Thelema Lodge Calendar for January 1995 e.v.

Thelema Lodge Calendar

for January 1995 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, 1995 e.v.

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

January 1995 e.v. at Thelema Lodge

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

Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers


Gnostic Mass

Thelema Lodge offers a celebration of Aleister Crowley's Gnostic Mass in Horus Temple every Sunday evening, with open communion. Arrive at 7:30, or call ahead to (510) 652-3171 for information if attending for the first time. Our pool of officers for mass teams seems to have shrunk somewhat in the past season, so the lodge especially encourages first degree O.T.O. initiates to form mass teams. Speak with the lodge master regarding scheduling, rehearsal time in the temple, and assistance for novice officers. Our lodge community includes four bishops of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, and many other members with extensive temple experience, who are available to guide and instruct beginning celebrants.

The Gnostic Mass Study Group meets monthly with Bishop T Dionysus for informal analysis and explication of Liber XV. Gather in the lodge library on Wednesday evening 25th January at 8:00 to participate in this on-going investigation of all aspects of the E.G.C. and its liturgy.

Classes, Gatherings, and Lodge Events

An especially busy autumn for many members has left us with decreased commitments for organized activity this month. Spontaneous events, although unadvertised, are frequently just as fruitful as our formally scheduled pursuits, so if you don't see what you want on the calendar, keep in touch and often we can arrange to make it happen anyway. Nearly all events at Thelema Lodge --- other than initiations --- are free and open to the public. We request donations from members, and from others who attend, in order to help cover rental costs for our temple and library facilities. This support is essential to sustain Thelema Lodge, and if we are to thrive it must be spread as widely as possible over the whole lodge community. Contributions are voluntary, but we cannot do without them. Those able to be generous are invited to discuss our Sustaining Membership program with the lodge master.

Explore "The Astrology of Aquarius" and the implications for astrological interpretation, analysis, and ritual in the Age of Aquarius, on Friday evening 27th January with Grace in Berkeley. All who attend are requested to make advance contact with Grace at (510) 843-STAR. Meet in Grace's zodiacal palace in south Berkeley from 7:00 to 9:00.

Gather at Oz House for the Thelema Lodge Section Two Reading Group with Caitlin, for a discussion of Lilith by George MacDonald, on Monday evening 16th January at 8:00. Suggested to aspirants of the A A as "a good introduction to the Astral," Lilith (1895) was one of the last works of the prolific Scots novelist, who was a friend of Lewis Carroll and a significant example for modern fantasy writers from J. R. R. Tolkien to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Lilith, is similar in texture to the Alice books, although not restricted to the sensibilities of Victorian childhood.

Previous Section Two                   Next Section Two

The Thelema Lodge Magick in Theory and Practice Series with Bill Heidrick continues in Marin on Wednesday evening 18th January, beginning at 7:30. This month's focus is upon "A Few Principal Rituals" given in Appendix VI to M.T.P., beginning with Liber Samekh. Call Bill at (415) 454-5176 for directions and additional information.

Frater P.I. organizes the Grady L. McMurtry Poetry Society at Thelema Lodge, meeting on Saturday evening 28th January at 7:30 in the lodge library. Participants bring verse selections of their own choosing, whether drawn from classic or contemporary poets, their own work, or that of friends. The group provides an appreciative audience among whom participants work to develop effective techniques of vocal delivery, a basic element of ceremonial magick in the Thelemic tradition.

Join the Butterfly Net and Thelema Lodge Computer Users Group on Thursday evening 19th January at 8:00. Instruction in various systems and skills is offered from experienced professionals who are available at this time to consult with members on all aspects of information processing and networking. Bring your computer problems, share solutions, and exchange software you're developing, at this monthly meeting.

The lodge library will be open for study and volunteer organizational work on two Library Nights this month, scheduled for Thursday evening 12th January and Monday evening 23rd January, beginning at 8:00. The excellent and ever- increasing collection of magical and Thelemic study materials available at Thelema Lodge is open for the use of members and friends by arrangement with the lodge officers. Those planning to attend Library Nights are requested to contact the lodge master a day or two ahead to confirm scheduling, which is subject to change by request.

A brief business and scheduling meeting will be held on Monday evening 9th January at 8:00, following which we will examine various documentary and photographic materials relating to the history of Thelema Lodge. This lodge meeting marks the deadline for calendar dates and descriptions to be published next month, and those unable to attend are requested to contact the lodge master with their ideas and concerns during the preceding week.

Sirius Oasis is an independent body of O.T.O., located in north Berkeley. The oasis meets on Wednesday evening 11th January to plan activities and organize initiations. Informal study of a wide range of pagan, magical, and wiccan subjects is also offered at the meetings of Sirius Oasis. Call the oasis master at (510) 527-2855 for directions and further information.

Future Events

Initiations in Ordo Templi Orientis are next scheduled for the first Saturday in February at Thelema Lodge. As usual, all attending are requested to speak with one of the lodge officers ahead of time for details. The lodge accepts applications for candidacy at any time, with a minimum of forty days being required between submission of the completed form and performance of the initiation. See the lodge master for details and advice whenever contemplating initiation.

