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.
Thelema Lodge
Ordo Templi Orientis
P.O.Box 2303
Berkeley, CA 94702 USA
September 1991 e.v. at Thelema Lodge
Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers
Greetings of the Autumnal Equinox, mid-point of the eighty-seventh year of the New Aeon.
Sol enters Libra at 5:48 AM on Monday 23 September. (Luna, in opposition, will be full in
Aries that day at 2:56 PM as the Harvest Moon.) At the Equinox, an equilibrium is achieved
in the fraternal contest of the year, from which the strength of Set gradually emerges toward
a temporary triumph over his brother Horus. The point of the balance of LVX and NOX is a
time for Thelemites to examine and reaffirm themselves, and also their cooperative
enterprises in the Great Work. Thelema Lodge will gather on Monday evening 23 September at
8:00 in Horus Temple for a celebration, with a ritual organized by Frater Majnun. "I have
performed the Rite of Union with Him according to the Ancient Manner, and I know the Word
that shall rule the Semester." (Crowley, Liber Aleph, chapter 113.)
Gnostic Mass is celebrated in Horus Temple at Thelema Lodge on Sunday evenings,
beginning at nightfall (currently about 8:00 PM). Our Mass is a public communion rite, open
to all who wish to participate. (Please call ahead to attend: 654-3580.) As Crowley
observed more than fifty years ago, meditating upon the goddess Nuit in his commentary on
Liber AL I:62, "It is evident that Our Lady, in her Personality, contemplates some more or
less open form of worship suited for the laity. With the establishment of the Law something
of this sort may become possible. It is only necessary to kill out the sense of 'sin', with
its false shame and its fear of nature . . . . The Gnostic Mass is intended to supply this
need. Liber XV. It has been said continuously in California for some years." Jane Wolfe,
who traveled from California to study with Crowley in Sicily, brought the living performance
tradition of the Gnostic Mass from the Abbey of Thelema to Agape Lodge in Pasadena, from
whence it was perpetuated at Thelema Lodge by Grady McMurtry.
Most of our September masses are scheduled to follow Crowley's Liber XV text, but on 29
September an experimental gnostic mass will be celebrated, incorporating passages from
ancient gnostic documents (unknown in 1913 e.v. when the mass was last re-written) including
the Nag Hammadi text Thunder (Perfect Mind).
Horus Temple also offers a monthly Mass Workshop, open to all who have questions or
observations concerning the E.G.C. ritual, or Gnosticism in general. It's conducted by
presiding Bishop T. Suleiman in the temple on Sunday afternoon 22 September at 4:18.
Initiations into Ordo Templi Orientis are conducted every month under the aegis of
Thelema Lodge, and are next scheduled for Saturday 21 September in the afternoon and evening.
In order to attend, members should arrange beforehand to know the degrees to be worked, and
also the times and locations involved. Applications are accepted by the Lodgemaster at least
forty days in advance; forms may be obtained from any lodge officer. Please remember that
sponsors are not to sign the form until the candidate has contacted the Lodgemaster to
discuss the proposed initiation, its dues and date, any requirements, and the proposed
sponsorship. Contact Jerry Cornelius at 658-3280.
Active initiates of the Order are encouraged to attend initiation ceremonies for their
grades as regularly as possible. This is especially important as the initiate contemplates
advancement. To review the secrets of your degree, come to Marlene's "Signs, Grips, and
Words" class, offered at the lodge on Tuesday evening 3 September at 8:00. (If you miss it,
consult the advance-notice page for the next meeting, in mid-October.)
