Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers

    Our Lord and Father the Sun appears at his Most High in his travels over the heavens this month at the Summer Solstice. Sol enters Cancer at 2:19 PM on Friday 21 June. Thelema Lodge will celebrate the following day, Saturday 22 June, with an afternoon ritual outdoors in the Berkeley hills. Gather at the lodge at noon to pool our transportation, and bring food and drink for a picnic feast afterwards.
   
    For additional midsummer festivities, join the Druids on Sunday 23 June at noon. Hypatia Camp and the N.R.D.N.A. celebrate the solstice the old- fashioned way! The caravan leaves the lodge at 11:30 AM for the usual cite. Call Jeff for details at 537-3212.

    Join the community of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica every Sunday evening in Horus Temple for our celebration of Aleister Crowley's Gnostic mass, beginning shortly after 8:00. Services are open to the public, and guests who participate in the communion ceremony are welcome to attend, but we request that you please call ahead to the lodge at 654-3580.

    A workshop on Liber XV, the ritual of the mass, will be offered Sunday afternoon 23 June at 4:18 in the temple, led by our presiding bishop T. Suleiman. This will be an opportunity to discuss the text and performance of the mass, and to experiment with different approaches to the principal roles.
    On Sunday 9 June the lodge plans a communal dinner feast before mass, beginning at 4:18. It's to be "pot luck", with each participant providing one home-cooked entree, vegetable, or salad dish. (Drinks and preliminary finger-foods in addition, if you like.)
    Please show up early Sunday afternoon 16 June for our monthly Lodge Clean-Up Day, beginning at 1:11 and continuing until our temple and its environs are utterly pure and without spot.
    Also, across the bay, the Gnostic Mass is being celebrated monthly in San Francisco on Friday evenings in the elegant temple of Nefertiti Sanctuary. This month the date there is 7 June, starting at 8:00. Please call Rick at 566-0675 to attend.

    O.T.O. initiations at Thelema Lodge will be held on Saturday 15 June in the afternoon and evening. Initiate members of each degree are invited to assist in the reception of candidates, but advance inquiry is essential in order to confirm the times, grades, and locations involved. Those seeking initiation should submit their applications forty days in advance, and discuss dues and dates with the lodge master (who can be reached at 658-3280) or his officers.

    The lodge offers a variety of continuing classes and study groups, all of which are free and open to the public. As always, please call ahead before setting forth to attend. Donations are requested at these events to assist with temple rent; we appreciate your generosity.
    The renowned Thelema Lodge Tarot series with Bill Heidrick will hold its eighth and ninth meetings in the temple on Wednesday evenings, 12 June and 19 June, starting at 8:00. These illustrated lectures will each be devoted primarily to the profound explication of a single Tarot trump, selected ahead of time by the group. (The selection for 12 June is the Lovers card.) The evening usually closes with sample readings demonstrating divers interpretive techniques.
    The Magick in Theory and Practice Study Circle with Marlene meets twice on Thursday evenings, 13 June and 27 June, at the lodge. Beginners and scholars alike are welcome to this group reading and discussion of Crowley's great manual of magical working. In the words of its recent British editors, this book "is a city within a city, and the key to the gate of the inner city is not supplied with the book." But before you give up and get out the pick- lock, consider that many of those formulaic gates are actually secured with combination locks. What is "Jerry's Logorrhea" (and will science discover a cure)? Come listen in on
    Saturday afternoons, 8 June and 22 June, to the provocative pontifications of lodge master Achad Osher, with subjects so relevant they're only arranged at the very last minute. Call ahead for time, place, and topic.

    The Magick Theater's June offering is "Frankenstein: The True Story", a television
    script dramatizing Mary Shelley's novel, prepared in 1973 e.v. by the great Anglo-American novelist Christopher Isherwood. (In Germany in the early 'thirties Isherwood amazed and delighted Crowley with a tour of the underground gay bars he knew.) Our reading begins at 7:30, but the venue may be different this month, so call John B. at 530-3923 for location. As always, copies will be available for readers and listeners.

    There will be a fund-raising Game Night to benefit Thelema Lodge on Friday evening 14 June. Come one, come all, and enjoy contributing to the lodge treasury.
    Ladies' belly-dancing instruction is underway, with lessons most Monday afternoons at the lodge from 5:30 to 7:30 with Faye and Terri. Call ahead to confirm, the arrangements being somewhat flexible.
    Thelema Lodge Meeting is being switched to the second to last Monday evening each month, which will be 17 June, at 8:00 in Horus Temple. Scheduling and planning of seasonal and special events, as well as regular classes, gnostic masses, and fundraising activities, takes place at this time. Prospective mass teams should be present (or arrange to be represented) at lodge meeting.
    The Cancer birthday party will be held Sunday afternoon 30 June at 4:18.
    L.O.P. members meet privately on Thursday evening 20 June.

