Note to update: the addresses and phone numbers in these issues of the Thelema Lodge Calendars are obsolete since the closing of the Lodge. They are here for historic purposes only and should not be visited or called.
Thelema Lodge
Ordo Templi Orientis
P.O.Box 2303
Berkeley, CA 94702 USA
November 1989 e.v. at Thelema Lodge
Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers
12/1: | Liber 418: ZEN(18) | |
12/2: | Liber 418: TAN(17), LEA(16) | |
12/3: | Gnostic Mass 8 pm | |
Liber 418: OXO(15), UTA(14) | ||
12/4: | Liber 418: ZIM(13), LOE(12) | |
12/5: | Lodgemeeting 8 pm | |
Liber 418: LOE(12), ICH(11) | ||
12/6: | Liber 418: ZAX(10) | |
12/7: | Liber 418: ZIP(9) | |
12/8: | Liber 418: ZID(8) | |
12/9: | Liber 418: DEO(7) | |
12/10: | Gnostic Mass 8 pm | |
Liber 418: MAZ(6) | ||
12/12: | Liber 418: LIT(5) | |
12/13: | Liber 418: LIT(5) | |
12/16: | Liber 418: PAZ(4) | |
12/17: | Gnostic Mass 8 pm | |
Liber 418: ZOM(3) | ||
12/18: | Liber 418: ARN(2) | |
12/19: | Enochiana w/Dave 8:30 | |
Liber 418: LIL(1) | ||
12/20: | Liber 418: ARN(2) | |
12/21: | WINTER SOLSTICE | |
12/23: | (secret mtg.) | |
12/24: | Gnostic Mass 8 pm | |
12/27: | Qabalah series begins with Bill, 8 pm | |
12/31: | Capricorn B-Day Bash 4:18 | |
Gnostic Mass 8 pm | ||
1/2/90: | Lodgemeeting 8 pm | |
1/11: | William James' Birthday |
Common Values
"Tabloid television" is becoming the foremost weapon in the arsenal of
the anti-occult propagandist. Last Halloween I caught glimpses of a talk-show
dialogue between Christians and occultists. Viewed even in glimpses, there
was no denying what kind of picture was being painted. The Christian
fundamentalists had calmly and reasonably exposed the "Satanic conspirators"
as being vile animals. From what I have heard, this is typical of television
"investigation" into the occult.
There are certain obvious factors which contribute to the trend. Many of
these shows demonstrate blatant bias against occultism, either by their choice
of who represents each side, the attitude of the moderator, or both. But even
if television journalists somehow attempt to maintain a neutral perspective,
the quick and superficial nature of the medium itself tends to support pre-
established patterns of thought. The time necessary to consider a different
point of view in any substantial way is not available in a half-hour panel or
five minute news feature.
But the most significant weakness that the occult spokesmen displayed was
their complete failure to understand the nature of what was at stake.
Fundamentalists, before firing the first shot, took the time to develop a
strategy. It is time for pagans and members of other minority religions to
take measures to counteract that strategy.
Who do the fundamentalists want to influence? Their own need no
convincing, and they certainly aren't trying to reach occultists. Their task
is to convince the secular public -- parents, civic leaders, voters -- that
occultism is as much a threat to the American way of life as it is to the
Christian. Their job is aided by the fact that many of our secular values
have been developed from Christian values, and most Americans do not take the
time to distinguish between them. So the line of attack rests mainly on those
issues which are of common concern to all, Christian and non-Christian alike:
violence, kidnapping, and other forms of predatory behavior. Fundamentalists
know that to base their arguments on scriptural or doctrinal grounds (which is
the actual motivation for these attacks in most cases) would tend to alienate
them from a secular audience.
Once accused, what is the occultist to do? The approach that I have seen
utilized has plainly not worked: instead of dealing with the charges of
violence directly, occultists have chosen to expound upon those topics which
are of foremost value to other occultists. Naturally, occultists are going to
value the occult. In their own ears, the issues of expansion of
consciousness, universal human liberty, and the casting-off of conditioned
illusion ring of such importance that accusations of murder and child
molestation are banished from their minds. But to the secular ear this all
sounds like psycho-babble.
The public doesn't want to hear about the occult. The reason that some
matters are "occult," (meaning "hidden") is not because anyone is hiding them.
The mysteries are open to anyone who inquires with sincerity and
determination. But because there is no immediate personal pay-off, no one goes through the effort to penetrate the mysteries unless they have some
strong intuitive reason for doing so.
The accusation has been made. The first task of the accused is obvious.
It is simply to declare and demonstrate that we share in those values which
are essential to the peaceful co-existence of free individuals in a secular
society. Specifically:
Occultists do not support murder.
