Thelema Lodge Calendar for January 1996 e.v.

Thelema Lodge Calendar

for January 1996 e.v.

The viewpoints and opinions expressed herein are the responsibility of the contributing authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of OTO or its officers.

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

January 1996 e.v. at Thelema Lodge

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

Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers

Mysteria Mystica Maxima

Thelema Lodge, along with other chartered oases of the order all over the world, offers O.T.O. initiation to all applicants who are free, of full age, and of good report. The initiation experience provides a personal milestone and a standard of developmental progress for the candidate, as well as a membership community within each degree offering instruction and example for the newly admitted member. Applications to the order, using the requisite form for the degree sought, may be submitted to the officers of the lodge, and will then be sent on to the national O.T.O. Initiation Secretary to await the mandatory forty-day period of candidacy before the ritual can be scheduled.

Initiations for advancement in Ordo Templi Orientis will next be held here on Saturday 13th January, from 2:00 through the afternoon, to conclude with an evening feast. All members with an interest in attending are requested to contact the lodge ahead of time regarding initiation times and the degrees to be worked. Candidates must also stay in close touch with the lodge as this date approaches. Dues and fees are to be paid over to the initiating officer immediately before the ritual; no early or late payments please.

Looking ahead to next month, initiations for admission into O.T.O. are next planned for the first weekend in February, and may be incorporated into Brigid celebrations; please contact the lodge a week or two ahead for details.

Gnostic Catholic Church

Aleister Crowley's gnostic mass, as celebrated every Sunday evening in Horus Temple at Thelema Lodge, is the principal focus of the spiritual community upon which our work together as a lodge is founded. Members, and also friends and guests of the lodge, are all welcome to participate with us in this Thelemic eucharist and feast of Agape. Arrive at our temple and library in the Rockridge district of Oakland by 7:30, with mass scheduled to begin shortly thereafter. Newcomers should call the lodge ahead of time at (510) 652-3171 for information and directions.

Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica has maintained a tradition of weekly celebration of the gnosis in communion, with Sunday evening masses here in the San Francisco East Bay for over eighteen years, beginning under the direction of Patriarch Hymenaeus Alpha and continuing in his legacy by authority of the current church Father and Frater Superior of O.T.O. Dating back to the foundation in 1890 of L'Eglise Gnostique in France, in which Dr. Gerard Encausse (known as Papus) was one of the original bishops, our E.G.C. traditions reached us by way of Die Gnostiche Katholische Kirche as led by Theodore Reuss in Germany before the first world war. It was this branch which ordained Aleister Crowley, when he became head of the English speaking O.T.O. in 1912 e.v. In the following year, Crowley completed a new liturgical ritual for use in Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (Liber XV) which was regularly celebrated in southern California through most of the 1930s e.v., as it has been here at Thelema Lodge and in many other temples of the order during the past two decades.

Workshops, Classes, and Meetings

The Thelema Lodge "Yoga for Yahoos" series with Ann offers fortnightly instruction and guided group practice work in Horus Temple. Geared both for intermediate and beginning levels, this group meets at 1:00 on Saturday afternoons 6th January and 20th January. Guided with skill and grace by Ann through a specially adapted solar salutation and a somewhat strenuous sequence of stretching and assana positions, participants will be more than ready to embrace the stillness and silence with which the hour ends.

The Amber Witch will be the subject of discussion, illustrated with readings of selected passages, at the Section Two Reading Group, which meets at Oz House on Monday evening 22 January at 8:00 with Caitlin. This German novel by Johannes Wilhelm Meinhold (1797-1851) gives a detailed fictional reconstruction of an actual witch trial from the seventeenth century of the black aeon of Osiris. Die Bernsteinhexe was written in the form of a chronicle, and originally published as a hoax, claiming to have been transcribed from contemporary sources. Fragments first appeared in 1841-2, and attracted considerable attention; but when the fraud became known, the work faded from attention in Germany, only to be resurrected for a second vogue in English translation. We will be reading the version written in 1846 by Lady Lucy Duff Gordon. Despite its translation status, this work has been called by one critical historian of Victorian popular fiction "the most important witch novel in the nineteenth-century English-speaking world."

Previous Section Two Next Section Two

The John Dee Reading Group with Clay Holden meets Monday evening 15th January at 8:00 in the library at Thelema Lodge. With this session we embark upon Liber Mysteriorum Secundus, which documents the angelic presentation of the Sigillum Dei Aemeth, including a letter-by-letter description of the visions which established the coded rim of the sigil. Clay will supply copies of a new edition for readers in this group, prepared from his transcription, with facing pages in facsimile from Dee's manuscript account.

