Thelema Lodge Calendar for September 1991 e.v.

Thelema Lodge Calendar

for September 1991 e.v.

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.

Thelema Lodge
Ordo Templi Orientis
P.O.Box 2303
Berkeley, CA 94702 USA

September 1991 e.v. at Thelema Lodge

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers

Cerimonia Equinocti

Greetings of the Autumnal Equinox, mid-point of the eighty-seventh year of the New Aeon. Sol enters Libra at 5:48 AM on Monday 23 September. (Luna, in opposition, will be full in Aries that day at 2:56 PM as the Harvest Moon.) At the Equinox, an equilibrium is achieved in the fraternal contest of the year, from which the strength of Set gradually emerges toward a temporary triumph over his brother Horus. The point of the balance of LVX and NOX is a time for Thelemites to examine and reaffirm themselves, and also their cooperative enterprises in the Great Work. Thelema Lodge will gather on Monday evening 23 September at 8:00 in Horus Temple for a celebration, with a ritual organized by Frater Majnun. "I have performed the Rite of Union with Him according to the Ancient Manner, and I know the Word that shall rule the Semester." (Crowley, Liber Aleph, chapter 113.)

Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica

Gnostic Mass is celebrated in Horus Temple at Thelema Lodge on Sunday evenings, beginning at nightfall (currently about 8:00 PM). Our Mass is a public communion rite, open to all who wish to participate. (Please call ahead to attend: 654-3580.) As Crowley observed more than fifty years ago, meditating upon the goddess Nuit in his commentary on Liber AL I:62, "It is evident that Our Lady, in her Personality, contemplates some more or less open form of worship suited for the laity. With the establishment of the Law something of this sort may become possible. It is only necessary to kill out the sense of 'sin', with its false shame and its fear of nature . . . . The Gnostic Mass is intended to supply this need. Liber XV. It has been said continuously in California for some years." Jane Wolfe, who traveled from California to study with Crowley in Sicily, brought the living performance tradition of the Gnostic Mass from the Abbey of Thelema to Agape Lodge in Pasadena, from whence it was perpetuated at Thelema Lodge by Grady McMurtry.

Most of our September masses are scheduled to follow Crowley's Liber XV text, but on 29 September an experimental gnostic mass will be celebrated, incorporating passages from ancient gnostic documents (unknown in 1913 e.v. when the mass was last re-written) including the Nag Hammadi text Thunder (Perfect Mind).

Horus Temple also offers a monthly Mass Workshop, open to all who have questions or observations concerning the E.G.C. ritual, or Gnosticism in general. It's conducted by presiding Bishop T. Suleiman in the temple on Sunday afternoon 22 September at 4:18.

Mysteria Mystica Maxima

Initiations into Ordo Templi Orientis are conducted every month under the aegis of Thelema Lodge, and are next scheduled for Saturday 21 September in the afternoon and evening. In order to attend, members should arrange beforehand to know the degrees to be worked, and also the times and locations involved. Applications are accepted by the Lodgemaster at least forty days in advance; forms may be obtained from any lodge officer. Please remember that sponsors are not to sign the form until the candidate has contacted the Lodgemaster to discuss the proposed initiation, its dues and date, any requirements, and the proposed sponsorship. Contact Jerry Cornelius at 658-3280.

Active initiates of the Order are encouraged to attend initiation ceremonies for their grades as regularly as possible. This is especially important as the initiate contemplates advancement. To review the secrets of your degree, come to Marlene's "Signs, Grips, and Words" class, offered at the lodge on Tuesday evening 3 September at 8:00. (If you miss it, consult the advance-notice page for the next meeting, in mid-October.)