A second Minerval Magical Class is planned for next month, open to all students but geared to beginning initiates. Also, we will continue with our Sustaining Members Luncheon Meetings in February, although none will be held this month. Contact Caitlin at Oz House to assist with plans for the celebration of Brigid (Candlemass) early in February; call (510) 654-3580.

One of the biggest pagan events in the Bay Area next month will be the first PantheaCon gathering, organized by Ancient Ways and held at the Radisson Plaza Hotel at the San Jose Airport on 17th through 20th February. A great variety of ritual and musical events, parties, workshop classes, and presentations are on the schedule, drawing from diverse traditions including Thelemic, Wiccan, Celtic, Yoruba, Umbanda, and even (it has been rumored) Klingon. Call Ancient Ways at (510) 653-3244 or drop by the store at 4075 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland for details and registration. PantheaCon 1 is not an O.T.O. event, but members of the Order have been involved in planning it, and we will be well represented there. A public celebration of Aleister Crowley's Gnostic Mass has been included in the schedule.


Crowley Classics

This essay first appeared in 1907 e.v. as the introduction to Crowley's little volume of poems Rodin in Rime, which was illustrated with water-colors by the great French sculptor. It appeared again in the same year in the third volume of Crowley's Works. Crowley had met Rodin several years before when his unconventional statue of Balzac stirred enormous controversy and was removed from public view by the city of Paris. As Crowley recalled in Confessions, "Rodin was being attacked for his statue of Balzac. I was introduced to Rodin and at once fell in love with the superb old man and his colossal work. I still think his Balzac the most interesting and important thing he did. It was a new idea in sculpture. Before Rodin there had been certain attempts to convey spiritual truth by plastic methods; but they were always limited by the supposed necessity of 'representing' what people call 'nature'. . . The real Balzac is the writer of the Comédie Humaine; and what Rodin has done is to suggest this spiritual abstraction through the medium of form." Thelemites will recall that Crowley later specifically enunciated the "right to mould as he will" in his manifesto of human rights, Liber Oz.

