Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers

    O.T.O. initiations are scheduled in conjunction with Sirius Oasis on Saturday afternoon 6th November, beginning at 1:11 sharp. They will be held at Sirius Oasis in northern Berkeley, and all members attending should communicate ahead of time with either the Oasis Master at (510) 527-2855 or with the Lodge Master at (510) 530-3923. Afterwards we will celebrate through the evening as the Sun attains 15° Scorpio for the feast of Samhain ( 15° 1:35 AM Sunday 7th November). Please bring dinner contributions. Additional initiations late in November are being contemplated, and may be announced at mid-month.

    Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica gathers for Gnostic Mass twice in November on Sunday evenings, 14th November and 28th November, beginning at 7:30. We will probably be at the Milky Way House in Berkeley on the 14th, and all attending should call (510) 644-8335 or (510) 841-4901 to confirm this location. Temple location for the 28th has not been finalized, and will be announced mid-month, depending upon our progress with the new lodge house. During this transition, all are welcome to call the Lodgemaster with calendar questions at (510) 530- 3923. We hope, either in December or in January, to establish a weekly Sunday evening celebration of the Gnostic Mass again.

    The Thelema Lodge Meeting will be held once more at Ancient Ways, on Monday evening 8th November, at 7:30. The address is 4075 Telegraph Avenue (at 41st Street) in Oakland; call the store at (510) 653-3244 for directions. Next month the Lodge will meet on Monday evening 6th December, probably at the new facility.

    Kathy's Burmese Astrology Group will start a new series of classes and meet once this month, on Wednesday evening 10th November, at Grace's in Berkeley. To be included, call ahead of time at (415) 457-8076; or (510) 843-7828.

    The Thelema Lodge Magick in Theory and Practice Series with Bill Heidrick gathers for a third meeting, in San Anselmo on Wednesday evening 17th November at 7:30. The house is at 5 Suffield Avenue, and those new to class will need to call ahead for directions: (415) 454-5176. For best results, read ahead a bit, but at any rate bring your copy of MTP along, for elucidation and explication. This month we will concentrate upon Crowley's magical formulae as models of thought processes, covering chapters 5 through 7.

    "Especially for Minervals" is an inquiry into some of the issues raised by one's entry into an occult order: What is initiation? Is there a meaningful distinction between initiates and non-initiates? Are traditional spiritual exercises necessary for development? The evening will be conducted by Br. Michael Sanborn on Tuesday 23rd November, beginning at 7:30. Phone (510) 644- 8335 or (510) 841-4901 for information and directions. Unlike most lodge classes, attendance here is limited to O.T.O. initiates (Minervals and up).

    It was while camping together around Algeria toward the end of 1909 e.v. that Perdurabo and his devoted chela Omnia Vincam inspired each other to the serial revelation and audition of the angels of the aires, ascending from BAG to LIL in completion of a project begun years earlier while mountain-climbing in Mexico. This autumn, Caitlin conducts her seventh annual tour through the thirty aethyrs of Liber 418, commemorating the anniversaries of the original workings recorded in "The Vision and the Voice". From 14th November to 20th December, the readings in this series follow the times as well as the dates of the original; for information regarding locations contact Soror Caitlin herself, at (510) 654-3580.

    A workshop on the Greater Ritual of the Pentagram will be led by Fran on Saturday evening 13th November at 7:30, at Grace's in Berkeley. A demonstration and commentary on the ritual will be offered, and all fellow- students of ceremonial magick are welcome to participate. Call Fran at (510) 658-9393, or Grace at (510) 843-7827 for details.

    The new Thelema Lodge Gnostic Mass Study Group gathers for a planning and survey meeting, on Tuesday evening 30th November at 7:30. We hope to produce a complete "performance edition" of the text of Liber XV (with commentary, explanations, and source notes), and also to research the background of Crowley's gnosticism and the nature of the E.G.C. Organizing with the assistance of Bishop T Dionysus, this group will meet in the East Bay at a location not yet finalized; call the Lodgemaster at (510) 530-3923 for information.

