Thelema Lodge
Ordo Templi Orientis
P.O.Box 2303
Berkeley, CA 94702 USA
July 1997 e.v. at Thelema Lodge
Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers
Initiations in Ordo Templi Orientis are next planned for Saturday 19th July
at Thelema Lodge, through the afternoon and into the evening. For reasons of
security during the rituals, as well as efficiency in planning for the
concluding feast, advance notice is requested from all who would like to
attend any initiation. Interested members should speak with one of the
officers of the lodge for specific information regarding the times and degrees
to be worked. For those who wish to apply for candidacy, forms can be
requested at most lodge functions, and should be returned to the lodgemaster when complete. All candidates are required to keep in touch with the lodge
during the (minimum thirty day) period that they await initiation.
Our Tarot series with Bill Heidrick holds its fifteenth meeting in San
Anselmo on Wednesday evening 23rd July, beginning at 7:30. The Court Cards
will be our focus this month, with the presentation of an illustrated lecture
on their history, meaning, and symbology. Afterwards there will be a
demonstration of divinatory technique with the cards, as a complete reading or
two is presented and fully explained by the instructor. For information call
Bill ahead of time at (415) 454-5176.
The selection this month in the A A
Section Two Reading Group is one of
the most obscure works on Crowley's original bibliography of secondary and
"suggestive" occult writings. On Monday evening 21st July we will be reading
and discussing No. 19 by Edgar Jepson at Oz House with Caitlin, beginning at
8:00. Jepson was primarily a humor writer on the staff of the original Vanity Fair magazine, which was edited in London by Frank Harris and numbered
Aleister Crowley among its contributors. He also published several popular
novels, but is hardly remembered at all today, although No. 19 is an enjoyable
occult thriller, interesting as a possible influence upon the concept and
structure of Crowley's Rites of Eleusis. It appeared in the spring of 1910
e.v. and went through two editions in its first season, portraying ceremonial
magic as a serious and effective study involving discipline, dedication, and
enormous risk.
We learn gradually from a concerned neighbor's narration about a series of
rites being celebrated in the back garden of No. 19 Walden Road in Hertford
Park, an otherwise respectable London suburb. There are seven rites, each
invoking a different ancient god, and in addition to tedious recitations they
involve periodic libations from a shared cup of drugged wine, orgiastic
dancing, and the concluding embodiment of chaos as the great god Pan (with
destructive results). They are produced seasonally, year after year, by
organized magical students in robes at night according to a lunar schedule,
and led by an accomplished, sincere, but dangerously obsessed world-travelling
magus. It is very likely that Crowley and some of his students read and
enjoyed No. 19 very shortly before writing and producing The Rites of Eleusis
during the summer and autumn of that same year. Although the weaker
participants fail in terror as the operation proceeds, those who are pure of
heart, and able to keep the power of their wills concentrated, not only
survive these rites but successfully channel the power generated in the ritual
to their own good, discovering in the end that "woman is the key of the
ultimate lock." Only those who become distracted, or complain during
rehearsals, or are not able to learn their lines properly, end up driven mad
or crushed by the sacred forces, or scared to death by the results. "Uncle! Uncle! There's something horrible in the garden!"
The Thelema Lodge College of Hard N.O.X. meets on the first and final
Wednesday evenings of each month at 8:00 in the lodge library. Mordecai has
organized this free-ranging discussion society, with no promise that he will
get us to stick to the point, but only to remember sometimes what it was. A
topic for each gathering of this assembly will be set by general agreement at
the preceding meeting (and most likely upset and reset as we go on), so that
we can mark our progress by the remembered measure of our intentions. Open
and free intellectual exchange is so obviously necessary to any Thelemic
community that we can easily neglect the duty which each (as well as all) of
us share in maintaining a continuous, fair, and pertinent discussion of the
issues we face together. Obfuscation and censorship are the wrappings of
weakness; they are easy to ridicule, and so are most hazardous when self-
imposed, as may become habitual when structures of artificial confidence take
the place of balanced exercise in compensating for our own failings. Often
ideas forged in communion can take on power and usefulness which solitary thought brings only more slowly to definition. Join us for practice in
effective conversation on Wednesday evenings 2nd and 30th July.