August Rodin
and the Nomenclature of his Works:
A Study in Spite

by Aleister Crowley

When illegitimate criticism is met with a smart swing on the point of the jaw, and has subsided into an unpleasant and unpitiful heap; when its high- well-born brother has shaken hands --- not without many years of friendly sparring --- with the new pugilist, all his family are very disappointed, for Society takes no notice of them in its (to them unseemly) adulation of the rising star. Their unfraternal feeling may even lead them to employ a sandbagger and a dark night to rid them of this dreamer Joseph.
In the case of the success, in the heavy weights, of the Meudon Chicken (M. Rodin will forgive us for the lengths to which we carry our analogy), envy has given up hope even of sandbags, and is now engaged in the ridiculous task of attempting to disconcert the eye of the Fancy Boy by flipping paper pellets at him across the arena. They do not reach him, it is true: but as I, who happen to be sitting in a back row, admiring the clean, scientific sequences of rib- punchers, claret-tappers, &c., &c., recently received one of these missiles in the eye, my attention was called to the disturber. I will now do my part as a law-abiding citizen and take my boot to the offender, as a warning to him and all of his kidney. I shall not mention his name: that he would enjoy: that is perhaps what he hoped. I will merely state that he is one of those unwashen and oleaginous individuals who are a kind of Mérodack-Jauneau without the Mérodack, i.e., without the gleam of intention in their work which to the lay mind redeems even the most grotesque imbecility of technique, and the most fatuous ignorance of all subjects connected or unconnected with art. By philosophy he understands "Science and Health": by poetry Lake Harris or Eric Mackay: he expects a painting to tell a pretty story or to upset a metaphysical position. His conversation is like that of Planchette: or if William Horton were vocal --- But Heaven forbid!
What he said, though parrot-talk, caught up in some fifth-rate sculptor's studio, no doubt, had so much truth in it, carefully concealed by the lying misinterpretation he had put on it, that, as I said, the pellet hit me. This was what it came to. Rodin's works, it is said, mean nothing. He makes a study: people see it in his studio: A. goes up and says to the Master: "Ah, how beautiful," &c., ad nauseam --- "I suppose it is 'Earth and the Spring.'" B. follows, and suggests "Hercules and Cacus"; C. thinks "The Birth of a Flower"; D. calls it "Despair"; E. varies it with "Moses breaking the Tables of the Law"; F. cocks his eye warily, and asks if it is not meant for "Mary Magdalene"; G. votes for "The Beetle-Crusher and his Muse," and so on, day after day, till Z. comes round and recognises it for Balzac. Rodin shakes him warmly by both hands: Balzac it is for all time --- and one ceases to wonder that it was rejected!
Now, of course, this paper pellet is in any care very wide of its mark. Rodin can easily sculpt himself a tabernacle and go in with Whistler --- and even drag in Velasquez; but here am I illustrating, however feebly, the Works, in Poetry: and poetry cannot, unfortunately, ever be pure technique. I have long wished to write "A Sonnet in W. and P." (with Whip as the keynote); a triolet in U. and K.; and ode in S. Sh. Sw. Sp. and Str. --- and so on; but people would merely say "Nonsense Verses" (so they do now, some of them!). So that my work is liable to the most vital misinterpretation. My best friend tells the utterly false, utterly funny story about me that I wrote one sonnet for "L'Ange déchu" and another for "Icare."
The real heart of the attack is, of course, against Rodin's intention, and it is my object to show what rubbish it is, even granting the literary basis of criticism to be valid. I am given to understand that something of the sort described above does sometimes take place in the naming of a statue (of the allegorical description especially). But that is a question of felicity, of epigram; never of subject.
In "La Main de Dieu," for example, the meaning is obvious, and not to be wrested or distorted. What does it matter if we call it as at present, or
(a) The Hand of Creation,
(b) The First Lovers,
(c) The Security of Love,
(d) The Invisible Guard
-- anything in reason? These are only ways of looking at one idea, and as you are theologian, poet, lover or mystic, so you will choose. And it is the Master's merit, not his fault, if his conception is so broad-based as to admit of different interpretations. The phenomenon is possible because Rodin is the master and not the slave of his colossal technique. The naming of a masterpiece is perhaps harder work than the producing it, and Rodin being a sculptor and not an illicit epigram distiller, is perfectly justified in picking up what he can from the witty and gifted people who throng his studio as much as he will let them.
Let there be an end, then, not to the sordid and snarling jealousy which greatness must inevitably excite, not to the simian tooth-grindings which must always accompany the entrance of a man into the jungle, but to this peculiarly senseless and sidelong attack. One accepts the lion as a worthy antagonist; one can enjoy playing with a fine dog; one can sympathise with sincere and honourable labour, though it be in vain; one ignores laughingly the attack of tiny and infuriated puppies; but there are insects so loathsome, so incredible disgusting, worms whose sight is such an abomination, whose stink is so crapulous and purulent, that, ignoring their malignity, but simply aware of their detestable presence, the heel is ground down in one generous impulse, and the slimy thing is no more. Decomposition, already far advanced, may be trusted speedily to resolve the remains into the ultimate dust of things, mere matter for some new and hopefuller avatar.
Such a worm are you, M. D----, who once, as above described, voided your noxious nastiness in my presence, trusting to conciliate me by the intended compliment that my poems on Rodin were from myself and not from him, and that any other statues would have done as well.
I am as little susceptible to flattery as I am to the venomous dicta of spite and envy, and I resent that when I see it employed as the medium for this. Without your compliment, M. D----, I might have left you to crawl on, lord of your own muck-heap; with it, I take this opportunity of stamping on you.

NOTE. --- I had intended* to include reproductions of photographs of those few statues which I have written upon; but I prefer to pay my readers the compliment of supposing that they possess the originals in either bronze or marble.

* I.e., in the large first edition, which contains seven of M. Rodin's water- colours. Vide Bibliographical Note [in volume 3 of Crowley's Works -- Ed.].

Previous Crowley Classics                   Next Crowley Classics


from the Grady Project:

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Allied victory in the Second World War, to which the founder of our lodge contributed his best efforts in the European theater of operations, as lieutenant in command of an ordnance company, delivering explosives by truck to the front lines. Over the coming months the Thelema Lodge Calendar hopes to reprint a series of Grady's war-time poetry, with most items appearing on the fiftieth anniversaries of their original composition, in between military operations in France. These poems reflect the bleak and terrible struggle out of which they were written, but also hint at the overwhelming importance of those events, both in the career of Caliph Hymenaeus Alpha and in the history of the opening century of our New Aeon.

Bitterness

In Metz the German dead lie stacked
      Beneath the quiet snow
Along the railroad tracks, a wracked
      And grotesque iron row
Between the trees, and where the packed
      Wire brambles twist and grow.

Their wooden cheeks are dark with stain;
      Hoarfrost has iced their hair;
Their broken bodies, shrunk with pain,
      Claw upwards in despair.
The fortress City of Lorraine
      Is guarded by their stare..

The ghouls have had their business way
      Among these frozen dead;
Some stripped of boots, some with their grey
      Ring fingers clipped instead,
And some have even been the play
      Of dogs, who must be fed..

These are the vaunted "Waffen Korps"
      The cold embalms so well;
God damn their souls forevermore
      And may they rot in Hell!
We wanted peace, they wanted War
      So leave them where they fell..

Lieutenant Grady L. McMurtry, U. S. Army           
1/10/45                             

Originally published in The Grady Project #1 (Oakland: Thelema Lodge, O.T.O., October 1987).

Previous Grady Project                   Next Grady Project


An Abramelin Ramble,

with visits to roadside attractions along the way
and sundry personal advice.