    "The Astrology of Sagittarius", with Grace, will be meeting in Berkeley next month on Friday evening 3rd December at 7:30. Please call (510) 843-7828 to attend the class, which offers practical insights and mythological lore related to this most philosophical sign of the zodiac. Beginners and experienced astrologers will enjoy sharing in this workshop as we explore the meaning of Sagittarius in all its travels with the sun, as well as in its wagers here on earth.

IT has been remarked by some critics of the Law of Thelema that the words "Do what thou wilt" are not original with the Master Therion: or, rather, with Aiwass, who uttered to the scribe Ankh-f-n-khonsu, the priest of the princes, the Book of the Law.

    This is true enough, in its own way: we have, firstly, the word of St. Augustine: "Love, and do what thou wilt."
    This is however, as the context shows, by no means what is meant by the Book of the Law. St. Augustine's thesis is that if the heart be full of Love, one cannot go wrong. It is, so to say, a rider upon the theorem of St. Paul's thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians.

    Far more important is the Word of Rabelais, "Fais ce que veulx." The sublime Doctor does indeed intend, so far as he goes, to set forth in essence the Law of Thelema, very much as it is understood by the Master Therion himself.
    The implications of the context are significant.
    Our Master makes the foundation of the Abbey of Thelema the quite definite climax of his history of Gargantua; he describes his ideal of Society. Thus he was certainly occupied with the idea of a new Aeon, and he saw, albeit perhaps dimly, that "Fais ce que veulx" was the required Magical Formula.
    The Cardinal Jean du Bellay, indeed, reported to Francis I that Gargantua was "a new Gospel". It was, in fact, the Book that the Renaissance lacked; and had it been taken as it should have been, the world might have been spared the ignominy of Protestantism.
    As the character of his parable demanded, he confines himself to painting a picture of pure Beauty; he does not enter into the questions of political economy (and like subjects) which must be solved in order to realize the ideal of the Law of Liberty. But he says distinctly that the religion of Thelema is to be contrary to all others. True, for Thelema is Magick, and Magick is Science, the antithesis of the religious hypothesis. Also, see the Book of the Law, III, 49-54.
    There are to be no walls to the Abbey. To him, as to us, "The word of Sin is Restriction" (AL I,41). He says plainly that constriction merely gives rise to murders and conspiracies. It is impossible to quench the flame of the Holy Spirit of Man; and the attempt to smother it leads infallibly to conflagration of explosive fury.
    Even in the matter of the petty restrictions of Time, the conventions with which we all unthinkingly comply, Rabelais sees peril to the freedom of the Soul. In his Abbey of Thelema there are to be no clocks, no fixed routine; what must be done should be done when the need actually rises. The text is fitness.
    We should not take this passage too literally. Our time-conventions are devised by experience to secure us the greatest possible margin of freedom.
    Rabelais insists on the members of his Abbey being physically fit, so too the Book of the Law: "Wisdom says: be strong!" (II,70) and similar passages.
    There is to be no separation of the sexes, and no artificial restrictions upon Love. The Book of the Law is even more explicit upon this most fundamental social principle; see I,12-13; I,41; I,51-53; II,24; II,52.
    With all this we find no suggestion of any communistic theories; they are in fact specifically disowned. The ethics of the Aeon of Horus are equally individualistic. "Ye shall gather goods and store of women and spices; ye shall wear rich jewels" etc. (I,61). "Ye shall see them at rule, at victorious armies, at all the joy" (II,24). See also: II,18; II,21; II,58, etc.
    Members of superstitious religions are not to be allowed to enter the Abbey of Thelema. In the Book of the Law the attitude is not merely thus defensive: the implication is that superstition is to be stamped out, or at least its victims are to be definitely relegated to the slave-class. The Freeman is to war down the serf: "on the low men trample in the fierce lust of your pride, in the day of your wrath" (II,24). There is no place in the Abbey imagined by Rabelais, and to be realized by the Master Therion, for those parasites of society who feed upon the troubles caused by Restriction: officials, lawyers, financiers, and the like. Ill disposed people--that is, those whose failure to understand their own true Will of Freedom leads them to seek to interfere with others--are not to be tolerated.
    In the Book of the Law this is implied throughout. The True Will of every Free Man is essentially noble. (It might well be that a man's True Will is to see Justice established: but this is not the normal conception of a lawyer. And so for other cases.)
    Thus ends Rabelais his account of the qualifications of admission to his Abbey: that the postulant should be filled with the spirit of Nobility, of Truth, and of Beauty. With this idea the Book of the Law is so penetrated that quotation would overwhelm.
    We may then conclude that the masterpiece of Rabelais contains in singular perfection a clear forecast of the Book which was to be revealed by Aiwass to Ankh-f-n-khonsu 370 years later.

