Thelema Lodge Calendar for October 1991 e.v.

Thelema Lodge Calendar

for October 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.

Copyright © O.T.O. and the Individual Authors, 1991 e.v.

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

October 1991 e.v. at Thelema Lodge

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

Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers


Festi Anniversarii Minor

"It is a curious fact," Grady McMurtry once observed, "that three of the heaviest people in Thelema, Crowley, Jack Parsons, and myself, are all Librans" (O.T.O. Newsletter, spring 1978 e.v.). We observe all three of their Lesser Feasts this month: 2 October (John Whiteside Parsons, born 1914 e.v. in Pasadena, California), 12 October (Edward Alexander Crowley, born 1875 e.v. in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire), and 18 October (Grady Louis McMurtry, born 1918 e.v. in Big Cabin, Oklahoma).
The lodge will gather for a combined celebration and feast in honor of all three of these outstanding Thelemites on Crowleymass night, Saturday 12 October, beginning at 6:00. We plan a complete festive meal together, with Marlene organizing the food; let her assist you in planning the dish you'll provide. Everyone please bring libations in addition to their dinner contribution. Since this evening would ordinarily be the Saturday of the lodgemaster's monthly video presentation, Jerry will bring along entertainment suitable for vidiots. (Musical plans are also in the works for Crowleymass evening, and we may have a band or two at the lodge for the feast, but these arrangements remain tentative at press time.)
We also plan to celebrate the evening of Grady's Lesser Feast, Friday 18 October, with the much-requested return of Thelema Lodge Game Night, beginning at 8:00. Come take advantage of this opportunity to contribute to the lodge treasury while delving into the mysteries of Tarot, Qabalah, and random mathematics. We'll be setting up Terri's wonderful game of Tarot Decan Roulette, along with other arcane systems of donation.
Thelema Lodge wishes everyone a hearty jolt of pumpkin terror on Halloween night, with all the apples and chocolate they can handle. No lodge observation of this degenerate Christian occasion is planned, but there's bound to be something spooky in store for any neighbor kids brave enough to check our treats out. For those on a diet this Halloween, or more interested in ancient ritual and woodlore than in donning a George Bush mask to raid the town, there will also be a gathering on Thursday 31 October of the New Reformed Druids of North America. Call Brother Jeff for details at 537-3212, or assemble at the lodge at sunset.
Our Thelemic celebration of the half-holiday at mid-autumn, when Sol attains the center of the Scorpion, will await the astrologically calculated date of Samhain, Friday 8 November. The lodge plans a grand costume party, so use the Eve of All Hallows to rehearse some gaudy get-up, then save it for a week until the real thing.
A few years ago Selene Camp in the Santa Cruz Mountains experimented with marketing a product called the "Aiwatch", a unicursal hexagram wrist band for those requiring a reminder of the current aeon. The Aiwatch was guaranteed not to need re-setting for quite a while, but if you're one of those still sporting the Watch of Osiris, prepare for the past to pile up early Sunday morning 27 October, the transition from Daylight-Saving time (2=1 AM).


Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica

Gnostic Mass is celebrated in Horus Temple at Thelema Lodge on Sunday evenings beginning at nightfall, about 7:30. We welcome all who sincerely wish to participate in communion with us as a sanctuary of the true church. Newcomers to the lodge are requested to call ahead: 654-3580.
The Gnostic Mass is traditionally celebrated according to Crowley's ritual in Liber XV. The E.G.C. conducts a monthly Sunday afternoon workshop in the temple on this ritual, led by a gnostic bishop or one of our leading priestesses and priests. The next date is 13 October at 4:18, and those unfamiliar with the mass are especially encouraged to participate, along with regulars from the congregation who want to try performing it.
Across the Bay Nefertiti Sanctuary offers Gnostic Mass once a month in San Francisco, next scheduled for Friday evening 11 October; but it may be moved to 25th October, call number to be sure. A whole new congregation of gnostic celebrants waits to meet you at this palatial temple, where there is usually an elaborate pot-luck feast to conclude the ritual, and a gnostic lawyer is always present in the interests of security. Call Rick at 566-0675 to attend.
Horus Temple offers occasional experimental events, and Sunday evening 13 October has been reserved for an "Enochian-Goetic Mass" ritual which falls wholly or partly outside the purview of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. Those interested in preserving the performance tradition of Crowley's Gnostic Mass at Thelema Lodge are encouraged to put teams together and come to lodge meeting to request a date to celebrate Liber XV with us; temple facilities can often be made available for unrelated rituals on other evenings of the week.
In the late 1930s e.v. the Gnostic Mass was celebrated on Sunday evenings by Agape Lodge, led by lodgemaster Frater Ramaka, and one of the participants was their organist, Harry Hay, who was later an important gay political activist. In a recent biography of Hay by Stuart Timmons, The Trouble with Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement (Boston: Alyson Publications, 1990), the organist's reminisces of the early Agape temple have appeared: "... the smallish quarters were in the attic of a four-story house in Hollywood. Regina Kahl, with whom Harry had acted, was high priestess of O.T.O., and she hired Harry to play the organ at services. In keeping with the times, no one was openly gay, but the lodge was run by a frail man named Wilfred Smith, who often performed 'exorcisms' on attractive young men. Kahl, whom Harry described as 'the biggest lez you ever saw,' and two older women known as the Wolfe sisters were priestesses. The Wolfe sisters wistfully hinted that sex- magic rituals would be nice if enough people ever joined the L.A. Temple--but enough never did. When the services were to start, remembered Harry, 'a gong sounded and we'd get to the chapel by ladder. The congregation sat in pews facing a sarcophagus behind a gauze curtain. Regina, in a flowing robe, slit the veil with a sword and out came Wilfred wearing a snake diadem and a red velvet cape made from a theater curtain. 'I am a man among men,' he would say. Then, taking Regina, who towered above him, he'd say, 'Come thou virgin, pure and without spot.' Many visitors had trouble keeping a straight face. Harry mischievously slipped 'Barnacle Bill the Sailor' or 'Yes, We Have No Bananas!' slowed to dirge tempo, into the contrapunctual themes he was hired to play. Frequently, he dropped into his former Catholic church to play mass earlier in the day--just to balance his sacrilege." Hay, who didn't join the Order, doesn't seem to have stayed long enough to gain much understanding of the ritual or the actual sexual orientations of participants, but the dramatic impression of the external events remained powerfully clear to him for nearly fifty years.


Mysteria Mystica Maxima

Initiations into the Man of Earth Triad of Ordo Templi Orientis occur monthly at Thelema Lodge. The upcoming date is Saturday 19 October, through the afternoon and evening. All active members of the degrees to be worked are urged to attend these events as often as possible. Many of these rituals involve a feast afterwards for the participants. In order to attend or assist at initiations, please arrange beforehand to know which grades are involved, and at what times and locations.
Lodgemaster Jerry Cornelius directs initiations, and accepts applications for candidature at least forty days ahead. Request applications from an officer at the lodge, complete the informational questions, then contact Jerry at 658-3280 to discuss your candidacy and the dues, requirements, and date involved. Candidates should also discuss their sponsorship with the lodgemaster before finalizing this aspect of their application.
O.T.O. initiations involve various subtilties and symbols which members need to understand in order to participate without embarrassment (or worse!), yet these matters are too complex to adequately describe in writing, so it can be difficult to review them. The solution for recent and rusty initiates is the lodge's monthly review of "Signs, Grips, and Words" with Marlene, next offered on Tuesday 15 October at 8:00 in Horus Temple. All active initiates from Minerval through Third Degree will be accommodated. Remember: "If you're not sure, we're not sure."
The O.T.O.'s Liber MCLI is now the prescribed avenue of advancement for initiation through the Man of Earth degrees at Thelema Lodge, and copies of this brief schedule of suggested attainments are available at the lodge. It begins with the program outlined by Crowley for Minerval members. Minerval Curriculum advice and instruction is available at Thelema Lodge under the direction of Frater Shaitan, with whom all members of that degree are invited to confer. The monthly Minerval classes are being restructured for the convenience of all concerned, but one more meeting has been scheduled as usual, on Wednesday 9 October, beginning at 8:00. First Degree Curriculum advice and instruction is being offered at Thelema Lodge by Brother Jeff, Master of Hypatia Camp, who conducts a monthly instructional evening on Wednesday 23 October, beginning at 8:00.