The symbolism of mighty Mars will be the focus for a second month with the Astrological Study Group, as we meet on Friday evening 26th January from 7:00 to 9:00, at Grace's Temple of Astrology in Berkeley. We will explore the nature of our aggressions, ambition, and libido in the light of our personal charts as well as that of the United States and the world in general. Please come with charts, questions, insights, and opinions to add to the excitement of what promises to be an active evening of energetic ideas. Call first at (510) 843-STAR to attend a session that will challenge all levels from beginner to professional alike.

The first performance of the "Angelmas" (prepared this past year by the Enochian Liturgy group at Thelema Lodge) occurred shortly after 3:00 on Sunday afternoon 10th December, in the Craftsman-styled interior of Berkeley's Grace North Church. Attended by a small gathering of Thelemites mixed with members of the Grace Community, the event itself was both a sacramental ritual and a bridge between faiths. The officers of the mass were Michael Sanborn as celebrant, Susan Drewry as reader, Father John Mabry of the Free Catholic Communion as deacon, and Clay Holden as cantor. Organist Janeen Jones contributed a spirited performance, including selections of liturgical music from the English Renaissance. During the first of these -- the "Gloria Tibi Trinites" by John Bull -- the officers processed into the chapel, into which had been installed the Watchtowers of the Elements, the Sigils of the Elemental Kings, and the Twelve Banners in Enochian script. After the altar had been duly censed, and the sanctuary purified by the aspergill, a series of prayers and invocations from the original angelic workings of Dee and Kelly was enacted, including a congregational reading of the First Angelic Call. After another musical interlude -- "Verse for Double Organ" by Richard Portman -- a slightly modified eucharistic rite followed, incorporating elements of the 1559 Book of Common Prayer (used in Dee's time) with the old Latin Catholic mass translated into English (the "Tridentine Mass"). The ceremony was enjoyed by all, and set the stage for further discussion at the follow-up "Angelmas" planning meeting, on Sunday afternoon 28th January at 2:00 in the lodge library. Kindred spirits can contact Michael for more information at (510) 601-9393, or e-mail: msanborn@netcom.com.

Sirius Oasis of Ordo Templi Orientis will hold its monthly meeting on Monday evening 29th January at 8:00 in its master's home in north Berkeley. To attend, contact the oasis ahead of time at (510) 527-2855 for directions. The work and play of Sirius Oasis includes ceremonial and dramatic ritual, occult musical scholarship, speculative and technological fiction, the community of Ancient Ways, and the "PantheaCon 96" pagan gathering scheduled for 16-19th February. The oasis also performs O.T.O. initiations, and has recently been focusing renewed attention upon the gnostic mass. Sirius Oasis maintains extensive contacts with all variety of pagan groups in the area, and has led the Thelemic community here in our annual celebration of the Rites of Eleusis. To become involved with this group, call and join in at this meeting with the events being planned for the coming months.

Thelema Lodge offers "library nights" by arrangement, with two evenings of each month usually proposed on the calendar when officers can be on hand to open the facilities if requested; other dates may be accommodated whenever convenient. Wednesday 10th January and Wednesday 31st January, from 8:00 till 10:00, are the dates this month; please contact the lodge ahead of time to attend, as they are subject to change by request.

Our lodge is a thelemic community of initiates, working our wills together upon the web and woof of the world. The rituals, workshops, and gatherings which we schedule for publication in the calendar provide a formal representation of the lodge's life, serving both to open our activities to wider involvement, and to suggest structures for ourselves against which to gauge the meaning and success of our work. The lodge schedule is set by its members; either listing events as proposed by members who arrange to organize them, or recruiting those with significant skills and studies to undertake events for which an interest has been voiced. The calendar is coordinated by the master of the lodge, John Brunie (Frater Hrafnkel V°), who assists our publisher Bill Heidrick ...° with the editing and writing of the newsletter. Many other members regularly contribute to the scheduling process, with Caitlin (Soror Phoenix V°) especially offering assistance and advice with our events calendar (as well as herself coordinating and publishing the monthly Oz House activities calendar).

Members can address calendar issues with the lodgemaster at any convenient opportunity, but a monthly luncheon meeting is also set aside for discussion of lodge business, and interested members are invited to take this opportunity to become involved in the planning and administration of Thelema Lodge. A meal will be served by the lodge officers, and open discussion usually follows, unless a specific project has been organized. Join us on Sunday afternoon 7th January from 12:30 till 2:30 in the lodge kitchen. Please mention ahead of time or call beforehand to let us know how many will be attending.