The lodge now offers two regular curriculum classes, one for Minerval members and one
for initiates of the First Degree. Members of the Man of Earth degrees may consult Liber
MCLI (of which copies are available at the lodge), and their sponsors, for guidance regarding
the regular work of their grade and the expectations for advancement beyond it. Frater
Shaitan's Minerval Degree Instructional Class is held on Wednesday evening 18 September at
8:00 at the lodge. Brother Jeff of Hypatia Camp will be available at the lodge to offer
guidance in the First Degree Curriculum on Thursday evening 12 September at 8:00.Collegium
Fraternitatis
Thelema Lodge offers a variety of classes and reading groups every month, and these are
free and open to the public. Donations are needed at these events; please contribute
whatever possible toward the maintenance of the lodge premises. Before setting forth to
attend any event listed, call the lodge (or an alternate number if provided) for confirmation. Members and friends of Thelema Lodge may list their events, provided they are
local, open, and free. To propose an event, come to our monthly lodgemeeting, or talk ahead
of time with any of the lodge officers.
Brother Mark S. will begin a series of classes on planetary magick and invocation, with
the first meeting on Wednesday evening 25 September at the lodge. Mercury will be the focus
of this meeting, with class beginning at 7:00 and invocation approximately an hour later. A
series of eight meetings is anticipated, with two for Luna (new and full), and one for each
of the other classical planets. Cornelius Agrippa's system will provide the starting point,
with the innovations of the Golden Dawn and of Crowley's work emphasized. Note well that
Enochian elemental keys one through six will be used during the planetary invocations. A
second meeting is scheduled for Monday evening 7 October, with a focus on the new moon in
Libra.
Frater Majnun's "Magik Without Aleister" series gets underway on Monday evening 30
September at Thelema Lodge, starting at 8:00. This group provides a forum for discussion of
alternative magical traditions which have not thus far dominated the Thelemic heritage. A
second meeting follows in one month, on Wednesday evening 30 October.
Jerry's "Logorrhea" and "Videorhea" continue in the evenings on Saturdays twice monthly,
starting at 6:30. The Lodgemaster will usually present selections from his extensive
collection of odd and occult videos on the second Saturday of each month, and deliver an
informal lecture on the fourth Saturday. Call ahead with questions about the content of
these events, and for word of their location. The "Videorhea" show for 14 September will be
organized around the wiccan tradition, with "a lot of different strange witchcraft films",
including footage of Alex Sanders, Margot Adler, Janet & Stewart Farrar, and Herman Slater.
"Bring your own popcorn!"
Drax presents two Tuesday evenings on "Book Four Astral Travel." On 10 September, part
one: "How To Get There," starting at 9:00 at Thelema Lodge. A week later, part two: "What To
Do When You Get There," on Tuesday evening 17 September, also at 9:00. See Drax at the lodge
for details.
The Thelema Lodge Magick in Theory and Practice Study Circle meets with Marlene on
Thursday evenings 5 September and 26 September at 8:00 in Horus Temple to read and discuss
MTP. Recent meetings have been working with the rituals in the "Practice" section of the
book. One of Crowley's most suspicious admirers, Dion Fortune (of the Society Of Inner
Light), made this careful recommendation of the book Magick to her disciples: "Only the
advanced student could use it with profit. It is very uneven in its literary quality,
contains much grossness and ribaldry, like all of Crowley's writings, and much of it is
deliberately obscure and allusive." She counted in horror the number of the knocks in the
invocations, warning that "eleven is the number of the Qlipoth, or Evil Sephiroth; a battery
of eleven, therefore, is an invocation of the Qliphoth. No hint is given of this in the
text, and it is an ugly trap for the unwary student." (Applied Magic)
The Magick Theater reads Aleister Crowley's one-act drama The Saviour on Tuesday evening
24 September, beginning at 7:30. Written in New York during the summer of 1915 e.v., this is
one of his greatest achievements in theatrical writing, and was actually intended for a stage
production by director Morris Brown (never realized). It's a tightly plotted and carefully
finished script, oddly reminiscent of the old Star Trek episodes. Hysteria grips the Council
of Elders, under siege in the quintessentially European city of Blabre, and in the crisis
they ignore the advice of their Fool, being persuaded by the local Prophet to accept instead
the long-promised "Saviour". It all turns out rather badly . . . Copies of this scarce work
(newly edited) will be available for readers and listeners. Location for the reading remains
to be arranged; call the Theater at 530-3923, or watch for posting at the lodge a week ahead.
