Thelema Lodge Calendar for February 2004 e.v.

Thelema Lodge Calendar

for February 2004 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

February 2004 e.v. at Thelema Lodge

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

Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers

Celebration of Nuit

As the dark season of the year, sacred to the stars and to the wisdom of the night, the winter quarter is also a time of anticipation for the renewed light at the next year's dawning with the equinox. We look forward to the first centenary of the Equinox of the Gods next month, and another new year in the no longer altogether new but by now rather firmly established aeon of Horus. We are also planning this spring for a transition of the leadership of the lodge to one of our long-serving senior officers, which will offer fresh opportunities for involvement among the membership community. There will be changes in this newsletter as well, but all of this is still a couple of months away. Our temple, library, and oasis will continue to function very much as we have established them together, but with the enthusiastic new direction and according to the freshly calibrated bearings of our next lodgemaster.

Our Father the Sun brings us to the halfway point of winter, attaining fifteen degrees of Aquarius quite early in the morning of 4th February at about 3:45. The lodge will gather that evening in Horus Temple to celebrate the festival of Brigid (Candlemas), elemental feast of air, with a ritual invocation of Nuit and a communal dinner. Join us beginning at 7:00 on Wednesday evening 4th February, with the meal to follow our cross-quarter ritual. This event is being coordinated for the lodge by members of the local Lodge of Perfection. Speak ahead of time with brother Nathan Bjorge to assist with the working, and for the feast everyone please bring dinner entrees or salads to share, along with plenty of your favorite things to drink.

We light up Horus Temple every Sunday evening to celebrate the mass of Ecclesia Gnostica Cathoilica, welcoming participation from all whose will it is to join us in this Thelemic communion ritual. Those attending for the first time should call the lodge well ahead for additional information and directions to the temple. Members here take turns as officers in the gnostic mass, and many of our more experienced celebrants are available by request to assist novices in learning these roles. To sign up for a date to serve the lodge at mass, form a team of officers and practice the ritual privately until you have mastered it, then arrange with the lodgemaster for a date on the temple calendar.

From the Center of Silence

    Join the Magical Practices group at Thelema Lodge on Thursday evening 12th February from 7:30 until 10:00 for an inquiry into Aleister Crowley's Ritual of the Star Ruby, a Thelemic variation on the Golden Dawn pentagram ritual. First appearing in print with the publication of the Book of Lies in 1913 e.v., the Star Ruby (chapter 25 of Liber CCCXXXIII) was described by Crowley as a "new and more elaborate version of the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram." Disciples at the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalu performed the ritual as part of their daily practices, along with Will and Liber Resh. The ritual was later modified somewhat, and released in 1929 e.v. as an appendix of Magick in Theory and Practice (Book 4: Part III), where Crowley also noted in chapter 13: "It is usually sufficient to perform a general banishing, and to rely upon the aid of the guardians invoked. Let the banishing therefore be short, but in no wise slurred -- for it is useful as it tends to produce the proper attitude of mind for the invocations. 'The Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram' (as now rewritten, Liber 333, Cap. XXV) is the best to use."
    Built up from the traditional Lesser Pentagram Ritual of the Golden Dawn (see Liber O vel Manus et Sagittae, section IV), and similar to it in some aspects, the Star Ruby also has many significant differences in its structure, for example, using Greek instead of Hebrew intonations. While its predecessor is suitable for both invoking and banishing elemental forces, the Star Ruby is exclusively a banishing ritual -- and a truly thorough, focused, and exceedingly powerful one. The rituals do build upon one another, and it has been found beneficial in my experience to first master the older form before working with this new and improved ritual.
    The ritual opens with the establishment of the divine form of Hoor-paar- kraat in the operator, as he assumes the Sign of Silence. The successful establishment of this form and condition of consciousness is central to the remainder of the ritual, for it establishes within the magician the center of authority within as the "still, silent self" of the Divine Child Harpocrates, a symbol of the Holy Guardian Angel that is effectively known and experienced as the True Will. From this center of Silence, the calm depths of true power, lying timeless in eternity, we now move into action. The lightning flash of Will is invoked to banish by fiat with a "great sweep" of the right hand "down and out, expelling forcibly thy breath" the words alpha-pi-omicron pi-alpha-nu-tau-omicron-sigma kappa-alpha-kappa-omicron-delta-alpha-iota-mu-omicron-nu-omicron-sigma

alpha-pi-omicron pi-alpha-nu-tau-omicron-sigma kappa-alpha-kappa-omicron-delta-alpha-iota-mu-omicron-nu-omicron-sigma

("away every evil spirit.").
The qabalistic cross section of the ritual invokes the solar-phallic regency of God in all glory and majesty:
With the same forefinger touch thy forehead and say sigma-omicron-iota

, thy member, and say omicron-phi-alpha-lambda-lambda-epsilon

, thy right shoulder, and say iota-sigma-chi-upsilon-rho-sigma

, thy left shoulder, and say epsilon-upsilon-chi-alpha-rho-iota-sigma-tau-omicron-sigma

then clasp thine hands, locking the fingers, and cry Iota-Alpha-Omicron

.
In the sparse notes to the ritual given in Liber 333, Crowley informs us in a footnote to the phrase omicron-phi-alpha-lambda-lambda-epsilon

that the "secret sense of the words is to be sought in the numeration thereof." The isopsephy of this injunction to the solar-phallic creative God has a value of 1366, which is identical to that of kappa-tau-epsilon-iota-sigma