    Planning ahead for summer, we celebrate Lammas as Sol goes fifteen degrees into Leo on Wednesday 7 August; let's put together an outdoor event, perhaps another camp-out in Marin. For projected scheduling of regular events consult the advance July calendar in this issue. July's agenda will be set at the May lodgemeeting, August's in June, and so it goes.

    It can be said that California has been very good to me so far. Since coming to this state in the summer of 89' I have experienced a major earthquake, left my girlfriend and was arrested in the great Keystone Gestapo massacre on the local Lodge by the police. Now to top it off I'm in trouble with the law again! Yes it is true, your Lodge Master has had another run in with the local police. Is there no justice? Can't I just be left alone? I guess not, but let me relate my story so others might appreciate just how free we really are. I will start by stating that if the police want you ... they will get you and there is very little anyone can do about it. Here are the gruesome details of the latest charges.

    It was a quiet friday morning with a little chill in the air as I stepped off the bus. I proceeded to head down West Grand toward work and reciting Liber Resh as I was going along. I had gone only a few blocks when I approached the corner of West Grand and San Pablo. The light was red but there wasn't a car in sight in any direction. So after looking both ways as my mother had taught me, I decided to cross the street against the red and continue on my way.

    That's when it happened! I had gotten only a half a block when a patrol car pulled up and came to a halt beside me. A young cop got out of the car and immediately asked me for some identification. When I asked him if there was a problem he informed me in a loud and very arrogant tone that I had just walked against the red. my heart skipped a beat, I felt a cold sweat of disgust coming over me. My god I thought, he's not going to bust me for such a bogus charge. I was wrong. At this point two more squad cars pulled up but the officers remained in their cars. I think they were just acting as back up for this major police bust, but then again you can't be too safe with criminal types like myself who walk against red lights. I could have pulled out a gun in an attempt to shoot my way out rather than getting a ticket...lucky for them I didn't have a gun!

    I was then ordered up against the wall, typical stuff and was searched. he then asked me to turn around and empty my pockets out on the hood of his car, and he proceeded to go through my belongings. Satisfied that I wasn't carrying anything illegal he got back into his squad car and called in my name to the station to see if I had any outstanding warrants. I didn't. It was obvious he was getting pissed since nothing was turning up that might warrant a good bust and I could see this in his face as he got out of his car. in my mind I was thinking at the time that this cop has a very bad attitude problem. I started to ask him a question but was immediately cut off as he walked up to me and stood at a distance less that a foot from my face. In a very loud voice he asked if I felt there was some reason why he shouldn't be giving me a ticket? I started to say yes with explanation but was again cut off. He then broke into a lecture about California laws and that they were made to protect people and should not be broken no matter how silly they might seem. I broke the law he stated and that's that. I stood there very quiet and let him rant on knowing that there was little I could say to this cop since it was obvious his mind was already made up. Fifteen minutes passed and he was still talking.

    Then he wrote me out a ticket. The charge was a violation under the traffic code which I though was funny since I don't drive and don't even have a license to do such! But yes, I got a traffic ticked violation #21453 or simply 'PED AGAINST RED'.

    The cost of my ticket is $24.00 and so let that be a lesson to all you would be walkers around the glorious city of Oakland. The police are out there to protect and serve you as best then can. The criminal types like myself who blatantly scoff at the laws of this great state are being put into their place, so I hope this makes you feel safe!

                                                                             J. Edward Cornelius
                                                                                 'Frater ACHAD OSHER 583'

In the previous installment, the author, through great effort, attempts to arrange the rites of Freemasonry in a readily comprehensible system, but nearly despairs of the task.