Thelema Lodge Bellydancing will be gathering force again this autumn. Classes are held
in Horus Temple on most Monday afternoons from 5:30 to 7:30. Always call ahead to confirm
this class with Faye or Terri.
Lodgemeetings are held monthly, usually on the penultimate (next-to-last) Monday
evening, at 8:00 in Horus Temple. Lodgemeeting in September is advanced to the
antepenultimate (next-to-next-to-last) Monday, 16 September, due to Equinox festivities the
following week. Meetings deal with lodge business and events planned for the two ensuing
months, including classes, parties, rituals, and gnostic masses. Meetings are open to all
members interested in supporting the Order's oldest continuously operating lodge.
The Lodge of Perfection meets privately on Thursday evening 19 September. Members of
this group should consult their fellows for details.
The Thelema Lodge Ladies' T-- is back! Drop by on Monday afternoon 9 September,
beginning at 5:30, for T-- and secrets, just like old times.
Lodge Clean-Up day is Sunday 15 September, beginning at 1:11. All welcome to lend a
hand in sweeping the place out, chipping off last week's candle-drippings, and perhaps
carting away some of the wonderful trash building up out back.
For those born under the beams of the balance we'll have cake at the Libra Birthday
party on Sunday 29 September around 4:18.
Speaking of Librians, next month includes some very important birthdays, with
Crowleymass on the 12th, and the lesser feasts of Jack Parsons (2 October) and Grady McMurtry
(18 October) as well. Masses and classes continue; see the advance calendar in this issue
for dates.
We live in glory, outward bound! | |
Bound for the stars' immensity. | |
We soar above the Earth so round | |
On jets of flaming tensity. | |
In atmosphere | |
Celestial sphere, | |
Or deepest stellar ocean, | |
We'll stride the skyways on the blast | |
Of nuclear implosion. | |
Our ranging cruisers ride the wind | |
Of space's dark umbration. | |
We loft them high, there to defend | |
Our homes and Freedom's Nation. | |
On guard we stand | |
Above our land | |
To guide our missile's motion, | |
And pledge our honor to the last | |
Full measure of devotion. | |
[Previously published in The Grady Project #2 (December 1987 e.v.). During the early 1950s, Grady drafted some marching music for this poem and proposed it to the United States Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps for their official song.]
[Aleister Crowley]
This essay originally appeared in The English Review, vol. XXXIV (London: June 1922 e.v.).
Professor Freud and M. Emile Coue have both pointed out, in similar language, despite
their different techniques, the same fact about the identity of fear and fascination. It is
a commonplace in the daily observation of the practicing psychologist. As soon as an
obstacle is realized as such, we make frantic efforts to avoid it, with the result that we
bump into it. Psychical impotence is in the experience of most men; it is the same thing in
terms of another problem.
Now the present craze for taking "habit-forming drugs" (so-called) and the suggested
remedies, are closely bound up with this curious phenomenon. The will behaves like a mule,
and the imagination like a bird in the presence of a serpent.
In the spring of 1914 I had occasion to study the effects of cocaine. As it happened, I
had access to all the "fast" or "Bohemian" sets in London. I went through them with a tooth-
comb; and in three months managed to discover two girls who were indulging in that drug to a
deleterious extent. Today, one might almost say that no tea-party is complete without it.
My investigations were cut short by the war; I was obliged to return to the United States.
I had therefore no opportunity of observing the cause of the change. My English colleagues,
however, attribute the present situation to two main factors: (a) the widespread outbreak of
psychoses and neuroses due to public anxiety and stress, and the consequent demand for
something that would dull the nerves; (b) the D.O.R.A. restrictions on the sale of liquor. I
agree that both these factors were potent; they square with our own experience in America.
