Thelema Lodge Calendar for December 1996 e.v.

Thelema Lodge Calendar

for December 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

December 1996 e.v. at Thelema Lodge

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

Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers

Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica

Thelema Lodge presents each Sunday evening in Horus Temple an open celebration of Aleister Crowley's Gnostic Mass of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (the "universal gnostic church," which is the religious tradition of Thelema within the O.T.O.). We welcome new-comers to this pagan eucharist ritual, asking that all come as participants with us in the communion. Arrive at Horus Temple before 7:30 on Sunday evening to be ready when the Deacon calls us in shortly thereafter. First time communicants should call the lodge ahead of time at (510) 652-3171 for information and directions.

In these lines from the unsigned "Editorial" to Equinox III:1 in March 1919 e.v., Crowley provides some brief prefatory comments to the Gnostic Mass (published in that issue), and one might easily be supposed to read Liber XV as the specific text offered in the closing lines of the passage:

"The world needs religion.

Religion must represent Truth, and celebrate it.

This truth is of two orders: one, concerning Nature external to Man; two, concerning Nature internal to Man.

Existing religions, especially Christianity, are based on primitive ignorance of the facts, particularly of external Nature.

Celebrations must conform to the custom and nature of the people.

Christianity has destroyed the joyful celebrations, characterized by music, dancing, feasting, and making love; and has kept only the melancholy.

The Law of Thelema offers a religion which fulfills all necessary conditions."

418 to the Solstice

We will be counting the Aethyrs down to the Winter Solstice this December, as Caitlin completes her tenth annual anniversary reading of The Vision and the Voice. Most readings are held in Nu Temple at Oz House in Oakland; contact Caitlin at (510) 654-3580 for directions and details. Timing is an essential factor in this series, and unless refinements in the schedule are announced ahead of time, all readings will begin at the minute indicated, so those who come to listen should arrive with time to spare. If requested in advance, most of the inconveniently timed readings can be repeated at 8:00 on their same evening. Alternative arrangements have been listed for several aethyrs in the following schedule, but others too may be read away from Oz, and those attending will have to keep in touch with Caitlin if they don't want to miss an occasional aire here and there.

Fully a third of the entire Vision and the Voice working took place during the first week of December, and these will be very busy days for those following in the desert footsteps of Perdurabo and Omnia Vincam with Caitlin's reading series. Aethyrs for this month commence with ZEN (18) on 1st December at 3:00 PM, with TAN (17) just after midnight at 12:15 AM on the 2nd, and LEA (16) that afternoon at 5:00. Next morning we read OXO (15), on the 3rd at 9:30 AM, with UTI (14) later that day at 3:00 & 10:00 PM, and two more the following day: ZIM (13) at 3:00 PM and LOE (12) at 11:30 PM on 4th December. IKH (11) is read the next night at 10:30 PM on the 5th.

ZAX (10) on Friday afternoon 6th December will be read at 2:00, but please note that for the Tenth Aethyr we will be meeting not at Oz House but outdoors (weather and demons permitting) in San Francisco. Be at the "16th & Mission" BART station at 1:11 PM, from which we will walk together (west on 16th Street) to the top of Corona Heights for the reading. Don't be late, as once the reading begins those outside the circle will have no protection and are liable to be devoured by Choronzon.

Survivors will meet for further readings on the following evenings consecutively, beginning with ZIP (9) at 9:30 on 7th December. ZID (8) on Sunday evening 8th December will be read at 7:30 in Horus Temple at the lodge, just before the Gnostic Mass. We continue with DEO (7) at 8:30 PM on the 9th, and MAZ (6) at 8:00 PM on 10th December. After that, in the upper reaches, the schedule becomes irregular, with LIT (5) spread out on the 12th and 13th, at 7:00 PM on Thursday and 8:00 PM on Friday, followed by a full weekend off.

PAZ (4) begins the final sequence at 9:30 on the morning of the 16th, with ZON (3) the following morning at 9:30, and part of ARN (2) the next at 10:00 AM & 3:00PM on 18th December. LIL, the First Aethyr, is read at 2:00 on the afternoon of the 19th, and then the series finishes with the conclusion of ARN (2) the following evening at 8:00 on 20th December.

As this date marks the year's longest night, Thelema Lodge will celebrate the Winter Solstice with a reading of the complete Second Aethyr, with its stunning vision of Babalon, at Oz House in Nu Temple that Friday evening, 20th December at 8:35, followed by a communal (pot-luck) dinner feast. (Please confer with Caitin regarding kitchen planning.)

Also for the Solstice on that Saturday evening, 21st December, the Alpha Chapter Rose+Croix will host a group ritual and communal celebration, beginning at 7:30 at a location in Oakland (not yet finalized at press time). This gathering will be open to all initiates. For information and directions call Caitlin at Oz, or Brother James Graeb at (415) 665-7941.