(535) +

(831), or yoni + lingam. Another phrase with this same value is eta-pi-omicron-nu-eta

, "the voice." Thus visualizing oneself standing as a radiating erect column of light, crying out in Greek words which may be translated "Thine, O Phallus, Mighty, Beneficent, IAO!" the creative and irresistible universal currents of Love, Life and Liberty are invoked.
The ritual then proceeds to the establishment of the quarters, with a flaming pentagram visualized at the forehead and cast forth into each cardinal quarter with the forceful Sign of the Enterer. The older form of the ritual from Liber 333 uses the formula of Yod-Hay-Vau-Hay

in descent around the perimeter of the circle as the magician moves widdershins, so that to the East is associated Fire and the Lion Kerub; to the North is Water and the Eagle Kerub; in the West, the Kerub of Man and Air; and finally in the South the element of Earth and the Bull Kerub. The characteristic vocalization of each Kerub is used to project the name out into the quarter: the roar of the Lion, the scream of the Eagle, the voice of Man, and the bellowing of the Bull. (These names and vocalizations would be changed in the later version of the ritual, using Therion, Nuit, Babalon and Hadit instead. The later form is more in alignment with the structure of Liber V vel Reguli.)
The circle being completed, the magician returns to the center of the circle and raises "thy voice in the Paian" invoking Pan under the starry dome of Night, and giving the Signs of N.O.X. in such a way as to show the progression up the Tree of Life and across the Abyss. Then the magician, standing in the radiant form of the solar-phallic cross, calls forth the guardians of the quarters and the effulgent ensigns of the Pentagram and Hexagram. The guardians called forth in this ritual are not those of the Hebraic Archangels as in the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram; rather, the Star Ruby appears to be working with beings that first find their description in the Neoplatonic accounts of Proclus. The rite then concludes with the Qabalistic Cross again, followed by the banishing by fiat.

---- Brother Gregory Peters

Mantra ---- You Can Say That Again

"There are certain sacred words called mantras, which . . . when repeated under the proper conditions . . . produce extraordinary powers" (Vivekananda, Raja-Yoga). The yoga of mantra, consisting of the repetitious vocalization of sacred words, is in some form or another integral to most sacred traditions, as well as to many systems of personal exercise. Our Mantra Yoga circle at Thelema Lodge has so far explored this practice in Sanskrit, Egyptian, Arabic, and English, with many other possibilities remaining to be sampled. Meeting in the lodge library on Thursday evening 26th February at 8:00 under the direction of brother Jeffrey Sommer, this group is open for participation, with complete instruction offered at each session in the particular exercise selected for that evening, along with an introduction to the tradition from which it arises. Members of the group are also encouraged to design their own mantras and to work with them throughout the month, bringing their impressions of the practice to share with the others.

Frater Paralisee Galtinarde R+C

    For our meeting just after Valentine's Day the Section Two reading group will explore selections from the vast autobiography of Giacomo Casanova (1725- 1798), a Venetian adventurer who wrote in French as Jacques Casanova, self- proclaimed Chevalier de Seingalt, Knight of the Golden Spur. Meeting in the lodge library at 8:00 on Monday evening 16th February, we will sample one of the most sustained, intimate, and enjoyable presentations of European life in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Casanova's Histoire de ma Vie was written over a period of eight years of exile toward the end of his long life, while he was employed as a librarian in a noble household in Bohemia. Its huge manuscript, preserved in twelve bundles, was published posthumously. It recounts not only one of the greatest erotic careers ever chronicled, but all aspects of the life of a traveling gentleman who loved to tell stories, dine, drink, and gamble; who was employed at various times as a secretary, violinist, physician, and secret agent; and who frequently engaged in elaborate occult workings as a ceremonial magician and alchemist. All the while he remained -- first, last, and always -- a lover and seducer of women whenever he found them.
    Casanova's system of qabalah, which involved counting the letters in the words of an inquiry, arranging their sums in a pyramid, and generating a response from the numeric pattern thus presented, is mentioned in passing but not discussed in detail. As with the comprehensive planetary invocations he sometimes performed with his patrons, he seems to have had difficulty years later determining just what attitude to adopt in recounting them. He usually tries to make out that he never really understood such things, only pretending expertise when called upon to please his friends. This may be cautious modesty (in the days of the Inquisition), though some of his results seem certainly to have been tricks. Once he dressed up an old artist friend, selected for his long beard and intense eyes, to introduce him as Frater Querilinth, one of the three chief officers in the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross. When this man then tried to capitalize upon the role and had to be dismissed, Casanova announced that Querilinth had contracted syphilis from an infected sylph under some obscure curse, and would have to retire for the cure. Casanova's own Rosicrucian name was Paralisee Galtinarde, and his supreme working was an attempt, conducted at various times over several years, to translate the soul of his friend and patron Madame d'Ufre, a wealthy old lady, into a young male body so that she could devote a second lifetime to investigating all of the initiatory experiences which had been denied to her as a woman. A series of sexual workings, in which Madame d'Ufre (as Rosicrucian sister Semiramis) sometimes watched and sometimes participated, was arranged to produce a male child who could become her heir and the recipient of the soul-transference. In one experiment Madame d'Ufre paid a handsome fee to a virgin who agreed for the purpose to let Casanova impregnate her "in a manner known only to the Rosicrucian Fraternity." Unfortunately the girl ran off before they could tell whether she was pregnant, and they were left to explore alternate methods of transference.
    Casanova's great memoir was translated complete by Arthur Machen (whose Works appear on Crowley's Section Two reading list) beginning in 1888, and privately printed in twelve volumes for members of the Casanova Society in 1894 (five years before Machen was initiated into the Golden Dawn as Frater Avallaunius). This edition, reprinted in three thick paperback volumes, can often be found in secondhand book stores. Casanova's French was so full of Italian vocabulary and regional idioms that the original French edition of his work (published from Leipzig in twelve volumes between 1826 and 1838) was extensively edited and rewritten in proper French, suffering some cuts of problematic passages as well. Only in the twentieth century did the author's manuscript become available to scholars, and the Memoir has recently been translated again from a detailed study of the original, with greatly increased accuracy, and is currently in print in an excellent new edition.

