I felt a bit better and marched with my coolies to the hot spring, avoiding
Askoli on account of the cholera. I may as well say here that this cholera
business was a most mysterious affair. The officials at Skardu denied
absolutely that there had been any epidemic at all or even any single case of
cholera in the Valley during the whole summer, but the natives were unanimous
that some sixty men had died in Askoli; and it is certainly unlikely that the
lambadar to whom we owed money should not have turned up for payment if we was
alive! A still more striking incident is that of the Chaprasi at Paiyu. This
man was interviewed separately by Eckenstein and myself. To Eckenstein he
told a long yarn about the cutting off of the Valley and the difficulty we
might find in removing the property we had left at Askoli, while to me he said
there was no difficulty. Further Eckenstein succeeded in bringing his Askoli
coolies to Shigar, and was informed that the order permitting this had only
just been issued. I, however, descended by the Valley route; and not only had
no trouble whatever, but heard that a few days before a British officer who
had been shikaring in one of the nulas had descended in front of me also
without trouble. Knowles and Eckenstein in presence of the reputed epidemic
completely lost their heads. Instead of taking the Doctor's advice to go and have a general clean up at the hot spring, they declined with horror "to
remain in the affected district an hour longer than was necessary," but all
the Askoli men were allowed by them to mix with our own coolies and the men of
Sté Sté, the village opposite Askoli on the other bank of the Bralduh. The
doctor believed in cholera as much, or as little, as I did, but, as a matter
of form, he disinfected all the luggage we had left behind. Even this did not
satisfy Eckenstein. He threw all our tea into the river, as well as a good
many other things which we needed seriously afterwards. As soon as I arrived
at the camp, which we pitched actually on the borders of the lake, I made a
regular rush for the water, and had my first bath for eighty-five days!
Previous Crowley Classic To be continued. Part VIII (Part vii is missing)
from the Grady Project:
Dating apparently from 1957 e.v. when Grady was applying for work with the State of California, this resume survived among his papers. It was most likely a version of this document which helped secure Grady a managerial position with the California Department of Labor, from which he eventually moved on to federal employment in Washington, D.C. It seems here that he has understated his age by a couple of years, since Grady would have celebrated his 39th birthday in October of 1957.
Curriculum Vitae:
GRADY L. McMURTRY
2635 Hillegass Ave., Apt. 2, Berkeley 4, California
TH 3-0488
Age: 36
Male
Married
One child, aged 10
U.S. Citizen
Ht: 6'
Wt: 185 lbs
B.A., Philosophy, 1948, U.C., Berkeley
M.A., Political Science, 1954, U.C., Berkeley
Major, Ordnance Corps, USAR
Resume of Professional and Academic Background
Oct 1956 - Aug 1957: ADMINISTRATION and RESEARCH
Administrative Analyst II, Office of the President, University of
California. Analysis of statewide and local problems by developing sources of
information, organizing the materials of research, and drafting the reports
and memoranda by which information is transmitted and on which recommendations
for action are made.
Oct 1953 - Sep 1956: RESEARCH, TEACHING, CONFERENCE, ORGANIZATION and LECTURE
Research experience as a Graduate Student, Political Science Department,
U.C., Berkeley and in writing the M.A. thesis.
Teaching experience as a Teaching Assistant, 1954-55 and 1955-56, Political
Science Department, U.C., Berkeley. Conducting seminars in American
Government by conference method, assigning papers, preparing bibliography and
grading students.
Conference experience as Coordinator, Student World Affairs Conference, U.C., Berkeley, Spring 1956. Organizing the mailing campaign, contacting
speakers, and planning for space, housing, transportation, registration,
literature, topical bibliography, program, panels, resource personnel and
publicity.
Organization experience as President, Delta Phi Epsilon, U.C., Spring 1956.
Decentralization by institutionalizing professional committees around
functional chapter interest in Foreign Service, Foreign Commerce and
International Relations.
Lecture experience presenting "Impressions of Old Korea," with color
slides, under the auspices of U.C. Extension; and "Ammunition Supply in
Korea," with color slides, before various Reserve Training groups.
Mar 1951 - Sep 1953: ADMINISTRATION, OPERATION, and ORGANIZATION
Active duty as Captain, U.S. Army Ordnance Corps, U.S. and Far East Command.
Administrative experience as Ordnance Unit Instructor, Maryland Military
District, Baltimore, Maryland, Apr 1951 - Feb 1952.