Occultists do not support the harming of children.
Occultists do not support theft or violence against innocent people.
Christians, occultists, and the secular public are all potential victims
of violent and predatory persons. No one wants to be a victim.
There have been predators that have called themselves Christians. There
have been predators that have called themselves occultists. There were
predators long before these terms existed. We all empathize with their
victims simply by being human. There are those who would point at Richard
Rameriz and say: occultists are predators. Others would point at Jim Jones or
Innocent III and say: Christians are predators. Those who make
generalizations of this kind themselves partake of the nature of predators,
and deserve our disdain.
Surprisingly enough, elements of the secular public are already helping
to set the record straight. The Committee for Scientific Examination of
Religion has published a report, Satanism in America, which details the
history and sources of anti-occult hysteria with remarkable thoroughness. To
obtain a copy for yourself, your parents, or your local police department, it
is available from GAIA PRESS, P.O. Box 466, El Cerrito, CA 94530-0466. Make
checks payable to Dr. Shawn Carlson.
And when someone asks you, "mutilate any cattle lately?" Just say no.
(to Arthur Machen)
Are but mortal and can not see | |
Nor know what demons lie between | |
Where misty columns soar unseen | |
To mark the space where witches roam | |
While warlocks form their lines to comb | |
Each nook where human might be screened | |
And finding one, out march each fiend | |
With grisley token of the hunt | |
To cast it by the altar front | |
Where stand the mouthing Druid priests | |
Whose forms are those of hellish beasts. | |
Here's some superficially unrelated news.
The October 22nd issue of the Jehovah's Witnesses Awake! magazine has
published a bogus account about Crowley and O.T.O. I quote from page 6: "In
1905, in Los Angeles, California, Crowley organized a Satanism group named
'Ordo Templi Orientis.'" Of course, in 1905 e.v., Crowley had never heard of
O.T.O. O.T.O. was set up in Southern California by W.T.Smith in 1935 e.v.
That's off by 30 years and one human being. Aside from that, Crowley didn't
start O.T.O. O.T.O. has never been Satanist and neither was Crowley a "devil
worshiper." There's more of course.
The Linden LaRouche organization has a major front in Livermore California,
called the Schiller Institute. The organization newsletter, The New
Federalist has been running a campaign against O.T.O., the unrelated Temple
of Set and other new age groups for several issues now. Apparently LaRouche
has come to the conclusion that O.T.O. got him busted through our well known
"front organization", the F.B.I. This obscure belief has led to quite
remarkable statements, and may get worse. D. Core is a spokes person for this
organization, mainly in England but also in the USA. Harmless information
provided to the Schiller Institute has surfaced in a newspaper attack against the O.T.O. in England, thus establishing the existence of the pipe-line. That
information was a city name in Marin, provided to the front organization for
tracing purposes. We have therefore identified a tie between the LaRouche
group at Livermore and the publicity campaign in England against Satanism (so-called). During a year of bogus attack publicity in the British press, a
substantial independent occult shop in Leeds was subjected to riots and
disruptions of operations. Report has just been received that that shop, the
Sorcerer's Apprentice, has been fire bombed by Christian radicals. It has
been a cry of Samhain for many years: "Never again the burning". I regret to
say that the burning times have come again.
I suggest that certain Wicca organizations would better serve themselves
and the rest of the combustible occult community by reevaluating their
approach to occult crime publicity. There is a faction in Wicca, by no means
the majority, which has sought to identify non-Wicca as potential or actual
"criminal Satanists". A recent publication titled Witchcraft, Satanism and
Ritual Crime: Who's Who and What's What has been offered for sale by the
highly respected Green Egg magazine out of Ukiah. By and large, this is a
noble and worthwhile effort. Unfortunately, the publication contains a
glossary of occult symbols that bears all the signs of becoming a new age
Malleus Maleficarum or handbook on approved persecution. Rank on rank of
symbols are displayed and briefly discussed as being ok or evil. That dead
horse the inverted Calvary Cross is there as a devil worshipper device, with
no note to the effect that it's known as the "Cross of Peter" in the Roman
Catholic Church (a symbol of the martyrdom of the Apostle). The inverted
pentagram, especially if circled, is a devilish emblem of evil --- something
of a shock to the Co-masonic Eastern Star organization which uses it as their
chief symbol. The eye in the triangle is gently identified as coming from the
Illuminati, but no mention is made of over a thousand years of Christian usage
of that very symbol for the Divine Trinity. And so on ... Fear is the tool
of the oppressor. Panic is the mortise it cuts in the gallows tree. Let's
not allow ourselves to be tamed into dogs to tear down the innocent. Remember
instead the lesson of Quisling's accommodation with that fellow who perverted
the swastika into a shadow across Norway in WWII. It's time to knock off
volunteering other people's virgins for the dragon. Once used to such fare he
will turn and rend all the children of the Lady.
