Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers

    The lodge holds a monthly study group to promote understanding of our liturgy in the E.G.C., led by Bishop T Dionysus, on Wednesday evening 28th September at 8:00. Officers in the mass (whether of long experience or newly in training) and also newcomers to the body of communicants who wish to begin a serious study of the mass, are especially welcome to this group. Participation by mail (postal or electronic) is also encouraged.

    Thelema Lodge Meeting (also known this month as "Labor Night") will be held on Monday evening 5th September at 8:00. Lodge members are invited to prepare the coming month's calendar schedule, and to help plot the future course of our work and play together. Requests and offerings for classes and events are coordinated at this meeting, initiation plans are set, and the business and correspondence of the lodge is discussed. Members who have scheduled events should prepare descriptive notes for the lodgemaster, either at the lodge meeting or within the following week.

    The lodge offers a monthly luncheon for our Sustaining Members Group, with an invitation to all members and friends of Thelema Lodge to consider supporting the lodge at the rate of thirty dollars per month as a privileged and appreciated Sustaining Member. This month's luncheon meeting will be held on Sunday afternoon 11th September at 1:00.

    Sirius Oasis meets on Wednesday evening 14th September at 8:00 in Berkeley. Phone the Oasis Master for directions at (510) 527-2855. Oasis business and initiation arrangements are handled at these monthly meetings, which also offer opportunity for discussion and study together. This month, we plan to "get Sirius" about the Dog Days, bringing on the close of summer with an evening of readings and illustrations (and even an oversized barking example) of the friendly beast in whom God is not to live. Canis est Deus Inversus.

    Our annual cycle of Liber DCCCL, Aleister Crowley's Rites of Eleusis, concludes this month with celebrations of the innermost planetary gods. The Rite of Mercury will be held at 7:30 on Wednesday evening 7th September in Horus Temple at Thelema Lodge, and the Rite of Luna begins at sunset on Monday evening 19th September at Battery Alexander in the Marin Headlands. For further information, and to pool transportation for the Rite of Luna, call the lodge at (510) 652-3171. Celebrants at the Rite of Luna will be welcome to sleep overnight afterwards in the state campground there; bring warm bedding and breakfast supplies if you can stay. A Rite of Earth, our own local addition to the cycle, is scheduled for Saturday afternoon 1st October at 2:00 to ground out the Rites.

    The Thelema Lodge "Section Two Reading Group" with Caitlin meets at Oz House on Monday evening 12th September at 8:00. We will be looking this month at Undine, by Friedrich Freiherr de la Motte Fouqué, a fairy-tale novella originally published in German in 1811. Exploring the possibilities for relations between elemental water spirits and humans, this story was seen frequently in dramatic adaptation throughout the last century, especially in opera and ballet. Its author was a Prussian military officer who wrote prolifically in the German Romantic manner.

    Join Bill Heidrick in San Anselmo for the Thelema Lodge Magick in Theory and Practice Series on Wednesday evening 21st September at 7:30. Call Bill at (415) 454-5176 for directions if coming for the first time. If possible, preview the material beforehand; our focus this month will be on the final chapter in the "theory" section, number XXI (the Universe), concerning Magick (black and otherwise) and the Powers of the Sphinx.

    We are now sponsoring a local access number for "Castle Anthrax" as one of the activities of the Thelema Lodge Computer Club (a.k.a. "The Butterfly Net"). "Castle Anthrax" is the San Francisco bay area's Thelemic Bulletin Board Service, active throughout Northern California. It is an official Hub of PODS(93)Net and Vervan's Gaming Network. It also carries all echo message areas for ALnet, BeastNet, NuitNet, NovenNet, as well as cross-feeds from UUCP such as alt.pagan, alt.magick, and more. Callers in the areas of Oakland, Berkeley, E'ville, Alameda, Piedmont, Moraga and Lafayette, as well as downtown San Francisco, and even South City, can dial in locally at (510) 635- 9393. Long-distance callers, and also those local to the San Leandro, Hayward, Fremont, Pleasanton & Livermore, Castro Valley, and Danville areas, should call (510) 886-9393. Doubtful local callers should consult their telephone book or service provider to select the nearest of these two lines. The Computer Club is establishing a members' forum on "Castle Anthrax" with special files and features. To be included, log on to the Castle, and come to the Butterfly Net meeting on Monday evening 26th September at 8:00 in the lodge library.