There drug-habits have been common for many years; for the people of the United States are
naturally afflicted with the nervous diathesis. This is due partly to the climate, which is
electrically charged in a way which Europeans cannot possibly understand until they have
tried it, and partly to the fact that education is so widespread that the people demand art,
literature, and music, which things are denied to them by the benevolence of the spiritual
heirs of Cotton Mather. No other hypothesis even attempts to explain the Yellow Press, the
dancing manias, the crazed search for amusement--and the resort to the waters of Lethe,
beginning with cocktails and ending with cocaine.
But prohibition, ineffective as it is, has intensified the demand for drugs; and I an
therefore ready to believe that war-time restrictions on the sale of liquor produced a
parallel result in England. I note in passing that the prohibition of absinthe in France has
resulted in the manufacture of substitutes, some of which will actually eat their way through
a marble table.
There is, however, a third factor to be considered; and, without going over frankly to the
theories of Nancy, the Salpetriere, Vienna, and Zurich, it may well be that it is the most
important of all. This factor is the nauseating form of publicity given by the
newspapers--some even of those which should know better--to the matter. Indulgence in drugs
is described with an unholy leer; it is connected lewdly with sexual aberrations; and the
reprobation with which the writers smear their nastiness is obviously hypocrisy of the most
oily and venal type. The object is to sell the paper by making people's flesh creep, like
the Fat Boy in Pickwick.
Now there is in such articles--which began, I regret to say, with a not uninteresting
novel called Felix, by Mr. Robert Hichens--what Baudouin calls a pernicious suggestion. The
reader is invited to gloat on the forbidden fruit. But even worse, from this point of view,
is the unanimous assertion that once anybody starts to take a "drug" he cannot possibly stop
of his own free will, and is only to be rescued at the cost of unutterable torments. Medical
treatises on the subject, with no exception so far as I know, perpetuate this wicked libel on
the divine prerogative of man to do what he wills, and, when he wills, to stop doing.
Writers of fiction follow the evil precedent. The exception to this rule is The Hasheesh-
Eater, by H. G. Ludlow, in which the author (who lived on the Hudson near Poughkeepsie)
describes his addiction to that drug, and his cure by his unaided determination.
Such cases are, however, common enough; but the strong-minded never reach the clinic of
the physician, and are consequently ignored by him.
There are, in fact, three main classes of men and women.
1. Afraid to experiment with anything, lest -----.
2. Enslaved by anything that appeals to them.
3. Able to use anything without damaging themselves.
I hesitate to admit either of the two former classes to the title of Freeman. Since the
year of 1898 I have been principally occupied in studying the effects of various drugs upon
the human organism, with special reference to the parallelisms between the psychical
phenomena of drug-neuroses, insanities, and mystical illuminations. The main object has been to see whether it is possible to produce the indubitable useful (see William James, Varieties
of Religious Experience) results of "ecstasy" in the laboratory. In pursuit of this laudable
aim, I attempted to produce a "drug-habit" in myself. In vain. My wife literally nagged me
about it: "Don't go out without your cocaine, sweetheart!" or "Did you remember to take your
heroin before lunch, big boy?" I reached the stage where one takes a sniff of cocaine every
five minutes or so all day long; but though I obtained definitely toxic results, I was always
able to abandon the drug without a pang. These experiments simply confirmed the conclusion
which I had already adopted, provisionally, on theoretical grounds: that busy people,
interested in life and in their work, simply cannot find the time to keep on with a drug. As
Baudelaire says: A perfect debauch requires perfect leisure. A prominent newspaper
correspondent of my acquaintance has actually reached a stage where the privation of opium
was torture to him. The stress of the war threw additional work on him; but instead of
accentuating his need, it made it impossible for him to find the time to smoke. "Satan finds
some mischief still for idle hands to do" is sound psychology. A colleague of my own, who
participated in my experiments, found himself on several occasions "in the clutches of the
drug-fiends." But those occasions were all characterised by one fact: he was, for external
reasons, at a deadlock with his work. He had nothing to do but to think about the drug, and
his mind was so flooded with "pernicious suggestions" that he could not stop it. Every
trifling malaise was unhesitatingly attributed either to the effects of the drug or those of
trying to stop it! Just so the young man who was reading Middlemarch fell down stairs and
broke his leg--and blamed the law of gravity instead of George Eliot!