Previous Section Two Next Section Two

In Memorium: Harry McBride

Thelema Lodge mourns our loss at the passing of brother Harry McBride, who celebrated his greater feast on 27th December 2003 e.v. following a long fight with cancer. Born on 7th March 1941 e.v. and raised in Philadelphia, Harry had an Irish-American Catholic childhood. As a young man he joined the US Navy and was decorated for his service in Viet Nam, after which he transferred to the merchant marine. At sea for nearly two decades, circling the world many times, he saw most of its major ports and many of its stranger shores. In the 1980s he settled near the port of Oakland, and was soon involved in several traditions of the local pagan community. He took work as a conductor on the BART trains, and as he was pursuing initiation in Wiccan and Thelemic circles he was also becoming the classic figure of a railroad engineer, complete with cap and vest-pocket watch. Pagan commuters were occasionally privileged to ride with him up in the driver's compartment if Harry spotted them as his train pulled up to the platform, or if they recognized his voice over the loudspeaker and looked in to greet him. Upon retirement Harry was free to devote himself to a profound study of the expansion of consciousness, and he cultivated a discriminating taste in psychedelics, even journeying to the jungles of the Amazon to study their usage. He was also a devoted practitioner of the sacrament of cannabis, and a hardworking spiritual and political organizer in the successful movement for medical marijuana reform in California. In recent years he volunteered as one of the spiritual directors of a Berkeley patients' group, helping to create a healing atmosphere where enlightenment as well as comfort could be shared. He also continued to travel widely, attending conferences in Europe as an advanced student of diverse magical and spiritual traditions.
Harry was active under the name of Belenus in several covens over the years, practicing Wicca in the classic Gardnerian style, and was a founding member of the board of directors for the Fellowship of the Spiral Path. He was a I° initiate in the O.T.O., whom we saw often at the Rites of Eleusis, at celebrations of the gnostic mass, and at other Thelemic events. He was a favorite deacon here in Horus Temple, and also at local independent sanctuaries of the gnosis, and had been ordained to the deaconate in the Liberal Catholic church as well. His patience and compassion made him a particularly calming counselor for some of the more troubled members of the community. Harry loved conversation and company, but he also had an extraordinary independence; he didn't rely upon the reactions of others to measure his personal progress, and he seemed always able to live according to his own standards. Freeing his friends from any demands for bolstering his self-image, he left open the possibility of spontaneous and authentic interaction, and seemed otherwise happy to accept silence rather than chatter. Uncomplaining even through several years of pain and debility in his final adventure with the disease that killed him, Harry maintained a wisdom and courage which remain inspiring to us. He was well and lovingly cared for at the end by a circle of his closest friends, with sister Glenn Turner especially supportive throughout, and he died at home on the eve of transfer to a nursing hospice facility. At his memorial service last month, many of his friends crowded into the beautiful marijuana collective where he had been a member (just across the street from where Thelema Lodge first met at Grady's old house), to celebrate Harry and his life, sing some sea chanteys, and pass a pipe around as a last salute to our departed brother.

Crowley Classics

Offered here as a reading for Valentine's Day, this little play was originally published in The International (New York: March 1918), as part of an "All Drama Issue" which Crowley wrote and edited nearly single-handedly. So far as we can determine, this play was never staged, nor does it appear to have been previously reprinted.

The Bonds of Marriage
A Romantic Farce in One Act

by Aleister Crowley

John Sampson (Jack) a man of business; age 30
Mary, his wife; age 25
Slyman Squiff, master detective

Sampson's apartment, in any city of the United States.

    (Jack is putting on his overcoat with Mary's aid.)
JACK: Well, good-bye, dear. Remember, I may be a little late for dinner; I'm
    rushed to death this week, you know, what with four men called to the
    colors, and three of the girls gone for the Red Cross.
MARY: Good-bye, Jack. Take care of yourself. This is dreadfully treacherous
    weather, dear, and you with your weakness! (While helping him she had
    dexterously extracted his wallet. She embraces him warmly.) Good-bye,
    darling!
JACK: Good-bye, sweetheart, good-bye!
    (He goes. She immediately searches the wallet. It contains a large number of
    bills, of which she thrusts a goodly proportion into her stocking, and a
    memorandum, which she reads, sitting.)
MARY: Monday L. B. 100, Wednesday L. B. 50, Thursday L. B. 200, Saturday
    L. B. 200. Oh, God! Oh, God! That it should have come to this!
    (The bell rings sharply. She puts the wallet in the pocket of a second
   overcoat, and conceals the paper. She then touches the button which
   releases the door, and begins to put away the breakfast things. Enter Jack.)
JACK: Darling, I've left my wallet, or it's been stolen. I must be crazy.
   I could have sworn I had it on me.
MARY: Oh, I guess it's in the overcoat you wore yesterday.
    (Jack finds it.)
JACK: So it is! Stupid of me! I must run, Good-bye again, dear girl!
MARY: Good-bye, Jack! (He goes. She sinks into a chair.) He didn't even
    kiss me! Oh, the mask's off the viper now! The veil has fallen from the
    rat! He and his L. B. -- the fifties and hundreds he's spending on her --
    and I haven't a rag to my back. Well, I'll know the worst -- and then go
    back to mother -- mother -- mother. (The bell rings sharply. She touches
    the button and returns, half fainting.) Oh, Mother! come and comfort me!
    Mother! Mother!