    Was the mighty spirit of Alcofribas Nasier aware of the prophetic fire of his immortal book?
    He has fortunately left us in no doubt upon this point; for he did not content himself with having created in parable that Abbey of Thelema which his eager gaze foresaw from the black abyss of those Ages not yet thrilled by the Morning Star of the Renaissance, and dimly heralded by the Wolf's Tail of the Reformation.
    He proceeded to envelop himself in the mist of oracular speech, to fulminate his light through dark sayings, to clothe the naked beauty of his Time-piercing thought in the pontifical vestments of prophecy.
    The reader of today plunged from the limped waters of his allegory into the glooming gulfs of sibylline and subterranean song, is startled indeed when, after repeated efforts to penetrate the mystery of his versicles, he perceives the adumbration of dim forms--and recognizes them, with something of terror, for the images of the events of this very generation of mankind!
    Writing at a period when the Divine Right of Kings under the Supreme Governance of Almighty God was yet unchallenged, Rabelais describes the rise of Democracy. Idle people, he writes, will stir up social strife, so as eventually to destroy all proper relations between classes and individuals. The ignorant will have as much political power as the instructed. The dullest and the most stupid people will be entrusted with government.
    Just as we see it today! For genuine knaves are rare enough in governments; real capacity, even for dishonesty, is baffled by our political machinery. A clever man must at least pretend to be stupid to attain, and act with consistently dense imbecility to maintain, his place among the rulers of the world. No sooner is he suspected of possessing even one spark of intelligence than the herd distrust him, butt him from his pedestal, and trample him to death beneath their hooves!
    The style of the oracle at this point becomes unfathomably obscure; it is hard to discover what exact process Rabelais describes as the means of the terrestrial catastrophe which culminates in universal revolution. But, the horror at its height, the Master becomes admirably lucid in his description of the avenging lightning which Destiny has prepared for the salvation of the race.
    A great flame will spring up, he says, and put an end to this flood. What clearer reference could be desired to the Aeon of Horus? Is not Horus "Force and Fire", the victorious foe of the dark waters of the Nile? Is not , the Great Wild Beast, the Lion of the Sun, the destined conqueror of , the Fish?
    And so at last the elect, the sons self-chosen of Freedom, come to their own, and the false slaves of Restriction stripped of their knavish spoils, their hoarded dross of stupidity, and put in their proper place as slaves of the true Men of the race. Nor does the great Magician of Touraine stop with any mere symbolic identification; he indicates the Master Therion by name! The very last verse of his oracle runs thus:

    O qu'est a reverer
    Cil qui en fin pourra perseverer!