The Law is for All was the title originally given by Israel Regardie to his
own shortened edition of Crowley's several commentaries upon the Book of the
Law. Regardie's edition has lately been superseded by one more closely
honoring Crowley's own publication hopes, which presents a shortened version
of the "New Comment" from the 1920s e.v. Thelema Lodge continues to offer a
weekly reading and study circle devoted to this material, which meets upstairs
in the "den" with Michael and Cynthia, most Sundays before mass. Arrive at
7:00 to participate, or for more information call (510) 601-9393.
Grace's seven-week Astrology seminar concludes this month, meeting in
Berkeley on Monday evenings 7th and 14th July. Please call ahead to attend,
but new students are always welcome. This series can present either beginning
or intermediate astrological practitioners with a complete grounding, or with
a new orientation at any point along the way. The Temple of Astrology can be
reached at (510) 843-STAR, and each session lasts from 7:00 until 9:00. We
will be using as a textbook in this seminar the excellent primer by Douglas
Bloch & Demetra George, Astrology for Yourself: A Workbook for Personal Transformation (Oakland: Wingbow Press, 1987, 1994), several copies of which
will be available to share during class.
THOSE who are most familiar with the spirit of fair play which pervades our
great public schools will have no difficulty, should they observe, in an
obscure corner, the savage attack of Jones minor upon Robinson minimus, in
deducing that the former has only just got over the "jolly good hiding" that
Smith major had so long promised him, the determining factor of the same being
Smith's defeat by Brown maximus behind the chapel, after Brown's interview
with the Head-Master.
We are most of us aware that cabinet ministers, bishops, and dons resemble
each other in the important particular that all are still schoolboys, and
their differences but the superficial one produced by greasing, soaping, and
withering them respectively; so that it will meet with instant general
approval if I open this paper by the remark that Christianity, as long as it
flourished, was content to assimilate Paganism, never attacking it until its
own life had been sapped by the insidious heresies of Pall.
Time passed by, and they bullied Manes and Cerinthus; history repeated
itself until it almost knew itself by heart; finally, at the present day, some
hireling parasites of the decaying faith -- at once the origin and the product
of that decay -- endeavour to take advantage of the "Greek movement" or the
"Neo-pagan revival" in the vain hope of diverting the public attention from
the phalanx of Rationalism -- traitorously admitted by Luther, and now sitting
crowned and inexpugnable in the very citadel of the faith -- to their own dishonest lie that Paganism was a faith whose motto was "Carpe diem,"1 and
those methods were drink, Dance, and Studio Murder.2 Why is Procopius cleaner
than Petronius? Even a Julian could confute this sort of thing; but are we to
rest for ever in negation? No; a Robinson minimus ipse will turn, and it is
quite time that science was given a chance to measure itself against bulk. I
shall not be content with giving Christian apologists the lie direct, but
proceed to convict them of the very materialism against which they froth. In
a word, to-day Christianity is the irreligion of the materialist, or if your
like, the sensualist; while in Paganism, we may find the expression of that
ever-haunting love -- nay, necessity! -- of the Beyond which tortures and
beautifies those of us who are poets.
-- and, while there is no logical break between
the apparently chaste dogma of the Virgin Birth and the horrible grossness of
R. P. Sanchez in his De Matrimonio, Lib. ii. Cap. xxi., "Utium Virgo Maria
semen emiserit in copulatione cum Spiritu Sancto," so long as we understand an
historical Incarnation: the accomplishment of that half of the Magnum Opus
which is glyphed in the mystic aphorism "Solve!" enables an Adept of that
standing to see nothing but pure symbol and holy counsel in the no grosser
legends of the Greeks. This is not a matter of choice: reason forbids us to
take the Swan-lover in its literal silliness and obscenity; but, on the other
hand, the Bishops will not allow us to attach a pure interpretation to the
precisely similar story of the Dove.3
So far am I, indeed, from attacking Christian symbolism as such, that I am
quite prepared to admit that it is, although or rather because it is the
lowest, the best. Most others, especially Hinduism and Buddhism, lose
themselves in metaphysical speculations only proper to those who are already
Adepts.