   (Enter Slyman Squiff. He is a tall, pale man. His face and feet are large
    and flat. He wears huge brown horn spectacles and wide red whiskers, an
    old battered Derby hat, a frock coat with a pale yellow waistcoat and
    lavender pants, all cut in the most fashionable style, new patent leather
    boots, frayed and dirty linen, new white kid gloves. He carries a cane,
    which can be used as a periscope, gun, or cigar holder. On his entry it is
    a cigar holder. His flowery language is spoken as if by a rather effete
    dandy, his slang in tones of cunning and vulgarity. His high notes of
    protest or affirmation reach the level of a lugubrious bellow. His costume
    can be varied if any items of it are difficult to obtain, but in any case
    it should be notable incongruous.)
SQUIFF: Good morrow, madam! May all blessings flow upon that dainty dome of
    thine. Indeed, ahem!
MARY: Good morning, Mr Squiff! Do sit down! Have you found out anything?
SQUIFF: Say everything, fair lady. What a question to ask of me, the master
    detective, the man who arrested Edward Kelly! I am indeed delighted to be
    able to inform you that your humble and devoted servant is now able to
    vindicate that pledge of confidence which you so amicably honored me by
    hypothecating -- hum! I've got the dope on the slob, madam, permit me to
    assure you on the faith of a master detective!
MARY: Tell me the worst, quickly, for pity's sake!
SQUIFF: Alas! that these lips should needs profane their sanctity with such a
    tale of treachery and infamy. Kid, it's the limit, believe me! Yes,
    madam, I deeply regret to have to inform you that he who pledged his honor
    to his marriage vows is no better than -- ah! how can I frame the phrase
    without wounding that sensitive soul of yours? -- no better than a-a-a
    coquette!
MARY: Then you can interpret this? (She hands him the memorandum.)
SQUIFF: Madam, I can. What a question to ask me, the master detective, the
    man who arrested Edward Kelly! L. B. is Laura Brown. Yet not so brown --
    she is a blonde!
MARY: Heavens above! a blonde!
SQUIFF: A blonde! She is employed in the office itself as a stenog.
MARY: A stenog?
SQUIFF: A stenog. Well may we say og -- she is a swine!
MARY: Did you make her confess?
SQUIFF: I wouldn't go near her for a million dollars. Blondes are more
    terrible than tigers, more ruthless than rattlesnakes, more squamacious
    than skunks -- oh, madam! Ahem!
MARY: I wish I had never been born. Oh, mother! mother!
SQUIFF: But, madam, calm your agitation, I beg of you. Open fire with anti-
    aircraft guns! What must be done? Ah, what?
MARY: I shall go home to mother.
SQUIFF(exhibiting alarm): But not today; oh, not today, let me beg of you!
    Trust me! Trust the master detective, the man who arrested Edward Kelly!
    There is much yet to do. Possess yourself awhile. We must have yet more
    proof -- prehoof! Prehoof's the one best bet!
MARY: Laura Brown! It is for her that he has cut my allowance, moved into
    this tiny flat, made me turn my old dresses and do my own housework. Laura
    Brown! I've been starving, Mr Squiff, literally starving, and he earning
    fifty a week!
SQUIFF: Indeed, madam, the worst is yet to come. For four months he had been
    branch manager, at two hundred a week, and three per cent commission into the bargain.
MARY: Oh, perfidy! perfidy!
SQUIFF: A raw deal, madam, as I live. I am the master detective! I arrested
    Edward Kelly, and I never heard a tale more pitiable!
MARY: Tonight I will confront him.
SQUIFF(in a hollow voice): 'Tis well. 'Tis well. Until tomorrow's sun,
    then, gild the horizon with his rays from the same elevation as at present,
    I bid you most respectfully adieu. I'll beat it, madam. Beat it! Ahem!
    (He goes. Mary sinks in grief, and begins to sob. The clock strikes ten.)
MARY: I won't believe it -- not until I know. But -- well -- the day's work --
    I guess there's a hundred with what I got this morning! (She rises, and
    takes her hat and coat.)

The curtain falls to indicate the passage of Time.