Collegium Fraternitatis

Thelema Lodge provides a forum for discussion, study, and mutual education, not only for its members but for the larger community as well. We offer reading groups, lectures, seminars, and workshops on many of the week-nights this month. The events listed below are all free and open to the public. Donations from those attending are important to lodge maintenance, but are strictly voluntary.
Brother Bill Heidrick's "History of the O.T.O." class returns this month with a second illustrated lecture, covering the revival of the Order under the Caliphate of the Hymenaeus Dynasty. Thelema Lodge will celebrate its fourteenth anniversary during the week of this class, and Bill was there at the beginning. He'll recall the growth of the O.T.O. during the past two decades, and the magical career of Grady McMurtry, whose work and leadership made it all possible. Gather in Horus Temple on Wednesday evening 16 October at 8:00 for this specially requested presentation.
The Thelema Lodge Erotology Study Group will hold a seminar on Crowley's Liber Artemis Iota vel de Coitu, sub figura DCLXVI on Tuesday evening 22 October at 8:00. Available in chapter 15 of Magick Without Tears, this brief work presents a Thelemic sex manual in the form of commentary on selected verses from The Book of the Law, along with a bibliography of Crowley's favorite writings on the subject of magical copulation. Copies of a new edition of Artemis Iota, based in part upon a previously unknown early typescript of the work, will be distributed.
Local Poetry Night at Thelema Lodge, hosted by Brother Lew, is Friday evening 11 October, beginning at 8:00. Some of the greatest modern poets have spent time living and writing in the Bay Area, but the best thing about "local poetry" is that if you don't know any, or don't like any, you can always write your own. Bring a few of your favorite examples with you to read with us.
"Magik Without Aleister" is a recently formed discussion group planning its second meeting on Wednesday evening 30 October at the lodge at 8:00. Suppose Crowley had gained acceptance as a good little Golden Dawner, succeeded in a traditional literary career, raised a nice family, and mellowed with age to the point where he could have been honored with a respectable British knighthood. Then what would modern magic be like? This group hopes to function democratically with neither leader nor program, so you're free to make of it what you will.
Our Magick in theory and Practice Study Circle, facilitated by Marlene, meets to read and discuss MTP twice this month on Thursdays evenings 10 October and 24 October beginning at 8:00 at the lodge. Over the past summer this has been one of the most interesting and best attended regular study groups offered. All welcome; bring "the Book".
"Planetary Magick (a la Agrippa)" is a series of eight classes offered by Brother Mark S. at the lodge. The second session will meet on Monday evening 7 October and will look to the New Moon in Libra. Class at 8:00, followed by an Enochian invocation.
An Enochian evening with Frater Majnun is offered on Monday 14 October, beginning at 8:00 at the lodge. The specific subjects have not been determined as yet, but judging from the fascinating overview of Enochian philosophy, technique, and symbolism provided at the previous meeting, it's likely there will be much of value here, both for beginners and practitioners.
Jerry's "Logorrhea" series offers informal monthly lectures by the Lodge Master, and will be held Saturday afternoon 26 October beginning at 6:30. Please call the lodge to attend, since both subject and meeting-place are tentative until a day or two beforehand. Jerry's "Videorhea" is a monthly evening of entertainment from his vast library of strange occult films and outrageous "B" movies from Hell. This month the "Videorhea" falls on Crowleymass and will be subsumed into the great feast planned at the lodge for that night, Saturday 12 October.
The Magick Theater reads Crowley's five-part early poetic drama The Argonauts, beginning on Tuesday 29 October at 7:30 with part one. Written during his travels circa 1904 e.v., this work is studded with references to the philosophical traditions of ancient India, which Crowley was engaged with at the time, despite the fact that it story of Jason and Medea is drawn from Greek antiquity. The remaining parts will be read on the four Tuesday evenings in November; Crowley stressed the independence of this work's sections, and verse dramas can loose their impact if rushed through too rapidly. The location for this series of dramatic readings has not yet been set, so call the Theater at 530-3923 for information, or watch for posting at the lodge. As usual, copies will be provided for readers and listeners; they have been prepared in facsimile from the rare first edition of this play.


Conventi Thelemicorum

Lodgemeeting is held on Monday evening 21 October at 8:00 in Horus Temple, to discuss business and calender events for the month of December. Class offerings and proposed Gnostic Mass teams are handled at these meetings, along with financial business, initiation plans, and new developments in lodge policy. All members welcome.
The Lodge of Perfections meets privately on Thursday evening 17 October.
Lodge Clean-Up Day is Sunday afternoon 27 October beginning at 1:11. Please come lend a hand.
The Thelema Lodge Ladies' T-- is Monday afternoon 7 October, beginning at 5:30.
Our Scorpio birthday party will be held on Sunday afternoon 27 October at 4:18.
Advance dates for November... We're looking ahead also to the lodge's fourteenth annual cycle of The Rites of Eleusis, beginning in mid- December.