    One anecdote may illustrate the situation.
    I determined to become a Mason myself. I happened to know that the Chaplain of the British Embassy in Z---- was Past Provincial Grand Organist of a certain English town. He proposed me, found me a seconder, and I was duly initiated, passed, and raised. I was warmly welcomed by numerous English and American visitors to our Lodge; for Z---- is a very great city.
    I returned to England some time later, after "passing the chair" in my Lodge, and, wishing to join the Royal Arch, called on its venerable secretary.
    I presented my credentials. "O Thou Great Architect of the Universe!" the old man sobbed out in rage, "why dost Thou not wither this impudent imposter with Thy fire from heaven? Sir, begone! You are not a Mason at all! As all the world knows, the people in Z---- are atheists, and live with other men's wives."
    I thought this a little hard on my Reverend Father in God my proposer; and I noted that, of course, every singly English or American visitor to our Lodge in Z---- stood in peril of instant and irrevocable expulsion on detection. So I said nothing, but walked to another room in Freemasons' Hall over his head, and took my seat as a Past Master in one of the oldest and most eminent Lodges in London!
    Kindly note, furthermore, that when each of those wicked Visitors returned to their own Lodges after their crime, they automatically excommunicated the whole thereof; and as visiting is very common, it may well be doubted whether, on their own showing, there is a single "just, lawful, and regular Mason" left alive on the earth!
    The above anecdote is exactly true in every detail, and shows one side - only one side - of the morass into which the narrow formalism of the authorities has plunged the Craft.

    Now the Craft is the ABC of Masonry: it would be utterly impossible even to suggest the welter of the other degrees. In England, till a few years ago, a man like the Duke of C---- did not dare to "recognise" or even to "tolerate" -
    Himself!
    He was the head of two divisions of Masonry which were not on speaking terms with each other.
    Please do not request an excursion into the dreary realms of the higher degrees, which are, for the most part, more pontifically nonsensical than even the out-of-date and out-of-mind Craft Rituals, with their conflicting practices and vain formalities. Not one Mason - of any degree - in ten thousand has the slightest idea of what the whole weary business is about.
    Why then, in the name of King Solomon, should anyone become a Mason? What has that V.W.P. Pres. Brd. G. Pur. got for his thousands - to say nothing of the time he has devoted to attending stupid banquets, and learning by heart the interminable outpourings of - oh yes! of whom?
    The answer to this two-headed question is really simple enough.
    We ought to cross off the pettier human motives first: love of vanity, of mystery, of display, of make-believe; but the average man in England becomes a Mason for as serious a reason as he becomes a Church member or a Theosophist; and the average man is usually most abominably disillusioned. (Of course, we must eliminate the political of politico-religious motives which are the rule in France and Italy, and their business correlatives in America, where the Christian elements of certain rituals have actually been removed so that Jews might become 33 Degree Masons!)
    But back to our average man! He may join the Craft with some idea of fellowship, because it is a tradition in his family to do so, or because he hopes to find in the Secret of the Mysteries something which he does not find in any of the exoteric forms of religion.
    How is it that the same Order satisfies - more or less - aspirations so diverse?
    We are brought at last face to face with the fundamental problem of the Masonic historian - the Origin of the whole business.
    Without any hesitation at all, one may confess that on this critical question nothing is certainly known. It is true, indeed, that the Craft Lodges in England were originally Hanoverian Clubs, as the Scottish Lodges were Jacobite Clubs, and the Egyptian Lodges of Cagliostro revolutionary Clubs.
    But that no more explains the Origin of Freemasonry than the fact "Many Spaniards are Roman Catholics" explains why the priest says and does certain things rather than others in the Mass.
    Now here is the tremendous question: we can admit all Mr. Yarker's contentions, and more, as to the connection of Masonic and quasi- Masonic Rites with the old customs of initiating people into the Trade Guilds; but why should such a matter be hedged about with so severe a wardenship, and why should the Central Sacrament partake of so awful and so unearthly a character?
    As Freemasonry has been "exposed" every few minutes for the last century or so, and as any layman can walk into a Masonic shop and but the complete Rituals for a few pence, the only omissions being of no importance to our present point, it would be imbecile to pretend that the nature of the ceremonies of Craft Masonry is in any sense a "mystery."
    There is therefore no reason for refraining from the plain statement that, to anyone who understands the rudiments of Symbolism, the Master's Degree is identical with the Mass. This is in fact the real reason for the Papal Anathema; for Freemasonry asserts that every man is himself the living, slain, and re-risen Christ in his own person.
    It is true that not one Mason in 10,000 in England is aware of this fact; but he has only to remember his "raising" to realise the fundamental truth of the statement.
    Well may Catholic and Freemason alike stand appalled at the stupendous blasphemy which is implied, as they ignorantly think, not knowing themselves of the stuff and substance of the Supreme Self, each for himself alike no less than Very God of Very God!
    But suppose that the sublimity of this conception is accepted, the identity admitted: what sudden overwhelming billow from the past blasts their beatitude? What but the words with which Freud concludes Totem and Taboo: In the Beginning was the Deed!
    For the "sacrifice of the Innocent" celebrated alike in Lodge and in Cathedral is this identical Murder of the Master by the Fellow- Craftsmen, that is of the Father by his Sons, when the ape-system of the "Father-horde" was replaced by the tribal system which developed into the "military clan"!
    As against all the above, it may be objected that Freemasonry actually poses the perennial problem: If a man die, shall he live again?
    We can ignore antiquity, with a mere note that the impossibility of tracing the origin of the Rite makes it impossible to argue that any given jurisdiction is "lawful." As in other matters, the Rite in Might is the Rite in Right! The quarrels which disgrace Freemasonry are only distinguishable by superior pettiness from such questions as the validity of Anglican Orders.
    And it may be added that at this time of day it is abjectly ridiculous to continue the celebration of such totemistic tomfoolery with such tetanic tabus!
    The W.M. elect of a certain lodge not far from the birth-place of Daylight Saving used to learn his part by saying it over to his wife in bed. Reproached by brother Masons, he replied quite calmly that the Secret of Freemasonry was lost, and therefore he could not disclose it if he would!
    But is the Secret lost?
    Does not the insistence on so many senseless formalities lead us to surmise that the Secret may have been locked away not in the ostensible words, grips, signs, tokens, et cetera, which are for the most part self-stultifying, but in the essential structure of the Rite?
    We can here merely refer to a rare and long since out of print volume, The Canon, which shows that the proportions of certain fabulous or imaginary structures testify to certain philosophical truths according to a symbolic system.
    The truth is - to speak plainly - that the Secret was lost, and is found.
    But those to whom it has been communicated, whatever their degree, are not in the least likely to spread it broadcast before undiscerning Masons.
    Their condition is therefore, reasonably enough, that the whole unwieldy system of pompous and meaningless formalities, with their outworn and misunderstood verbiage, their sectarian accretions, and their manifold confusion, should be swept away entirely. It is better so than that Masonry should stumble into the open sewer of obsolescence, as it is doing now.
    While no two jurisdictions can agree to recognise or tolerate the existence of any third, while women are clamouring for admission on the one hand and men despairingly dropping it on the other, while clandestine lodges already almost outnumber the regular kind - what is worth saving?
    What was ever worth saving in Masonry? What was the original idea of the institution as such? The Secret and its Preservation.
    Even at this, the Secret pertains to the Past. It is part of the heritage of Humanity. But the Rites of Freemasonry are after all those of Osiris, of the Dying God; the Aeon of Horus, of the Crowned and Conquering Child, is come; it is His rites that we should celebrate, His that liveth and reigneth, and hath His abode in every human heart!