    Superb as is this adumbration of the Law of Thelema by Rabelais with his Word "Fais ce que veulx", the Book of the Law gives us more--it gives us "all in the clear light".
    Although "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law", we have a deeper truth for the strong student, a more detailed and accurate technique for the Aspirant to practice: "The word of the Law is " In the analysis of this Word is to be found the master-key to every theorem and to every problem of the day. There lies concealed from the profane yet open to the consecrated, the proof of the nature of Aiwass Himself, of his superiority in intelligence to any merely human being. The whole doctrine of the Universe, the solution of every equation of Ontology, is given thereby? So also it reveals full many a mystery of Science. I suppose that my research has yet revealed not one tithe of its marvels; but the time has come to disclose what truths I have discovered therein. They shall serve both as the warrant of my work, and as the earnest (to the stern seeker after wisdom) of further rewards--that shall surpass my holiest imagination!

The Universe = 0 (or it would not be complete).
But 0 = 1 + (-1).

(0 = 2) = Magick = the Will to Live.

(2 = 0) = Mysticism = the Will to Die.

"Every man and every woman is a star." (A star is an individual identity; it radiates energy, it goes, it is a point of view. Its object is to become the whole by establishing relations with other stars. Each such relation is an Event: it is an act of Love under Will.)

Love = 1 + (-1) = () 0 and () 2.

This is expressed by--

Mother      Father
        

Son (=2)

Daughter (=0)

This process repeats itself perpetually. An Event is the ultimate thing in the Universe: it is the conjunction of an Individual with a Possibility. Each (I + P) is unique and infinite; so is each Event.¹ The Individual is measured by the number and importance of the Events belonging to his growth; i.e. to the number of Possibilities he has fulfilled.
   
    I + P always = 0, such being a term in a series = . They are indistinguishable, I from I et cetera, as the series is homogeneous: there are no coordinate axes. But Events are theoretically distinguishable: E = I P, E = I P et cetera, so that as soon as we can define an Individual of the Second Order I', one to whom belong Events E E et cetera, we can have a practical distinction between Events; this gives us the idea, "Events of the Second Order" E'. Thus E' is not E', though both are composed of identical elements--at least of indistinguishable ones. All relations are meaningless in themselves; but one relation may be contrasted with another. The Ego grows by establishing relations with other points of view, and absorbing them: hence, the bigger the Ego, the less the sense of Egoity. The Universe is a set of Events; they do not exist, they occur.² It is a dynamic, not a static phenomenon. Any stasis is a mere temporary resolution. Logic describes the process of Thought, which is the essence of Action. Mathematics is the language of Logic. A man must think of himself as a , as going, not as a fixed idea. "Do what thou wilt" is thus necessarily his formula. He only becomes Himself when he attains the loss of Egoity, of the sense of separateness. He becomes All-- --when he becomes Zero. Note that Events may be considered for convenience in any or all of three modes of projection: () as extended in space, () as extended in time, () as causally connected. These are forms of () sensation, () consciousness of going, and () reason.

The Universe is an Act of Faith.

Its Reality is an Act of Love.

Men resent Happiness, knowing that it cannot last: but the other animals--and wise men--accept things as they are.

Marriage is the straight-waistcoat of Love.

Art and Science consist in selecting, arranging, and presenting facts so as to illustrate some aspect of Truth.

Law is the corpse of Justice.

Morality is the corpse of Conduct.

Religion is the carcass of Fear.

Happiness is the state of mind resulting from the free fulfillment of a function.

A holy man is one who is not bound by normal desires.

A prostitute is one who is obliged to treat individuals as members of a class, ob pecuniam.

All proofs turn out on examination to be definitions. All definitions are circular. (For A = BC, B = DE . . . W = XY, and Y = ZA.)

Consider the proposition: Thought is possible.

Realism = Romanticism, to one strong enough to worship things as they are.

The true Artist loves all his characters equally.

Punishment: increase of sensibility at the expense of control.

Reduce the A logical proposition to two: thus A and E are extreme cases of 1 and 0, and the circle is of the ellipse:

from the Grady Project:

Published in McMurtry: Poems (London & Bergen: O.T.O., 1986 e.v.), and in The Grady Project #3 (March 1988 e.v.).