Classes and Events

The Thelema Lodge Section Two reading group offers Rosicrucian night at Oz House with Caitlin on Monday evening 16th December at 8:00. We will be reading from and discussing the significance of two classic volumes of Victorian Rosicrucian scholarship, by Hargrave Jennings and Arthur Edward Waite. The first, written by a gnostic saint, is recommended as "valuable to those who can read between the lines." The Rosicrucians: Their Rites and Mysteries, first published in 1870, went through several successful editions, despite being considered by scholars and critics as inaccurate, poorly organized, and unrealistic. The young A. E. Waite, writing in Walford's Antiquarian Magazine, reviewed its third edition in 1887, and ended up pronouncing it a "worthless book."

Waite's own first volume of occult scholarship (his "digest" of the work of Eliphas Levi entitled The Mysteries of Magic), had enjoyed modest success when published the previous year by George Redway, and on the strength of the review Redway now hired Waite to prepare a rival Rosicrucian volume. The result, The Real History of the Rosicrucians, "founded on their own Manifestos, and on facts and documents collected from the writings of Initiated Brethren," was, Crowley conceded, "a good vulgar piece of journalism on the subject." The work had, however, been thrown together at top speed by an inexperienced writer, rushing to meet the demands of Redway's marketing scheme, so that sections were actually being set up in type immediately upon completion, without opportunity for any redrafting or revision. Understandably, the reviewers again found many errors and some poor writing in the book, although it won some praise for historical method and critical scholarship.

Waite's book was issued with jacket artwork obviously reminiscent of Jennings' book, and the word "Real" was added to the title (at the last minute, and without Waite's approval) as a sort of challenge to Jennings. All this upset many who saw the "Real" book as an attack on the mythos celebrated in the earlier study. Jennings, who had himself recently published a different book with George Redway (his well-known study Phallicism) felt betrayed, especially considering the poor reviews his Rosicrucian book was receiving, and it is reported that when the two men chanced to meet in Pall Mall in London, Jennings yelled at Redway "Et tu, Bruté!"

Previous Section Two Next Section Two

The seventy-eight icons of the Tarot deck provide the student of magick with one of the more useful examples of that "suitable series of symbols" which is required for divination. As described in Book Four, such a series must provide "a compendium of hieroglyphs sufficiently elastic in meaning to include every possible idea". Among the classic examples, beside Tarot, are "astrology . . . the Holy Qabalah, and the Yi King." Of course "there are hundreds of others," but Tarot is among the more highly commended: "The Master Therion finds that the Tarot is infallible in material questions." Its "mathematically precise" ease of application, as well as the "artistic significance," and "astonishing wealth of detail" to be found in its designs are virtues only diminished by the efforts of concentration required to interpret them, which when calculated as "at least two hours' hard work" he found more cumbersome than the I Ching. The Book of Thoth also differed from the Book of Changes in a certain inherently practical and secular orientation noted in the cards, which (back before the design of the Thoth deck, at least) "do not lend themselves readily to the solution of spiritual questions" -- MTP, ch. 18.

The ninth meeting of our Tarot series with Bill Heidrick will be held in San Anselmo at 7:30 on Wednesday evening 18th December, in the home of the O.T.O.'s international treasurer; call ahead at (415) 454-5176 for directions and details. Our illustrated segment will be an exposition upon the Major Trumps of the Wheel of Fortune and Hanged Man, after which we will close with a demonstration reading. Interested students at all levels are welcome to this meeting (and for the remainder of the series); just be prepared for "at least two hours' hard work" when the cards come out (unless modern analysis may be said to have further refined the Beast's own best "improved method" of handling the cards).

Relationships are the key note at Grace's Temple of Astrology for our meeting on Friday evening 27th December of the Thelema Lodge astrological study group, presenting the seventh in the series on the houses of the horoscope. The seventh house rules such matters as marriage, business partners, open enemies, war, and great oppositions of every sort. We will be viewing charts -- including yours -- to see how the realm of relations is constantly at work in our lives, and in the life of our nation. This evening of focused discussion is hosted by Grace, and lasts from 7:00 until 9:00. Grace asks that all who attend please speak with her ahead of time, or call for directions at (510) 843-STAR.

The Enochian Liturgy Group conducts another experimental group scrying session on Saturday evening 14th December in Horus Temple at 8:00. This month we will be covering the Fifth Angelic Key in our work together. Wear loose, comfortable clothing, and bring perhaps a cushion and a notebook for keeping your own scrying data during the session.

Library nights are scheduled twice each month as suggested opportunities for members and friends of the lodge to arrange for the use of our library facilities. Library use is available by arrangement with one of the lodge officers, and should be discussed ahead of time. This month's scheduled evenings are Wednesday evening 11th December and Monday evening 23rd December, from 8:00 until 10:00. Alternative evenings may often be scheduled by request to suit individual needs. The Lodge luncheon meeting, on Sunday afternoon 8th December from 12:30 until 2:30 is an opportunity to assist with the business and planning necessary to maintain our lodge, and all members are welcome to come by for lunch with the lodge officers. Please call ahead to be included in this event, as the meal must be planned accordingly.