    (The clock strikes four. The bell rings. After a little, enter Squiff with
    Jack, crouching, like persons stalking game.)
SQUIFF: Ha! we are unobserved. Now, then, go to it, kid, go to it!
JACK: I almost hate myself for having employed you to spy on my wife's
    actions. But it has been too much for me! Week after week no proper
    meals! What does she do with her allowance? She hasn't had a dress or a
    hat in six months. And between you and me, I believe there's more than my
    carelessness in the way my money disappears. Sixty-four dollars this very
    morning, or I miss my count. You have discovered all, you say?
SQUIFF: What a question to ask me, the master detective, the man who arrested
    Edward Kelly! Mr Sampson, it grieves me to the heart to have to break the
    terrible news to you, but it's a cinch. Bear up, man, it's the booze.
    Your lady wife's a secret drinker. It is the drink! Dre-hink! Dre-hink!
JACK: I've never seen her drink in my life. It's absurd.
SQUIFF: It is on such paradoxes that detective genius has an average of over
    .300. I am the master detective. I arrested Edward Kelly, and believe me,
    I'm the wise guy. Never drink? That sort's the worst of all. Always
    sober, never seen to touch a drop, but she'll put away her weight in
    whiskey in a week, gol darn it! It is one of the most paradoxical and
    lamentable facts in the psychopathy of the neurological diathesis of
    dipsomania and parallel noioplegias, b'gosh!
JACK: God! it's too dreadful. Is there no doubt possible?
SQUIFF: It is not possible for a sound ratiocinatonary apparatus which is
    functioning normally to enter a caveat against the ipse dixit of my ex-
    cathedra pronunciamento. Holy smoke, no, ahem! It's a sure thing, babe,
    she's doing the hula-hula with the demon Rum.
JACK: How can you be so sure?
SQUIFF: You forget! I am the master detective. I am the man who arrested
    Edward Kelly! And so -- ah, so! Well? Ahem! I listened in. I did. It
    may have been unworthy, but I listened in! Ahem! Only yesterday! No
    sooner had your manly foot spurned the threshold of this your mansion in
    disdain and haste as you fled swiftly to your house of affairs -- ahem! --
    than -- ting! the masterpiece of Morse and Bell resounded. 'Twas even the
    sweet voice of your fair spouse -- wife of your bosom, alas that I should
    say it! (Bosom -- alas! that I should say it!) She called one Joe -- I
    know not who he may be, this pander to unhallowed vice and debauchery of
    drunkenness. She gave her order in terms that she thought darkly hidden,
    but to me, the master detective, the man who arrested Edward Kelly, they
    were -- alas! -- too clear -- ahem! Too plain! Too evident! Too damnable
    damning, damn it! Oh, yes, ahem! "Joe!" cried she, "two hundred bucks.
    Wilson -- that's all!" My innocent friend, "Wilson -- that's all" is the
    advertisement of a famed brand of whiskey. It was enough. She rang off.
    I swooned.
JACK: Two hundred dollars worth of whiskey! The woman must be a barrel!
SQUIFF: 'Tis the dread truth! 'Twill out, wil't not, indeed, ahem?
JACK: My God, can nothing be done?
SQUIFF: First, brother in distress, we must prehoove it on her. Prehoof!
    Prehoof's the one best bet. Hark! my trained ear perceives a fairy foot
    fall. Camouflage, Mr Sampson, camouflage! Quick -- in the window bay --
    behind your Arras tapestry!
    (They hide behind the window curtain, in the recess. Squiff keeps watch
    through the periscope. Enter Mary with parcels, which she leaves on the
    table. She looks round, as if fearing observation.)
MARY: All safe here! (Aside.) Yet I am the most wretched of women. At this
    very moment my husband -- my own husband -- is ensconced within the arms of
    that vile sorceress, Laura Brown. The fly is in my ointment, and I cannot
    swat it! Accursed by him that invented hydrogen peroxide with a little
    ammonia in it, to be combed though the hair carefully, well into the roots!
    Blondes! Blondes! Blondes! Oh, mother! mother! (aloud) But to my
    secret joy, my only compensation in this valley of woe!
SQUIFF (in a horse whisper, very loud): Did you hear that, Mr Sampson?
    Prehoof! Prehoof I promised you, and there I am with the goods. Prehoof!
JACK (very loud): Alas! I hear you, and I am lost. But hush! will she not
    hear us?
SQUIFF: No fear; her mind is on the drink. Drehink! Drehink! Oh, woe!
    Dre-hink!
MARY: I could have sworn that I heard voices, had I not promised my mother
    not to swear. But nothing matters now -- nothing save my secret! (She
    extends her arms to heaven and gives a cry as of ecstasy) Wilson -- that's
    all! (She goes to a cupboard and closes the door behind her.)
SQUIFF: Now, then, Mr Sampson, to the prehoof! Confront her. I'll stay
    hidden, and be witness. Hully gee! I'll reveal myself in my true form --
    aha! -- at the proper moment, yes, indeed, ahem! as the master detective,
    the man who arrested Edward Kelly!
JACK: I'll do it, if it breaks my heart.
    (He comes out and leans with folded arms against the table. Mary comes out of
    the cupboard.)
MARY: Jack! Why, how did you get in? I never heard you!
SQUIFF (with a loud laugh): What a question to ask! All things are easy when
    they are taken in hand by the master detective, the man who arrested Edward Kelly!
MARY: Oh, Jack, why don't you speak? I thought I heard a voice, another
    voice.
JACK: It was the voice of your own guilty conscience, Mary!
MARY: Jack! What do you mean? You frighten me. Why don't you kiss me? Why
    do you act so strangely?
JACK: Wilson -- that's all!
MARY: Oh, Jack, Jack, don't!
    (She comes to him, he repulses her, she begins to cry.)
SQUIFF: Aha! she trembles, she confesses, it is prehoof!
MARY: Oh, I'm sure I hear a voice!
JACK: Do you see nothing? No snakes, rats, beetles, pink-toed marmosets?
    Drink, wretched woman, drink! These things are on your program! No day so
    meatless but shall show you leopards nesting in your hair! Hear voices,
    indeed! Ha! ha! ha!
MARY: Oh, Jack, you're crazy!
SQUIFF: 'Tis she that's smitten with the dread dementia of drink! Dre-hink!
    Dre-hink! She things others crazy, she must then be crazy herself. 'Tis
    all Prehoof! Prehoof! Prehoof!
JACK: Mary, we've been good friends and more for over three years now. Won't
    you trust me? I'd cut off my hand to save you from this ghastly thing that
    has come over you. Tell me the truth. Let's face it together!
MARY: Is this a practical joke?
JACK: Oh, don't try to put me off. I know you have become a secret drinker.
