A couple of posts down is this:
1) Phil's dad, Loris Barker, was a very big name in the German-American Bund in the late thirties, and had connections to the Silvershirts / Loyalty League organization. Phil did not have a good relationship with his father, and was very dismissive of him, his activities, and his beliefs. Phil's college notebooks, which I have photos of, are full of satirical references to his father and the organizations he belonged to.
2) Phil was a devoted prankster and hoaxer. He loved to demonstrate that he was smarter and more clever then any of the people around him, and then laugh at them when they didn;t get his jokes. An example of this is "Ebon Bindings", which he wrote after being told that he knew nothing about the esoteric and occult by three of his early gamers - these were all active in the then-infant occult scene in the Twin Cities, back in the middle 1970s. See also the history of Llewellen Publishing and the Bonewitz brothers, Ike and Doc. EB is the result of Phil going into his collection of medieval South Asian manuscripts, filing off the serial numbers, and publishing the thing. He was delighted when I told him that a congregation in Illinois had burned a copy of the book, thinking it was a real grimoire, as it meant that he'd hoodwinked the gullible.
3) Phil had a nasty habit of liking to push people's buttons and rattle their chains. Once he found what he thought was a weakness in somebody's personality, he'd play on that to influence and control that person. It is, Dave Arneson told me, one of the reasons why Dave lost interest in being Phil's publisher; Dave nominated Phil for Mike Stackpole's GAMA "Hall of Shame", and Phil got the award for "Most Difficult Author In the Game Industry" at an Origins in Detroit; I still have the 'Ralphie', the statuette that Phil got, as I had to get up and give the acceptance speech.
4) It is my position that "Serpent's Walk" has nothing to do with Phil's Tekumel; it is irrelevant to Tekumel, and to Tekumel's creation and development. It does shed a lot of light on Phil's sense of humor and how he dealt with people; he knew he was smarter and more clever then anyone else, and it's my perception - aided by my reading through Phil's letter files, after he passed away - that Phil was playing one of his involved pranks on Loris, his associates and their descendants. It also backfired on Phil very badly, as somebody in his inner circle of the time mentioned it in local fandom and Phil was 'outed' on the website of a local author.
5) When Dr. Inloes asked me about this book, I made these same points to her and apprised her of the outcry that broke out when some of Phil's collection came up for auction. It was my opinion then and now that Tekumel doesn't need to get involved in the discussions over this book, as it was not relevant to Tekumel. I did not 'censor' her paper, nor did I 'edit' it; I gave her my opinion, and she moved on from there. Her views are different then mine, and I welcome her perspectives on Phil and his creation.
6) People may recall the heated discussions that have been going on over the writings of H. P. Lovecraft and R. E. Howard; if we want to look at this as a teaching moment and a springboard for civil discussion, I am all for that. I had, and still have, parts of my extended family on both sides of the Eastern Front as well as on other Allied fronts. The Shoah is a personal matter for our family, and we use what we know as a teaching moment.