    Grace offers a monthly Thelema Lodge Astrology Workshop at her home in Berkeley, usually scheduled for the last Friday night in each month. This month, Grace will be offering two meetings: "The Astrology of Virgo" on Friday evening 2nd September (held over from August). "The Astrology of Libra" on Friday evening 30th September. All attending are requested to call ahead for each meeting at (510) 843-7827 so Grace can know whom to expect; classes begin at 7:00 and go until 9:00 PM.

    The Grady McMurtry Poetry Society meets in the library at Thelema Lodge on Saturday evening 24th September at 7:30. Frater P. I. is the facilitator for this reading group, which invites all comers to share verse aloud together. Bring any poems you like to read with us.

    Library Nights at Thelema Lodge are scheduled twice each month, but are subject to change if other dates are requested. Our facilities are open for study by arrangement with the lodge officers whenever possible, with suggested dates being Tuesday 13th September and Thursday 29th September, beginning at 8:00. Please call or give advance notice whenever attending. Volunteer library work is needed on a continuing basis to maintain and improve our facilities, with some cataloguing and shelving work still remaining despite much good progress.

    In Art a man's views count for nothing. It is a curious paradox that a man can only write if he is so white-hot over something that his work pours through him, not from him; and yet it is not of the least importance what that something is.
    I agree with Walter Pater; but I know that Bunyan, with whom I disagree, was first-rate, and Pater second-rate.
    What does it matter whether anyone is right? If he does right, it will last.
    This tirade is, however, to be taken as from the point of view of the purely literary mind. It is easy enough for the university-trained European to avoid the blunders which shock purists in Walt Whitman, and we consequently obtain a quite false idea that such European work is "good."
    From the philosophical, and even more from the human view, Whitman is an artist supreme in so far as he mirrors the spirit of his time and country. He has the childish petulance and bombast and enthusiasm, the gross, naked lust and the ultra-refined delicacy, the essential rough vigour, the hurry, the conceit, the egoism, the astounding incompetence and the still more astounding capacity, the Jingoism, even the cant, of the American-as-he-is-in-himself, the Yank an sich. I find meaning even in the strings of names; I understand how, in a country so new and generous, the mere crying of the names of things fills the soul with ecstasy -- the ecstasy of poetry. Whitman says "lint, bandages, iodoform" as the Greeks said "Thalassa! Thalassa!"¹ and thereby conjures a vision of all the heroism and suffering of the War of Secession. That war was never sung as we understand song. But there is many a heart to thrill at "O tan-faced prairie boy." Two "lines" which are not lines! Yet the superhuman rapture of an unexpected love in the open air -- not beyond the experience, I hope, of those who live there! -- is given, naked and gorgeous beyond all royal pomp, in those two lines that are not lines.
    All this America is crude, formless, hurried, crowded. There is little real music, even of the simpler lyric sort, in the Americans. "Culture" is a pose; even common education sits ill on him. We must not expect his literature to follow our lines. His literature is to come. We shall know when it does -- it will be stupendous, it will be gigantic and elemental beyond all our experience. It will not keep our rules. It can only come with a settlement of some of the main social and political problems; but when it does, we shall, I believe, clearly recognise Walt Whitman as the fountain and origin of it all.
    I am well aware that I am thus placing on the highest of all possible pinnacles a man whom I detest and despise; but I deliberately do so. A Balaam come to judgment!
    Whitman is America. He is the real thing, the spirit of the new continent made word. Not the voice of imported culture, or of any other thing inessential. He is raw, untutored, tameless, crude, the America of the War. I have lived on the prairie myself, and I recognise the note.
    The claims of Emerson, Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier and the rest are more easily delt with. Emerson's ruggedness saves him from the barber's-assistant fate of the others. In some ways Emerson is quite the greatest of the Americans. His outlook is wide, and his thought profound; but his speech (as far as the poetry is concerned) is very imperfect, and (as far as the prose is concerned) too perfect, while the quantity of his best work is quite negligible if we think of Carlyle, or Nietzsche. Nor do the Essays rank with Bacon or Montaigne.
    Longfellow is merely the polite professor; he has little learning, even for an undergraduate, and he has never penetrated a single GR:mu into the varnish of any 'drawing-room idea. Smooth, shallow optimism, a faith even more frock- coated and silk-hatted than Tennyson's, a style absolutely wooden.
    Said Poe, having printed a long passage of "Evangeline" as prose: "There is good, respectable prose, and no one will ever again run the danger of mistaking it for poetry."
    There are one or two lyrics, good second-class: for example:

          "The day is done, and the darkness
             Falls from the wings of night
         As a feather is wafted downward
             From an eagle in its flight."