    I have proof.
SQUIFF: Pre-hoof! Pre-hoof! Pre-hoof!
MARY: It is a voice. It is familiar, too. Oh, this must be a joke.
JACK: Mary, you are right. It is the voice of Slyman Squiff, the master
    detective!
SQUIFF: The man who arrested Edward Kelly!
MARY: Then I understand. You wretch! You abandoned wretch! How low must
    have I fallen to have loved you! Oh, mother, mother!
JACK: Hey, what's this? That's no answer!
MARY: It is for you to answer me! Here have I been, dragged from a happy
    home into this cheap flat, not a rag to my back, nor even a new hat, and
    there's a lovely one in ------'s (use name of local milliner) at three
    seventy-five, marked down from eight thirty-eight; no girl help any more;
    no more dinners in restaurants; oh, those blondes! I suppose Laura Brown's
    in an apartment at a thousand a month; the little beast!
JACK: Laura Brown! Mary, you're raving.
SQUIFF: Ha! he thinks others crazy, he's crazy himself. Such is the fate of
    all unfaithful husbands. It is Prehoof! Prehoof! Prehoof!
JACK: Shut up, Squiff, you ass!
MARY: Then you hear voices, too! What does this all mean?
JACK (in a low, thrilling, sinister voice): This is a stratagem of Slyman
    Squiff!
MARY (equally intense): Traitor, it is. A stratagem of the master detective!
SQUIFF: The man who arrested Edward Kelly!
MARY: Jack, it won't do. Your best chance is to confess. Otherwise I go
    straight home to mother. Oh, mother! mother!
JACK: Stop talking nonsense!
MARY: Confess! I have proof!
SQUIFF: Pre-hoof! Pre-hoof! Pre-hoof!
MARY: He knows about it all -- he knows -- he knows! He, Slyman Squiff, the
    master detective.
SQUIFF: The man who arrested Edward Kelly.
JACK: Confound Edward Kelly!
MARY: He did. And he may yet arrest you, John Sampson, you and your Laura
    Brown!
JACK: I haven't exchanged three words with the girl in my life, except good
    morning.
MARY: Ah! good morning! A clever scoundrel can do much with such materials.
    Why, I fell in love with you myself, poor fool I was, because of the way
    you used to say, "What a pleasant afternoon, aren't we, Miss Mary." You
    beast!
JACK: For God's sake be reasonable. You can't stall like that. If you're
    not soaking whiskey like an Irish bog, perhaps you'll explain what you do
    with all the money you get? Where's the necklace I gave you on your
    birthday? And your engagement ring? And the sixty-four dollars you took
    from my wallet this morning?
    (Silence. Mary, pale as death, clenches her teeth and fists. A pause.)
SQUIFF (in a hollow voice): Caught out! Prehoof!
    (A pause.)
MARY: Jack, it's no business of yours what I do with my money. You never
    asked me before. You're only asking me now to anticipate my asking you.
    And I do ask you now. What do you do with your money, if you don't spend
    it on that vile, low creature, Laura Brown?
JACK: She's a perfectly nice girl, and I won't hear you slander her.
MARY: Ah! you defend her, of course. Oh, men are all alike! Mother!
    Mother!
JACK: You want it both ways. Women are all alike. If I don't defend her,
    that would be a confession; if I do, it's proof that I'm a more hardened sinner still!
SQUIFF: Prehoof! Prehoof! Prehoof!
MARY: Oh, well; explain how you do spend all your money! I happen to know
    that you've been branch manager four months, and you never told me! Explain that!
JACK (stammering): Mary, dear, it's a -- it's a -- a -- a sort of -- er -- sort
    of secret. A -- er -- kind of a -- er -- surprise for bye and bye.
MARY (sneering): Your manner is convincing, and your explanation most
    luminous.
JACK: Bah! you're only stalling. Look here, Mary, I believe you loved me
    once, before this drink got hold of you. I'm going to tell you something.
    I saw the doctor again today. That weakness of mine was only temporary.
    I'm fit. They've accepted me for the Aviation Corps, and I'm off to camp
    next month.
MARY (between joy and anxiety): Jack!
JACK: How can I leave you, knowing this about you?
MARY: How can you leave Laura Brown, you mean! Here's your memorandum, with
    notes of all the money spent on her.
JACK: Laura Brown? L. B. Good God!
SQUIFF: Prehoof! It is enough. Now comes the supreme moment, the triumph of
    Slyman Squiff, the master detective, the man who arrested Edward Kelly.
    (He comes out and presents his cane at them.) Hands up! Both of you,
    hands up! (Amazed, they obey.) Behold the triumph of the strategist! I
    was employed by both of you, I have convicted both of you. No more shall
    whiskey and Laura Brown absorb your superfluous funds! I will annex them,
    or -- by the Great Horn Spoon-- I expose the pair of you.
JACK: But, you great thundering ass ----
MARY: Oh, Jack, be careful! Don't defy him!
JACK: Defy your grandmother! You silly baby, here's L. B. that I spent all
    my money on. (He unlocks a cabinet and pulls out papers, which he throws
    on the table.) Here's L. B. LIBERTY BONDS!
MARY (laughing wildly): Why, that was my secret, too! (She rushes to the
    cupboard and throws her bonds with Jack's. Wilson -- that's all! (They
    embrace.)
SQUIFF: The Bonds of Marriage! And I thought I had Prehoof!
JACK (over his shoulder): Here, you're wanted outside. There's been an escape from Sing Sing.
SQUIFF (eagerly): Oh, if it were only Edward Kelly! (Jack and Mary renew
    their embraces. Squiff observes them through the periscope. He fires the
    gun in the air.) Break away! (They take no notice. He fires again.)
    Time! (They take no notice. Squiff puts a cigar in the cane and begins to
    smoke. Then he puts up the periscope again at the audience.) Hey, Mr
    Sampson! (He taps him on the shoulder.) Nothing can escape for long the
    eagle eye of Slyman Squiff, the master detective, the man who arrested
    Edward Kelly!
JACK: Oh, go to blazes
SQUIFF: But see here, Mr Sampson, there's all these people here! (He points
    to the audience. Mary releases her husband with a little scream of surprise.)
MARY: Well, they're all very nice people indeed! Suppose we put them on to
    the good thing? We can get plenty of new bonds for ourselves before the
    show opens tomorrow! Come on, Jack! Come on, Mr Squiff!
    (They gather up the bonds and go about the audience selling them, each actor
    making a little sale speech from time to time, as may be convenient. This
    should be impromptu, and fitted to the special needs of each district.
    When the day's quota is disposed of, the actors return to the stage and bow
    in the conventional manner, with possibly a speech of thanks.)