Operational experience as an Ammunition Supply Officer, U.S. 8th Army,
Korea, Jun 1952 - Apr 1953. Operational control, on the battalion level, of
three to five Ammunition Companies, i.e. responsibility for the storage,
safety and movement of ammunition on a corps front, field army.
Organization experience as Ammunition, Powder and Explosives Safety
Engineer, 2nd Transportation Major Port, Yokohama, Japan, May 1953 - Sep 1953.
Organization and supervision of all explosives safety programing for
ammunition off-loading.
Feb 1946 - Feb 1951: GRADUATE and UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT Political Science and
Philosophy Departments, University of California, Berkeley, under the "GI
Bill" of the Veterans Administration, taking the B.A. in June, 1948.
Feb 1941 - Feb 1946: PRIVATE to CAPTAIN, U.S. Army, U.S. and European
Theatre. Principal duties: Unit Commander, Ordnance Shop Officer, Ammunition
Supply Officer.
Sep 1937 - Feb 1941: STUDENT, Basic Sciences, Pasadena Junior College,
California
Professional Associations
American Political Science Association
Western Government Research Association
Delta Phi Epsilon (National Professional Foreign Service Fraternity)
Pi Sigma Alpha (National Political Science Honor Society)
Previous Grady Project Next Grady Project
One Member's Opinion
Ebony Anpu and the Hawk and Jackal System:
A Personal Perspective
by Nathan W. Bjorge
The following is a compilation of my scattered reflections and thoughts
concerning the chief magical legacy of the late Ebony Anpu: his personal
system of Magick, which he called Hawk and Jackal. I should note at the get-
go that I claim no special authority to speak for this system as a whole.
Nevertheless, my often intense experiences with the tradition and its founder
over the years lead me to desire to share my views and discoveries with others. It is my hope that this series of articles may prove useful to the
readers of this newsletter.
Hawk and Jackal is a synthetic structure, consisting of a number of
distinct yet interlocking components. It includes:
1. A complete theurgic structure of elemental, planetary, and astral
Magick.
2. A moon coven system, drawing from the Egyptian, Thelemic and Witchcraft
traditions.
3. A body of received texts known as the Dialogs.
4. Multidimensional Magick, e.g. the Tesseract working.
These teachings were transmitted by Ebony both orally, as well as through
his writings, which were gathered together into a quite substantive volume
entitled The Books of the Hawk and Jackal. It is my hope that the future may
see this book more widely available.
Hawk and Jackal is a Tradition. That is to say it is not essentially an
organization or formal initiating lineage, though lineages and groups are not
excluded from existing to practice the tradition. Ebony always insisted that
individuals were ultimately "in" H&J if they saw themselves as being so,
regardless of whether he ever even knew about it. In particular, I do not
consider H&J to be in conflict or competition with O.T.O. Indeed, as a system
it has largely developed within O.T.O. contexts. Provided individuals remain
mature and intelligent about their actions, I do not consider there to be a
problem with the promotion of Ebony's ideas and rituals within the O.T.O.
community.
The long road of Ebony's life began in Texas. Born Charles Lee Reese into
a hereditary goddess worshipping family in 1950, Ebony was early on exposed to
religious alternatives from the Judeo-Christian mainstream. He said that he
had seen his mother call animals out of the forest and knock pictures off
walls.
At the age of 18, Ebony was forced to leave Texas due to legal
difficulties. At this point I begin to run into the problem which faces any
attempt at biography of Ebony Anpu: his extreme penchant for tall tales
concerning his own life. His flight from Texas was one of his favorites, and
I admit to being unable to disentangle the exaggerated variations. (He
insisted that, in Texas at the time, bouncing buckshot off the street to hit
the radiator and tires of pursuing police cursers was considered only
resisting arrest and not attempted murder, though it did not prevent the
police from returning fire.) Nevertheless, I will try my best, with the
understanding that my brief presentation of his life here can only be
preliminary to a more serious study. Ebony was fond of mythologizing his own
life, but I do not wish to give the impression that all he said about himself
was untrue. He was an extraordinary man, and extraordinary things happened to
him.
His car having given out either in New Mexico or Arizona, Ebony ditched it
and somehow found his way out of the desert and to the San Francisco Bay area.
It was 1968, and Ebony discovered himself at the epicenter of the
counterculture revolution. Unable to get regular work until the statute of
limitations ran out (or so he bragged decades later), he spent several years
working a variety of jobs, including at one early point a stint as a
prostitute. Eventually, he succeeded in getting on a government assistance
program and received disability money due to his lifelong struggle with
extreme asthma. This freed him for a number of years to devote his full time
and energies to religious pursuits.