    That is fairly fine poetry. It is simple; the image is clear and coherent, as well as beautiful; and the infinite purpose of the Universe is suggested by the introduction of the eagle. But there is not much else of this calibre; most of Longfellow is pop-gun loaded with pop-corn. Bryant is, on the whole, even more spectacled than Longfellow; and Whittier is little better than Moody and Sankey.
    If most of these people had lived in England, should we have had a quarter as much fuss made about them? But in the desert which Childe Roland crossed "a burr had been a treasure-trove."
    Of Bryant the best quotations which Poe (who was trying to extol him) can find are this sort of thing:

          "And what if cheerful shouts at noon
            Come, from the village sent,
         Or songs of maids beneath the moon
            With fairy laughter blent?
         And what if, in the evening light,
            Betrothèd lovers walk in sight
            Of my low monument?"

Echo answers "what?"
    A sonnet beginning

               "Ay, thou art for the grave,"

ends

    "We will trust in God to see thee yet again."

    After this we wonder if Poe was not smiling softly to himself in concluding his appreciation:
    "He is married (Mrs. Bryant still living), has two daughters (one of them Mrs. Parke Godwin), and is residing for the present at Vice-Chancellor McCrown's, near the junction of Warren and Church Streets."
    Walter Savage Landor was an exile in Italy, and in any case I find it difficult to read him. How he came to conquer Swinburne one cannot imagine, unless one knows all about Swinburne.
    Nathaniel Hawthorne and Washington Irving are difficult to rank in the first class. The sentimentality of the one and the obviousness of the other are enough to bar them from the Immortals. And Hawthorne at least was caught red-handed in a very open plagiary. In their time and place, however, they stood for a good deal of good. They did excellent work of its kind. R.I.P.
    Of others who had their measure of fame some seventy years ago, there are some surprisingly facile writers.
    Amelia Welby has these excellent lines. I cannot quote better from any English writer:

           "And softly through the forest bars
               Light lovely shapes, on glossy plumes,
           Float even in, like wingèd stars,
               Amid the purpling glooms."

and keeps it up, more or less, for nearly fifty lines.
    But this is a very solitary swallow.
    May I be pardoned a note of flippancy in dealing with the rank and file? Their names are forgotten even by their umquhile flatterers. I revive them because one or two of them were most richly endowed by Mr. Robert Ross' favourite 10th Muse -- the "Muse of Bad Poetry."
    Seba Smith, for instance, became immortal on this:

           "But bravely to the river's brink
               I led my warrior train,
           And face to face each glance they sent
               We sent it back again.
           Their werowance looked stern at me,
               And I looked stern at him."

    Of the Channings, one need only remark that the uncle was a pedant, and the nephew an ignoramus.
    Kentucky, however, produced a very fine few lines from the pen of a Mr. William Wallace.
    He saw:

         "A swathe of purple, gold and amethyst
           And luminous, behind the billowing mist
             Something that looked to my young eyes like God."

    Of course, one might object to mixing purple and amethyst; but the last two lines are first-class. Only -- only -- only -- there it seems to stop. He never wrote anything else.
    Anna Lewis talks about "Rapine and Vice" disporting "on Glory's gilded tomb" and "the dark inscrutable decrees of Fate," and we pass rapidly to the Reverned Joel T. Headley, who wrote the most comic account of the Crucifixion that has ever been penned. It is impossible to transcribe it, unless in a professedly religious journal, without risking the ire of Mr. Joseph McCabe and the other supporters of the Laws against Blasphemy.
    George P. Morris, of whom I know little but that he is dead, appears to have been the original of Frederick E. Weatherley and Mr. Clifton Bingham.
    There seems also to have been a Robert M. Bird, who would have imitated Sir Walter Scott well enough if his mind had not so constantly wandered.
    And there was undoubtedly one Cornelius Mathews, who burst his poetic gun the very first time he fired it.
    W. G. Simms was at one time exceedingly popular as a writer of short stories; they resemble those of Poe, but lack alike his genius and his style. Still, they were good enough to alarm the older writer, and perhaps it is a pity that they are now only to be found in the national collections.
    Ambrose Bierce has at least one magnificent short story to his credit.
    James Russell Lowell is better known in England than any of the last dozen I have mentioned; but his work is altogether without merit. It is the worst Journalese, and the man hardly better than a political hack. His success is worth no more than that of a new kind of pole-cat might be.
    The only touch of true satire that I recall is the excellent

           "I dew believe in Freedom's cause,
           As fur away as Paris is."