C U R T A I N

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from the Grady Project:

Grady came home from the second World War proudly considering himself a poet. Praise for some of his verses from Aleister Crowley, the writer he considered preeminent in the world, had added greatly to his confidence, inspiring him to make a discipline out of poetry. On the troop carrier which brought him home from Europe late in 1946 e.v., Grady edited the ship's daily news sheet in high humor as a cleverly rhyming soldier-poet. For the following few years, however, he was reading mostly political science, and living in a small apartment with his wife and infant son in Berkeley, without any time left over for poetry. Then, during his two and a half years of active duty for the Korean War, Grady wrote letters, but seems not to have produced any finished poems -- at least not to have mentioned or kept any. Instead, he brought his impressions back home to Berkeley, and there in the mid-1950s e.v. while back in graduate school they were sufficiently compelling that he found the time to spin them out and edit them down into a long poem, which he finished and preserved in typescript. Continued here from our last issue, this is the first time it has appeared in print..

Memo Pencilled On a Helmet Skull

(Korea, 1952-1953)
(continued)

by Grady L. McMurtry

    Out in the boondocks
    Out in the sandhills and rice paddies
    (Uuh, that Rice Paddy #5!)
    Where the public piss call is universal
    And sex squats by the side of the road
    With its pudenda hanging out
    Unpretty, exotic, the not-so-mysterious East
    Free of Victorian taboo and neo-Puritanism
    And with a fine appreciation for the sensuality
    Of a woman's neck and shoulders
    (Not too surprisingly where women have legs like children)
    And out in the broiling sun of summer
    So hot you wonder how it is possible to live
    When you are being cooked alive.
    This is a miserable existence but
            "I am a combat soldier
            I've got my combat boots on!"
                   (Ai, yi-yi, yi, yi!)
    And up in the mountain passes
    Where the dust rolls and billows and smothers
    Choking you until your stomach revolts
    And coating your throat with a fine metallic lining
    That only a can of cold beer can cut
    If you can find one
    And then if you are very, very lucky
    A cold shower in the evenings
    So that just once a day you can
    Splash and revel and shout with anthropoid delight
    At being "20° Cooler Inside!"

    In the evenings you drink Scotch and chlorinated water
    In the mornings you shave out of your helmet
    In water that smells green with chlorine
    And you stride forth into the noonday sun
    With your head in a spray of aerosol DDT
    Dignified by the unconscious arrogance
    Of the man born in freedom
    To whom it has never occurred
    That others may not share his childlike faith
    That all our problems can be solved with the clean simplicity
    Of a hard right to the chin.

In the high hills of Korea, in the valley south of Ch'unch'on, there stands the fire cleansed remains of an institution of learning. Here one will find in rain stained mortar and weed grown halls a silent testimonial to the desecration of destruction. Here in the gapetoothed walls the lidless windows stare with an idiocy whose mindless agony fails to comprehend this awful hurt. Here where former years beheld the golden promise of youth even the chalk marked paneling has been burned from the walls as if to erase forever the intelligible communication of generation unto generation. Here where one may savor the ultimate consummation of tyranny, here where the teaching voice is stilled, the books are burned, the guiding mind is dispossessed. Here where one may see and touch and feel the imprint of the vandal, the new barbarian, the tyranny against all rights of men. Here let us see the face of the enemy, that tyranny will destroy what it cannot possess, that terror is a weapon and violence a way of life. Here where wind and shadow mark the passage of the hours on the flame drenched masonry and sunlight streams upon the futility of passive security there comes a moment of silent dedication. Here, in the high hills of Korea, in the valley south of Ch'unch'on, where time is meaningless in the chaos of desolation, let us vow that we will never cease until we have wiped the blasphemy of all tyranny from the face of the Earth.