PART XI -- Junk behind the back seat..

Derived from a lecture on 7/22/87 e.v. by Bill Heidrick
Copyright © Bill Heidrick

Some scraps of travel notes and we are done:

In order to make use of any system, you have to learn the system and get it working. The 231 Gates of the Yetzirah is the system I've used. I extended that working considerably, just by taking more time as it became possible. The present one I am meditating on is BetShin, Shin-Bet or Bet-Shin. Crowley took his Abramelin meditation system from the work of John Dee. There are a series of Calls, organized and progressively difficult. Crowley was able, after a couple of failures, to make a go of that. He tried it in Scotland with the Golden Dawn "Shin of Shin" ritual, and it petered out. He tried it in Mexico and only got a little way. He went into the Arabian desert, paraded Victor Neuburg around in fancy dress and got side-tracked briefly, but he managed to accomplish the thing, as any can see in Vision and Voice.
The main thing that you need in this world is to learn how to use what you already have. It works that way in meditation as well. If you take an old system and don't pay too much attention to an old teacher, then you might develop a light of truth in that old system that no one ever knew before. That's new. Or perhaps, something of it was forgotten, and rediscovering the forgotten part is what you need to do. In this work, it is necessary that everything be new. Yet, the pattern will always be old. That is not a contradiction. Everything that you do from the pattern is new to you. By using a preexisting pattern, something old in that sense, you don't have to start from scratch. If you want to make a drawing, you get a piece of paper. You can make the paper yourself, an entertaining thing that one might like to try; but that is not the best way to make a drawing. It's the same here. You need a paper, a piece of paper to write yourself upon. That "paper" should be an existing system. If you originate that system yourself, it may or may not work; but you will be certainly wasting a lot of precious time. You will also likely end up with an experience that you can't explain to anybody. The biggest problem for people who get deeply into these things, as I have found and seen, is that they get so far removed that they can't communicate their experiences to others. Such folk get very very lonely and seem very very strange. Why stand on the sea-shore and reach as high as you can? Why not stand on a mountain top and reach higher? The mountain top is there already. You don't have to make your own mountain of sand. That's the principle.

There are various rituals and things to get into. Consider John Dee's original version of the Enochian Squares. That's a magical procedure worked out in Elizabethan times. He even called it "Enochian" from the legendary Book of Enoch.

If you can get situated in a little hut in the wilds, you have it made. But if you can't find a lovely sylvan setting out of a Chinese or Japanese dream, you are just going to have to lump it with a corner of your apartment.

Crowley had a bit of a sense of humor. Consider the Abramelin square printed in the Equinox just in front of his article on Geomancy. That one is titled "To undo Magic". Also, there is a similar square placed just behind the title page of The Goetia, a portion of the Lesser Key of Solomon. It's another one of the Abramelin squares to undo magic. Tasteless trick, I call it.

If you get into some method of art, by all means incorporate it into this. Embroidery of magical squares is perfectly workable.

You will get pretty pictures if you can meditate enough. They don't mean anything? Maybe they do. In the 231 gates method, it is common to draw elaborate diagrams or mandalas, such as a combination of all of the other letters placed between the two Hebrew letters, e.g. Tzaddi and Hay. Every other letter is there, so in a sense this shows all the things that pass between the gates of Tzaddi and Hay, between the Star and the Emperor Trump. Such talismans and power drawings proliferate with this method.

LITTER ON THE FLOOR:

SATORSow
AREPOand reap
TENEThold to
OPERAthe work
ROTASof the cycle

To know all things Past and Future in general.

MILONa night's lodging or rest
IRAGOto alarm, terrify tremble
LAMAL"to God" a name of Solomon
OGARIto cry, chatter
NOLIMthe soiled ones

In a place of rest, tremble before the God of Solomon and strangely utter concerning mortal things.

To know things past regarding Enemies.

KOSEMShin-Memoracle, divination
OBODEAyin-Bet-Dalet-Hayservants
SOFOSSamekh-Vau-Peh{final}to be fulfilled
EDOBOBet-Ayin-Vau Dalet-Vau-Betpine away; prayer
MESOKAyin-Qof-Chet Mem-Samekhpining; oppression

Take an oracle about servants who were sent away; about the purpose of death bringing prayers that make the miserable more miserable.
           or
Discover one who serves harm and thievery; weaken away concealment.

To cause any spirit to appear, and take ... the form of a Bird.

NunAlephTetAlephShinThe adversary
AlephMemAlephDaletAlephof man
TetAlephBetAlephTetbecomes pleasant
AlephDaletAlephMemAlephin a garment
ShinAlephTetAlephNunextended.

Diary of the square: While finishing this, a call from M-A. She was sitting at a resort, by a pool. A sudden gust of wind and the large umbrella sheltering a table by her chair was caught up. She rose from her seat and took a couple of steps. The aluminum shaft of the umbrella struck down into the chair she had just vacated, piercing the back at the level her heart would have been, had she not left the spot.