Crowley Classics

This essay was originally published in The Fatherland 3:9 (New York: 6 October 1915). Under the editorship of George Sylvester Viereck, Crowley contributed at least half a dozen articles and essays to this magazine from 1915 to 1917, ostensibly to sustain American sympathy for German interests in Europe.

The Future of the Submarine
by Aleister Crowley

	"Old England had a nafy;
	Dey had de fifteen-inch,
	So many und so long dey vas
	Dey tink dey hav a cinch.
	De pootiest shells in all de vurld,
	Dey vayed 'pout two tausend pound;
	Und efery time dat Vinston shpeak
	He make der vurld resound.
	Old England had a nafy;
	I dells you it cost her dear;
	Dey plewed in more ash dvendy-vife
	Off millions efery year;
	Und vhenefer dey launch anofer ship
	Ed English gifes a cheer,
	I dinks dot so vine a nafy
	Nefer sailed dis erdlich sphere.
	Old England had a nafy;
	Dey haf vun 'Vistory,'
	Vun *'Driumph,' vun* 'Invincible,'**
	Dot sailed upon der sea.
	Dey haf two hoondred 'Dreadnought.'
	Und super-Dreadnoghts ash vell;
	But de bride of all der navy
	Vos der prave 'Unsinkable.'
	Old England had a nafy;
	Like fans der men vos rooty,
	Ven out of Luxhafen der com
	Vun klein' Unterseeboote.
	Und ven der nafy see him come
	Dey dink of der Chudgment Day.
	And ash qvick as dey can vot vos left of dem
	Vos sguttling out of der vay.
	Old England had a nafy,
	Vhere ish dot navy now?
	Vhere ish de lofely brazen cloud
	Dot vos on Vinston's prow?
	Vhere ish de Mishtress of de seas
	Dot kept dem bottled tight?
	All goned away mit de torpedo --
	Avay in de evigkeit!"
	Hans Breitman in 1915.

Until the war broke out, nobody was sure as to whether there was any value in the submarine. In England we enjoyed, even more than we were edified by, the spectacle of British Admirals quarrelling like schoolboys, saucing each other like lydies on the lush, and intriguing against each other like Mexican Generals, on account of the divergence of their views. For all such views were academic and speculative. The lesson of maoeuvres taught nothing but the theories of the umpire. It was all guesswork.

There is a snake in Burma called Russell's Viper. It is the only animal which makes the Buddhist violate his first principle of not taking life. For it is a gamble; if you see it first, you kill it; if it sees you first, it kills you. The submarine is the Russell's Viper of the water, and the practical question was "Would it see you first?" This could not be tested until the war. Old gentlemen in Pall Mall Clubs wrote elaborately to the Times the most convincing arguments; but nobody knew, as we know now.

In this fog of doubt, the Admiralties could only go half speed ahead. They might be throwing their money into the sea. The frequent accidents to submarines acted as a further check on the development of the arm. If Germany devoted more time and money and thought to it, the reason was plain. It was a desperate draw. She could not beat England on the water, so she might as well try the U boats. If they failed, they failed. ("But screw your courage to the sticking-point, and we'll not fail.") Similar considerations made them spend enormous sums on Zeppelins. However, even Germany did not devote herself exclusively or even sufficiently to these new means of warfare. The conservative school had great influence, and the prestige of England was all against the innovation.

Now it is to be remembered that the present submarine is no more a fixed and perfect machine of its type than were the old high bicycle and the Wright aeroplane. The submarine of 1913 was a very ramshackle contraption. The problems had by no means been worked out, and there was no money to test new inventions. (It is not generally known that models which work perfectly may fail altogether when enlarged to full size; so that even the production of a new invention in miniature is not necessarily a good argument for taking it up.) The inventor was accordingly discouraged; he spent his time on things that promised more or less immediate return for his brains and capital. A man had to be a bit of a crank to spend his life at the solution of abstruse theoretical problems which never actualize when motor-cars and aeroplanes were all in the public eye. Everything conspired accordingly to retard the development of the submarine.

III

Before war had broken out a month, the Hague, Cressy, and Aboukir were sunk in twenty minutes by a single submarine. Naval theory sank with them. The U had come to stay -- even the little, slow, limited, dangerous bad old U! Such a coup paid for fifty failures.

The Germans recognized the fact immediately, and appraised it at its proper value. When England blusteringly swore to starve Germany out, the reply was simple -- the proclamation of a Reign of Terror. Jack Tar has lost his courage. Under the White Ensign or the blue, he has neurasthenia. (Perhaps we had better design him a "Yellow Ensign" for the future.) The British navy skulks in lonely harbors behind steel nets; it hardly dares the patrol of the North Sea. The Blue Water School and the Blue Funk School have amalgamated.