The Rosicrucian busies himself with the Next Step, for himself and his
pupils; he is no more concerned to discuss Nibbana than a schoolmaster to
"settle the doctrine of the enclithic " in the mind of a child who is
painfully grappling with the declension of
. We can read even orthodox
Christian writers with benefit (such is the revivifying force of our Elixir)
by seeking the essence in the First Matter of the Work; and we could commend
many of them, notably St. Ignatius and even the rationalising Mansel and
Newman, if they would only concentrate upon spiritual truth, instead of
insisting on the truth of things, material and therefore immaterial, which
only need the touch of a scholar's wand to crumble into the base dust from
which their bloodstained towers arose.
Whoso has been crucified with Christ can but laugh when it is proved that
Christ was never crucified. The historian understands nothing of what we
mean, either by Christ or by crucifixion, and is thus totally incompetent to
criticise our position. On the other hand, we are of course equally ill-
placed to convert him; but then we do not wish to do so; certainly not quâ
historian. We leave him alone. Whoso hath ears to hear, let him hear! and
the first and last ordeals and rewards of the Adept are comprised in the maxim
"Keep silence!"
There should be no possible point of contact between the Church and the
world: Paul began the ruin of Christianity, but Constantine completed it. The
Church which begins to exteriorise is already lost. To control the ethics of
the state is to adopt the ethics of the state: and the first duty of the state
will be to expel the rival god Religion. In such a cycle we in England seem
to be now revolving, and the new forced freedom of the Church is upon us.
If only the destruction is sufficiently complete, if only all England will
turn Atheist, we may perhaps be able to find some Christians here and there.
As long as "church" means either a building, an assembly, or even has any
meaning at all of a kind to be intelligible to the ordinary man, so long is
Christ rejected, and the Pharisee supreme.
Now the materialism which has always been the curse of Christianity was no
doubt partly due to the fact that the early disciples were poor men. You
cannot bribe a rich man with loaves and fishes: only the overfed long from the
Simple Life. True, Christ bought the world by the promise of Fasts and
Martyrdoms, glutted as it was by its surfeit of Augustan glories; but the poor
were in a vast majority, and snatched greedily at all the gross pleasures and
profits of which the educated and wealthy were sick even unto death. Further,
the asceticism of surfeit is a false passion, and only lasts until a healthy
hunger is attained; so that the change was an entire corruption, without
redeeming aspect. Had there been five righteous men in Rome, a Cato, a
Brutus, a Curtius, a Scipio, and a Julian, nothing would have occurred; but
there was only the last, and he too late. No doubt Maximus, his teacher, was
too holy an Adept to mingle in the affairs of the world; one indeed, perhaps,
about to pass over to a higher sphere of action: such speculation is idle and
impertinent; but the world was ruined, as never before since the fabled
destruction of Atlantis, and I trust that I shall take my readers with me when
I affirm so proud a belief in the might of the heart whose integrity is
unassailable, clean of all crime, that I lay it down as a positive dictum that
only by the decay in the mental and moral virility of Rome and not otherwise,
was it possible for the slavish greed and anarchy of the Faith of Paul to gain
a foothold. This faith was no new current of youth, sweeping away decadence:
it was a force of the slime: a force with no single salutary germ of progress
inherent herein. Even Mohammedanism, so often accused of materialism, did
produce, at once, and in consequence, a revival of learning, a crowd of
algebraists, astronomers, philosophers, whose names are still to be revered:
but within the fold, from the death of Christ to the Renaissance -- a purely
pagan movement -- we hear no more of art, literature, or philosophy.4 But we
do hear -- well, what Gibbon has to say.
There is surely a positive side to all this; we agree that Pagans must have
been more spiritual than their successors, if only because themselves openly
scoffed at their mythology without in the least abandoning the devout
performance of its rites, while the Christian clung to irrelevant historical
falsehood as if it were true and important. But it is justifiable -- nay,
urgent -- to inquire how and why? Which having discovered, we are bound to
proceed with the problem: "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?"
receive the answer: "By taking heed thereto according to thy word," and
interpret "thy word" as "The Works of Aleister Crowley."