To be beloved by a Woman:

HayAlephDaletYodDaletHayAyin
AlephChetVauReshYodZainHay
DaletVauQofAlephLamedYodDalet
YodReshAlephChetAlephReshYod
DaletYodLamedAlephQofVauDalet
HayZainYodReshVauChetAleph
YodHayDaletYodDaletAlephHay

The beloved shines forth her living breath as the burning scent of cinnamon bark. She is shy and white as the moon. Behold the tree of striving penetrate the whiteness deeply. Sing out in strength at fulfillment.

From Yod-Dalet-Yod-Dalet-Hay, Zain-Resh-Chet, Resh-Vau-Chet, Dalet-Lamed-Qof, Qof-Dalet-Hay, Yod-Resh-Hay, Dalet-Vau-Qof, Dalet-Qof-Lamed, Chet-Vau-Resh, Chet-Resh-Zain, Hay-Dalet-Dalet, Dalet-Yod.

New Square: To send away afflictions that come from pets.

ShinYodMemShinVauMemYodYodChet
MemYodNunHayBetDaletAlephChetAleph
TawAlephPehHayMemHayKafAlephQof
HayDaletAyinLamedAlephYodTzaddiAlephNun
VauAlephDaletAlephTetAlephTawAlephVau
NunAlephTzaddiTawAlephLamedAyinDaletHay
QofAlephKafHayMemHayQofAlephTaw
AlephChetAlephDaletBetHayNunYodMem
ChetYodYodMemNunShinMemYodShin

Live each day in the Sun. Join in kinship with the Sea. Abandon sadness and noise --- speak the sign. A blooming shoot, divine adornment. A mist conceals the sickness. Shout joyfully, in the World delight at plenty. Bring this sign to the noise amid sounds of beauty. All kinds of falsehood flee the friend. A gift deals with smell by the sign of the Most High.

HayAlephReshAyinHayThe Mother
AlephMemVauShinVaunames the
ReshVauTetVauReshtrembling bound
VauShinVauMemAlephof the night's
HayVauReshAlephHayincrease.

To Discover any Magic, To be done on red satin with green grid, letters in black; attached in yellow.

A SCRAP OF MEDITATION WEDGED UNDER THE SEAT:

ZainVau

7/22/71 e.v.

Upon the plane a thousand teachers. Each is true. Each says all the others lie. Each teaches a tale of unraveled thread. Each speaks of warp and woof. Each casts a net to catch souls. Each tells truth with lies.
Find a faith. Stand firm in it. Be baptized with water and with fire. Affirm the opposite of the faith. Then you shall baptized with piety and apostasy.
Seek ever the opposite in every thought. Only through negation may truth flow. Set two legs upon the ground. Raise two arms to heaven. Thus you burrow and fly.

A child sits in the temple. Learned men ask patronizing questions.

How old are you?

How young are you?

Who is your father?

My child.

Who are you?

Who am I not?

Whence did you come?

Where I am going.

What do you know of the Law?

Only what I Will to Know.

The doctors of the place are confused. They cry aloud: "Who has taught such devilish lies to a child? Who has schooled such insolence?"
The child, thinking the questioning still proceeding, points to an empty room behind a veil and says: "He taught me!"
Since the shedding of blood in the sanctuary is forbidden, the elders tell the child that he is holy and that he should depart. This seems the only course.
The child walks out of the temple and journeys back to his village. His home is poor. He enters an empty room after lifting a bit of cloth which serves as a door.
The priests of the temple go on worshiping outside their Holy of Hollies. The Child dwells in His.


Previous Abramelin Ramble


Primary Sources

Crowley's Publishing Plans:
Here is a letter from Aleister Crowley to Karl Germer, reflecting his last phase of publishing in vita with the production of the Book of Thoth and plans for what would become Magick Without Tears. Many names go by in the process, often of O.T.O. members connected to Agape Lodge:

The Bell Inn,
    Aston Clinton, Bucks.
        November 29th, 1944

Dear Karl,
I have your letters of October 22nd, October 31st and November 7th. I am glad to hear that you are on something new and I hope that this time it will turn up trumps. I have told Miss Taylor what you say about your address.
I will look at Mrs Lowthorpt's figure, and when this letter comes back from being typed may be able to make a few comments. I note what you say about McMurtry.
I am asking the binder to send you invoices for the copies that he is sending out to you. In the meanwhile the quarto bound cost 17/6d. per copy, and the half-bound, 27/6d. I have already written you about the blocks, but you could perfectly well get out an edition without them --- in fact you had much better do so if your are hoping to sell the book at any reasonable sort of price. Roughly speaking, the cost of a set of blocks for one card is from £10 to £15.
I am very glad that you are having copies made of "Liber Aleph". I certainly hope you can get it printed, and I am sure that I can trust you to see that the style is as good as that of the Tarot. It was my intention to have one chapter on one page. I also regard it as number One of what I may call classic publications, although the book I am now working on, "Aleister Explains Everything" is likely to come first, because that can be got out in a large edition cheaply, and I think will do a great deal to sell the other books.
I am not sure whether I sent a copy to Frederick. I certainly did to Jack and Georgia. I did not send one to Jane's sister. I thought she was dead.
I feel that I am treating you very badly, but you must realise that I am working in the most impossible conditions. I can only afford one day a week for dictation. My secretary comes out here and takes back the shorthand, sends me the typescript for revision and signature. She has filed everything very neatly and nicely, but as you know from experience it is from my point of view almost like throwing them into the ashcan. I tremble when I think of trying to find everything. Nor can I grasp any business matters at all with my mind. I do my best to answer your letters, but I never feel sure that I have done so satisfactorily. The result is that you ask me to do some perfectly simple thing which any idiot could do in five minutes, and it is completely beyond my understanding, far more-so beyond my ability to execute. Things will never go right until I have a full-time secretary who will have all the business details in her head, and that means doubling the monthly transfer at the least.
I am sending you six prospectuses. But you must send by return of post 60 cents in payment for them. This is to keep on the right side of the 'paper control' people, who have been making trouble for me. They have no standing in the matter because the Equinox Vol. 3, no.5, of which "The Book of Thoth" is a part, is a periodical and not subject to their jurisdiction.
Wonders will never cease about that material. I went to a local woman in Aston Clinton, and she made me perfectly good shirts. I suspect that the London man was simply making an excuse for not doing the work. You have no idea how strangely people act these days.
What you say about Jack appears very complicated. I had an extremely nice letter from him, and then I had a letter from Helen to say that Smith had started his retirement on satisfactory lines, but of course for all I know this may be a pack of lies. Honestly, I don't know where I am.
You suddenly shoot off from the question of Jack to your health. Of course what you say is very obscure to me. I can only hope that everything will go well.
I have not a Book 4 Part II. I managed to borrow a copy for a month about three weeks ago, but have to return it. I have a copy of Part I. If this is any good to you I will send it along.
I am very glad to hear that Sascha is better, and that her proposed visit to California will be an outstanding success.
It would be perfectly senseless for me to go back to London. I am thinking of winter quarters somewhere on the borders of Kent and Sussex, but the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know, and there are so many advantages in remaining here that I shall take quite a lot of shifting.
Georgia's letter is very interesting, but I must say that I don't get very much out of it. All this business about auras gets on my nerves. I don't know what she means by this taint which she mentions in her penultimate paragraph.
I am probably rather peevish this afternoon. I appreciate Georgia immensely in every way, and realise how wonderful her support has been; but I do not want to know about various misadventures and calamities unless there is something I can do about them. I don't know why she has to write a letter like that.
Now for yours of October 31st. I don't remember receiving any letter from Jack to you. He cabled me 80 dollars about the same time as your 300 dollar transfer. This has put me all right with the binders. I have not had anything else from Jack since the contribution in the early summer when the Tarot was in question. I think that he owes me a letter; but I don't like to swear to that till I am almost sure. I certainly think that he ought to contribute much more largely than he does. Your original idea of a quarter of a century ago that we should never do any good until we had a proper headquarters and a proper staff, is still the right idea. I don't think that you should spend large sums of money on getting out reprints while this business of headquarters awaits attention, and also these books which exist only in manuscript, and some of which are in duplicate. I am living in a state of constant terror lest some more of my most important work should be destroyed without remedy.
You returned in this last letter to the question of Jack, in alternate paragraphs. It is very confusing --- still more so since every paragraph seems to contradict the one which has gone before! I rather doubt Frederick's judgement.1 If I remember correctly in my last letter to Jack I was able to congratulate him on a very fine piece of poetry, and certainly his last letter appeared to show the right spirit. But as you imply there may be some kind of plot with Smith in the foreground. The idea is2 so senseless that I can hardly imagine any human being holding out. But you know people are like that.
I will send a Tarot to Lt. Crombie through Georgia.
Max's letter to you: there may be a spare copy of the Equinox of the Gods in storage. Until there is a proper headquarters it is no use trying to look for one.
Yours of November 7th. Thanks for the Artemis Iota. My mind is now at ease on that subject. The whole of your letter confuses me terrible. I think perhaps that you are yourself confused. Success is your proof does not seem to me to have anything to do with love.
Of course I understand very well, from the first minute that I met you, your difficulties in this outlook of yours. I have written again and again about it, and I don't know that I can add anything useful. Your real trouble it seems to me is that you take everything so seriously, that you feel compelled to analyse in season and out of season, when there is no real occasion.
I am very glad to hear that there are hopes of a good transfer in December. If I decide to shift over, it is going to cost a lot.
You must apologise to Handel about the book. I sent that copy because I had not one of the other kind available. You can have no conception how muddled it has been. At the present moment I am having to find out from the binder how many copies have been bound, how many need binding and so on, and as to the numbering that has got all mixed up. The difficulty has been mostly that of transporting the books from London here and so on. You have got your twenty copies on the way. I cannot understand your figures at all. The actual cost of producing a copy was approximately £5, but that is allowing nothing whatever for overhead, stationery, typing, journeys and heaven knows what else, occasional secretarial assistance. I say nothing of the author, but the idea that Jack appears to have that 80 dollars should secure him ten copies is contemptible. Two copies are much more like the value. I think you must have misunderstood his cable. It is really too ridiculous.
I will try and get you a copy of the printer's account, but it is mixed up with the costs of other books, and honestly I don't know where I am about it. You might be able to make something.
I shall now retire from the unequal contest. It is really no good turning me upside down over all these business calculations. It simply spoils my temper.
           Love is the law, love under will.