The lodge now offers two regular curriculum classes, one for Minerval members and one for initiates of the First Degree. Members of the Man of Earth degrees may consult Liber MCLI (of which copies are available at the lodge), and their sponsors, for guidance regarding the regular work of their grade and the expectations for advancement beyond it. Frater Shaitan's Minerval Degree Instructional Class is held on Wednesday evening 18 September at 8:00 at the lodge. Brother Jeff of Hypatia Camp will be available at the lodge to offer guidance in the First Degree Curriculum on Thursday evening 12 September at 8:00.Collegium Fraternitatis

Thelema Lodge offers a variety of classes and reading groups every month, and these are free and open to the public. Donations are needed at these events; please contribute whatever possible toward the maintenance of the lodge premises. Before setting forth to attend any event listed, call the lodge (or an alternate number if provided) for confirmation. Members and friends of Thelema Lodge may list their events, provided they are local, open, and free. To propose an event, come to our monthly lodgemeeting, or talk ahead of time with any of the lodge officers.

Brother Mark S. will begin a series of classes on planetary magick and invocation, with the first meeting on Wednesday evening 25 September at the lodge. Mercury will be the focus of this meeting, with class beginning at 7:00 and invocation approximately an hour later. A series of eight meetings is anticipated, with two for Luna (new and full), and one for each of the other classical planets. Cornelius Agrippa's system will provide the starting point, with the innovations of the Golden Dawn and of Crowley's work emphasized. Note well that Enochian elemental keys one through six will be used during the planetary invocations. A second meeting is scheduled for Monday evening 7 October, with a focus on the new moon in Libra.

Frater Majnun's "Magik Without Aleister" series gets underway on Monday evening 30 September at Thelema Lodge, starting at 8:00. This group provides a forum for discussion of alternative magical traditions which have not thus far dominated the Thelemic heritage. A second meeting follows in one month, on Wednesday evening 30 October.

Jerry's "Logorrhea" and "Videorhea" continue in the evenings on Saturdays twice monthly, starting at 6:30. The Lodgemaster will usually present selections from his extensive collection of odd and occult videos on the second Saturday of each month, and deliver an informal lecture on the fourth Saturday. Call ahead with questions about the content of these events, and for word of their location. The "Videorhea" show for 14 September will be organized around the wiccan tradition, with "a lot of different strange witchcraft films", including footage of Alex Sanders, Margot Adler, Janet & Stewart Farrar, and Herman Slater. "Bring your own popcorn!"

Drax presents two Tuesday evenings on "Book Four Astral Travel." On 10 September, part one: "How To Get There," starting at 9:00 at Thelema Lodge. A week later, part two: "What To Do When You Get There," on Tuesday evening 17 September, also at 9:00. See Drax at the lodge for details.

The Thelema Lodge Magick in Theory and Practice Study Circle meets with Marlene on Thursday evenings 5 September and 26 September at 8:00 in Horus Temple to read and discuss MTP. Recent meetings have been working with the rituals in the "Practice" section of the book. One of Crowley's most suspicious admirers, Dion Fortune (of the Society Of Inner Light), made this careful recommendation of the book Magick to her disciples: "Only the advanced student could use it with profit. It is very uneven in its literary quality, contains much grossness and ribaldry, like all of Crowley's writings, and much of it is deliberately obscure and allusive." She counted in horror the number of the knocks in the invocations, warning that "eleven is the number of the Qlipoth, or Evil Sephiroth; a battery of eleven, therefore, is an invocation of the Qliphoth. No hint is given of this in the text, and it is an ugly trap for the unwary student." (Applied Magic)

The Magick Theater reads Aleister Crowley's one-act drama The Saviour on Tuesday evening 24 September, beginning at 7:30. Written in New York during the summer of 1915 e.v., this is one of his greatest achievements in theatrical writing, and was actually intended for a stage production by director Morris Brown (never realized). It's a tightly plotted and carefully finished script, oddly reminiscent of the old Star Trek episodes. Hysteria grips the Council of Elders, under siege in the quintessentially European city of Blabre, and in the crisis they ignore the advice of their Fool, being persuaded by the local Prophet to accept instead the long-promised "Saviour". It all turns out rather badly . . . Copies of this scarce work (newly edited) will be available for readers and listeners. Location for the reading remains to be arranged; call the Theater at 530-3923, or watch for posting at the lodge a week ahead.