But this is to anticipate; let us answer the first question by returning to
our phrase "The Church that exteriorises is already lost." On that
hypothesis, the decay of Paganism was accomplished by the very outward and
visible sign of its inward and spiritual grace, the raising of massive temples
to the Gods in a style and manner to which history seeks in vain a parallel.
Security is mortals' chiefest enemy; so also the perfection of balanced
strength which enabled Hwang-sze to force his enemies to build the Great Wall
was the mark of the imminent decay of his dynasty and race -- truly a terrible
"Writing on the Wall." An end to the days of the Nine Sages; an end to the
wisdoms of Lao Tan on his dun cow; an end to the making of classics of history
and of odes and of ethics, to the Shu King and the Shih King, and the Li-Ki,
and the mysterious glories of the holy Yi King itself! Civilisation,
decadence, and the slime. Still the Great Wall keeps the Barbarians from
China: it is the wall that the Church of Christ set up against science and
philosophy, and even to-day its ruins stand, albeit wrapped in the lurid
flames of Hell. It is the law of life, this cycle; decadence is perfection,
and the perfect soul is assumed into the bosom of Nephthys, so that for a
while the world lies fallow. It is in failing to see this constant fume of
incense rising from the earth that pessimistic philosophies make their grand
fundamental error: in that, and in assuming the very point in dispute, the
nature of the laws of other worlds and the prospects of the individual soul.
Confess, O subtle author, that thou thyself art even now in the same trap!
Willingly, reader; these slips happen when, although one cannot prove to
others, one knows.5 Thou too shall know, and thou wilt: -- ask how, and we
come suddenly back to our subject, just as a dreamer may wander through
countless nightmares, to find himself in the end on the top of a precipice,
whence falling, he shall find himself in bed.
Hear wisdom! the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind.
A man is almost obliged to be in communion with God when God is blowing his
hat off, drenching him to the skin, whistling through his very bones, scaring
him almost to death with a flash of lightning, and so on. When he gets time
to think, he thinks just that. In a church all is too clearly the work of
man: in the matter of man's comfort man's devices are so obviously superior to
God's: so that we compare hats and languidly discuss the preacher.
Religion is alive in Wales, because people have to walk miles to chapel.
Religion is alive among Mohammedans, who pray (as they live) out of doors,
and who will fight and die for their ideas; and among Hindus, whose bloody
sacrifices bring them daily face to face with death.
Pan-Islam is possible; pan-Germany is possible; but pan-Christendom would
be absurd. There were saints in the times of the Crusades, and Crusaders in
the times of the Saints: for though the foe was more artificial than real, and the object chimerical, a foe and an aim of whatever sort assist the
concentration which alone is life.
So that we need not be surprised to see as we do that religion is dead in
London, where it demands no greater sacrifice than that of an hour's leisure
in the week, and even offers to repay that with social consideration for the
old, and opportunities of flirtation for the young.
The word "dear" has two senses, and these two are one.
Pressing the "out-of-doors" argument, as we may call it, I will challenge
each of my readers to a simple experiment.
Go out one night to a distant an lonely heath, if no mountain summit is
available: then at midnight repeat the Lord's Prayer, or any invocation with
which you happen to be familiar, or one made up by yourself, or one consisting
wholly of senseless and barbarous words.6 Repeat it solemnly and aloud,
expectant of some great and mysterious result.
I pledge myself, if you have a spark of religion in you, that is, if you
are properly a human being, that you will (at the very least) experience a
deeper sense of spiritual communion that you have ever obtained by any course
of church-going.
After which you will, if you are worth your salt, devote your life to the
development of this communion, and to the search for an instructed master who
can tell you more than I can.
Now the earlier paganism is simply overflowing with this spirit of
communion. The boy goes down to the pool, musing, as boys will; is it strange
that a nymph should reward him, sometimes even with wine from the purple vats
of death?