Sirius Oasis meets in north Berkeley on Monday evening 30th December at 8:00. Call the oasis master for directions at (510) 527-2855. Sirius offers O.T.O. initiations, feasts and holiday events, rituals and presentations, and other spontaneous events, as well as taking an administrative role in the PantheaCon and Ancient Ways gatherings in the winter and spring each year. Sirius Oasis has always been active in our presentations of the Rites of

Eleusis, and recently a proposed schedule for the 1997 e.v. cycle of the Rites had been circulated, which has Saturn opening the cycle on 5th July, and the planets scheduled at twelve-day intervals to conclude with a full moon Rite of Luna on Monday 15th September. Although these dates may seem too remote for definitive sign-ups to be formalized, many of the Rites have already been snapped up by ritualists from Sirius Oasis and Thelema Lodge, so this would be a good time to stake your claim if you're interested in taking on one of the god-forms next summer!

Crowley Classics

These two editorial articles were written for the January and February issues of The International (New York) in 1918 e.v.

Two Wartime Editorials

by Aleister Crowley

England Speaks
(January 1918 e.v.)

"The most noble the Marquess of Lansdowne -- the American people." Indeed some such word of introduction is necessary, if not quite decent. In the Continental fashion, let me explain the quality of the person to whom I wish to introduce you.

Lord Lansdowne is The Fitzmaurice, and comes to us as a product of careful biological selection since William the conqueror. He has never taken any very active part in politics, except the Battle of Hastings, merely accepting the Foreign Office or some similar post to oblige his country, and discharging its duties on sane, conservative lines.

Lord Lansdowne represents all the best Englishmen. He does not represent those who have been crushed biologically by industrialism, or the alien money lenders who have England by the throat. He speaks for the nobility, the gentry, and the yeomanry, for the men who were England (not "patriots," please!) at Agincourt, whose future is as indissolubly linked with English soil as is their past.

It is, therefore, natural that Lord Lansdowne should have said exactly what I have been saying in this paper ever since its owners, in a magnificent spirit of Fair Play, offered England (in my humble person) a voice in America.

For some curious reason, perhaps because I like to collect lunatics as George Windsor likes to collect postage stamps, I find myself regarded by superficial thinkers as a radical and revolutionary. I am in truth the most crusted of Tories, bred in the bone, and dyed in the wool. I believe, for example, that if we abandon the Catholic ideal of marriage, one may as well not have marriage at all. So, if we abandon the hierarchical system in religion or politics, one cannot stop short of anarchy, as soon as some occasion of stress forces people to make decisions. The Church of England had more dissenting movements in a century than the Church of Rome in ten. It was a makeshift. So were the Girondina; so was Kerensky. Once leave the unintellectual, illogical, unjust anchorage of Wisdom, and you are tossed madly on the insane waves of Reason.

Men are fit to hunt, fish, and create; women to cook, to labor in the fields, and to bear children. Abandon this conception with all its obvious demerits, and you merely arrive at a Bottomless Pit of vague argument, ending in the query "What is a man? What is a woman?" A very nauseating mess!

The strength of England has always lain with this "impossible" class of stupid brutes, who are always right, because they are swayed by radical instinct (or "wisdom") instead of by reason.

A pointer knows more about the location of a pheasant than Darwin after half a century of Natural History. Similarly, in Germany, it is the landed aristocracy that speak and fight for their country. Your Liebknechts are always being swayed by "argument"; your Junkers know without being told. The class with "a stake in the country" is the class to trust. England knows that a Lansdowne of a Harcourt will never be false, and never foolish, though he may be utterly stupid.

Now Civilization itself is menaced by the war -- or rather by the revolutions attendant on the collapse of certain systems which had become unwieldy. Russia is only the advance guard of Bolshevikism. These people will have to be swept away by cannon, and knouted into common sense, before we have any true peace in the world again. Junkerthum and English Feudalism have their bad points, but they stand strain. It is only when all the individuals of a nation are as intelligent and clear-sighted as the French that democracy has any chance to live; and, in point of fact, Joffre would have been beaten at the Marne if he had not turned angrily on the politicians in Paris, with his famous, "Aujour d'hui, messieurs, c'est moi qui parle," turning the Republic into a military autocracy by a single sublime gesture.

Similarly, as this country is ruled by strong men of practical common sense, war measures were taken here which no Tsar would ever have dared, with the result that, so far, America's military achievement stands as the world's record for all time.

The hierarchical and caste system is the system with biological truth to back it, and it always comes back as soon as the organism is in danger. This war will make an end of the "brilliant," "intellectual" nonsense of the George Bernard Shaws and the Leon Trotzkys; aristocracy will be re-established in a more enlightened form. Birth is not everything; we need brains as well. But we must put an end to the power of money, which is the corruption of all Virtue.