It is not contended here that the physiological theory of "toleration" is untrue. No
doubt the nerves do, more or less, "shriek for their accustomed stimulus," as the foolish
physician usually tells his victim--apparently with the hope of removing any traces of self-
confidence or will-power that he may possess. But, within limits, an average brave and
resolute man can arrange the details of his "cure," and carry them out with success. The
nerves, too, can be fooled to some extent. A member of the Himalayan Expedition of 1902 has
put it on record that when he was starved in respect of his sugar-ration he suffered the most
intolerable tortures. The body agreed with him so far as to furnish almost continuous spasms
of nausea and diarrhea. But on sweetening his tea with saccharine, the symptoms almost
completely disappeared: the "suggestion" of sugar, although he knew it was only a suggestion,
suffices to delude his physiological "Chorus of Troezenian Women."
Now if there be one thing certain in this complex world it is this: that moral maladies
require moral therapeutics. The present system of "pernicious suggestion," backed by
prohibition, which insults the free will and dignity of mankind, which offers princely
opportunities to illicit traffic and blackmail, makes the situation worse every month.
In Harlem, a district of New York corresponding roughly to a combination of Bayswater and
Brixton, there are, by police statistics, over 17,000 school children addicted to heroin. In
this particular case the cause is simple enough. An enterprising firm of doubtless God-
fearing chemical manufacturers sent out agents to distribute the drug gratis to the children.
Having established the "habit," the agents next demanded an ever-increasing price, and when
they had extracted the last mil from the tortured innocents, told them to steal, rob, and
murder in order to get the "mazuma" for the "dope." (The "addict" is notoriously fertile in
expedients for obtaining supplies of his drug.) Abominations of this sort are only possible
when the course of nature is violently diverted by pious Puritans and profiteering policemen.
Nobody troubled about the heroin when is was almost as easy and as cheap to buy as butter.
Today, despite repressive legislation, there is an international industry making its many
thousands per cent. on an enormous turnover, and occasionally throwing some peddling Jonah
overboard when some brainless dancing girl happens to kill herself. What better could she
do? And the police want "additional powers." Of course they do. They envy the Beckers of
New York, the arbitrary irresponsible gangs of uniformed grafters, in league with every form
of criminal, from the white slaver to the gambler and the gunman. If the people of England
want to see their cities in the hands of petty tyranny patting the paunch of corruption, well
and good, "strengthen the Act!" [Note: Our distinguished contributor may be pardoned for
seeing our country through alien eyes. It is needless to say that the suggestion here made
by him about the Metropolitan Police--certain ugly rumors with regard to the toleration of
certain notorious establishments notwithstanding--is the wildest nonsense.--1922 e.v. Editor]
There has been so much delirious nonsense written about drugs that sane men may well
despair of seeing the light.
But it ought to be obvious that if England reverted to pre-war conditions, when any
responsible person (by signing his name in a book) could buy drugs at a fair profit on cost
price, cocaine (say) at 16s. and heroin at 20s. the bottle of 10 grammes--instead of as many
pounds--the whole underground traffic would disappear like a bad dream.
It is possible, perhaps even probable, that for a month or two there would be an increase
in the number of fools who killed themselves in their folly, though personally I doubt it.
But I have no shame in saying that, after a war in which we sent our sturdiest sons as sheep
to the slaughter, we should not miss a few score wasters too stupid to know when to stop.