Poor dullards! in your zeal to extinguish the light upon our altars you
have had to drench your own with the bitter waters of most general unbelief.
Where are the witches and the fairies and the angels, and the visions of the
divine St. John? You are annoyed at my mention of angels and witches; because
you know yourselves to be sceptics, and that I have any amount of "scriptural
warrant" to throw at your heads, if I deigned; you are all embarassed when
Maude Adams leans over the footlights with a goo-goo accent so excessive that
you die of diabetes in a week, and asks you point-blank: "Do you believe in
fairies?" while, for your visions, you do not go to St. John's Island, and
share his exile; but to his Wood, and waste your money.
The early pagan worships Demeter in dim groves; there is silence; there is
no organisation of ritual; there the worship is spontaneous and individual.
In short, the work of religion is thrown upon the religious faculty, instead
of being delegated to the quite inferior and irrelevant faculties of mere
decorum or even stage-craft. A Christian of the type of Browning understands
this perfectly. True, he approves the sincerity which he finds to pervade the
otherwise disgusting chapel; but he cares nothing whatever for the "raree-show
of Peter's successor," and though I daresay his ghost will be shocked and
annoyed by my mention of the fact, Browning himself does not get his
illumination in any human temple, but only when he is out with the universe
alone in the storm.
Nor does Browning anywhere draw so perfect and so credible a picture of the
intercourse between man and God as the exquisite vision of Pan in
"Pheidippides." It is all perfectly natural and therefore miraculous; there
is no straining at the gnats of vestment in the hope of swallowing the camel
of Illumination.
In the matter of Pentecost, we hear only, in the way of the "conditions of
the experiment," that "they were all with one accord in one place." Now, this
being the only instance in the world's history of more than two people in one
place being of one accord, it is naturally also the only instance of a miracle
which happened in church.
The Quakers, arguing soundly enough that women were such a cause of
contention chiefly on account of their tongues, and getting a glimpse of these
truths which I have so laboriously been endeavouring to expound, hoped for
inspiration from the effects of silence alone, and strove (even by a symbolic
silence in costume) to repeat the experiment of Pentecost.
But they lacked the stimulus of Syrian air, and that of the stirring times
of the already visible sparks of national revolt: they should have sought to
replace these by passing the bottle round in their assemblies, and something
would probably have happened, an 'twere only a raid of the police.
Better get forty shillings or a month that live and die as lived and died
John Bright!
Better be a Shaker, or a camp-meeting homunculus, or a Chataqua girl, or a
Keswick week lunatic, or an Even Roberts revivalist, or even a common maniac,
than a smug Evangelical banker's clerk with a greasy wife and three gifted
children -- to be bank clerks after him!
Better be a flagellant, or one who dances as David danced before the Lord,
than a bishop who is universally respected, even by the boys he used to baste
when he was headmaster of a great English public school!
That is, if religion is your aim: if you are spiritually minded: if you
interpret every phenomenon that is presented to your sensorium as a particular
dealing of God with your soul.
But if you come back from the celebration of the Eucharist and say, "Mr.
Hogwash was very dull to-day," you will never get to heaven, where the good
poets live, and nobody else; nor to hell, whose inhabitants are exclusively
bad poets.
There is more hope for a man who should go to Lord's and say he saw the
angels of God ascending and descending upon C. B. Fry.
It is God who sees the possibility of Light in Chaos; it is the Churches
who blaspheme the superb body of Truth which Adepts of old enshrined in the
Cross, by degrading the Story of the Crucifixion to a mere paragraph in the
Daily Mail of the time of Pontius Pilate.
Bill Blake took tea with Ezekiel: Tennyson saw no more in the Arthurian
legends than a prophecy of the Prince Consort (though Lancelot has little in
common with John Brown), and the result of all is that Tennyson is dead and buried -- as shown by the fact that he is still popular -- and Blake lives, for
poets read and love him.
Now when Paganism became popular, organised, state-regulated, it ceased to
be individual: that is to say, it ceased to exist as a religion, and became a
social institution little better than the Church which has replaced it. But
initiates -- men who had themselves seen God face to face, and lived --
preserved the vital essence. They chose men; they tested them; they
instructed them in methods of invoking the Visible Image of the Invisible.