The end of the sixties and the early seventies are an obscure and often
dark period of Ebony's life. He was a dedicated Satanist during some of this
time, and believed that a small Elect of aware individuals were fit to rule
the mundane world. He claimed that from his earliest childhood he had been
able to remember his past lives, and in all of his incarnations he had been
possessed of power. I once got him to admit that he was the reincarnation of the pharaoh Seti I, the creator of a particularly beautiful temple complex. I never dared ask
him if he thought he had been Crowley, in part because I knew what the answer
would have been. I believe from comments he made that Ebony held to a
peculiar thesis that Crowley had fragmented his soul, and that all of his
future followers were reincarnations, in some sense, of him.
At some point, probably in the early seventies, he received the name he
came to use as his own: Ebony. It was given him by a witch during a Wiccan
initiation. Ebony had other magical names. He wrote, "Since the year of the
Aeon 65 every Magical Name I have taken has had the numeration of 137"
("Multidimensional Magick," page 8). According to Sepher Sephiroth, 137 is
the gematria for "a wheel," "the belly, gullet," "an image, a statue," and
"the Qabalah."
"Anpu," the other component of Ebony's name, is a rendering of the Egyptian
designation of the deity called Anubis by the Greeks. He closely identified
himself with this godform, as his fragile health led him to a primal
understanding of death. There were esoteric levels of meaning as well. He
said one evening that The Holy Guardian Angel had appeared to him in the form
of Anubis to guide him upon the path of Lamed, in the weighing of his heart in
the hall of the double Ma'at. He felt that this was the adjustment and
equilibration of Karma necessary to his balancing as a new adept prior to his
advancement to Geburah.
A crystallization of Ebony's life purpose occurred when he discovered the
writings of Aleister Crowley, and became an intensely dedicated Thelemite.
About 1977 e.v. he met the then head of the O.T.O., Grady McMurtry, and was
inexorably drawn into the whirlwind of the Order's modern revival.
Ebony's Memorial (to be continued)
Primary Sources
Frieda's Flyer:
This is a promotional flyer for The Book of Thoth, contemporary with publication in the 1940's and apparently put out by Frieda Harris without Crowley's review. Note the offer at the bottom to sell the paintings, a notice which led to Crowley taking issue with Frieda. Crowley went so far as to write a long letter to himself, purported to come from his masters and abusing him for allowing Frieda so much latitude in the design of the Thoth Deck, even extending to offering the paintings for sale at a time when the Deck itself had not yet been published. The crisis evidently blew over.
THE BOOK OF THOTH
(TAROT)
By
THE MASTER THERION
Artist Executive: FRIEDA HARRIS
No serious student of the occult sciences can have failed to notice the
complete inadequacy of all attempts so far made to expound the meaning of the
Tarot.
That gap in the ground plan of magical theory is at last filled. In his
latest work the Master has reduced a lifetime's experience of the secret
traditions of both East and West to a fundamentally simple yet complete and
coherent picture of the Magical Path as shewn in the Tarot pack.
Those familiar with his work know well what to expect from his latest
essay: shrewd and penetrating insight combined with an unrivalled knowledge of
all systems of initiation and a complete familiarity with the whole Western
tradition; the whole expressed in diamond-clear prose, sparkling with wit and
aphorism. The relation between the cards is here demonstrated; together they
compose a complete Atlas of the Universe, and a guide to its navigation. The
Cosmos is shewn as a Unity of Perfection, using imperfection as a means to the
realization of Itself. The cards, although based closely enough on the
Ancient Designs, have been brought up-to-date and flooded with illumination
far fuller than was possible until the findings of modern Science and
Mathematics, with the new knowledge of Comparative Religion, could be
included.
These designs were executed by Frieda Harris; they are in every way
superior both in loftiness of vision and in artistic achievement to the
primitive crudities of the Medieval packs, whose interest is mainly that of
curiosities. They are the essential accompaniment to the fresh insight of the
essay, and like it, completely supersede all previous efforts.
The importance of the Tarot among magical systems lies in the fact that it
is the key to all Western disciplines; indeed to all the mystical disciplines
of the world, since all, beneath a superficial diversity of terminology and
approach, teach the same stages and inculcate the same training. For example,
the analogy between the Western systems and the Hindu Yoga is well known, but
up to the present the parallel between them and the initiated Chinese
tradition has remained an unsolved enigma. In the Book of Thoth, however, the
relationship is firmly and convincingly established, thereby providing a
further proof of the validity of both viewpoints.