With apology for bent feelings and mixed metaphor,
N.O.X. and M.A.A.T. are names of Greek and Egyptian deities. The use of
periods after letters is misleading. Crowley adopted this practice for most
"formulas". It is an indication that each letter is significant, but not an
indication that the words so marked are always standard abbreviations. Thus,
Nox, night, the daughter of the Greek god Chaos (C.H.A.O.S. --- shall we say?)
might be analyzed in a number of ways by Hebrew and other letter
correspondences. Crowley details some visions and the like about NOX in
Vision and the Voice, including footnotes; but there is no great redaction
of the meanings of the letters there. He uses an "X" over a circle both as a monogram for NOX and a symbol for heterosexual coitus (not as the "Mark of the
Beast" as Grant sometimes suggests for this symbol and for the "+" in a
circle). As a formula, NOX is usually identified with arousal of a primal
drive, fear of death or injury, sexual excitement, that sort of thing. In his
Confessions, Crowley describes the practice of "glissading" whereby he would
slide down a snow field or glacier and stop himself at the last moment with an
ice axe before going off the edge to certain death. This method tended to get
him stoned on adrenaline. He broadens the practice with NOX to include any
fearful meditation for the purpose of arousal, and his poetry and ritual is
filled with frightful oaths and terrifying fantasies as an adjunct to arousing
the necessary energies. NOX is therefore a sort of variant on the IAO formula
detailed in Magick in Theory and Practice. In IAO, a delightful image
(I=Isis) passes through ennui (A=Apophis) to rebirth in greater strength
(O=Osiris). In NOX, the same pattern flows as N=Nightmare vision,
O="O"ppalling dark night of the soul, X=eXcitement. --- the play on initials
is not Crowley's, but conveys the idea. Liber VII is structured along the
lines of repeated cycles of a similar sort. Crowley's use of childhood fears
in his application of the NOX formula in his ritual and poetry accounts for
some of the "devilish" appearance of his writings.
M.A.A.T. is more Frater Achad's trip than Crowley's. Crowley did have some
interest in the word/formula, actually the name of the Egyptian double plumed
goddess of Truth; but this formula is no where near as important in his
writings as N.O.X. Crowley mainly used it as a token of revelation to come
and a seal of sorts of the validity of some visions. Achad used it to
separate himself from Crowley, proclaiming a new Aeon of MAAT that was
supposed to be more sexually balanced than Crowley's Aeon of Horus.
1 | LIL | I | ![]() ![]() ![]() | 16 | LEA | XVI | ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
2 | ARN | II | ![]() ![]() ![]() | 17 | TAN | XVII | ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
3 | ZOM | III | ![]() ![]() ![]() | 18 | ZEN | XVIII | ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
4 | PAZ | IV | ![]() ![]() ![]() | 19 | POP | XIX | ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
5 | LIT | V | ![]() ![]() ![]() | 20 | KHR | XX | ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
6 | MAZ | VI | ![]() ![]() ![]() | 21 | ASP | XXI | ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
7 | DEO | VII | ![]() ![]() ![]() | 22 | LIN | XXII | ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
8 | ZID | VIII | ![]() ![]() ![]() | 23 | TOR | XXIII | ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
9 | ZIP | IX | ![]() ![]() ![]() | 24 | NIA | XXIV | ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
10 | ZAX | X | ![]() ![]() ![]() | 25 | VTI | XXV | ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
11 | ICH | XI | ![]() ![]() ![]() | 26 | DES | XXVI | ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
12 | LOE | XII | ![]() ![]() ![]() | 27 | ZAA | XXVII | ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
13 | ZIM | XIII | ![]() ![]() ![]() | 28 | BAG | XXVIII | ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
14 | UTA | XIV | ![]() ![]() ![]() | 29 | RII | XXIX | ![]() ![]() ![]() | |||||
15 | OXO | XV | ![]() ![]() ![]() | 30 | TEX | XXX | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
THE CALL OR KEY OF THE THIRTY AETHYRS
A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF THE CONTENTS OF THE CALLS OF THE
THIRTY AIRES OR AETHYRS
Aethyr | ||
30. | "Exordium of the Equinox of the Gods." | |
29. | "The Disruption of the Aeon of Osiris." | |
28. | "The Vision of the Dawn of the Aeon of Horus (Atu XVII)" | |
27. | "The Vision of the Initiation of Hecate (Atu XIV) The Redemption of the Woman of Witchcraft by Love." | |
26. | "The Slave-Gods superseded (The Vision of Atu XX, the Stele) The Vision of the Stele of Revealing, Abolishing the Aeon of the Slave-Gods." | |