Listen to Lord Lansdowne; his voice is England's; England, sooner or later, will forget Lloyd George, and do what her heart and soul bid her. Our family quarrel with the Hohenzollerns was all very well; in fact, it was rather bad form of the blighters to bring in their beastly science. Damn those Liberals all the same! However, the mischief's done, and we can't help it. But, now, these Lenine fellows are trying to butt in, it won't do, don't you know?

II.

Wanted - Moderate Men
(February 1918 e.v.)

King Solomon said that he who ruleth his spirit is greater than he who taketh a city. Truly, indeed it has been a giant's task in these days to avoid the contagion of hysteria, the spiritual rabies of the baser sections of the press.

But in the last week or so statesmen have taken to borrowing (often without acknowledgment) from the editorial matter of the International. There is no longer any pretense that the Germans are other than "men of like passions with ourselves," or that the Kaiser has dragooned them into unwilling submissives.

Also, there is a general acceptance of the belief, highly unpopular in Bolshevik circles, that the organized hierarchy is the most stable structure of society, that a man is better than a mess, and a cathedral than a pile of stones.

The excuse given in private by the extremists for their bombast in public has been that it was necessary to spur the unwilling public into war. The situation would be Gilbertian were it not so devilish; but its usefulness is over. It is time that the voice of reasonable men should be heard in the land. It is probably hopeless to ask people to think for themselves. In the last week or two the New York Times, Sun, and even the World, have more or less turned upon the President to rend him. The public is becoming familiar with what must be to the man in the street quite inexplicable tergiversations. The extremists are now attacking Mr Wilson as they attacked us a month of so ago. We can, therefore, appeal to rational thought and calm balance, and say to men and women of good will everywhere in the world, "Come forward, make yourselves heard, give your support to the people who are fighting the battles of good sense."

It is not for us, perhaps, but for other statesmen, to determine what can honorably be accepted by any given nation, but we can at least insist that those who speak for us shall speak with good faith and without rancor, with sympathy and understanding. We shall not fight with less courage and determination because we are chivalrous. The days of the cave-man, when crazy and unthinking rage could determine a victory, are past. A handful of British soldiers were able to defeat countless hordes of Madhists because this was understood. It was the dervish who possessed the fanatical rage, the unthinking courage. The Briton opposed to him cool thought, armchair organization, careful aim. He did not hate his enemy. He simply shot him dead. Kipling expressed the feeling of the British soldier admirably in his famous poem:

"So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy Wuzzy, an' the missus an' the kid,
We 'ad orders for to smash you, so course we went and did."

That is the spirit in which [we] should all of us be fighting. The observer will notice that, ever since Lord Lansdowne formulated the feeling of that silent element in England which determines her policy, statesmen have been making clear their war aims with much more elasticity than before. There is a feeling in the air that it is time to talk things over quietly. One cannot do this with a cannibal who is suffering from acute delirious mania; and, therefore the theory that the enemy was this kind of person had to be given up by all parties. In other words, the slogan of "Deutschland uber Alles" and its equivalents in other languages have had to be altered to our own little effort in motto making: "Humanity first."

I have no wish to rub it in with an "I told you so," to point out that my so-called pro-German writings of last year are the same as the utterances of the President of the United States and of the Premier of England of this year. For, in truth, I am not conscious of victory, but of defeat. It has not been the spirit of humanity which has dictated the change of policy. That change has been forced upon the various governments by necessity. My work is yet to do. It is still necessary to prove to men that they are cutting their own throats by anger, greed, and ambition. It is still necessary to appeal to self-interest. The planet has been taught an appalling lesson; but will men learn it? Will they really understand that even on the lowest ground the philosopher and the poet are their real friends, that that man of the world is really as much of a fool as he is a knave. Selfishness is the highest stupidity. I cannot hurt my brother without hurting myself. That is what some of us have been preaching for many a long day; and because we have preached it we have been called unpractical; we have been called traitors. The event has proved only too terribly that we were the patriots and the sages. The time has come to put that lesson into practice. We must take away the power from the self-seeking scoundrels who have been boosting themselves as practical men; and, although the mechanical details of reconstruction must necessarily be left to people of experience in each branch, yet the theory must be left to people who understand truth in its deepest sense. We must entrust the supreme government to the supreme philosopher.

In the meantime our urgent necessity is to make place for the moderate man, to him who has shown by his detached attitude that he could see an inch or two beyond his nose. The President's "war aim" message is most significant in that connection. We do not want people with entirely new theories of government. This is no moment for revolutionary social measures. The world is one vast wound, and the business of the moment is to heal it so far as may be. For this purpose we need soothing applications such as universal charity, and we must complete the work of sterilizing the bacillus of hatred. There could never have been a war if the men in power had had the slightest realization of what it was going to be like. Yet these people were all excellent specimens of the type of man that has been in power for centuries. The moral is to get rid of the type. However, for the moment, the political issue is less radical in character. It will be enough if we sternly refuse a hearing to the bloodthirsty cries of those people who think that the People is but a mob of savages, and that the only way to obtain power over them is to appeal to their more senseless passions.