Thelema Lodge Bellydancing will be gathering force again this autumn. Classes are held in Horus Temple on most Monday afternoons from 5:30 to 7:30. Always call ahead to confirm this class with Faye or Terri.

Conventi

Lodgemeetings are held monthly, usually on the penultimate (next-to-last) Monday evening, at 8:00 in Horus Temple. Lodgemeeting in September is advanced to the antepenultimate (next-to-next-to-last) Monday, 16 September, due to Equinox festivities the following week. Meetings deal with lodge business and events planned for the two ensuing months, including classes, parties, rituals, and gnostic masses. Meetings are open to all members interested in supporting the Order's oldest continuously operating lodge.

The Lodge of Perfection meets privately on Thursday evening 19 September. Members of this group should consult their fellows for details.

The Thelema Lodge Ladies' T-- is back! Drop by on Monday afternoon 9 September, beginning at 5:30, for T-- and secrets, just like old times.

Lodge Clean-Up day is Sunday 15 September, beginning at 1:11. All welcome to lend a hand in sweeping the place out, chipping off last week's candle-drippings, and perhaps carting away some of the wonderful trash building up out back.

For those born under the beams of the balance we'll have cake at the Libra Birthday party on Sunday 29 September around 4:18.

Speaking of Librians, next month includes some very important birthdays, with Crowleymass on the 12th, and the lesser feasts of Jack Parsons (2 October) and Grady McMurtry (18 October) as well. Masses and classes continue; see the advance calendar in this issue for dates.

Love is the law, love under will.

from the Grady Project:

Outward Bound!

We live in glory, outward bound!

Bound for the stars' immensity.

We soar above the Earth so round

On jets of flaming tensity.

    In atmosphere

    Celestial sphere,

Or deepest stellar ocean,

We'll stride the skyways on the blast

Of nuclear implosion.

Our ranging cruisers ride the wind

Of space's dark umbration.

We loft them high, there to defend

Our homes and Freedom's Nation.

    On guard we stand

    Above our land

To guide our missile's motion,

And pledge our honor to the last

Full measure of devotion.

-- Major Grady L. McMurtry

11/5/51

[Previously published in The Grady Project #2 (December 1987 e.v.). During the early 1950s, Grady drafted some marching music for this poem and proposed it to the United States Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps for their official song.]

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Crowley Classics

The Great Drug Delusion

By a New York Specialist

[Aleister Crowley]

This essay originally appeared in The English Review, vol. XXXIV (London: June 1922 e.v.).

Professor Freud and M. Emile Coue have both pointed out, in similar language, despite their different techniques, the same fact about the identity of fear and fascination. It is a commonplace in the daily observation of the practicing psychologist. As soon as an obstacle is realized as such, we make frantic efforts to avoid it, with the result that we bump into it. Psychical impotence is in the experience of most men; it is the same thing in terms of another problem.

Now the present craze for taking "habit-forming drugs" (so-called) and the suggested remedies, are closely bound up with this curious phenomenon. The will behaves like a mule, and the imagination like a bird in the presence of a serpent.

In the spring of 1914 I had occasion to study the effects of cocaine. As it happened, I had access to all the "fast" or "Bohemian" sets in London. I went through them with a tooth- comb; and in three months managed to discover two girls who were indulging in that drug to a deleterious extent. Today, one might almost say that no tea-party is complete without it.

My investigations were cut short by the war; I was obliged to return to the United States. I had therefore no opportunity of observing the cause of the change. My English colleagues, however, attribute the present situation to two main factors: (a) the widespread outbreak of psychoses and neuroses due to public anxiety and stress, and the consequent demand for something that would dull the nerves; (b) the D.O.R.A. restrictions on the sale of liquor. I agree that both these factors were potent; they square with our own experience in America. There drug-habits have been common for many years; for the people of the United States are naturally afflicted with the nervous diathesis. This is due partly to the climate, which is electrically charged in a way which Europeans cannot possibly understand until they have tried it, and partly to the fact that education is so widespread that the people demand art, literature, and music, which things are denied to them by the benevolence of the spiritual heirs of Cotton Mather. No other hypothesis even attempts to explain the Yellow Press, the dancing manias, the crazed search for amusement--and the resort to the waters of Lethe, beginning with cocktails and ending with cocaine.