AS of MA wanted to know about the "Oath of the Abyss" as a means of resolving problems:

    The Oath of the Abyss is intended to be taken at the end of an extensive period of spiritual and psychological development. It does not aid in any material concern. It makes any unresolved problems blow up to the point of total catastrophe.
    Put simply, too simply perhaps, the Oath of the Abyss is an affirmation to take everything that happens or is perceived by the senses as a direct communication between the deity and yourself. The direct application of the Oath is to prevent distracting interpretation of visions and thoughts at the point of "Crossing the Abyss", a spiritual event whereby an Adept seeks direct communion with the deity. Many people try to take this oath in form only at a stage in their development where it means little or nothing. Some people make the same misguided attempt at a time in their life when they are pre-disposed to paranoia, with disastrous consequences.
    Sources for further information include: Crowley's Magick in Theory and Practice, especially chapter XVI(part one) --- this also discusses several other types of oaths which may be more helpful. Crowley's Confessions --- for an account of the experience of using oaths and affirmations throughout a prolonged period. Vision and Voice --- for an account of the sort of work in one particular manner that culminates in the "Oath of the Abyss". Liber Thisharb sub Figura CMXIII --- also printed in Magick in Theory and Practice toward the back of the book --- a concise discussion of the "Oath of the Abyss".

JB of MN wrote to tell us that he had crossed the Abyss and expressed a sequence of requests, withdrawals of the same requests, statements, denigrations of the same statements and similar dichotomies.

    Mundane life is difficult after the Abyss. What can a person say? You've got your Word. Now all you can do is manifest it. At every juncture, you are qualifying your requests with "it doesn't really matter" and you feel that you must avow that you "know all secrets". This too shall pass. It's like college and high school. The Sophomores know everything. What all this really boils down to is a simple situation. You have attained. Having attained, you must now figure out how to act as your own avatar in the mundane world. You have to re-train your lower self to make sense while acting as the mundane vehicle of your all too awake higher consciousness. Having discovered the key, you must now find the lock(s) it fits. Did you ever see or read The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy? In that series, the great minds of the galaxy finally got the ultimate answer to everything. It turned out to be "42". The rest of the duration of the universe was insufficient time to formulate the exact question for which this was the ultimate answer.
    This level of manifestation takes years and can never be completely accomplished in the frame of time. That's why we need more than one Magus. Bang-slap, it's over! No such luck. Every Word is a refinement or extension of every Word gone before. It's not unusual to take six years to find out what your Word requires and then be the rest of your life supporting something already begun by others as the fulfillment of that Word. Give yourself some time. Between canvassing the mundane levels for loose tools and resolving antimonies to get the Magus' Words of the past to harmonize with your Word, you have a lot of ground work to do. If we can help, let me know. Recognition is not part of the help; you don't need anybody to tell you that you have attained what you have attained -- to even seek such recognition would be a self-affront to your own attainment.
    As to knowing the secret of the O.T.O., who doesn't? It's like the philosopher's stone, common and despised. The trick is to know 1) that it is the secret and 2) how to use it. The art of the alchemist does not consist in possession of the prima materia, rather in the processes of discovery of its true character, its projection and its multiplication.
    As to being Aleister Crowley reincarnated, no rarity there either. To reincarnate a dead author, study his works. Crowley got so deeply into Eliphas Levi that he discovered himself to be Levi reincarnated. Reading is the ultimate form of invocative necromancy. Every Thelemite secretly suspects or publicly proclaims him/herself to be A.C. back from the dead. Every one of them is right. Every one of them is wrong. You, at least, have a sensible way of relating to this manifestation of Choronzon. Is there one particular reincarnation of A.C.? Who cares! That's a true secret, a matter under the law of "minding one's own business." If he remembers his own advice from the last incarnation, Crowley-re-born is quietly laying low and enjoying the world he helped to make as it is.

Events Calendar for November 1993 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.

   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.