from the Grady Project:

DB of NY wrote with over 30 questions on specific verses in Liber I,Liber VII and Liber AL. I am not about to dump all 80k of my answering letter on you good people, but here are some highlights and points of interest:

    First, a comment: The Qabalah teaches four general, ten categorical and thirty-two specific ways to interpret any given writing or utterance. In what follows, I have from one chance in four to one chance in thirty-two to have stumbled across the specific need for information when the question was, "what does it mean?" I have tried to spread my approaches among several perspectives.

Questions on Liber B vel Magi sub figura I

    Verse 00, "These are the seven Spirits of Unrighteousness; seven vultures of evil." Why is this so?
    A. The whole point of the exercise of this Liber is detachment from the world and the self. The highest attainments and qualities of the Magus are only distractions for the next stage. It must be remembered that this Liber refers to a very high state. Since all that has been accomplished up to this point is now a distraction, it is called "evil".

    Verse 1, "Yet therein is the Mystery of Redemption."; Why?
    A. For one who is lost in the illusions of the world, illusions are necessary to communicate. Thus illusions or falsehoods, like those preached by teachers and priests, are necessary guides and keys to "redemption". You cannot teach a child with ideas the child cannot understand. You have to talk in terms of stories and myths and similar fantasies. If the child understood the ideas of the adult, the language of the adult would do. Instead, children must be taught in terms they understand. It is the same way with one who would attain. Illusions must be balanced with other illusions until higher truth can be perceived.

    Verse 16, "Let the Magus then contemplate each in turn, raising it to the power of infinity."; What does this mean?
    A. Deliberate and extreme obsession in rotation through opposites.

    Verse 21, "And in the Word CHAOS let the Book be sealed..."; Why?
    A. Abandonment of material illusions, including the self, means embracing the chaos of the unformed universe without preconception. You cannot pass this point if you interpret anything you see. You have to accept chaos without seeking order in it.