But prohibition, ineffective as it is, has intensified the demand for drugs; and I an therefore ready to believe that war-time restrictions on the sale of liquor produced a parallel result in England. I note in passing that the prohibition of absinthe in France has resulted in the manufacture of substitutes, some of which will actually eat their way through a marble table.

There is, however, a third factor to be considered; and, without going over frankly to the theories of Nancy, the Salpetriere, Vienna, and Zurich, it may well be that it is the most important of all. This factor is the nauseating form of publicity given by the newspapers--some even of those which should know better--to the matter. Indulgence in drugs is described with an unholy leer; it is connected lewdly with sexual aberrations; and the reprobation with which the writers smear their nastiness is obviously hypocrisy of the most oily and venal type. The object is to sell the paper by making people's flesh creep, like the Fat Boy in Pickwick.

Now there is in such articles--which began, I regret to say, with a not uninteresting novel called Felix, by Mr. Robert Hichens--what Baudouin calls a pernicious suggestion. The reader is invited to gloat on the forbidden fruit. But even worse, from this point of view, is the unanimous assertion that once anybody starts to take a "drug" he cannot possibly stop of his own free will, and is only to be rescued at the cost of unutterable torments. Medical treatises on the subject, with no exception so far as I know, perpetuate this wicked libel on the divine prerogative of man to do what he wills, and, when he wills, to stop doing. Writers of fiction follow the evil precedent. The exception to this rule is The Hasheesh- Eater, by H. G. Ludlow, in which the author (who lived on the Hudson near Poughkeepsie) describes his addiction to that drug, and his cure by his unaided determination.

Such cases are, however, common enough; but the strong-minded never reach the clinic of the physician, and are consequently ignored by him.

There are, in fact, three main classes of men and women.

1. Afraid to experiment with anything, lest -----.

2. Enslaved by anything that appeals to them.

3. Able to use anything without damaging themselves.

I hesitate to admit either of the two former classes to the title of Freeman. Since the year of 1898 I have been principally occupied in studying the effects of various drugs upon the human organism, with special reference to the parallelisms between the psychical phenomena of drug-neuroses, insanities, and mystical illuminations. The main object has been to see whether it is possible to produce the indubitable useful (see William James, Varieties of Religious Experience) results of "ecstasy" in the laboratory. In pursuit of this laudable aim, I attempted to produce a "drug-habit" in myself. In vain. My wife literally nagged me about it: "Don't go out without your cocaine, sweetheart!" or "Did you remember to take your heroin before lunch, big boy?" I reached the stage where one takes a sniff of cocaine every five minutes or so all day long; but though I obtained definitely toxic results, I was always able to abandon the drug without a pang. These experiments simply confirmed the conclusion which I had already adopted, provisionally, on theoretical grounds: that busy people, interested in life and in their work, simply cannot find the time to keep on with a drug. As Baudelaire says: A perfect debauch requires perfect leisure. A prominent newspaper correspondent of my acquaintance has actually reached a stage where the privation of opium was torture to him. The stress of the war threw additional work on him; but instead of accentuating his need, it made it impossible for him to find the time to smoke. "Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do" is sound psychology. A colleague of my own, who participated in my experiments, found himself on several occasions "in the clutches of the drug-fiends." But those occasions were all characterised by one fact: he was, for external reasons, at a deadlock with his work. He had nothing to do but to think about the drug, and his mind was so flooded with "pernicious suggestions" that he could not stop it. Every trifling malaise was unhesitatingly attributed either to the effects of the drug or those of trying to stop it! Just so the young man who was reading Middlemarch fell down stairs and broke his leg--and blamed the law of gravity instead of George Eliot!