We want moderate men.

Previous Crowley Classics Next Crowley Classics

An Introduction to Qabalah

Part XXII -A Gathering of Trees.

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

We now begin a study of the Tree as a growing and changing thing, of other versions of the Tree of Life, along with centering, projecting and multiplying of the Tree. Taking a view of Qabalah from Tipheret, we will examine techniques of patterning, functioning and relating to things, events and ideas.

Consider a knight riding out on a quest with his fair damsel left behind. That's nice and poetic, but what does it mean? Her heart is beating for him, and he's going away from her. There is bond and a breaking, a tension between the two which does not relieve itself -- they are separate from one another and the distance is increasing. Many things in life are like this. Whenever you discover something apart from yourself, there is a sense of necessity of separation. Since it is other, it is distinct from you. There is also longing that the other may be as you are or a part of you. This is like walking by a store and seeing something desirable in the window that costs too much. A particular kind of tension evolves in such situations. It can be feeling for a person, a desire to change something, a desire to possess something, a desire to learn something, or a desire not to possess, learn or know. This is an establishment of two points of reference, yourself and something other than yourself, with a tension between. The Tree of Life is a dynamic tool, a means to separate and unite. One point is identified with Malkut and the other with Kether, while all the structure of the Tree of Life is between.

Previous Introduction to Qabalah, Part XXI Next: A Giant and a Warrior.

from the Grady Project:

Ezekial's Bestiary

The Seven Headed Beast has won

The Woman Clothed With The Sun

The Beast comes from the Conscious Sea

The Beast walks in eternity

Each Sign-Change must be served its Beast

As sacrifice, and royal yeast

The Lion and the Lamb shall share

The innocence of Beastly lair

The Eagle tears the Taurian sky

Androcles leads the Lion by

A Beast is beastly without sin

In Eden Beastly men begin

The Serpent is a Beastly tree

In His Edenic purity

And forests of the Trees of Heaven

Burn with Thy Star, Unstable Seven!

-- Grady L. McMurtry

8/31/61

This poem was originally published in Ecclesia Gnostica I:3 (1985), with a dedication by the author to Sallie Glassman. Its next two appearances were in McMurtry: Poems (London/Bergan: O.T.O., 1986) and in The Grady Project 4 (Berkeley: O.T.O., 1988).

Previous Grady Project Next Grady Project

A Tract

In memory of the genius for street rhetoric which we so enjoyed in our brother Criss, this satirical pamphlet is reprinted here from his own `zine Onus (Oakland: circa early 1993). It ought to go without saying that this piece of writing adopts certain notorious perspectives in order to oppose the silly excesses of sidewalk proselytization.

YOUR LAST CHANCE

by Criss Piss

This may be YOUR LAST CHANCE!

Are you a "Christian"? Are YOU "Born Again"? Are you "SAVED"? Are you "Washed in the BLOOD of The Lamb"? Well, if you are, it's no "accident" that you are reading this pamphlet RIGHT NOW! This little tract could change your ETERNAL LIFE! This little booklet could be the most important thing you'll ever read, because it concerns the fate of YOUR IMMORTAL SOUL! This little message could be YOUR LAST CHANCE!

Where will I spend Eternity?

Think about it. Where will you go when you die? Where does the flame go when you blow out the candle? Will you go to Heaven or will you go to Hell? Or will you just be dead forever? Well, if you're a Christian, you already know the answer. You'll go to Heaven when you die, to be with your God forever.

DEATH IS EVERYWHERE

As we all know, DEATH is Ever Present. Any of us could kick-off at any time. You could be hit by a bus or struck by lightning JUST FOR READING THIS TRACT. You could have a heart attack or catch a stray slug in the Drug Wars. Either way you'll be dead dead dead. Even if you die of old age, at home, in your bed, "IT IS APPOINTED UNTO MAN ONCE TO DIE" (Coloss. XI ch. 9). You have to die. But where you spend ETERNITY is UP TO YOU! Remember, God gave you Free Will! Christian, I'm here to tell you the Good News! You DON'T HAVE TO GO TO HEAVEN!!!

HEAVEN OR HELL?

By all accounts, Heaven is a dull place, populated by De-Sexed Angels and smug, holier-than-thou prigs. Smoking is not permitted and the chief occupation seems to be the perpetual praising of a jealous and insecure God of Love and Goodness. Hell, on the other hand, is a hot, happening place with plenty of Sex and Thrills Galore. Most of the people you know will be there, and many friends and lovers will be re-united. The good people, party poopers, censors, hypocrites and evangelists will not be allowed in but will have to watch from Heaven knowing that "There but for the grace of God, go I."

YOU MUST CHOOSE

Would a God of Love really crucify his Own Son? Did Jonah really live for three days in the belly of a whale? Is Santa Claus really coming to town?