In this new circumstance, that no ship is safe from sudden disaster, the advantage is wholly with the continental power. It is easy to foresee that England will be crushed, if only that advantage be pressed home.

The first and most obvious duty of General Admiral von Tirpitz is to perfect the U boat as a weapon of destruction. Its primary function was for coast and harbor defense against warships; but its already enlarged cruising powers have enabled it to extend the definition of the word "coast" in a degree altogether unexpected.

Now comes the question: is there any limit to the possibilities of its improvement in this respect? I should not care to fix it. Now that every scientific or engineering brain can devote itself to the problem with every prospect of a reward like that of Wellington, be sure that surprises are in store.

I see a submarine with a cruising radius of 5,000 miles, and enough torpedoes to blow every ship in the British navy out of the water.

I see also a "mother submarine," unarmed, slow-moving, but protected with double netting against hostile U's, and loaded with relays of oil and torpedoes, putting to sea with careless courage in the face of any number of dreadnoughts, surrounded at a distance of many miles by her venomous brood of U boats.

I see also a boat fitted for fighting at long range, armed perhaps with a single 15-inch gun, gliding à fleur de l'eau, and so affording no reasonably visible mark to the battleships which she attacks.

I see also submarine transports, flat-bottomed craft, somewhat resembling those giant ferry-boats which carry trains in their bellies, each capable of carrying a thousand men. If they could make only five knots an hour, a fleet of them could still successfully invade England.

And of course I see, as everybody else sees, that it is only necessary to multiply the U boat of even the existing type by say a hundredfold in order to starve England into submission in a single month.

If I have troubled to make these forecasts, which are hardly beyond the imagination of even an Englishman, it is to emphasize the fact that the day of island empires is over. If this is not so, it must be because Science is still not bankrupt, and will find a way to detect and destroy the U boat. But even if this happened, there are yet further possibilities. A ship of any kind is always a risk; that is in the nature of things; it depends on the fact, which even Science is not likely to upset, that men cannot breathe as fish do. Thus the nation which depends on ships for its food supply is in a dangerous situation.

Presumably the power of offense will always be superior to that of defense, in this respect, just as a man with a basket of eggs is in peril of total loss, even if he win his fight with a man not so encumbered. The end of the matter must be that all ships will be driven from the sea, as soon as the a war starts; and this means death to England.

The remedy is, however, simple. England must abandon her career of piracy and plunder. She must return to the good old days when she could feed herself and clothe herself; and she must learn to live in peace with all men. She has always persecuted her men of science in the name of the parody of religion with which she cloaks her infamies; and they have their revenge.

Let her restore the old worship; let her resume the pastoral and agricultural life; let her patriarchs execute justice and mercy; well and good. But no more industrialism-slavery; no more swindling oligarchy; no more smile-and-dagger diplomacy; no more gentleman-burglar world-power.

The Unterseeboot has changed all that.

Previous Crowley Classics Next Crowley Classics

from the Grady Project:

The Redeemer that is in the Waters

Oh who will go with the mermen bold

With the mermen, wild and free

Oh who will rule from the castle old

In the chasm of the sea

And who will brave the abyssel cold

    for all eternity!

Oh I will go with the mermen bold

With the mermen, wild and free

And I will rule from the castle old

In the chasm of the sea

And I will brave the abyssel cold

    for ONE etenity!

-- Grady Louis McMurtry

           3/61

Originally published in The O.T.O. Newsletter 1:3 (December 1977), then in Ecclesia Gnostica 1:4 (1985). Read over Grady's ashes as they were given to the sea.

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THE CORNERSTONE

Quotations Related to Symbolic, Philosophic,
and Historic Doctrines of Ancient
and Accepted Freemasonry,
selected by Frater Drax

Preston, Gould, Makey, Oliver, and Pike -- in fact, nearly every great historian of Freemasonry -- have all admitted the possibility of the modern society being connected, indirectly at least, with the ancient Mysteries, and their descriptions of the modern society are prefaced by excerpts from ancient writings descriptive of primitive ceremonials. These eminent Masonic scholars have recognized in the legend of Hiram Abiff an adaptation of the Osiris myth; nor do they deny that the major part of the symbolism of the craft is derived from pagan institutions of antiquity when the gods were venerated in secret places with strange figures and appropriate rituals . . .

The secret schools of Greece and Egypt were neither fraternal nor political fundamentally, nor were their ideals similar to those of the modern craft. They were essentially philosophic and religious institutions, and all admitted into them were consecrated to the service of the sovereign good. Modern Freemasons, however, regard their craft as neither primarily philosophic nor religious, but rather as ethical. Strange as it may seem, the majority openly ridicule the very supernatural powers and agencies for which their symbols stand.