It is not contended here that the physiological theory of "toleration" is untrue. No doubt the nerves do, more or less, "shriek for their accustomed stimulus," as the foolish physician usually tells his victim--apparently with the hope of removing any traces of self- confidence or will-power that he may possess. But, within limits, an average brave and resolute man can arrange the details of his "cure," and carry them out with success. The nerves, too, can be fooled to some extent. A member of the Himalayan Expedition of 1902 has put it on record that when he was starved in respect of his sugar-ration he suffered the most intolerable tortures. The body agreed with him so far as to furnish almost continuous spasms of nausea and diarrhea. But on sweetening his tea with saccharine, the symptoms almost completely disappeared: the "suggestion" of sugar, although he knew it was only a suggestion, suffices to delude his physiological "Chorus of Troezenian Women."

Now if there be one thing certain in this complex world it is this: that moral maladies require moral therapeutics. The present system of "pernicious suggestion," backed by prohibition, which insults the free will and dignity of mankind, which offers princely opportunities to illicit traffic and blackmail, makes the situation worse every month.

In Harlem, a district of New York corresponding roughly to a combination of Bayswater and Brixton, there are, by police statistics, over 17,000 school children addicted to heroin. In this particular case the cause is simple enough. An enterprising firm of doubtless God- fearing chemical manufacturers sent out agents to distribute the drug gratis to the children. Having established the "habit," the agents next demanded an ever-increasing price, and when they had extracted the last mil from the tortured innocents, told them to steal, rob, and murder in order to get the "mazuma" for the "dope." (The "addict" is notoriously fertile in expedients for obtaining supplies of his drug.) Abominations of this sort are only possible when the course of nature is violently diverted by pious Puritans and profiteering policemen. Nobody troubled about the heroin when is was almost as easy and as cheap to buy as butter. Today, despite repressive legislation, there is an international industry making its many thousands per cent. on an enormous turnover, and occasionally throwing some peddling Jonah overboard when some brainless dancing girl happens to kill herself. What better could she do? And the police want "additional powers." Of course they do. They envy the Beckers of New York, the arbitrary irresponsible gangs of uniformed grafters, in league with every form of criminal, from the white slaver to the gambler and the gunman. If the people of England want to see their cities in the hands of petty tyranny patting the paunch of corruption, well and good, "strengthen the Act!" [Note: Our distinguished contributor may be pardoned for seeing our country through alien eyes. It is needless to say that the suggestion here made by him about the Metropolitan Police--certain ugly rumors with regard to the toleration of certain notorious establishments notwithstanding--is the wildest nonsense.--1922 e.v. Editor]

There has been so much delirious nonsense written about drugs that sane men may well despair of seeing the light.

But it ought to be obvious that if England reverted to pre-war conditions, when any responsible person (by signing his name in a book) could buy drugs at a fair profit on cost price, cocaine (say) at 16s. and heroin at 20s. the bottle of 10 grammes--instead of as many pounds--the whole underground traffic would disappear like a bad dream.

It is possible, perhaps even probable, that for a month or two there would be an increase in the number of fools who killed themselves in their folly, though personally I doubt it. But I have no shame in saying that, after a war in which we sent our sturdiest sons as sheep to the slaughter, we should not miss a few score wasters too stupid to know when to stop. Besides this, we see, on the one hand, that the people who want the drugs manage to get them in one way or another, at the cost of time, trouble, and money which might be used more wisely, and on the other that the infernal suggestions of the Press, and the vile venality of the villains attracted to the traffic by the immense profits, are deliberately creating new addicts every day of people who in the normal course of affairs would no more think of indulging in narcotics than a cat in a cold bath.

So much for the purely practical points of the position; but, deeper still, let me say as a Jeffersonian democrat, that I dread beyond all else the growth of the petty tyranny of restrictive legislation, the transference of disciplinary authority from the judiciary to the constabulary, the abandonment of every constitutional safeguard of individual liberty, the division of the people into the hunters and the hunted, the exaltation of the spy, the agent provocateur, and the blackmailer, the open adoption of the policy of sitting on the safety- valve, and the degradation of citizenship by applying physical repression to the evils whose only redress lies in moral development!