YOU MUST DECIDE

Only you can choose, but this helpful tract is here to guide you to Do The Right Thing.

SATAN IS COOL

Christians in general have a lot of misconceptions about Satan and His Kingdom. But the facts are simple:

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE GOOD TO GO TO HELL."

Anyone can go. We're not asking you to break all 10 commandments today; start out slow, a venial sin: tell a lie, lust in your heart, masturbate. See how EASY it is! Soon you'll be able to step up to the Big Time and STEAL, LIE, SWINDLE AND MURDER with the best of them. Commit ADULTERY! Cheat on your Taxes! You'll be amply rewarded -- in this life and the next! By the time you die your carnal body will be able to withstand the kind of Hard-Core Jollies available in Hades!

"DO IT" TODAY

Just say this simple prayer and fill out the handy form. Satan Does the Rest!

"Dear Jesus, I know I asked you into my heart but now I'm asking you

nicely to leave. I want to go to Hell when I die and be with all the Cool

People. Satan, I adore you and worship you like a God and I want to be with

you always. NEMA!"

DID YOU "DO THE RIGHT THING?"
check one:

[ ] Yes! Christianity is stupid!

[ ] No! I'm too chicken.

Primary Sources

Frater Saturnus & Soror Estai:
This letter from Karl Germer to Jane Wolfe was written on 9/19/54 e.v., about four years before Jane's Greater Feast. She had been with Crowley at the Abbey of Thelema, was his correspondent in the writing of Magick Without Tears, had served as Secretary of Agape Lodge and was the typist responsible, with Soror Meral, for the survival and circulation of many of the later Crowley works.

Here we see two sides of the OTO in those days, on the one hand the cumbersome details of small finance, on the other matters of ritual and instruction. Crowley's Greater Feast was almost seven years past, and the Order had settled into the first years of a generation of sleep. Unwieldy practices of investment and loan are gone now, and the Order has many members more versed in the use, if not the theory, of these rituals. As Winter approaches in the 92nd year of the Aeon, look back a little to that other approach of Winter in 1954 e.v.

Hampton N. J.
September 19, 1954.

Dear Jane:

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Yours of Sept. 9 and 15.
First yours of the 9th. I'm glad that Mary K. feels better and that you are taking her back to home. Your scheme with that woman keeping her company sounds like a good one. Relieves you. 75 cents per hour sounds very high from what we knew in N.Y. -- As to the financial part. That is serious, and provisions should have, or should still be made to safeguard you. And then: how much interest per cent is she getting on her money? War Bonds etc. pay only 3%, and I doubt you have risky investments which yield high interest. I have to pay 5% on our mortgage! (We still have over $4,000.) -- If you would trust me, and if Mary K. would agree, you could turn some or all of your assets over, I would not only pay you 5%, but also keep the investment so that you can always draw on it. -- This is just an idea. But it seems to me your present arrangement keeps you always on tenterhooks. However, I can not very well boost myself. This is entirely a matter of Trust and common sense.
The moral basis ought to be this line of thought: -- I am pledged to A.C. to look after the welfare of his son and I am sending him regularly money. If Mary K. and you agree, you could turn over your surplus (I mean above what you want to hold there) to me as a fund for A.A. as long as he is under age and as long as he needs assistance from me. As I am paying A.A. now from London accounts (England) it would help if I'd pay off all or part of my mortgage, which saves me my monthly 5% payments.
There is another angle: For many years you have been sending contributions regularly. There is a rule that a member in good standing has to right to draw on this when in need. This also could be a basis for a working scheme. Could you not talk this over with Paul, who, after all may well know how to manage this? I feel you ought to take a step, and that soon so as to have a clear situation without worry on your part. -- It would, of course, be better for me to talk this over with you personally. But I'm afraid, time is too short.
Write me if I have not expressed myself clear enough. You might tell me how much cash you need to draw from your bonds etc. per month. I could have Georgia make certain monthly payments for instance.
Re yours of Sept. 15. I was the one that sent out those "Notes on the Ritual of the Pentagram" back around 1942 or so. But with my strange stubbornness and need to have something shown in practice before I do it, I kept copies, but never applied it. Thanks all the same for your additional remarks. Why, for heaven's sake, did I not ask you when you were here to do it with me?? Why? Why? -- If you would take the trouble to trace out the method and write the postures etc. for the Greater Ritual of the Pentagram for myself, I would be grateful. I may make good use of it some day. I have an idea that both the Lesser and the Greater R. of the P. are done for "protection". In what sense? Against what or whom? I know not.
About the Charge of the Spirit I cannot help you. Isn't there much in the Goetia and Solomon the King stuff, I forget the title. About Liber Pyramidos, this is the former name of: --
A Ritual of Self-Initiation based on the Formula of the Neophyte. It is Ritual DCLXXI. It is mentioned in John St. John.
My typescript has about ten pages of close typing. Would you like to see it?
I shall send you separately by ordinary post typescript material of further stuff arrived from Australia, all from Prog. They are over 100 pages of typed copies of letters, rituals, etc. etc. If you like you can read it. The material dates from 1910 on and concerns mainly A.C., but Achad, Cowie, Leah, Ninette, you, and so on figure. That Cefalu part may be especially of interest to you. Please return it. I shall leave out the IV° OTO, as you know this. This will follow in a day or two as I have to check it first.
Your "child" vision: anything to do with the First Aethyr child, or that in the Garden of Janus? Can you simplify it? Child was just then created? Very remarkable indeed!
This Cameron girl keeps popping up. She must have a peculiar fascination. Has she? Does she have real true and pure aspiration? She must be very aggressive from her horror. Is she any good? I must confess she intrigues me, the more so as Smith could not stand her. Has she accepted Thelema? Do you have a snapshot of her?
Enough now. This is endless!
But I am sending you