This is only one of the many achievements of scholarship which mark out
this work as a milestone in occult exegesis, but more valuable still is the
completely fresh approach to the whole subject which permeates the book. This
is no rehash of what has been said before on the subject, whether by Levi,
Papus, de Guaita, Wirth, or that dull crowd of amateurs that dabble in the
subject from time to time; it is a brilliant revaluation of the entire field of occult and mystical activity in the light of the most recent advances in
science, philosophy, psychoanalysis and comparative Religion.
The Book of Thoth is the first and final Classic of the Tarot. It is
indispensable to all who seek to fathom the deepest wisdom of the ancients,
and to follow the Initiated Tradition from the beginnings of History to the
present day.
---------
The Book has been nobly produced; no other consideration was allowed to
weigh.
It consists of 290 pages with eight full-page colour illustrations, and
ninety in black and white. The format is 10 x 7 1/2 ins. Size of page and
type as this prospectus.
It is printed on the finest mould-made paper, pre-war quality.
It is bound in genuine native-tanned and native-dyed Morocco from the
Niger, with appropriately decorative sides.
The edition is strictly limited to 200 copies, each signed and numbered.
The price is Ten Guineas. In U.S.A. $50.00.
---------
The set of 79 original paintings by Frieda Harris for sale by private
treaty.
Previous Primary Sources Next Primary Sources
An Introduction to Qabalah
Part XLVIII -Meditation by the Worlds.Derived from a lecture series in 1977 e.v. by Bill Heidrick
Copyright © Bill Heidrick
Meditation is not so very different from what we have done before, aside
from being less verbal over-all. It is possible to reach into most of these
levels of awareness without rational explanation. Further, such explanations
themselves arise from other ways of getting at these things. Those other ways
amount to meditation of one kind or another. When a person comes to
understand something by physical circumstances, that understanding is the
result of meditation by immersion in the environment. Deliberately
surrounding oneself with things that draw attention to a particular way of
feeling or knowing is a bit more elaborate, but it still amounts to the same
kind of thing. That's a meditation similar to the Assiah World perspective,
literal interpretation.
There are other ways of meditating. A person can read a story and have a
fantasy. The fantasy might be something like a dream or daydream, but it is
directed. It is a fantasy about something that chosen or found in a book.
This type of meditation is of the Yetziratic World.
By more elaborate ritual and prayer, people seek to contact spiritual
forces, like angels or other entities. This is of the Briatic World in
general terms, even though such hierarchies of spirits are often sub-divided
into further, smaller classes of four worlds within Briah.
The highest level of all is a pure state in which even awareness of self
disappears. There is no interpretation, fantasy or conversation. The person
meditating is just there with some facet of truth, some part of the Universe
that seems expand to become the whole Universe. That's the nature of Truth.
Truth can't be separated from the rest. It has to be a complete thing. Truth
can't be completely put it into words, because words are not complete things.
When a person in unable to distinguish what is seen from the self and from all
the Universe around about, that person experiences a state of Truth. There
are other ways to experience Truth, but as soon as the experience is
rationally examined, it ceases to be perfect. Actions and decisions based on
the memory of such an experience may be inappropriate, even ridiculous or
dangerous. It is only during the experience that this state of Truth exists.
Even then, events in the surrounding world may not accommodate the person
meditating. For that reason rituals of banishment and tiling or making safe
the place of meditation are always recommended. The higher the type of
meditation, the farther from the mundane world one goes. Some of the training
and advice for such practices focuses on methods for obtaining results. Most
of such preparation should address preparation, safety in the practice and
transition back to normal states of mind.
For an example of Assiatic meditation, consider a place like one of the
pools in Cataract Gulch, along a trail route on Mt. Tam in Marin County,
California. A path descends steeply beside a running stream on the mountain
side. At several places along the route, the stream drops suddenly down in a
waterfall three times the height of a man, into a large and shadowed pool as
large around as a small house. Mosses and ferns hang from the rocky walls,
with stands of trees around the top, screening the place from the rest of the
world. It's cool and peaceful. A side path leads from the trail down to a
bank before the pool. You go there and sit, looking across the pool at the
falling water. After a while the feeling of the place enters into you. Other
forms of meditation may spontaneously arise, ascending from this Assiatic
World experience. A fantasy may form, causing the place to seem like the womb
of the mountain goddess, sexual in an odd way that does not disturb or seem at
all strange. You may speak with that spirits of the place, gently and
reverently in the full feeling of the presence of a loving divinity. A leaf may fall, an animal may pass by or perhaps an answering voice will come in
your mind alone. You may forget for a time that you have a body, loose
awareness of the stones and objects of that place and become one with some
greater Truth. This is one of the oldest methods for meditating.