Love is the law, love under will.


from the Grady Project:

The Sign of the Sphinx

For I was born in the Sign of the Sphinx
In the incandescent air
With my serpent rod and my shining links
And my halo haunted hair
And I guide upon the Red Lion
And ride him to his lair

Four kerubs guard the silent Sphinx
Four pillars of the sky
A God, a Beast, a Star, a Priest
Four Angels, Adonai!
But me they hid in the pyramid
To die, but not to die

"To become a Sphinx one must be born a Sphinx"
The Transformers did not lie.
And the pile of dust was burned to ash
As the Angel wind passed by
A Star was born in the Abyss
From the Eye that is not "I"

-- Grady L. McMurtry
3/61           

[This poem is part of the cycle Dark Space and Bright Stars and has been previously published with the cycle in McMurtry: Poems (London & Bergen: O.T.O., 1986 e.v.) and in The Grady Project #4 (December 1988 e.v.).]

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Crowley Classics

AFTER AGNOSTICISM

BY ALEISTER CROWLEY

[In 1906 e.v. this essay was appended as a footnote to Crowley's Liber LXVII, The Sword of Song, Called by Christians The Book of the Beast.]

Allow me to introduce myself as the original Irishman whose first question on landing at New York was, "Is there a Government in this country?" and on being told "Yes," instantly replied, "Then I'm agin it." For after some years of consistent Agnosticism, being at last asked to contribute to an Agnostic organ, for the life of me I can think of nothing better than to attach my hosts! Insidious cuckoo! Ungrateful Banyan! My shame drives me to Semitic analogy, and I sadly reflect that if I had been Balaam, I should not have needed an ass other than myself to tell me to do the precise contrary of what was expected of me.
For this is my position; while the postulates of Agnosticism are in one sense eternal, I believe that the conclusions of Agnosticism are daily to be pushed back. We know our ignorance; with that fact we are twitted by those who do not know enough to understand even what we mean when we say so; but the limits of knowledge, slowly receding, yet never so far as to permit us to unveil the awful and impenetrable adytum of consciousness, or that of matter, must one day be suddenly widened by the forging of a new weapon.
Huxley and Tyndall have prophesied this before I was born; sometimes in vague language, once or twice clearly enough; to me it is a source of the utmost concern that their successors should not always see eye to eye with them in this respect.
Professor Ray Lankester, in crushing the unhappy theists of the recent Times controversy, does not hesitate to say that Science can never throw any light on certain mysteries.
Even the theist is justified in retorting that Science, if this be so, may as well be discarded; for these are problems which must ever intrude upon the human mind--upon the mind of the scientist most of all.
To dismiss them by an act of will is at once heroic and puerile: courage is as necessary to progress as any quality that we possess; and as courage is in either case required, the courage of ignorance (necessarily sterile, though wanted badly enough while our garden was choked by theological weeds) is less desirable than the courage which embarks on the always desperate philosophical problem.
Time and again, in the history of Science, a period has arrived when, gorged with facts, she has sunk into a lethargy of reflection accompanied by appalling nightmares in the shape of impossible theories. Such a nightmare now rides us; once again philosophy has said its last word, and arrived at a deadlock. Aristotle, in reducing to the fundamental contradiction-in-terms which they involve the figments of the Pythagoreans, the Eleatics, the Platonists, the Pyrrhonists; Kant, in his reductio ad absurdum of the Thomists, the Scotists, the Wolffians,--all the warring brood, alike only in the inability to reconcile the ultimate antinomies of a cosmogony only grosser for its pinchbeck spirituality; have, I take it, found their modern parallel in the ghastly laughter of Herbert Spencer, as fleshed upon the corpses of Berkeley and the Idealists from Fichte and Hartmann to Lotze and Trendelenburg he drives the reeking fangs of his imagination into the palpitating vitals of his own grim masterpiece of reconcilement, self-deluded and yet self-conscious of its own delusion.
History affirms that such a deadlock is invariably the prelude to a new enlightenment: by such steps we have advanced, by such we shall advance. The "horror of great darkness" which is scepticism must ever be broken by some heroic master-soul, intolerant of the cosmic agony.
We then await his dawn.
May I go one step further, and lift up my voice and prophesy? I would indicate the direction in which this darkness must break. Evolutionists will remember that nature cannot rest. Nor can society. Still less the brain of man.