The Greetings of the Equinox of Autumn!
Which please convey to all in your group with all my wishes. I am exclusively concentrated on the publication of the first translation in any foreign language (German) to be out Sept. 23, 1954. With German-English text, Stele, facsimile reprod. of original. I am all tense lest one of the many powers that try to prevent it, may prevail. I speak of Liber Legis. I feel this is the great magical event.

Love is the law, love under will.

All my best and my love

Previous Primary Sources Next Primary Sources

A Thelemic Manifesto in the Style of
Saint Friedrich Nietzsche

contributed by Lew

Live Dangerously!

Do what you will, by all means -- but first be such as one as can will!

My Brothers, I do not exhort you to love of your neighbor: I exhort you to love of the most distant.

The retired Pope had been speaking of the God he had served. "Away with such a God," spake Zarathustra. The retired Pope replied in turn, "Zarathistra, with such disbelief you are more pious than you believe. Some sort of God in you must have converted you to your godlessness. Is it not your very piety that no longer allows you to believe in a God?"

1. O Higher Men, live ye by your own law!

Live ye in the way that ye will to do:

Work ye as ye will, and play as ye will, and rest as ye will, and die when and
how ye will.

2. Eat ye what ye will, O Higher Men, and drink what ye will, and dwell where ye will, and move as ye will on the face of the earth.

3. O Higher Men, think ye what ye will!

Speak ye what ye will, and write as ye will, and draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as ye will, and dress as ye will.

4. Love ye as ye will, O Higher Men!

"Untroubled, scornful, outrageous -- that is how wisdom wants us to be: she is a woman and never loves anyone but a warrior."

5. O Higher Men, ye have been known to kill those who would thwart ye.

"Once you had passions and called them evil. But now you have only your virtues: they grew from out your passions."

Thus spake Zarathustra!

From the Outbasket

Next year, starting in March for the Thelemic year, is the 93rd year of the writing of The Book of the Law. Also, December of 1997 e.v. will be the 50th anniversary of Crowley's Greater Feast. A 50th or Jubilee year is traditionally a time of releasing and renewing -- as Crowley himself observed with his own life by sending around a note of the 50th anniversary of his taking the name "Perdurabo" just a few months before he died. In the process of reading Liber AL, we each must come to some personal level with the text. Crowley's commentaries identify many aspects of meaning that dealt with his role in the Aeon of Horus. Here are a few light speculations about Crowley's affinity for matters of Liber AL.

The Egyptiana in The Book of the Law can be explained simply enough in a literal way: Crowley was in Egypt. The Egyptian gods and goddesses spoke to him. When in Cairo, dress your thoughts as the Gizans did. That's a tad mundane. It's more noble to say that this Aeon of Horus started and dictated the form of myth to go with Thelema on that occasion in 1904 e.v. Gods and goddesses after all should be accorded their stature. It ill behooves us to treat them as a tourist would.

Why that myth? What's wrong with the usual Christian mythos? I submit that the mythology presented in, about and after Liber AL fits Crowley's life more closely than the Xtian Gospel story. Perhaps it fits more lives in these days of broken homes and two jobs, within a setting of technological magick. True, both JC and Horus had an "absent father" of sorts, with an uncle or foster father somewhere in the picture. Both were more visibly influenced by the mother while growing up. There are differences. Horus truly did not get along at all well with uncle Set. If JC tended to ignore uncle Joe a good deal, it does seem that there wasn't much resentment either, to judge by the record that remains. The death scene and aftermath is a bit different too. JC started a political and ethical movement, as it appears now, whatever the actual events. He died a martyr to his role, but his arisen spirit carried on the work. Horus simply did the best he could with a rotten situation at home, eventually triumphing as Ba-Hedi or Hadit, by flying into union with the disk of the sun. There's no death for Horus in that story, and you can see him plainly on any clear day.

Here are some suggested details in Crowley's life, related to the myth and deities of Liber AL.