[1922 e.v. Editorial Note.--In the author's private clinic, patients are not treated for their "habit" at all. They are subjected to a process of moral reconstitution; as soon as this is accomplished, the drug is automatically forgotten. Cures of this sort are naturally permanent, whereas the possible suppression of the drug fails to remove the original causes of the habit, so that relapse is the rule.]

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From the Outbasket

Back in '69 & '70 e.v., when I had heard of OTO but didn't know where to find it, I used to make up aphorisms and precepts in my Magical Diary. In the notion that the practice is a useful one, I thought to give some here from that 21 year old Journal. These are not so much to make individual points or even to argue views I may no longer entirely hold, but rather to inspire or even horrify the reader into taking up the practice. Marcus Aurelius never really died, he lives on in a felt-tip!

Seriousness and laughter are the flame and the darkness; but I cannot tell which is flame and which is darkness.

"True greatness needs no praise." -- Great praise needs no truth.

Down with the autonomy-withdrawal syndrome!

Weltschmerz comes from not letting go of a hot coal.

Lebensmüde comes from too much sleep.

If we have a line to absolute truth, there is a god(dess) and we're him(her).

If we don't -- we don't.

In either case there is no great cause to sweat.

I fear to touch the world lest I hurt it -- and thus harm myself in the only way possible.

Sometimes I speak in a voice that commands instant attention and respect. The voice is that of one tired with all things -- that of one who has never met a real challenge and who has given up hope of meeting such. Why is this the voice people listen to?

To paraphrase Matisse; knowledge does not come from things, only from the differences of things.

I greatly prefer the right and wrong of the artist to the good and evil of the moralist.

I am an existential positivist with teleological leanings (Later, I came to just say "Thelemite").

-oOo-

Here's another sort of entry from the same time and source, for those who prefer to take longer breaths:

The Paths of the Dead.

In the simplest view the dead die forever and completely. The life of a man ends and with it ends all that matters of the man. No soul lingers, no memories, no shade, nothing.

The ancients found this view too painful to hold. They did not wish to die completely and forever -- at least not after so short a span as that of men. They dreamed of men who did not die, of men who lived much longer than other men -- some of these were named gods. But when too many ancient heroes become gods, the mortality of men is stressed rather than lessened. The gods were then able to confer immortality upon men of lesser stature -- thus there was a way for men to become deathless still.

This was not enough, for not many could merit the divine gift of immortality from the very human gods of those early days. It became necessary to devise some way and place for the many lesser men to remain after the deaths of their bodies. Ghosts were invented. They could live in trees, in stones, in hills. Or more simply, they could live in the places where they had always lived. They could go the same route they always went. Thus they could seem to die but yet live on.

This possibility seemed to help; but before long the world was crowded with spirits. There seemed to be no room for the living. Perhaps the spirits could fade away -- lose their form -- as they gradually forgot their memories. But this left them mortal again, able to die forever.

A new place to go was needed. Hades was invented. The strong spirits ... could dwell for a time of the earthly plane, but after (that) time all would sink into the earth even as did their bodies. The new dwelling place of the dead was not much -- just a place where the darkness of the deeps dwelt -- where the souls became shades. In time only enough alive were these shades to merit the term "existing". They seemed not to die forever but to live hardly at all.

This too was painful. A newer place had to be found for the departed. The stars seemed to form the outline of great forms in the heavens. These were held to be the shapes of the good and great who had died ... The small and evil could go to hell but the great and good could go to heaven.

Soon, however, there seemed to be too few stars in the sky for the many just who had died. And so, a place was formed in Hades for the remaining souls of the redeemed. The Elysian Fields were created. Here the great dead could stroll and discourse, could battle, love, and eat, even as they did in life. Or they could be cleansed of sorrows. They could be purged of faults and guilts. Perhaps some could emerge from the limbo of this purgatory and ascend into the high vault of heaven -- after they had forgotten their faults.