--Manly Palmer Hall 33°
A.A. Scottish Rite, Lectures
on Ancient Philosophy,¹ (Los
Angeles: Philosophical Re-
search Society, 1929), 436-7.

From the destruction of the Temple onwards, men have obeyed an impulse to prove the secret survival of the Templars, rich and mighty knights who would not have allowed themselves to be immolated save for a hidden, lofty purpose; they who in the days of the Crusades, when noble knights were always ransomed and the common foot-soldier and common civilians were always slaughtered, had scorned to buy their lives and died with the people; they who had every reason for undying vengefulness and for wishing to show the world what it had lost in them.

The voyages of discovery, . . . the supreme flowering of Western craftsmanship of the Renaissance, and finally the liberation of the peoples in the nineteenth century, have been apportioned to the Temple. The great imperialist explorers were all crypto-Templars; the great trade guilds of Europe with their exclusive mysteries were of Temple pedigree; Freemasonry, which helped pave the way for the French Revolution, was but a resurrection of the Temple.

Undoubtedly many Templar refugees, a large portion of whom had been serving Brothers, carried their various skills with them into anonymous exile and worked at their trades to earn their bread; doubtless they would have spread some of their Order's lore in this way.

Undoubtedly too, Freemasonry, which did not make its appearance until the eighteenth century, borrowed from the nomenclature and internal organization of the Temple, just as it drew on the then infant science of archaeology via the priestcraft of ancient Egypt. Yet its name, its emblems, and its structure were taken directly from an actual trade guild of builders, and its aims were non-belligerent, but rather socio-idealistic.

--Edith Simon, The Piebald
Standard: A Biography of the
Knights Templar (London:
Cassell, 1959), 293.

Researcher's reference: the "genocide" of the main body of the knighthood that was based in France, by King Philip "the Fair" in league with the Roman "Catholic" Church, on 13 October 1307.

Note:
1. Written before he became a Mason.

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An Introduction to Qabalah

Part XI -- Color, Sephirot, Planets & Pillars.

Derived from a lecture series in 1977 e.v. by Bill Heidrick
Copyright © Bill Heidrick

Consider the Queen scale colors on the sephirot of the Tree of Life. At the top Keter(1) is white.

Chokmah or Wisdom, the second sephirot, is gray, Binah(3) is black. These are the primary shades and are not actually colors: pure white to pure black with gray intermediate. Below these, Chesed(4), Geburah(5), and Tipheret(6) are given the three primary colors from which all others can be made: blue, red and yellow. That makes sense in a way, but what about the rest of them? Netzach(7) is green, Hod(8) orange, Yesod(9) violet and Malkut(10) has a mixture of colors. What does this indicate? If you mix blue and yellow you get green. The colors of Chesed and Tipheret mix together to get the Netzach color. That color mixing suggests a relation between qualities of the three sephirot involved. The paths connecting from seven to six and to four are the two rising paths coming out of seven. Qualities of Chesed and Tipheret flow down those same paths to unite in Netzach. The high mercy of Chesed blends with the vision of Life complete in Tipharet to produce the lower emotional qualities of Netzach. It's the same sort of thing for Hod, number eight. Orange is a mixture of yellow and red, showing a blending of influences from Tipheret and Geburah to form the lower reasoning state. Yesod gathers its colors from Geburah(5) and Chesed(4), shown in this G

color scale by the mixing of red and blue to yield violet. In that case, there are no evident paths connecting four and five to nine, but there is room to draw two paths -- we'll return to the idea of the 16 invisible paths in a later part of this series. At the base of the Tree is Malkut with four colors in the Queen Scale. The uppermost of those is a greenish yellow, called citrine, a mixture of orange and green, Hod and Netzach colors. The one usually depicted to the left is a reddish brown, called russet, a mixture of orange and violet, the colors of Hod and Yesod. Commonly depicted in the right quarter of Malkut is a bluish olive color formed by mixing the green of Netzach with the violet of Yesod. The black of the lowest aspect of Malkut can be formed if the other three Malkut colors are mixed together. This is the rational pattern behind the allocation of colors in the Queen Scale to the sephirot. These colors show a descent down the Tree and an intermixing of influences. Four divisions appear: at top, a very pure series of shades, not color at all but beyond the world of color; next down, the primary colors; below those the secondaries; at the very bottom, the tertiaries. This is a classification of the parts of the Tree of Life. The highest triad of sephirot is pure. The second triad of sephirot shows a similar gradation in reflection of the highest but uses color rather than pure shade. Below that, the reflection is more complex, including influence from above. At last, the colors in Malkut comprise reflection, influence from above and self- interaction.