"Audax omnia perpeti
Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas."
                               [Horace, Odes, I:3.]

[recklessly enduring everything, human kind progresses through heinous crimes]

We have destroyed the meaning of vetitum nefas and are in no fear of an imaginary cohort of ills and terrors. Having perfected one weapon, reason, and found it destructive to all falsehood, we have been (some of us) a little apt to go out to fight with no other weapon. "FitzJames's blade was sword and shield" [Scott, The Lady of the Lake], and that served him against the murderous bludgeon-sword of the ruffianly Highlander he happened to meet; but he would have fared ill had he called a Western Sheriff a liar, or gone off Boer-sticking on Spion Kop.
Reason has done its utmost; theory has glutted us, and the motion of the ship is a little trying; mixed metaphor--excellent in a short essay like this--is no panacea for all mental infirmities; we must seek another guide. All the facts science has so busily collected, varied as they seem to be, are in reality all of the same kind. If we are to have one salient fact, a fact for a real advance, it must be a fact of a different order.
Have we such a fact to hand? We have.
First, what do we mean by a fact of a different order? Let me take an example; the most impossible being the best for our purpose. The Spiritualists, let us suppose, go mad and begin to talk sense. (I can only imagine that such would be the result.) All their "facts" are proved. We prove a world of spirits, the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, etc. But, with all that, we are not really one step advanced into the heart of the inquiry which lies at the heart of philosophy, "What is anything?"
I see a cat.
Dr Johnson says it is a cat.
Berkeley says it is a group of sensations.
Cankaracharya says it is an illusion, an incarnation, or God, according to the hat he has got on, and is talking through.
Spencer says it is a mode of the Unknowable.
But none of them seriously doubt the fact that I exist; that a cat exists; that one sees the other. All--bar Johnson--hint--but oh! how dimly!--at what I now know to be--true?--no, not necessarily true, but nearer the truth. Huxley goes deeper in his demolition of Descartes. With him, "I see a cat," proves "something called consciousness exists." He denies the assertion of duality; he has no datum to assert the denial of duality. I have.
Consciousness, as we know, has one essential quality: the opposition of subject and object. Reason has attacked this and secured that complete and barren victory of convincing without producing conviction. [Hume, and Kant, in the "Prolegomena," discuss this phenomenon unsatisfactorily.--A.C.] It has one quality apparently not essential, that of exceeding impermanence. If we examine what we call steady thought, we shall find that its rate of change is in reality inconceivably swift. To consider it, to watch it, is bewildering, and to some people becomes intensely terrifying. It is as if the solid earth were suddenly swept away from under one, and there were some dread awakening in outer space amid the rush of incessant meteors--lost in the void.
All this is old knowledge; but who has taken steps to alter it? The answer is forbidding: truth compels me to say, the mystics of all lands.
Their endeavour has been to slow the rate of change; their methods perfect quietude of body and mind, produced in varied and too often vicious ways. Regularisation of the breathing is the best known formula. Their results are contemptible, we must admit; but only so because empirical. An unwarranted reverence has overlaid the watchfulness which science would have enjoined, and the result is muck and misery, the wreck of a noble study.
But what is the one fact on which all agree? The one fact whose knowledge has been since religion began the all-sufficient passport to their doubtfully-desirable company?
This: that "I see a cat" is not only an unwarrantable assumption but a lie; that the duality of consciousness ceases suddenly, once the rate of change has been sufficiently slowed down, so that, even for a few seconds, the relation of subject and object remains impregnable.
It is a circumstance of little interest to the present essayist that this annihilation of duality is associated with intense and passionless peace and delight; the fact has been a bribe to the unwary, a bait for the charlatan, a hindrance to the philosopher; let us discard it. [It is this rapture which has ever been the bond between mystics of all shades; and the obstacle to any accurate observation of the phenomenon, its true causes, and so on. This must always be a stumbling-block to more impressionable minds; but there is no doubt as to the fact--it is a fact"and its present isolation is to be utterly deplored. May I entreat men of Science to conquer the prejudices natural to them when the justly despised ideas of mysticism are mentioned, and to attack the problem ad initio on the severely critical and austerely arduous lines which have distinguished their labours in other fields?--A.C.]
More, though the establishment of this new estate of consciousness seems to open the door to a new world, a world where the axioms of Euclid may be absurd, and the propositions of Keynes [author of a text-book on Formal Logic] untenable, let us not fall into the error of the mystics, by supposing that in this world is necessarily a final truth, or even a certain and definite gain of knowledge.
But that a field for research is opened up no sane man may doubt. Nor may one question that the very first fact is of a nature disruptive of difficulty philosophical and reasonable; since the phenomenon does not invoke the assent of the reasoning faculty. The arguments which reason may bring to bear against it are self-destructive; reason has given consciousness the lie, but consciousness survives and smiles. Reason is a part of consciousness and can never be greater than its whole; this Spencer sees; but reason is not even any part of this new consciousness (which I, and many others, have too rarely achieved) and therefore can never touch it: this I see, and this will I hope be patent to those ardent and spiritually-minded agnostics of whom Huxley and Tyndall are for all history-time the prototypes. Know or doubt! is the alternative of highwayman Huxley; "Believe" is not to be admitted; this is fundamental; in this agnosticism can never change; this must ever command our moral as our intellectual assent.
But I assert my strong conviction that ere long we shall have done enough of what is after all the schoolmaster work of correcting the inky and ill-spelt exercises of the theological dunces in that great class-room, the world; and found a little peace--while they play--in the intimate solitude of the laboratory and the passionless rapture of research-- research into those very mysteries which our dunces have solved by rule of thumb; determining the nature of a bee by stamping on it, and shouting "bee"; while we patiently set to work with microscopes, and say nothing till we know, nor more than need be when we do.
But I am myself found guilty of this role of schoolmaster: I will now therefore shut the doors and retire again into the laboratory where my true life lies.