25. | "The Path of Teth (Atu XI. The Fire-Kerub in the Initiation). The Vision of the Fruit of the Great Work of the Beast - 666. The Lion." | |
24. | "The Rose. (The Woman of Atu XIV. Minister of Babalon; The Water-Kerub in the Initiation.) The First Kiss of the Lady of Initiation." | |
23. | "The Kerubim of Earth and Air (Minor officers in the Initiation to 8° = 3 ![]() Interplay and Identity of Earth and Air." | |
22. | "The 49-fold Table (First appearance of the Crowned and Conquering Child to the Exempt Adept as in the Pastos) The Vision of the Rose, the Heart of BABALON and of The Birth of the Universe." | |
21. | "Kether. (The Hierophant prepares the Candidate) The Vision of the Ineluctable Destiny." | |
20. | "The Path of Kaph (Atu X). The Hiereus prepares the Candidate). The Vision of the Wheel of Fortune. The Three Energies of the Universe." | |
19. | "The Path of Gimel (The Hegemone between the Pillars. Preliminary: The Vision of the Unguided Universe.)" | |
18. | "Tiphereth. (The King's Chamber. The Vision of the Holy Guardian Angel.) The Instruction concerning the Obtaining of the Vision and the Voice of the Thirty Aethyrs. The Preparation of the Candidate." | |
17. | "The Path of Lamed. (The combination Gimel, Lamed, Samech.) The Vision of the Justice or Balance of the Universe." | |
16. | "Kether. (Path of Pe) The Overthrow of the Slave-Gods by The Beast 666." | |
15. | "The Vision of the Rose of 49 Petals, and of the Holy 12-fold Table. Examination of the Candidate for M.T." | |
14. | "The Vision of the City of the Pyramids. The Reception of the Master of the Temple." | |
13. | "The Garden of Nemo. The Work of the Magister Templi." | |
12. | "The Path of Cheth. The Bearer of the Sangraal. The Black Brothers." | |
11. | "Yesod. The Frontier of the Abyss." | |
10. | "The Abyss. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | |
9. | "Malkuth. (The Pure Virgin.) The reward of the Magister Templi." | |
8. | "The Holy Guardian Angel. His instruction." | |
7. | "The Path of Daleth. The Black Brothers." | |
6. | "The Vision of the Urn. The Magus 9° = 2![]() The Three Schools of Magick." | |
5. | "The Vision of the Middle Pillar. (Arrow) The Mystery Of Atheism." | |
4. | "The Marriage of Yod and He. (The common Tibetan Symbol![]() The Seer identifies himself with it." | |
3. | "The Magus of the Tarot. (Atu I). Mayan, the Maker of Illusion. The Seer in Illusion (Lilith)." | |
2. | "The Marriage of the Seer with ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | |
1. | "The Vision of The Crowned and Conquering Child. The Lord Of the Aeon." |
Postscript
1. Or other Aire as may be willed.
2. This name may be appropriately varied with the Aire.
3. Or other Aire as may be willed.
4. This name may be appropriately varied with the Aire.
11/1/89 | Minerval initiations | Thelema Ldg | ||
11/3/89 | Eleusian Rite of Venus | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/5/89 | Gnostic Mass 8 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/6/89 | "Womyn's" Mass midnight | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/8/89 | Eleusian Rite of Mercury | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/12/89 | Gnostic Mass 8 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/13/89 | Eleusian Rite of Luna | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/14/89 | Thelema Lodge meeting 7:30 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/14/89 | Enochiana with Dave 8:30 (Approaching the Aethyrs Part 1) | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/14/89 | Liber 418 at 9:30 TEX(30) | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/16/89 | Lodge of Perfection | Private | ||
11/17/89 | Minerval initiations | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/18/89 | IIIrd Degree initiations | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/19/89 | Gnostic Mass 8 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/23/89 | "Secret Feasting" Potluck Sunset | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/25/89 | Ist and IInd Degree initiations | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/26/89 | Sagittarius Birthday Bash 4:18 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/26/89 | Gnostic Mass 8 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/27/89 | Rites '89 Repertory cast party 8PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/28/89 | St. William Blake's Feast 7 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
11/29/89 | Enochiana with Dave 8 (Approaching the Aethyrs Part 2) | Thelema Ldg. |
The viewpoints and opinions expressed herein are the responsibility of the
contributing authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of OTO or its
officers.
Note to update: the addresses and phone numbers in these issues of the Thelema Lodge Calendars are obsolete since the closing of the Lodge. They are here for historic purposes only and should not be visited or called.