As does the interaction and progression of color grouping to color grouping, so also do the other associations progress and interact. The first sephira is something beyond astrology, the beginning of whirlings, that force which created the very universe. Number two is the Zodiac, inclusive of the sphere of the fixed stars in astrology. Number three is Saturn with the others following below in regular progression from the slowest to the fastest planets. Four is Jupiter, five Mars, six the Sun, seven Venus, eight Mercury, nine the Moon, and finally ten the Earth itself. Take whatever Astrology teaches of these planets and some of it will apply as a means of explaining the Tree of Life diagram, but not all. Qabalah is not Astrology, and the sephirot are not identical with the planets associated to them. One of the ways of using a background already learned in astrology is to check and see if explanations of the sephirot make sense with the qualities of the corresponding planets assigned to them. Just as the simple meanings of color attribution to the sephirot are less important than the interrelations of the sephirot as shown by the nature of mixing colors, so the Astrological correspondences are less important for simple reasons than for subtler reasons. For example, consider Saturn as number three and Binah. Saturn has been called the most malefic of the ancient seven planets, the one that causes the most trouble. What are the special qualities of Saturn that make it work for number three? It's the ruler of time, and number three is not obedient to time. Binah is beyond time and space in the ordinary meaning of those terms. Saturn is the thinker's planet -- the force of restraint that enables us to concentrate on one thought after another. Saturn causes melancholy in its negative aspects; but this is not primarily what is meant by Saturn on number three, although you will find writers like Dion Fortune who will occasionally suggest that it is. This is not the problem at number three, rather it is the problem of trying for number three and not attaining it. You can get very depressed if you attempt to leap across the great Abyss to divine union and don't make it. Generally speaking, the malefic qualities of a corresponding planet are those qualities that occur when you fail in the attempt to attain a sephera. The positive qualities tend to be the qualities of the sephera when it is attained. There is more to this, of course.

Consider Netzach, number seven and the correspondence to the planet Venus. That's called Nogah in Hebrew and means shining or splendor. Qabalah discusses Qlipot Nogah, the shell of shining splendor. In human terms, this refers to the problem of being confused by something that looks good but isn't quite available. That is the malefic aspect of Venus and the quality of not being able to hang onto Netzach.

Mercury has the quality of swiftness as a planet, and swiftness is the quality of the rational mind moving quickly from one idea to the next. Mercury is also the trickster, changeable and confusing, like the weakness or qlipot associated with failure in Hod.

For Yesod and the Moon, lunacy is a failure to deal properly with one's fantasies. Craziness is an attribute of the Moon and of Yesod only if a person cannot handle fantasy or astral travel. If one recognizes the flow of fantasy to be like changing phases of the moon, beyond control but an experience that can be understood and accepted, then one has the good quality of the Moon. This is like taking advantage of Lunar phases and aspects in Astrology.

There are many other ways to relate to the sephirot of the Tree through correspondences. Tarot cards and other things of this nature can be used to help describe the paths connecting the sephirot. Crowley's Liber 777 provides many tables of these correspondences. In using that source, remember that it isn't enough to stick a label on a sephira. Each set of correspondences has at least one, often several, mysteries to explore. By discovering these things on your own, the Tree will come to life in your mind.

With the colors of the Queen Scale, we have seen an example of how to understand the Tree of Life by sectioning it off into different groupings of sephirot. There are other ways of doing this. All approaches of this sort are analytic study, pertaining to the point-of-view of Hod. The Pillar of Mercy is comprised of Chokmah(2), Chesed(4), and Netzach(7), usually shown on the right of a diagram of the Tree. The Pillar of Judgment or Severity is made up of Binah(3), Geburah(5) and Hod(8) on the left of the usual diagram. The Middle Pillar or Pillar of Mildness is Keter(1), Tipheret(6), Yesod(9) and Malkut(10), in the middle of the diagram. There are many stories told about these pillars, but that would be from the point-of-view of Yesod. Since this part of the presentation deals with Hod, consider: Everything on the pillar on the right has something in common, everything on the pillar on the left has something in common, and likewise for the middle pillar. Everything on the right has the quality of emotion. Energy, boundless energy, which loosens, frees and releases is the primary quality of two, four, and seven. Even Netzach with its troubles and its difficulties deals with the property of release in its failure, premature release of effort. Netzach gives freedom if it works, confusion if it does not, but release in any event. On the other side is the pillar of Judgment or severity, the left hand pillar. Everything there is rational, restraining, narrowing, making precise, defining and over defining. That is the opposite of freedom and release. Feelings naturally flow, but ideas are held rigidly in the mind. Letting something happen is a quality of the right side of the Tree. Holding and compressing is a quality of the left side of the Tree. The pillar in the middle is intended to unite the qualities of corresponding sephirot from the pillars on the sides. Tipheret(6) is the meeting place of the moral mind of Geburah(5) and the generous mind of Chesed(4). Yesod(9) does the same for Hod(8) and Netzach(7). Anything in the middle will tend to blend the qualities of emotion and reason on either side.