Questions on Liber VII:

    Chap. I, Verse 20, "I will spear Thee, O Thou little grey god...."
    Who is this "grey god"?
    A. No particular deity. Crowley is attempting to recapture the sense of elation he began to lose in verses 16 and 17. The whole Liber is a series of images used in the IAO and FIAOF formulas. When one image flags or begins to wear thin, Crowley tries to change it into a livelier one --- else he has to start over with a fresh image. Liber VII attempts to show a method, not to describe any particular mythology.

    Chap. I, Verse 24, "...from the pearls black specks of nothing."
    What does this mean?
    A. Crowley is getting some results. The next verses almost break through to the Osiris stage of the IAO formula. The image has a slight relation to the subject of Liber I, but it's the impact that matters.

    Chap.I, Verse 47, "How the dew of the Universe whitens the lips!"
    What does this mean?
    A. It means that Crowley became distracted with the image and lost his train of effort. The next verse is a quick attempt at recovery of momentum. The image itself comes immediately from Verse 46 as a reverse of roles. You have to remember that Liber VII is attainment by poetic intoxication. The images mean nothing in themselves, however they may be rationalized to relate to other ideas. It is the sequence that matters here.

    Chap.II, Verse 13, Who is "Pertinax"? What is "Chian"?
    A. Read The Satyricon by the 1st century Roman author Gaius Petronius. That's where Crowley is getting the image. Pertinax was the host of a wild orgy in the book. ("Chian" was a wine famous in Roman times).

    Chap.III, Verse 21, "Thou shalt set up the abominable lonely Thing of wickedness."
    What does this mean?
    A. A phallic monument.

    Chap VI, Verse 36, "...for we have drunk your wine, and left ye but the bitter dregs."
    What does this mean?
    A. Crowley is saying that he has drawn the essence from the common culture and left nothing behind. Whenever "grey" appears in the text, it usually means "dull", "common" or in some way relates to the lifeless remains of former greatness.

Notes:
1. With apology to LIBER AL II:70 - ED
2. Note that this is "Man" in the collective sense, not "man" as the individual. - ED.

June 2, 1740	On the cover of James Harvey's biography of Aleister Crowley it states that Crowley was 'far more infamous in sexual bestiality that the Marquis de Sade'. De Sade was born on this date.
June 6, 1926	The man who made the unfulfilled promise to 'make Aleister Crowley look like a boy scout', Alex Sanders 'King of the Witches' called Verbius is born.
June 9, 1885	Wilfred T. Smith is born in Kent, England. (Other sources put the date Sept. 6th) The man who Aleister Crowley stated "is not a man at all; he is the incarnation of some God."
June 10, 1975	The Temple of Set is formed by Michael A. Aquino.
June 13, 1884	Gerald Gardner born on a friday, would go on to claim that the New Forest coven appointed him their 'publicity officer'. He proselytized for the witches, and attracted a great deal of largely hostile publicity from the newspapers before his death in 1964.
June 13, 1941	Grady L. McMurtry takes Minerval & I° Initiations on this night joining the O.T.O.
June 19, 1934	J.C.Brown, a prospector vanishes after announcing that he has found caves and tunnels in the Cascade Mnts. of California filled with giant skeletons and artifacts.
June 19, 1947	Aleister Crowley writes out his 'Last Will and Testament'.
June 20, 1952	It was not long after the infamous BABALON WORKINGS that Jack Parsons (Frater Bellarion 210) would drop a phial of fulminate of Mercury, obtaining a crater both in Los Angeles and on the moon in his honor. He died on this date.
June 21, 1916	Frater Achad takes the Oath of the Master of the Temple 'Nemo' 8=3 in the AA
June 23, 1981	Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth is founded.
June 24, 1947	While flying over Mr. Rainer in Washington, Kenneth Arnold sights a group of objects he cannot identify and uses the term 'Unidentified Flying Objects' to describe what he sees. Thus the term UFO is officially established.
June 28, 1940	Edgar Cayce predicted that ATLANTIS would rise again from the ocean on this date.
June 30, 1925	Frederick Leigh Gargner dies, the man whom Crowley decided was responsible for evoking Typhon-Set upon him.

Thelema Lodge Events Calendar for June 1991 e.v.

   Note to update: the addresses and phone numbers in these issues of the Thelema Lodge Calendars are obsolete since the closing of the Lodge. They are here for historic purposes only and should not be visited or called.

    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.