But again there seemed to be too few stars to shine for the many just. In addition, the view began to be held that the many stars were simply great flaming spheres, and that the Sun was only the greatest or perhaps the nearest of these. Although a flame may symbolize a life, it is not a life in the minds of most people. Thus another place had to be found for the great among the dead. When the souls of the departed forget all that they were, they effectively cease to be unless there exists a way to acquire new memories. Perhaps the dead went on living in a way. Perhaps they talked and labored enough to create new memories in the same manner as the living.

Even the old among the living seemed to fail in the end from a sameness of memories. There comes an end to newness which leads the mind down into shadows, and from these shadows there can be no awakening save by new experiences. So it is with the dead in their places. Just as the living run out of experiences and stagnate, so it is with the dead. ... This too was abhorrent to the ancients.

Only by returning back to life can the dead be granted more new experiences -- thus the concept of reincarnation appeared.

Reincarnation seems at first the panacea, but this concept will not bear up under examination either. The endless cycling of birth-death-birth is only just less maddening than the ending birth-death. A justification for rebirth had to be found ... This justification was improvement of the soul to the state of eventual perfection.

The last note to this over-view of developmental religion shall be the observation that the perfection following freedom from the "endless" wheel of rebirth, nirvana, resembles death into nothingness quite closely. Perhaps this reflects the fundamental duality.

[Modern observation: Time and change are both illusions. What was once, now is and ever will be -- outside of time.]

-- TSG (Bill Heidrick)

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FROM THE HISTORY HEAP

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law -- Liber AL vel Legis I:40

Sept. 1, 1896	They chant, dance, beat drums and torment people at airports singing "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama ..."; and the founder of this sect, Swami Prubhupada was born on this date in Calcutta, India.
Sept. 6, 1583	John Dee finishes the 'catalogue' of his library of over 4000 books before leaving for the continent.
Sept. 7, 1967	Snippy the horse, missing for two days was finally found on Sept. 9th laying on his side, dead! Some claim the victim of a UFO attack as an experiment on Earth life-forms. UFO sightings in the area had been going on for over five years. The actual remains of the horse had no blood, all its flesh was removed or pealed back off the head down to the neck. The body was left alone except that most of the vital organs were removed. No brain, or spinal fluids were found within the body. Odd wounds were noticed in the horse's sides. The official government verdict ... lightning.
Sept. 13, 1966	Louis Wilkinson dies at the age of 84, a man who wrote this about his dear friend Aleister Crowley, "... the pity is that his nose was too small; otherwise he would, I believe, have been indisputably a great man, both as a writer and as a religious leader."
Sept. 16, 1846	Anna Kingsford was born on this date. A woman whose early influence on Mathers & Westcott through her ideas & views of 'women's lib' made both realize men & women should be admitted as Hermetic students on equal terms in any true fraternity, later the Golden Dawn.
Sept. 17, 1971	Paul Twitchell, the '971st Spiritual Master' of the planet Earth & founder of the Eckankar movement in 1964, author of such books as 'In my soul I am Free', dies of a fatal heart attack on this date and finally becomes really free.
Sept. 18, 1924	Ada Waite, wife of Arthur Edward Waite dies. She always remains a curiously nebulous figure in his life. It has been written that there is '... no assignable limit to her capacity for sleeping and when awake she has such 'unassailable taciturnity' that 'as she never spoke willingly, and seldom answered anyone except upon extreme pressure, this silence became itself a kind of eloquence.'
Sept. 19, 1961	Driving home one night in New Hampshire, Betty and Barney Hill were kidnapped for over two hours and held aboard a Flying Saucer & subjected to all kinds of physical examinations, tests and questions. Their story was made famous in a book entitled 'The Interrupted Journey'.
Sept. 21, 1914	Aleister Crowley writes his commentary on Liber AGAPE, entitled 'De Arte Magica'.
Sept. 21, 1924	Leah Hirsig sends a letter to Crowley stating, "I hereby renounce the title of Scarlet Woman and pass it on to the Scarlet Concubine of his desire!"
Sept. 21, 1985	Hymenaeus Beta assumes Caliph X° & acting O.H.O. of the Ordo Templi Orientis on this date.
Sept. 22, 1692	The last eight people are hanged for witchcraft in Salem, Mass, one being Martha Corey whose husband died a few days earlier (Sept. 16th). The death toll now reached twenty people hanged or crushed, with well over 200 arrested. Boston jail as well as Salem was packed to the point of overcrowding.
Sept. 23, 1939	Aleister Crowley writes his patriotic poem 'England, Stand Fast!' at the outbreak of World War II, on this date.
Sept. 24, 1541	On this date Paracelesus died, the man who once invited the faculty of his college to a lecture in which he promised to teach 'The Greatest Secret of ALL Medicine' ... he then proceeded to uncover a dish containing a pile of smelly, stinking shit in all its glory. No one was amused. Apparently they missed the concept of 'putrefactive fermentation' which Paracelesus attempted to show ... of course we understand it, don't we?
Sept. 27, 1911	On this date 'certified Insane', Rose Kelly a.k.a. Mrs. Aleister Crowley is taken off to the asylum for 'alcoholic dementia'.
Sept. 27, 1923	Norman Mudd takes the Oath of Probationer in the AA, becoming Frater OPV.