Previous Introduction to Qabalah, Part X Next: Gender problems and uses.

Primary Sources

Last year: sex, death and coming to book.
We have two letters this issue: Crowley writes to Karl Germer, Grand Treasurer General of the Order, and discusses Jack Parson's relations with an under-age woman who later married L.Ron Hubbard. Louis Culling's information was evidently not helpful in clearing up the matter, but Crowley engages in a bit of fun and misogyny, the former with grim humor comparing doctors' advice with his own role in the social consultation. The remark about Wilkinson refers to expected contributions from Jack to the Aleister Crowley Publication Fund; L.U.Wilkinson helped Crowley with finances and legal matters in the last years of A.C.'s life. The second letter offers congratulations on the birth of Grady McMurtry's son, along with plans for book publishing.

-oOo-

Netherwood,
           The Ridge
     HASTINGS England

                          3/7/46

Mr. Karl Germer

Dear Karl,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Thanks for yours of the 25th ult and 26th ult.

Please thank Sascha for her programme and message.

I went to London last week and saw a first-class man about my eyes. He says -- as I expected -- that the local imbecile (Mason) is a fish, and that his only title to have any connection with my eyes is that the potatoes with which they made the chips to serve him were full of them.

Anyhow, he says that the cause of my trouble is tobacco and amblyopia, and I must cut off smoking immediately and for ever. This I am doing in rapid stages.

He wrote, however, to my physician and suggested that I am suffering from two completely fatal diseases, and I think that this is probably the case. I shall know in about a week or 10 days. It is really a very nice game they have of playing ball from one to the other. You find you are getting bald, and the man is not content to treat you but sends you to a chiropodist as well! Well, we shall see what we shall see.

I do not quite follow Cullings' letter, but I cannot see that Jack is anything but a victim. Of course he should never have done anything without asking my advice.

The appearance of Betty's mother on the scene is rather sinister; she must have been abominably brought up. I think it is nearly always the fault of the mother running around playing the fool as Betty has done for so long.

To round off this subject I have just had a long letter from Jack. He is very penitent and admits his own abject folly. I am enclosing with this a copy of my reply to him. I am sure there is no need for doing anything drastic. You must, above all, be just. I think of course that you should insist on his carrying out his obligations to Dr. Wilkinson. The rest of what I have to say on this subject will be found in my Letter to Jack.

{The copy to hand ends here; enclosure not found}

Netherwood,
      The Ridge
    HASTINGS England

                          26/11/46

Capt. Grady L. MacMurtrie{sic},
1661, Sacramento St., Apt. 3,
San Francisco, 9, Calif.
Dear Grady,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

I am very glad to hear of your good news, but please remember the dangers of family.

The difference between myself and the Pope is that his definition of the word Sin is different from mine. The "word of sin is restriction" -- if you bend the young tree out of the straight you cannot expect it to grow straight. For all that, I agree with the practical side of what the Pope says, and Confucius would agree with both of us. Men have lost their feeling for good manners. But this of course happened after every war; it is a well-known historical fact.

It is nice of you to compliment me by asking me to set up a horoscope for Grady Shannon, but you had much better ask Karl, because he will set it up right, whereas I may make mistakes when latitude and longitude are so far away from London. If you want me to write a judgment on the figure you have only to ask him to send me a copy and I will let you have one, you can rely on me confidently for that.

I am very glad that you are working your 777 as you should. I could not possibly find time to make copies of the new Columns and so on. You will find most incorporated in The Book of Thoth.

You should be glad to know that I have found a person eminently suitable for re-arranging the Letters in the book Magick without Tears which you remember you have a quarter share in. I think after Liber Aleph we shall be able to get the book out.

I have eleven letters to write this afternoon, and am three parts dead already, so forgive me if I break off. With blessings upon you and the boy, and "mom"!

           Love is the law, love under will,

                                                                        {Signed}
                                                                   Yours ever Aleister.

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From the Outbasket

T from Canada discussed some points on Thelema via email, having failed to elicit an adequate response on alt.magick, an Internet newsgroup. Here's a loose summary of some of his issues and my response, edited for publication:

Love and Will seem to be reversed from the usual order in these discussions.