Thus by a living chain religion lived -- in the Mysteries of Eleusis.
Further, recognising that the Great Work was henceforth to be secret, a
worship of caverns and midnight groves and catacombs, no more of open fields
and smiling bowers, they caused to be written in symbols by one of the lesser
initiates the whole Mystery of Godliness, so that after the renaissance those
who were fitted to the work might infallibly discover the first matter of the
Work and even many of the processes thereof.
Notes:
By the Progress of the World we mean that she is always giving adepts to
God, and thus losing them; yet, through their aid, while they are still near
enough to humanity to attract it, she reaches each time a higher point. Yet
this point is never very high; so that Aeschylus, though in fact more ignorant
than our schoolboys, holds his seat besides Ibsen and Newton in the Republic
of the Adepti -- a good horse, but not to be run too hard. -- A. C.
1. "Gather ye roses!" is the masterpiece of a Christian clergyman. --
A.C.
2. A peculiarly gross case of psychopathic crime which occurred in 1906.
3. Recently, a certain rash doctor publicly expressed his doubts whether
any Bishop of the
twentieth century was so filthy-minded a fool. They were,
however, soon dispelled
by telegrams from a considerable section of the entire
Bench, couched in emphatic
language.
4 Such philosophy as does exist is entirely vicious, taking its axioms no
more from observed
fact, but from "Scripture" or from Aristotle. Barring such
isolated pagans as M. Aurelius
Antoninus, and the neo-Platonists, those
glorious decadents* of paganism.
* Decadence marks the period when the adepts, nearing their earthly
perfection, become true adepts, not mere men of genius. They disappear,
harvested by heaven: and perfect darkness (apparent death) ensues until the
youthful forerunners of the next crop begin to shoot in the form of artists.
Diagrammatically:
5. Let me run wild for once, I beg; I am tired of emulating Mr. Storer
Clouston's Sir Julian
Wallingford, "whose reasoning powers were so remarkable
that he never committed
the slightest action without furnishing a full and
adequate explanation of his conduct."
-- A. C.
6. I am ashamed to say that I have devoted considerable time to the absurd task of finding meanings
for, and tracing the corruptions of, the "barbarous names of evocation" which occur in nearly
all conjurations, and which Zoroaster warns his pupils not to change, because "they are names
divine,
having in the sacred rites a power ineffable."
The fact is that many such names are indeed corruptions of divine names. We may trace Eheieh
in Eie, Abraxas in Abrae, Tetragrammaton in Jehovah.
But this, an initiate knows, is quite contrary to the true theory.
It is because the names are senseless that they are
effective. If a man is really praying he
cannot bring himself to utter ridiculous things to his God, just as Mark Twain observes that
one
"cannot pray a lie." So that it is a sublime test of faith to utter
either a lie or a jest, this
with reverence, and that with conviction.
Achieve it; the one becomes the truth, the other
a formula of power.
Hence the real value of the Egyptian ritual by which the theurgist
identified himself with the power he invoked. Modern neophytes should
not (we think)
use the old conjurations with their barbarous names,
because, imperfectly understanding
the same, they may superstitiously
attribute some real power to them; we shall rather advise
"Jack and
Jill went up the hill," "From Greenland's icy mountains," and such,
with which it is
impossible for the normal mind to associate a feeling
of reverence.
What may be the mode of operation of this formula concerns us little;
enough if it succeeds.
But one may suggest that it is a case of the
will running free, "i.e." unchecked, as it normally is,
by the hosts of
critical larvae we call reason, habit, sensation, and the like.
But the will freed from these may run straight and swift; if its
habitual goal has been the
attainment of Samadhi, it may under such
circumstances reach it. It will require a very
advanced student to use
this type of faith. The Lord's Prayer and the minor exaltation are
the
certainties for this event. -- A. C.