    Then comes the rain
    And the typhoon Karen
    Striking in out of the China Sea
    Slashing, tearing, flooding, gorging
    Collapsing waterlogged bunkers along the MLR
    Undercutting the never ending work of the Engineers
    Turning the dust into splashing silt
    Mining the roads into chuckholes
    And over the steep cut road banks
    The water pregnant hills begin to slide.

-- to be continued --

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Fundamentals of Magical Practice

The Midnight Sun

by Brother Gregory Peters
revised 1/16/2004 e.v.

[As a ritual of energization and invocation, suitable for ritual operations in which a powerful influx of the stellar Light is required as a preliminary to other magical or meditative practices. Similarly, it may be used as a personal rite of devotion and invocation.]

000. [Stand, facing East. Take three deep cleansing breaths and exhale, letting the breath out slowly, relaxing the body. Establish a rhythmic breathing pattern.]

00. [Assume the Sign of Silence, seeing yourself in the form of the Divine Child Harpocrates, standing upon two crocodiles afloat in the Celestial Nile (cf. Atu XX). Visualize your entire form encased in an egg of fluidic blue astral water. Do not proceed until the protective Silence is firmly established.]

0. [Drop the arms to the sides, releasing the previous visualization. See a vast, dark ocean with no waves. It is night, and the sky is dark and filled with myriads of radiating stars. During the following sequence, visualize the Sun rising above the waters in east with the brilliance of a Golden Dawn. By the completion of the third line, the Sun will be in all its glory at the zenith of the sky, radiating streams of light in all directions, in the middle of the night:]

    Nu is my Refuge [raising arms slightly]
    As Hadit my Light[continuing to raise arms]
    And Heru-Ra-Ha is the Strength, Force, Vigour of my arms.
    [Arms are now raised outstretched.]

[Cross arms over chest, right over left, and say:]

    Above, the gemmed azure is
           The naked splendour of Nuit;
    She bends in ecstasy to kiss
           The secret ardours of Hadit.
    The winged globe, the starry blue,
    Are mine, O Ankh-af-na-khonsu!

1. [Drop the arms to your sides. Visualize the crown center (Kether) as an intense pulsating sphere of white brilliance.]

2. [Inhale. As the breath is drawn in, a shaft of radiance descends from Kether to the breast (Tiphareth), where it expands into a sphere of golden yellow light.]

3. [Exhale. As the breath is released, the shaft of brilliance descends from Tiphareth to the feet (Malkuth), where it expands into a sphere of brilliant whiteness, radiant but less brilliant than the Kether center.]

4. [Inhale. As the breath is drawn in, a reflux charge of intense rose-gold flame rises from the Malkuth and passes into the Tiphareth center.]

5. [Exhale. The Light rests.]

6. [Repeat the sequence (3) through (6) five, six, or eleven times.]

7. [Concentrate on the Tiphareth center. The central solar-nucleus remains quite distinct as a blazing and vibrant inner Sun, but emits a powerful radiance which steadily grows until the total sphere of sensation is charged with golden yellow light.]

8. [Give the Sign of Typhon and Apophis (the Trident), striving with all of your being to aspire unto the Light, while invoking:]

    I am the Heart; and the Snake is entwined
    About the invisible core of the mind.
    Rise, O my snake! It is now is the hour
    Of the hooded and holy ineffable flower.
    Rise, O my snake, into brilliance of bloom
    On the corpse of Osiris afloat in the tomb!
    O heart of my mother, my sister, mine own,
    Thou art given to Nile, to the terror Typhon!
    Ah me! but the glory of ravening storm
    Enswathes thee and wraps thee in frenzy of form.
    Be still, O my soul! that the spell may dissolve
    As the wands are upraised, and the aeons revolve.
    Behold! in my beauty how joyous Thou art,
    O Snake that caresses the crown of mine heart!
    Behold! we are one, and the tempest of years
    Goes down to the dusk, and the Beetle appears.
    O Beetle! the drone of Thy dolorous note
    Be ever the trance of this tremulous throat!
    I await the awaking! The summons on high
    From the Lord Adonai, from the Lord Adonai!

    9. [Assume the Sign of Baphomet (The Chalice), allowing the stellar dew to descend into you, relaxing the invocation and allowing the Light to descend and enter into your heart, while saying:]
    I am uplifted in thine heart; and the kisses of the stars rain hard upon thy body.
    [After a pause, cross arms over the chest, right over left, and recite slowly:]
    For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.
    I am the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star.
    I am alone: there is no God where I am.

    10. [Meditate in the Silence.]
    [When done, absorb all of the Light into the Tiphareth center with the Sign of Silence, and say:]

    O land beyond honey and spice and all perfection! I will dwell therein with my Lord forever.
    There is a splendour in my name hidden and glorious, as the sun of midnight is ever the son. Aum Ha.

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Thelema Lodge Events Calendar for February 2004 e.v.

2/1/04	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
2/4/04	Festival of Brigid ritual and feast. 7:30 PM	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
2/6/04	Full Moon in Leo 0:49 AM
2/8/04	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
2/12/04	Magical Practice series 7:30PM in the library	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
2/15/04	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
2/16/04	Section II reading group with Caitlin: Memoirs of Casanova 7:30 PM in the library	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
2/18/04	Sol enters Pisces 11:50 PM
2/20/04	New Moon in Pisces 1:18 AM
2/22/04	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
2/24/04	Mardi-Gras
2/26/04	Mantra Yoga Class with Jeff Sommer 8 PM in Horus Temple	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
2/29/04	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.