Besides this, we see, on the one hand, that the people who want the drugs manage to get them
in one way or another, at the cost of time, trouble, and money which might be used more
wisely, and on the other that the infernal suggestions of the Press, and the vile venality of
the villains attracted to the traffic by the immense profits, are deliberately creating new
addicts every day of people who in the normal course of affairs would no more think of
indulging in narcotics than a cat in a cold bath.
So much for the purely practical points of the position; but, deeper still, let me say as
a Jeffersonian democrat, that I dread beyond all else the growth of the petty tyranny of
restrictive legislation, the transference of disciplinary authority from the judiciary to the
constabulary, the abandonment of every constitutional safeguard of individual liberty, the
division of the people into the hunters and the hunted, the exaltation of the spy, the agent
provocateur, and the blackmailer, the open adoption of the policy of sitting on the safety-
valve, and the degradation of citizenship by applying physical repression to the evils whose
only redress lies in moral development!
[1922 e.v. Editorial Note.--In the author's private clinic, patients are not treated for
their "habit" at all. They are subjected to a process of moral reconstitution; as soon as
this is accomplished, the drug is automatically forgotten. Cures of this sort are naturally
permanent, whereas the possible suppression of the drug fails to remove the original causes
of the habit, so that relapse is the rule.]
Seriousness and laughter are the flame and the darkness; but I cannot tell which is flame
and which is darkness.
"True greatness needs no praise." -- Great praise needs no truth.
Down with the autonomy-withdrawal syndrome!
Weltschmerz comes from not letting go of a hot coal.
Lebensmüde comes from too much sleep.
If we have a line to absolute truth, there is a god(dess) and we're him(her).
If we don't -- we don't.
In either case there is no great cause to sweat.
I fear to touch the world lest I hurt it -- and thus harm myself in the only way possible.
Sometimes I speak in a voice that commands instant attention and respect. The voice is
that of one tired with all things -- that of one who has never met a real challenge and who
has given up hope of meeting such. Why is this the voice people listen to?
To paraphrase Matisse; knowledge does not come from things, only from the differences of
things.
I greatly prefer the right and wrong of the artist to the good and evil of the moralist.
I am an existential positivist with teleological leanings (Later, I came to just say
"Thelemite").
Here's another sort of entry from the same time and source, for those who prefer to take longer breaths:
The Paths of the Dead.
In the simplest view the dead die forever and completely. The life of a man ends and with
it ends all that matters of the man. No soul lingers, no memories, no shade, nothing.
The ancients found this view too painful to hold. They did not wish to die completely and
forever -- at least not after so short a span as that of men. They dreamed of men who did
not die, of men who lived much longer than other men -- some of these were named gods. But
when too many ancient heroes become gods, the mortality of men is stressed rather than
lessened. The gods were then able to confer immortality upon men of lesser stature -- thus
there was a way for men to become deathless still.
This was not enough, for not many could merit the divine gift of immortality from the very
human gods of those early days. It became necessary to devise some way and place for the
many lesser men to remain after the deaths of their bodies. Ghosts were invented. They
could live in trees, in stones, in hills. Or more simply, they could live in the places
where they had always lived. They could go the same route they always went. Thus they could
seem to die but yet live on.
This possibility seemed to help; but before long the world was crowded with spirits.
There seemed to be no room for the living. Perhaps the spirits could fade away -- lose their
form -- as they gradually forgot their memories. But this left them mortal again, able to
die forever.
A new place to go was needed. Hades was invented. The strong spirits ... could dwell for
a time of the earthly plane, but after (that) time all would sink into the earth even as did
their bodies. The new dwelling place of the dead was not much -- just a place where the
darkness of the deeps dwelt -- where the souls became shades. In time only enough alive were
these shades to merit the term "existing". They seemed not to die forever but to live hardly
at all.
This too was painful. A newer place had to be found for the departed. The stars seemed
to form the outline of great forms in the heavens. These were held to be the shapes of the
good and great who had died ... The small and evil could go to hell but the great and good
could go to heaven.