Yours with great love, but not feeling well; digestion all wrong these last 3 days
           Aleister

P.S. I am sending you a set of six of the Letters of which there are now about 70, chosen at random so as to give you a sort of idea of the scope of the book. It is a little difficult to arrange, about the order in which they should appear, and at the moment I think the best way out of it is to classify them under various headings such as The Universe, Man, the Order, Yoga, Ethics. You might be able to get a contract with an occult periodical to issue them serially. Such people as I have honoured with the privilege of reading them are all very enthusiastic. I find that they want copies for themselves, and every one is agreed that for the first time I have been able to put things in such a way as can be understood by the ordinary intelligent person. For this and other reasons I think that you ought to be able to make a good thing out of it commercially. If you want a complete set of Letters it means that I shall have to have the whole series retyped. I want to impress upon you that people are pestering me from every quarter to supply them with various stuff published or unpublished. This means that I have to send my copies out to a firm to be typed, and this comes out rather expensive. For instance, Jean Phillips appears to be in close touch with Orson Welles and is anxious to interest him in my work. I am therefore sending here various things which might take his fancy. (You realise of course that his acceptation of one story of mine would make us for good and all). It has occurred to me that "The Three Wishes" would suit O.W. very well, not having any spare copies I had to have it retyped, 60 pages cost with two carbons, £3.13.9d. Now I have got to get Liber Aleph recopied and also the secret Documents of the 7th-9th Degress.3 A.C.

P.S. Long letter just in from Jack. Will write again on Sunday when I have had time to read and consider it. A.C.

Notes (from the margins of this copy):
1. Note in Margin by A.C.: It sounds hysterical to me.
2. A.C. in the margin: Can`t remember what I wrote. Sec. ... here. This sounds wrong.
3. A.C. note below: and "Across the Gulf".

Previous Primary Sources                   Next Primary Sources


From the Outbasket

Last month's look at Crowley's usage of "Lucifer", "Satan" and "Christ" occasioned a question. Loran asked about A.C.'s references to Francois Rabelais (c. 1494 e.v. to 1553 e.v.). It's widely known that Rabelais said "Do what thou wilt", used Thelema and employed an Abbey of Thelema in his Gargantua and Pantagruel four centuries before Liber AL. The old Hell Fire Clubs continued that tradition through variation into the late 18th century. For some, this becomes a question of Crowley faking it. For others, it is more a matter of observing a gradual development of Thelema through the half millennium preceding the Aeon of Horus. In any event, Crowley was equipped to "hear" the word when Aiwass communicated. The following examination of usage from 20+ megs of Crowley's opus details "Rabelais" and Rabelaisian".

from Not the Life of Sir Roger Bloxham:

"This Book be your Romaunt, the pillow of your slumbers, the candle of your vigils; and you shall salute me Guardian of the Graal, because I stood with Shakespeare and Aristophanes and Apuleius and Cervantes and Rabelais and Balzac and Sir Richard Burton who liked life whole and wholesome, hardy to the four winds, not mewling, puking, piffling, twaddling, bellelettrizing, Dameauxcameliarizing, Murgerizing, Lukizing, Omarizing, Wertherizing, Littlenellizing, sentimentalizing, squalling, squawking, weeping, deploring, and all the other participles in the language and outside it that may be quintessentialized as finding favour with the burgess."

"Well, Louis says, that we cannot help thinking a little of Laurence Sterne and Rabelais; to which I answer ``Would Got 'twere so!"

Old Comment to Liber AL I,39: "The word of the Law is GR:Theta-epsilon-lambda-eta-mu-alpha.:

"Compare Rabelais. Also it may be translated, 'Let Will and Action be in harmony.'"

from Works of Aleister Crowley, Vol. II:

"Brutal truth-telling humour, at times perhaps too Rabelaisian; lyrics, some of enchanting beauty, others painfully imitative; sonnets of exceedingly unequal power, a perfectly heartless introduction (some fools would call it pathetic), ..."

"Till now --- as I write the sun bursts forth suddenly from a cloud, as if heralding the literary somersault of the twentieth century --- we have been content to accept Shakespeare as orthodox, with common sense; moral to a fault, with certain Rabelaisian leanings: a healthy tone (we say) pervades his work."

from Confessions:

"I found myself engaged in all sorts of schoolboy escapades where hard knocks and Rabelaisian practical jokes gave birth to huge and hearty laughter."

