there is some useful material in them, even if his vision scripts are overly detailed and long!
Hang in there.
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My web streams lately have become full of news reports, blogs, etc about women who have decided that ignoring all the harassment with which they have been silently putting up for years isn’t helping. And while standing up for themselves isn’t necessarily immediately solving their personal harassment issues, it IS bringing more support and resulting in others taking actions. A recent (and relatively mild, compared to some I’ve seen) incident was a bullying attack on a well-known (in her genres) author by someone who works at her own publisher! Her response is worth reading because it addresses the psychological toll these attacks take on someone even if they are consciously shrugging them off:
“And this is the part that I feel I should draw attention to — I was “mostly” laughing. I was also having mild stress reactions. Dry sweats, elevated heart rate. I was ready to shrug them off as, “Meh, doesn’t materially affect me. I’ve seen worse.”
Until someone pointed it out that I was basically saying, “I’m inured to being abused, because I was abused for years.” ”
http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/useful-representative-example/
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HI Betty, thankyou for the link, and it most certainly is worth reading. And it is astonishing what a toll this sort of thing can take on your health and well being in general. I have been overwhelmed by the amount of women who have messaged me to say that they too have suffered long term bullying abuse of this manner from a magical partner and that my speaking out has encouraged them to not take it lying down. It was humbling to see how many women have to go through this sort of shit and who still solider on.
You are right, the ignoring it is not a good solution, and these are difficult issues to resolve but I do hope that with common sense and perseverance, this will die a death finally. I also think it is important for my daughters sake, to make this stand, as they have watched me struggle with this for years. It is important as young women that they see older women not allowing this sort of behaviour to persist. It gives them a framework to address similar situations for themselves.
x
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I do not know who RJ Stewart is – or of any of his work – but you, Josephine, are a legend!
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oh goodness Monica, I think the only thing I will ever be legend for is being obnoxious!! But thankyou for your wonderful words x
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This is indeed an unfortunate situation, and speaks poorly of the kind of person who seems to not be practicing the things he preaches (from what I’ve read in his books).
I would like to say that Josephine has shown warmth, patience and caring — alongside her down-to-earth humor, of course — in her interactions with me. That and her lack of self-aggrandizement speak for themselves, and don’t indicate to me the kind of person who’d be a plagiarist out to build a reputation based on someone else’s work.
Hang in there, Jo!
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Thankyou for your kind words Jason x
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It is sad that this is still going on. Egos are horrible masters/monsters. I wish you the best. You have, and will always have, my support and appreciation for your writing, honesty, service and kindness.
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Thankyou Julie… and yes egos are horrible monsters..it is all such a shame and a waste. Jx
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By their works shall ye know them. Any spiritual path worth it’s salt should be a path that changes you both inside and out into a better a better person, a conduit for the inner into the outer in my own humble opinion. What he is doing, and has continued to do is just wrong on so many levels. On the level of a normal human it is petty and vindictive, almost narcissistic. On the level of a teacher, well its just another piss poor example of do as I say and not as I do. His teachings may be valid as you say, but his actions obviously don’t convey any internalization of his own teachings which in turn take away from the validity of said teachings. Light, no matter its clarity and brightness is only as bright as the filters and lenses it goes through.
What you have gone through, and are going through is an abuse of perceived power. Perpetrated by male or female, onto another sex or their own is uncalled for, especially in someone who is supposed to be a teacher. It is something way too common in modern society, some say even a symptom of the Kali Yuga. As people who live a path that takes us to the inner, that transforms us into hopefully better people we should be living examples of the teachings we follow and practices we perform. If we are to portray true magic as more than cheap psychobable masturbation, and ego flattery we should be living examples of our path. But thankfully the inner only poor water into tainted vessels for so long before the flow is cut off.
While I may not know you personally, your teachings and actions speak volumes. From what you have shared both here, and in your books and interviews speak for themselves. You have handled yourself with integrity and honor, even with your back against the wall protecting your family and children you have not lowered yourself to his standard but held yourself to a higher one. Even though in today’s world of instant gratification both magical and mundane, you have not lowerred yourself by magical retaliation which so many do.
Your teachings speak volumes, and are the first in a long time that have spoken to me. So often reading your materials you have put into words thoughts and suspicions and theories I have had over the years, both privately and in private conversation with another practitioner of similar path.
I pray the Gods and Goddesses continue to keep watch over you and yours, strengthen you and give you the resolve to keep going.
Keep up the good work, I for one am in your corner and will continue to support you and follow your teachings as long as the Fates have allotted my span on this Earth to be.
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Thankyou Jason, I was very moved by your post. It is very hard and will probably continue to be very hard for a while, but I am determined not to buckle to this no matter what. Someone somewhere has to stop this sort of behaviour in the magical community, I would have no right to call myself a teacher or magician if I allowed this sort of thing to continue unchecked. There is no need to involve magical action in this sort of nastiness; the truth being protected and spoken is far more powerful. So thankyou, from the bottom on my heart.
Josephine
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Dear Josephine,
In the interests of truth I feel a need to comment here as someone who knew both you and R J Stewart when you first got together in Malmesbury. While it is true that R J Stewart had been trained in Qabalah by Bill Gray way back along it was my experience that his renewed interest in the Qabalah was as a result of his contact with you. I am clear that the work that subsequently developed into the Inner Temples etc came out of the two of you as a partnership. I feel as you yourself have commented that he is attempting to own aspects of the inner tradition not simply his own creative expression nor is he apparently able to acknowledge your contribution.
It is a great shame that he is not able to do this and as you say this absence of integrity and obsessiveness can only harm his own work. I feel it is important to offer support to you in this situation particularly as I was friends with both of you in those days. I have had no contact with either of you for a considerable period of years but have remained aware of your separate work which seems to me to have its own distinctiveness. There are obvious parallels and similarities as both of you are drawing on the Qabalah but it is equally clear that your work arises out of your own independent creativity.
I am sorry that you are once again coming under attack
sincere good wishes
Ian Rees
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Dear Ian,
My goodness, talk about a blast from the past! Thankyou for your kind words, I know it will not have been easy for you to write this. What is so sad about this is the talent and the intelligence of Bob becomes obscured in this mess, and as a result his work can only suffer. The whole thing is a sorry state indeed.
Thankyou for touching base! I often wondered what had happened to you. will be in touch.
Josephine
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This is a kind of obsessive blindness that happens at some level to many women having left relationships, especially when they’ve outgrown the partner. It’s unfortunate to have hooked up with one that must have the last word no matter how long it takes. You have my sympathy. Defamation in writing must be a crime?
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Hi Gael, yes, it is unfortunate. Defamation laws in the UK are not easy to navigate and are very expensive. It is also a large drain on ones focus of attention. I have made my position clear, so that those who stumble across his obsessive nastiness can see another side without it devolving down to a petty spat. RJ Stewart is very litigious in general, and if he had a leg to stand on legally, he would have sued years ago. But he doesn’t, so he just slings mud in the hope that some will stick. Pretty pathetic really, particularly for a so called ‘spiritual teacher’.
I find it all very sad. It devalues and insults all the work we did as a partnership, and he is doing himself and his work a great deal of damage with this, and yet he does not seem to be aware of that.
J
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