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From the Outbasket

The following responses to letters asking questions have been edited and otherwise adapted for publication.

From R.L. in Canada:

Regarding your question about alternate nostril breathing during pranayama: It sounds to me that you may be straining too hard and that you may have tried this practice at a time when one or both nostrils were at least partially obstructed. The practice should be accomplished without tensing the neck muscles. The air should not be forcibly expelled if nostrils are blocked. Blow your nose first, and do not attempt alternate nostril breathing if either nostril is obstructed --- else you will force mucus into your inner ear and risk damage to that organ. The tension you describe in the larynx should also not be there. I suspect you are trying too hard and tensing up. All muscles of the head and neck should be relaxed during this type of pranayama.
(There are other experiments involving tensed muscles, notably in the region of the throat, diaphragm and anus, that may be combined with pranayama. Always master breathing exercises without undue strain before attempting them with tensed muscles.)

From CA, a question about opiates and Liber 777:

About Heroin: Like most opiates, it enhances the dream-state. Under the influence of opiates, the boundary between sleeping and waking is very tenuous. That is one reason opium and all narcotics are attributed to the 29th path, that of Pisces and the Moon Trump, the Major Trump most symbolic of the Astral state. That is also the reason these particular drugs are called "narcotics" = sleep intoxicants.
Regarding the effects: Heroin does tend to destroy people, including a friend of mine who died of an OD of it a few years ago. Crowley was quite thoroughly messed up by it. Many questions on this point can be answered by reading Crowley's account of his own addiction problems and views on drugs in the Magical Link for Oct/Nov 1987 e.v. Crowley's use of Heroin cannot be considered typical. He used it under a doctor's care and lived to the age of 72. Neither condition is likely these days.
Taking the drugs mentioned in Liber 777 tends to induce states of consciousness related to the paths in some instances, but tends to produce physical effects like those of the paths about as often. One should not be quick to experiment in this area. Some of the drugs mentioned are illegal now, even if they were legal back in 1909 e.v. when Liber 777 was first published --- there's no point in messing around with that sort of thing now. Others are very dangerous to life, notably Nux Vomica, which can kill in one dose! The traditional use of drugs in mysticism, going back thousands of years, is to give a person a glimpse of what can also be attained without drugs, as an encouragement. When that was done anciently, the subject would not be told the name of the actual drug, but the word "soma" was often used to hide the real identity. That way, however questionable the use of the drug might be, there was at least some protection against the person getting hooked on the drug. One dose only was the rule in most of the ancient cultures, associated with a rite of passage.

-- 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

October 2, 1857
Arthur Edward Waite born

October 2, 1914
Jack Parsons born.

October 3, 1860
Annie Horniman born.

October 5, 1848
Guido von List born.

October 7, 1877
Edgar Allen Poe dies.