"It is really strange how polite propriety is always stumbling into Rabelaisian jests."

"Rabelais: the final secret is in the bottle inscribed TRINC."

In Liber XV, the Gnostic Mass, Rabelais is a saint.

from Crowley's translation of The Key of the Mysteries by Eliphas Levi:

"The France of the Crusades, the France of the Troubadours, the France of songs, the France of Rabelais and of Voltaire, the France of Bossuet and of Pascal, it is she who is the synthesis of all peoples: it is she who consecrates the alliance of reason and of faith, of revolution and of power, of the most tender belief and of the proudest human dignity."

"The Bibliophile Jacob suggests that Verville stole his Moyen de Parvenir from a lost book of Rabelais. Verville was a Canon of St. Gatien, Tours, and is associated with Tours and Touraine." --- A Crowley footnote.

"Balzac's Contes Drolatiques were deemed to have been more inspired by Verville than by Rabelais." --- Crowley footnote.

from a review by Crowley in Equinox Vol I, No 6:

"...Hence a tedious novel,
dull novel,unconvincing novel,
stupid novel,futile novel,
pseudo-occult novel,banal novel,
pot-boiling novel,senseless novel,
tired novel,ground-out novel,
pointless novel,unreal novel,
fatuous novel,sorry novel,
  etc., etc., etc.

The above method of filling space I took from Rabelais. Mr Hichens' method is just as obvious. PANURGE."

from "The Bismarck of Battersea" in Equinox, I-7:

"More lucid and a thousand times more entertaining than Bunyan, deeper than Berkeley, as full of ecstasy of laughter as Rabelais, and of mystic ecstasy as Malory, a book of the Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz with Voltaire."

from Gospel according to St. Bernard Shaw:

"Hence Protestantism is due to the accident that the translation called the Authorized Version was done by scholars of that period of the marvellous flowering of English which not only gave us Marlowe and Shakespeare and Malory, but such masters of translation as North for Plutarch, Florio for Montaigne, Urquhart and Motteux for Rabelais, and a dozen more."

from the bibliography in the center of Magick in Theory and Practice:

"The Works of Francois Rabelais. Invaluable for Wisdom."

from Magick Without Tears:

"...(Liber LXVI, Liber CCCLXX, Liber DCCCXXXI, Liber CLXXV, Liber CLVI and others, also in The Equinox are official publications of the A A) There are also various classics of the subject, helpful to assimilate the romantic and enthusiastic atmosphere proper to the practice of the Art; one may instance Catullus, Juvenal, (especially the "Sixth Satire"), Martial, Petronius Arbiter, Apuleius, Boccaccio, Masucci, Francois Rabelais, de Balzac ("Contes Drolatiques"), de Sade (Justine, Juliette, et al...."

"For --- see Liber Aleph, after Rabelais --- the Word of the Last Oracle is TRINC."

"You did expect at least something of the atmosphere of the Arabian Nights; if not so high, of Apuleius and Petronius Arbiter; of Rabelais, Meinhold, de la Motte Fouque; and the Morte d'Arthur in later times, of Balzac, Dumas, Lytton, Huysmans, Mabel Collins and Arthur Machen."

finally, from a footnote to The Scented Garden of Abdullah the Satirist of Shiraz aka Bagh-i-Muattar:

"This is the Rabelasian jest --- the story of Hans Carvels ring --- in Eastern dress."

I echo the sentiment, and trust that our readers' Solstice has been a merry one!

-- TSG (Bill Heidrick)

Previous Outbasket                   Next Outbasket

Events Calendar for January 1995 e.v.

1/1/95Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus TempleThelema Ldg.
1/8/95Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus TempleThelema Ldg.
1/9/95Thelema Lodge Meeting 8:00PM
(& Lodge History night)		Thelema Ldg.
1/11/95Sirius Oasis meeting in Berkeley 8PMSirius Oasis
1/12/95Thelema Lodge Library night 8PM
(call to attend)		Thelema Ldg.
1/15/95Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus TempleThelema Ldg.
1/16/95Section 2 reading group, 8PM at OZ
MacDonald's Lilith w/Caitlin		Thelema Ldg.
1/18/95Magick in Theory and Practice class
with Bill in San Anselmo 7:30PM		Thelema Ldg.
1/19/95Butterfly Net Computer Group 8:00PMThelema Ldg.
1/22/95Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus TempleThelema Ldg.
1/23/95Thelema Lodge Library night 8PM
(call to attend)		Thelema Ldg.
1/25/95Liber XV Study Group w. Bp. T
Dionysys 8:00PM		Thelema Ldg.
1/27/95Astrology of Aquarius with Grace
7-9PM, Berkeley. Call to attend.		Thelema Ldg.
1/28/95777 Poetry Society 7:30PM w.Fr.P.I.Thelema Ldg.
1/29/95Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus TempleThelema 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)

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

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

Home away from Home