Mundane usage is often defensive and idealistic. Throughout most of Western history, "love" or emotion has been subordinated to "will" or proper motive. The romantic emphasis placing love above will came in during the 19th century. Most countries in the world still arrange marriages for practical purposes, not love. In religion, "love of deity" is counseled, but usually amounts to human intentional obedience to the perceived will of deity, not often "love" in the simple sense. One seeks a situation where love naturally flowers in the midst of doing the right things -- if that isn't mundane love under will, I don't know a better way of saying it.

At times this magical type of love seems to be abandoned after an invocation, once immediate intentions are accomplished.

Abandonment is often necessary, but only when one has grown beyond the relation, moved to another estate or simply reached the need to transcend the level of the interaction. It's in the nature of putting aside the things of childhood as an adult -- not because they were wrong or false or even that they were insufficient, simply that it's time to go on to a more full love or union.

The attraction of evocation can be used as a love for ulterior purposes.

This is not unlike a well planned marriage, a job, a business deal or higher education. One does this all the time. If it works very well, and that is rare, it leads to a perfection and continuation during the remainder of life.

Is the Thelemic usage of "Love" something more or different from this?

Although it can include what has been discussed thus far, the Thelemic usage is highly specialized in Crowley's explanations. In this usage Will is prior to Love. There is a mundane will, polluted with confusion and borrowings from childhood and later experience. There is a divine Will, the essence of incarnation, never frustrated and never conflicting with any other manifestation of the divine. When the mundane will acts, it may lead to love or hate. When the divine, individually focused, Will acts, that is Love. As the God of Genesis creates by moving over the face of the waters, so the Thelemic Will in action Loves, thereby creating the incarnation and all its events. Thelemic Will is the focus of being. Thelemic Love is the motion of life. It is indeed the "Law", for only this relation works in the long and short of it.

What of the distinction between the will to do rightly and the will to determine what is right?

Human judgment always raises a fallibility issue. The distinction between a will to do and a will to define standards is not as strong as it may seem. The difference is mainly between outer action and inner mentation, not really a matter of difference in the nature of the doing so much as the venue of where the doing takes place. You decide an action but you also decide on a standard.

Does not the former require practical and the latter speculative knowledge?

I think that is more a issue of convenience than substance. Knowledge of what is and what may be amounts to a decision of where to stop speculation. Fallibility is present in both. It's just a matter of cutting the question between very likely correct and less likely correct. Using the idea of "future" as "likely result" is similar to using the ideas of "past" or "present" as "experience shows that this is probably that".

Does this change with ascension of the Tree of Life?

Up the Tree goes into abstraction. Down the Tree goes into the concrete. Past is below, future above.

Expand on usage of "Divine" a little.

The distinction is between fallible and infallible by definition. In the concrete or mortal world there is pain and error. In the abstract or divine world, there is no pain or error. The gap between the two is the Abyss on the tree, approached by various constructions of the paths and sephirot on both sides, bridged by whatever means works at the time. One uses "the divine" to get a word-handle on that perfection, a focus of place and attention. Universal Truth remains beyond action. The perfected self is the appearance of what descends toward action, as considered from below the Abyss.

Then Love is True Will acting in accord with the ways and means that are known?

Just Pure Will acting. The accordance question is one of being able to perceive both the "true" nature of the will and the action. Getting to that from time to time is called "discovering one's True Will".

-- TSG (Bill Heidrick)

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Events Calendar for January 1996 e.v.

1/6/96	Class: Yoga for Yahoos w/Ann 1PM	Thelema Ldg.
1/7/96	Lodge Luncheon Meeting 12:30	Thelema Ldg.
1/7/96	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	Thelema Ldg.
1/10/96	Thelema Lodge Library night 8PM (call to attend)	Thelema Ldg.
1/13/96	O.T.O. Initiations 2PM (call to attend)	Thelema Ldg.
1/14/96	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	Thelema Ldg.
1/15/96	John Dee reading group 8:00PM with Clay in the Library	Thelema Ldg.
1/20/96	Class: Yoga for Yahoos w/Ann 1PM	Thelema Ldg.
1/21/96	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	Thelema Ldg.
1/22/96	Section 2 reading group, 8PM at OZ The Amber Witch with Caitlin	Thelema Ldg.
1/22/96	Astrological Cycles workship 7PM with Grace in Berkeley	Thelema Ldg.
1/28/96	"Angelmas" planning group meets 2PM	Thelema Ldg.
1/28/96	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	Thelema Ldg.
1/29/96	Sirius Oasis meeting 8:PM Berkeley	Sirius Oasis
1/31/96	Thelema Lodge Library night 8PM (call to attend)	Thelema Ldg.