There is a practice of going to a place like that, but far removed from
public trails and rules against swimming. Sometimes a stream or spring is
caused to flow through an enclosed chamber into a pool for ritual bathing.
Jewish tradition requires that such places are not proper if filled with water
that comes from a reservoir. You can never get this kind of bath in a tub.
It has to be where the water wells fresh from the earth or flows wild and
untamed in a living stream. Such water is virginal, not dedicated to another
purpose or used before it reaches the bather. That clean, pure essence itself
produces a like clean, pure feeling in the mind and body. Ritual immersions,
and ritual baths are a tradition that has endured for thousands of years. In
the New Testament this is referred to as baptism. John the Baptist was not
doing a novel thing. Every devout Jew in those days was supposed experience
such a thing, to go out to the river Jordan or some other freely flowing water
and take a bath, as part of a meditative, even a worshipful act. There are
scribes who write copies of the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. According to proper ritual, every time these scribes come to a
name of the divinity, they are supposed to take one of these special ritual
baths. Very few actually do this, but it is the proper way to purify mind and
body for the sacred act of writing the holy names.
Just as there are four Worlds, there are four ways of knowing the Torah.
What is the Torah? Literally speaking the Torah is a physical scroll, written
by hand, of the first portion of the Bible. What is read in it is word by
word what is written. That's the Torah in Assiah, a physical scroll or set of
books. In Yetzirah, what is the Torah? The Torah is the story of God and the
people. That story may be found in the books of the Jewish people or in other
places. As soon as you go up one flight, one step, you break away from locked
in systems. The further up you go, the further away from a particular culture
or religion you get. This is true in Qabalah, even among the very strict
Jewish versions of Kabbalah. A Kabbalist will only rarely come out with a
blunt statement like: "The only True Sacred Writings are those of the Jews."
Most will not say such things at all, but when they do they often will admit
that writings themselves are holy in essence of being writings. The Torah
scroll is special to the Kabbalists, but there are other ways to get divine
messages. Ascend to Briah and the Torah is not a material book or anything
that can be physically recorded in plain words. The spiritual essence of the
Torah is that of which such a book or scroll is a shadow. There are many
other shadows cast by different ways of seeing this one spiritual essence.
There is a mystical Torah of Atziluth that has existed from before the
beginning of the Earth. Without it the Earth would not have been made,
because it lists all the order of the things which are in the Earth. This is
the basis for interpreting the Torah or Old Testament for Qabalistic or
Magical purposes, that all such things are a shadow of the divine Torah.
Sometimes by looking at the shadow you may glimpse a bit of the way that the
Universe was made, but not very often by taking it literally. A shadow is not
the thing that casts the shadow. By interpreting it, by trying to see what
real substance filtered and shaded down into flat, two-dimensional form
through the mind of a man who wrote parts of it, by trying to go beyond that
up to the mystical essence that cast this particular form, the Qabalist
intends to get an idea of the way the Universe works. Somewhere beyond this,
the rules are not separate things, but there is one essence of Truth and that
is the highest form of the Torah.
Whether by the pool of a mountain stream or the unrolling of a parchment,
the mind may ascend through ways described by Qabalah to contemplation of the
One.
Previous Introduction to Qabalah Next: More examples -- Part XLIX
Events Calendar for August 1999 e.v.
| 8/1/99 | | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | | Thelema Ldg. |
| 8/4/99 | College of Hard NOX 8 PM
with Mordecai in the library | Thelema Ldg. |
| 8/7/99 | Feast of Lammas 3PM at Ceth House
in Berkeley | |
| 8/8/99 | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | Thelema Ldg. |
| 8/9/99 | Video Showing: "Jack Parsons Legend"
8:30 PM | Thelema Ldg. |
| 8/12/99 | Feast of the Beast and his Bride | |
| 8/15/99 | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | Thelema Ldg. |
| 8/16/99 | Section II reading group with
Caitlin: Richard Burton's Travels
in Arabia. 8PM at OZ house | Thelema Ldg. |
| 8/22/99 | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | Thelema Ldg. |
| 8/25/99 | College of Hard NOX 8 PM
with Mordecai in the library | Thelema Ldg. |
| 8/28/99 | OTO Initiations, call to attend | Thelema Ldg. |
| 8/29/99 | Sirius Oasis Tea, 4:18 PM | Sirius Oasis |
| 8/29/99 | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | 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)
Home away from Home
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