Nuit -- the ideal, if somewhat distant mother. Crowley apparently did love his mother, if not her ways. This is seen in Confessions briefly, when she is in danger of sliding off a cliff. Without her legacy, there would have been no money for the Abbey of Thelema and the struggle to set a social pattern for Crowley's work.

Isis (Asi) -- the actual mother, trapped in involuntary bondage to the uncle, seen in Crowley's endless carping about the religious behavior of the Plymouth Brethren.

Osiris (Asar) -- the dead father, idealized and emulated in changed ways for changed times.

Set, not in Liber AL but hanging in the wings -- Crowley has several poems and diatribes about a particular uncle, generalized to British politics and clergy.

Harpocrates -- Crowley's protected childhood, with imposed silence on his growing views, fits the child Horus.

Hoor-paar-Kraat -- Crowley's rebellion against established religions and his war-like writing style fits the warrior Horus.

Thoth (Tahuti) -- The tutor or honorary uncle features prominently, sexually and mysteriously in Crowley's life and Liber AL. From a resented homosexual pass in youth through many male mentors in succession, Crowley highlights the men who educated him.

Nephthys -- Aunts have an ambiguous role in A.C.'s life, even as in J.C.'s. Supportive in the latter, resented in the former, they lump around seeming important but not obviously doing much. I suspect both the C's were puzzled by their aunts. Nephthys is another not in Liber AL, but she does hang about a good deal.

Scarlet Woman -- Babalon isn't in Liber AL, but this lady of forbidden vice is there and quite complex. She has the red-letter, but otherwise seems more helpmate than prophetess or party person. She is discarded in Crowley's life when she shows weakness but otherwise seems a good deal stronger than he is.

Babalon -- What of this latter lady? She seems to be the perfect archetype behind A's lady in red. Never a falter. Always dominant and the perfect object of devotion.

Beast -- not hard to find A.C.'s mother's sobriquet for little Al there.

Crowley's mystical life could be summarized by emulation of Ra- Heru-Khuti-Ba-Hadit -- The God who is the Hawk who Flys into the Disk of the Sun, be it the eternal sun of midnight or aught else. No crucifixion and resurrection here. The plan was to go there and come back in a nimbus of transfiguration.

-- TSG (Bill Heidrick)

Previous Outbasket Next Outbasket

Events Calendar for December 1996 e.v.

12/1/96	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	Thelema Ldg.
12/1/96	ZEN (18) 3:00PM OZ House
12/2/96	TAN (17) 12.15AM OZ House
12/2/96	LEA (16) 5:00PM OZ House
12/3/96	OXO (15) 9:30AM OZ House
12/3/96	UTI (14) 3:00PM OZ House
12/4/96	ZIM (13) 3:00PM OZ House
12/4/96	LOE (12) 11:30PM OZ House
12/5/96	IKH (11) 10:30PM OZ House
12/6/96	ZAX (10) 2:00PM OZ House
12/7/96	ZIP (9) 9:30PM OZ House
12/8/96	Lodge Luncheon meeting 12:30	Thelema Ldg.
12/8/96	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	Thelema Ldg.
12/8/96	ZID (8) 7:30PM OZ House
12/9/96	DEO (7) 8:30PM OZ House
12/10/96	New Moon in Sagittarius 8:56 AM
12/10/96	MAZ (6) 8:00PM OZ House
12/11/96	Thelema Lodge Library night 8PM (call to attend)	Thelema Ldg.
12/12/96	LIT (5) 7:00PM OZ House
12/13/96	LIT (5) 8:00PM OZ House
12/14/96	Enochian Scrying Workshop 8PM	Thelema Ldg.
12/15/96	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	Thelema Ldg.
12/16/96	Section 2 reading w/Caitlin at OZ Rosicrucian Books 8PM	Thelema Ldg.
12/16/96	PAZ (4) 9:30AM OZ House
12/17/96	ZON (3) 9:30AM OZ House
12/18/96	Tarot with Bill Heidrick, 7:30 PM in San Anselmo at 5 Suffield Ave.	Thelema Ldg.
12/18/96	ARN (2) 10.00AM OZ House
12/19/96	LIL (1) 2.00PM OZ House
12/20/96	Winter Solstice 8PM	Thelema Ldg.
	ARN (2) 10.00AM OZ House
12/21/96	Sol enters Capricorn 6:06 AM
12/21/96	R+C hosts party	R+C Chapter
12/22/96	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	Thelema Ldg.
12/23/96	Thelema Lodge Library night 8PM (call to attend)	Thelema Ldg.
12/24/96	Full Moon in Cancer 12:41 PM
12/25/96	Lesser fiest of the aeon of Osiris
12/26/96	"The Houses in Astrology" workshop with Grace in Berkeley 7 PM	Thelema Ldg.
12/27/96	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	Thelema Ldg.
12/30/96	Sirius Oasis meeting 8PM Berkeley	Sirius Oasis
12/31/96	Eve of the vulgar New Year