Love is the law, love under will. -- Liber AL vel Legis I:57

Cornelius/Herndon.

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Events Calendar for September 1991 e.v.

9/1/91	Gnostic Mass 8:00 PM	Thelema Ldg
9/2/91	Belly Dancing instruction most Mondays, 5:30 to 7:30 PM (Call 1st)	Thelema Ldg.
9/3/91	"Signs, Grips & Word; Minerval to IIIrd" with Marlene. 8 PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/5/91	Magick in Theory and Practice Study Circle with Marlene 8PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/8/91	Gnostic Mass 8:00 PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/9/91	Ladies' T 5:30 PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/10/91	Book Four Astral Flight with Drax "How to Get There" 9:00 PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/12/91	Ist Degree Curriculum Class with Jeff at 8 PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/14/91	Jerry's Videorhea 6:30 PM Call to attend. Wiccan films.	Thelema Ldg.
9/15/91	Lodge clean-up day	Thelema Ldg.
9/15/91	Gnostic Mass 8:00 PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/16/91	Lodge Meeting 8 PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/17/91	Book Four Astral Flight with Drax "What to do When You Get There" 9PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/18/91	Minerval instructional class with Brother Shaitan 8 PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/19/91	Lodge of Perfection	LoP
9/21/91	Initiations (call to attend)	Thelema Ldg.
9/22/91	Gnostic Mass workshop 4:18 PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/22/91	Gnostic Mass 8:00 PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/23/91	Autumnal Equinox Ritual 8 PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/23/91	Secret Meeting	Thelema Ldg.
9/24/91	Magick Theater reads Crowley's The Saviour 7:30 PM Call for location	Magick Thea.
9/25/91	"Planetary Magic a la Agrippa" with Mark. Class 7PM Ritual 8PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/26/91	Magick in Theory and Practice Study Circle with Marlene 8PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/14/91	Jerry's Logorrhea 6:30 PM Call Lodge for Place	Thelema Ldg.
9/29/91	Libra Birthday party 4:18 PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/29/91	Experimental Gnostic Mass 8 PM	Thelema Ldg.
9/30/91	"Magick without Aleister" with Fr. Majnun 8 PM	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.

Thelema Lodge
Ordo Templi Orientis
P.O. Box 2303
Berkeley, CA 94702 USA

Phone: (510) 652-3171 (for events info and contact to Lodge)

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	We live in glory, outward bound!
	Bound for the stars' immensity.
	We soar above the Earth so round
	On jets of flaming tensity.
	In atmosphere
	Celestial sphere,
	Or deepest stellar ocean,
	We'll stride the skyways on the blast
	Of nuclear implosion.
	Our ranging cruisers ride the wind
	Of space's dark umbration.
	We loft them high, there to defend
	Our homes and Freedom's Nation.
	On guard we stand
	Above our land
	To guide our missile's motion,
	And pledge our honor to the last
	Full measure of devotion.
	-- Major Grady L. McMurtry
	11/5/51