They dug him up and he was fresh, | |
By this and by the tangled mesh | |
Of roots that found no sustenance | |
Within him, they were want to know | |
That this was him who bid there grow | |
About him that which mortal lance | |
Could not dispute, and so they lopped | |
His head with silver axe and chopped | |
A stake to drive into his heart | |
Which, doing this, removed his art. | |
Having now exhausted all of the verses which were originally assembled for
the four Grady Project pamphlets nearly ten years ago, we will continue this
series with a presentation of the remaining poetical works of Grady McMurtry,
assembled from various sources. Approximately eighteen poems remain, at the
conclusion of which the entirety of Grady's legacy as a poet will have
appeared here in the Thelema Lodge Calendar, serialized over the course of
eleven years. Scarce any of these remaining poems have been previously
published except in Pangenator Lodge's limited edition Red Flame collection of
1994 e.v., so henceforth we will usually dispense with the publication notes.
Written at the age of twenty-three, during the first year in which Grady
made it his regular work to write poems and preserve them, this piece is
fairly typical of his very early verse. Supernatural, magical, and sinister,
but not yet overtly Thelemic, such verses may have been intended for
appearance in science fiction "fan-zines" which had begun appearing at this
time. These "mimeoed mailers" were written, published, and read by
enthusiasts of the commercial "pulp" science fiction monthlies such as Amazing Stories, of which Grady was a devoted reader and collector during his college
years before the War.
Derived from a lecture series in 1977 e.v. by Bill Heidrick
Copyright © Bill Heidrick
This approach is very closely related to the ten-Sephirot multiple Trees.
Although working with the Parsifim or Countenances is a little more
sophisticated, it is often easier to use a Tree of five categories instead of
ten Sephirot. The basic method is the same. We will return to the notion of
the Parsifim later; but for now consider the central group as one, Chesed
through Yesod as all the details of a normal human personality, ignoring the
material existence of the body and the higher aspects. Here we have fantasy
(Yesod), practicality (Hod), emotional feelings (Netzach), central focus of
life (Tipheret), moral force or drives toward goals (Geburah) and an ultimate
"feeling good" zone (Chesed). Religious experience, moral force, view of
life, emotional balance, rational balance and fantasy can be taken as "what my
head is like" and considered as a complex formed by merging six Sephirot. In
cases where this won't do the job, you will need all ten Sephirot. Studies of Qabalah discuss the number of Sephirot in compound ways. When you start multiplying the Trees inside the Trees, that can be very confusing, since some approaches multiply by a factor of ten and others by a factor of five, using this system. It's basically the same thing, whether you are using a ten Sephirot Tree or a reduced Tree of four distinct Sephirot and a single group of the middle six treated as one. This is a psychological Tree. |
COPY (from Karl Germer) From Letter from 666, Sept. 16, 1946.
"The difference between the A
The object of membership is also entirely simple. The first objective is the
Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. The next objective,
omitting considerations for the present of the 6°=5 The O.T.O. has nothing to do with this, except that the Book of the Law and the Word of the Aeon are essential principles of membership. In all other respects, it stands by itself as a body similar to freemasonry, but involving acceptance of a social and economic system which is intended to put the world on its feet. There is also, of course, the secret of the IX° which is so to say, the weapon which they may use to further these purposes.
To show you the difference, Theodor Reuss was Supreme Head of the O.T.O., but
was not even probationer of the A
When in California I had been asked for a formal and official statement on the above subject, so I asked 666 for it, and here it is.
cc to Roy Leffingwell copy sent Petersen 2/10/54 |
Interest in the Rites came early after the founding of Thelema Lodge
(October 12th, 1977 e.v.). Later that year we experimented with profess houses in San Francisco. The "Ashbury Abbey" was the first of these, and the
acquisition of some photocopies from The Looking Glass accounts of the first
run of the Rites sparked interest. There was thought of putting them on
again, but mainly these old pictures were studied for details of the A A
robes worn by the players in the first decades of this century. On 8th
December, 1977 e.v., my diary records accidental destruction of a set of the
Eleusian photocopies during a fire in Janice's room at the "Abbey". Furnishings, floor coverings and windows were also lost, but nothing more
serious. Other copies were available, and discussions continued.