October 8, 1825
Pascal Beverly Randolph born.

October 9, 1921
Frank Bennet, Frater 176, signs the Oath of Practicus in the A A, the man whom Aleister Crowley wrote "...cannot spell."

October 11, 1868
Percy Bullock born.

October 12, 1875
Aleister Crowley born.

October 13, 1921
Frank Bennett, Frater 176, signs the Oath of Philosophus in the A A, the man whom Crowley stated "...could neither spell nor construct his sentences correctly."

October 14, 1920
Anne Lea (Poup'ee)dies.

October 15, 1844
Friedrich Nietzche born.

October 15, 1921
Frank Bennett, Frater 176, signs the Oath of Dominus Liminis in the A A, the man whom Aleister Crowey wrote "...nor had he command of any extended vocabulary."

October 18, 1919
Grady Louis McMurtry born.

October 22, 1920
Timothy Leary born.

October 23
Frank Bennett assumes the Oath of Adeptus Minor in the A A, the man whom Aleister Crowley wrote "...his education had been quite elementary."

October 25, 1916
Papus dies.

October 25, 1962
Karl Germer dies.

October 26, 1982
Sybil Leek dies.

October 26, 1440
Gilles de Rais dies.

October 27, 1811
Olaf Jansen born.

October 29, 1949
G.I.Gurdjeff dies.

October 31, 1833
Kenneth Mackenzie born.

October 31, 1874
Charles Thomas Loveday born.

October 31, 1926
Harry Houdine dies.

October 31, 1988
Joseph Campbell dies.

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

                              Cornelius/Herndon.

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Events Calendar for October 1991 e.v.

10/2/91Jack Parsons lesser feast, 1914ev
10/6/91Gnostic Mass 8:00 PMThelema Ldg.
10/7/91Ladies' T 5:30 PMThelema Ldg.
10/7/91Planetary Magick with Mark 8 PMThelema Ldg.
10/9/91Minerval Curriculum, Fr.Shaitan 8PMThelema Ldg.
10/10/91Magick in Theory and Practice
Study Circle with Marlene 8PM		Thelema Ldg.
10/11/91Local Poetry reading 8 PMThelema Ldg.
10/11/91Gnostic Mass in SF (date may change)Independent
10/12/91Crowleymass B.Y.O. 6 PMThelema Ldg.
10/13/91Gnostic Mass workshop 4:18 PMThelema Ldg.
10/13/91Experimental Enochian/Gnostic Mass 8Thelema Ldg.
10/14/91Enochian evening w. Fr. Majunun 8PMThelema Ldg.
10/15/91"Signs, Grips & Words; Minerval to
IIIrd" with Marlene. 8 PM		Thelema Ldg.
10/16/91OTO History, rise of the Caliphate
with Bill Heidrick 8 PM		Thelema Ldg.
10/17/91Lodge of PerfectionLOP
10/18/91Game Night 8 PMThelema Ldg.
10/18/91Hymenaeus Alpha lesser feast 1918evThelema Ldg.
10/19/91Initiations, call to attendThelema Ldg.
10/20/91Gnostic Mass 8:00 PMThelema Ldg.
10/21/91Lodge meeting 8PMThelema Ldg.
10/22/91Erotology study group: Seminar on
book 666 Liber Artemis Iota de Coitu
8 PM		Thelema Ldg.
10/23/91Ist degree curriculum with Jeff 8PMThelema Ldg.
10/24/91Magick in Theory and Practice
Study Circle with Marlene 8PM		Thelema Ldg.
10/25/91(alternate date) Gnostic Mass in SFIndependent
10/26/91Jerry's Logorrhea 6:30 PM
Call Lodge to attend		Thelema Ldg.
10/27/91Lodge clean-up afternoonThelema Ldg.
10/27/91Scorpio birthday party 4:18 PMThelema Ldg.
10/27/91Gnostic Mass 7:30 PMThelema Ldg.
10/27/91Daylight savings time ends 1-2 AMUS Gov.
10/29/91Reading of Crowley's The Argonauts
part I, 7:30 PM. location TBA		Magick Thea.
10/30/91"Magick without Aleister" with
Fr. Majnun 8 PM		Thelema Ldg.
10/31/91Halloween & N.R.D.A. ritualNRDA

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)

Production and Circulation:
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P.O.Box 430
Fairfax, CA 94978 USA

Internet: heidrick@well.com (Submissions and circulation only)

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