Soon, however, there seemed to be too few stars in the sky for the many just who had died.
And so, a place was formed in Hades for the remaining souls of the redeemed. The Elysian
Fields were created. Here the great dead could stroll and discourse, could battle, love, and
eat, even as they did in life. Or they could be cleansed of sorrows. They could be purged
of faults and guilts. Perhaps some could emerge from the limbo of this purgatory and ascend
into the high vault of heaven -- after they had forgotten their faults.
But again there seemed to be too few stars to shine for the many just. In addition, the
view began to be held that the many stars were simply great flaming spheres, and that the Sun
was only the greatest or perhaps the nearest of these. Although a flame may symbolize a
life, it is not a life in the minds of most people. Thus another place had to be found for
the great among the dead. When the souls of the departed forget all that they were, they
effectively cease to be unless there exists a way to acquire new memories. Perhaps the dead
went on living in a way. Perhaps they talked and labored enough to create new memories in
the same manner as the living.
Even the old among the living seemed to fail in the end from a sameness of memories.
There comes an end to newness which leads the mind down into shadows, and from these shadows
there can be no awakening save by new experiences. So it is with the dead in their places.
Just as the living run out of experiences and stagnate, so it is with the dead. ... This too
was abhorrent to the ancients.
Only by returning back to life can the dead be granted more new experiences -- thus the
concept of reincarnation appeared.
Reincarnation seems at first the panacea, but this concept will not bear up under
examination either. The endless cycling of birth-death-birth is only just less maddening
than the ending birth-death. A justification for rebirth had to be found ... This
justification was improvement of the soul to the state of eventual perfection.
The last note to this over-view of developmental religion shall be the observation that
the perfection following freedom from the "endless" wheel of rebirth, nirvana, resembles
death into nothingness quite closely. Perhaps this reflects the fundamental duality.
[Modern observation: Time and change are both illusions. What was once, now is and ever will be -- outside of time.]
Sept. 1, 1896 | They chant, dance, beat drums and torment people at airports singing "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama ..."; and the founder of this sect, Swami Prubhupada was born on this date in Calcutta, India. |
Sept. 6, 1583 | John Dee finishes the 'catalogue' of his library of over 4000 books before leaving for the continent. |
Sept. 7, 1967 | Snippy the horse, missing for two days was finally found on Sept. 9th laying on his side, dead! Some claim the victim of a UFO attack as an experiment on Earth life-forms. UFO sightings in the area had been going on for over five years. The actual remains of the horse had no blood, all its flesh was removed or pealed back off the head down to the neck. The body was left alone except that most of the vital organs were removed. No brain, or spinal fluids were found within the body. Odd wounds were noticed in the horse's sides. The official government verdict ... lightning. |
Sept. 13, 1966 | Louis Wilkinson dies at the age of 84, a man who wrote this about his dear friend Aleister Crowley, "... the pity is that his nose was too small; otherwise he would, I believe, have been indisputably a great man, both as a writer and as a religious leader." |
Sept. 16, 1846 | Anna Kingsford was born on this date. A woman whose early influence on Mathers & Westcott through her ideas & views of 'women's lib' made both realize men & women should be admitted as Hermetic students on equal terms in any true fraternity, later the Golden Dawn. |
Sept. 17, 1971 | Paul Twitchell, the '971st Spiritual Master' of the planet Earth & founder of the Eckankar movement in 1964, author of such books as 'In my soul I am Free', dies of a fatal heart attack on this date and finally becomes really free. |
Sept. 18, 1924 | Ada Waite, wife of Arthur Edward Waite dies. She always remains a curiously nebulous figure in his life. It has been written that there is '... no assignable limit to her capacity for sleeping and when awake she has such 'unassailable taciturnity' that 'as she never spoke willingly, and seldom answered anyone except upon extreme pressure, this silence became itself a kind of eloquence.' |