The Ashbury Abbey eventually reverted to a share rental, and the next
experiment with a profess house in San Francisco was At-Nu House, mainly under
the direction of Fr. Ebony and Sr. Cinnamon. On 6th June, 1978 e.v.,
following a class I taught on the Death Atu, Jim Graeb held an impromptu
meeting to discuss plans for putting on the Rites again for the first time
since Crowley's days. We did a Tarot reading on the question, at first
formally and then by free-style interrogation of the spirit of the deck. This
went so far as to address the shade of the Hierophant of the ancient Rites.
The outcome was that the time was not ripe, but the next effort would be
successful. In those days most OTO meetings and classes in the Bay Area were
taped on cassettes and later transferred to reel-to-reel 24 hour capacity tape
with the cassettes being recycled. This practice continued until about 1980
e.v., and the first meeting on the staging of the Rites has survived on tape
Epsilon, side II, right track (item M) and left track (item O). The lecture on the
Death Atu is part of that, so the total recording time of 105 minutes probably
only has about 40 minutes devoted to the meeting on the Rites.
Sister Chandria lived at At-Nu house in its last days, and probably got the
notion of doing the Rites when she was there. After she moved out, the Rites
remained on her mind. Thelema Lodge experimented with a Drama Guild and
Chandria independently went ahead with the first performances, mixing OTO and
non-OTO local folks for the cast. This tradition began with her, as did the
tradition of each Rite having its own producer-director in the role of the
planetary deity. The cast in these early performances varied from amateur to
professional, including Sally E., who had performed the "Pollution Song" in
the original production of Hair.
The first notice of Chandria's successful work on the Rites to appear in
the Thelema lodge Calendar was for the Rite of Luna at the Unitarian Meeting
Hall on Cedar & Bonita in Berkeley, for 2nd February, 1980 e.v. The Magickal Link for March 1981 e.v. carried a full page notice of the Rites of that year,
with the "Thelema Lodge Calendar" page in the back setting forth dates and
times. That was the first full performance of the Rites actually at Thelema
Lodge, when the Lodge met at 2822 San Pablo Ave. in Berkeley. Sister Heather
participated, later taking the Rites to New Zealand and Australia when she
went back to found Oceania Lodge. By then the Rites had started up in
southern California and elsewhere in the US. European OTO centers followed.
The Rites have also been done in Japan and Canada.
Thelema Lodge Events Calendar for July 1997 e.v.
7/2/97 | "College of Hard NOX" with Mordecai 8:00 PM in the library | Thelema Ldg. | ||||
7/5/97 | The Rite of Saturn 8PM call for location. | |||||
7/6/97 | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | Thelema Ldg. | ||||
7/7/97 | Astrology Seminar with Grace in Berkeley, 7:00 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||||
7/10/97 | Thelema Lodge Library night 8PM (call to attend) | Thelema Ldg. | ||||
7/13/97 | Lodge Luncheon Meeting 12:30 | Thelema Ldg. | ||||
7/13/97 | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | Thelema Ldg. | ||||
7/14/97 | Astrology Seminar with Grace in Berkeley, 7:00 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||||
7/17/97 | The Rite of Jupiter 8PM call for location. | |||||
7/19/97 | Thelema Lodge OTO initiations (call to attend) | Thelema Ldg. | ||||
7/20/97 | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | Thelema Ldg. | ||||
7/21/97 | Section II reading group with Caitlin: Edgar Jepson's "No. 19" At Oz house, 8 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||||
7/22/97 | The Rite of Sol 12:16PM call for location. | |||||
7/23/97 | Tarot with Bill Heidrick, 7:30 PM in San Anselmo at 5 Suffield Ave. | Thelema Ldg. | ||||
7/27/97 | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | Thelema Ldg. | ||||
7/28/97 | Sirius Oasis meeting 8:00 PM in Berkeley | Sirius Oasis | ||||
7/29/97 | The Rite of Mars call for time and location. | |||||
7/30/97 | "College of Hard NOX" with Mordecai 8:00 PM in the library | Thelema 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)