Sept. 19, 1961 | Driving home one night in New Hampshire, Betty and Barney Hill were kidnapped for over two hours and held aboard a Flying Saucer & subjected to all kinds of physical examinations, tests and questions. Their story was made famous in a book entitled 'The Interrupted Journey'. |
Sept. 21, 1914 | Aleister Crowley writes his commentary on Liber AGAPE, entitled 'De Arte Magica'. |
Sept. 21, 1924 | Leah Hirsig sends a letter to Crowley stating, "I hereby renounce the title of Scarlet Woman and pass it on to the Scarlet Concubine of his desire!" |
Sept. 21, 1985 | Hymenaeus Beta assumes Caliph X° & acting O.H.O. of the Ordo Templi Orientis on this date. |
Sept. 22, 1692 | The last eight people are hanged for witchcraft in Salem, Mass, one being Martha Corey whose husband died a few days earlier (Sept. 16th). The death toll now reached twenty people hanged or crushed, with well over 200 arrested. Boston jail as well as Salem was packed to the point of overcrowding. |
Sept. 23, 1939 | Aleister Crowley writes his patriotic poem 'England, Stand Fast!' at the outbreak of World War II, on this date. |
Sept. 24, 1541 | On this date Paracelesus died, the man who once invited the faculty of his college to a lecture in which he promised to teach 'The Greatest Secret of ALL Medicine' ... he then proceeded to uncover a dish containing a pile of smelly, stinking shit in all its glory. No one was amused. Apparently they missed the concept of 'putrefactive fermentation' which Paracelesus attempted to show ... of course we understand it, don't we? |
Sept. 27, 1911 | On this date 'certified Insane', Rose Kelly a.k.a. Mrs. Aleister Crowley is taken off to the asylum for 'alcoholic dementia'. |
Sept. 27, 1923 | Norman Mudd takes the Oath of Probationer in the A ![]() ![]() |
Cornelius/Herndon.
9/1/91 | Gnostic Mass 8:00 PM | Thelema Ldg | ||
9/2/91 | Belly Dancing instruction most Mondays, 5:30 to 7:30 PM (Call 1st) | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/3/91 | "Signs, Grips & Word; Minerval to IIIrd" with Marlene. 8 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/5/91 | Magick in Theory and Practice Study Circle with Marlene 8PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/8/91 | Gnostic Mass 8:00 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/9/91 | Ladies' T 5:30 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/10/91 | Book Four Astral Flight with Drax "How to Get There" 9:00 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/12/91 | Ist Degree Curriculum Class with Jeff at 8 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/14/91 | Jerry's Videorhea 6:30 PM Call to attend. Wiccan films. | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/15/91 | Lodge clean-up day | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/15/91 | Gnostic Mass 8:00 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/16/91 | Lodge Meeting 8 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/17/91 | Book Four Astral Flight with Drax "What to do When You Get There" 9PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/18/91 | Minerval instructional class with Brother Shaitan 8 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/19/91 | Lodge of Perfection | LoP | ||
9/21/91 | Initiations (call to attend) | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/22/91 | Gnostic Mass workshop 4:18 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/22/91 | Gnostic Mass 8:00 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/23/91 | Autumnal Equinox Ritual 8 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/23/91 | Secret Meeting | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/24/91 | Magick Theater reads Crowley's The Saviour 7:30 PM Call for location | Magick Thea. | ||
9/25/91 | "Planetary Magic a la Agrippa" with Mark. Class 7PM Ritual 8PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/26/91 | Magick in Theory and Practice Study Circle with Marlene 8PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/14/91 | Jerry's Logorrhea 6:30 PM Call Lodge for Place | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/29/91 | Libra Birthday party 4:18 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/29/91 | Experimental Gnostic Mass 8 PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
9/30/91 | "Magick without Aleister" with Fr. Majnun 8 PM | Thelema Ldg. |
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.