    Henry James, good or bad, is too important and too sub judice to discuss in this brief appreciation of the literary stars that spangle Old Glory.
    Another writer well-known in England is Fennimore Cooper. He, again, succeeded chiefly by the novelty of his themes; his method is stilted, and after all he is only boyhood's friend. That I still like him only proves -- what everybody knows -- that I have never grown up.
    But I do like him, and, if pressed, will maintain against the world that his pictures of the manners of an extinct race may be one day the most trustworthy data that posterity can command. (But what has that to do with Art?)
    There are some dozens of others, Sprague, Dana, Hulleck, Willis, Hoyt, Hunt, Authon, Bush, Cheever, Mowatt, Francis, English, Stephens, Cranch, Dyckink, Aldrich, Kirkland, Fuller, Epes Sargent, W. W. Lord, Sedgwick, Clark, Walsh, Child, Hewitt Hoffman, Ward, Richard Adams Locke, Wilmer, Kettell, Brainard, Hirst, Drake, and the prince of them all, Rufus Dawes, author of "Geraldine" with its immortal climax:

    "He laid her gently down, of sense bereft,
        And sank his picture on her bosom's snow,
    And close beside these lines in blood he left:
        Farewell for ever, Geraldine, I go
    Another woman's victim -- dare I tell?
        'Tis Alice -- curse us, Geraldine! -- farewell!"

    Of all these there is not one whose name is today familiar to any American of whom I have inquired, though W. W. Lord made a big bid for fame -- of a sort -- by his impudence in publishing

    "And the agèd beldames napping,
    Dreamed of gently rapping, rapping,
    With a hammer gently tapping,
           Tapping on an infant's skull."

    Ward is best known by his

    "Bees buzzed, and wrens that thronged the rushes
    Poured round incessant twittering gushes."

and the inimitable

    "Oh, curl in smiles that mouth again,
       And wipe that weeper dry!"

    I momentarily forget -- the world will remember -- who wrote:

    "His sinuous path, by blazes, wound
    Amongst trunks grouped in myriads round."

But it matters nothing. The conclusion of the whole matter is that English is rare -- one gets constantly "done" for "did," "took" for "taken," and the like -- music rarer still, imagery and thought alike almost never stirring from the commonplace unless to fall into the abyss of the absurd.
    I have not exhausted the list of claimants to literary fame; but Mark Twain's "James Ragsdale McClintock," whoever he was, is not really very much worse than the rest.
    I have a prize specimen of my own, but (for all I know) he is still living, while this article is principally concerned with the dead, and, besides, I have endeavoured elsewhere to divert the discerning public very greatly with him in an article entirely devoted to so rare a bird.

Note:
1. All language is hieroglyphic, from the blessed word Mesopotamia downwards. When I was a child my favourite Bible readings were the genealogies with the far-sounding names.

from the Grady Project:

First published in The Grady Project #3 (Oakland: Thelema Lodge, O.T.O., March 1988 e.v.).

    In the back of the Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin are strange squares made up of Latin or English letters. To approach these, just take up a good Hebrew lexicon. A dictionary wouldn't help. A lexicon gives you the roots of words. A dictionary may say: "In Hebrew, in order to say 'Hello', say 'Sholom Aleichem'. In order to say 'Hello' back, say 'Aleichem Sholom'." Bull! "Sholom Aleichem" is "Peace be with you". It's just used like "hello" in English. A dictionary doesn't need to go further. A lexicon always does.

    Next Month: Son of Square, the Sequel.

    The temple should be decorated to look like a cave (or at least be dark and relatively featureless). In the east is a large altar upon which are a paten and a cup. In the center of the temple is a small altar bearing a cake (large enough to provide a slice for each communicant), a knife, and a large bottle of red wine which has been decorated to look like a white bird whose head comes off (it symbolizes a living white hen).
    Seated on elevated thrones to one side of the large altar are the children: Helmas, a red-nosed man, robed in scarlet with white fur, his crown containing a silver feather, holds a quince (or failing that, a yellow pear); at his side Pressina, with her faintly blue skin and undeniably green hair, bears an unbroken raw egg. The priest, Florian, sits on an unelevated throne on the opposite side of the large altar from the children; he is clothed in dark green and silver, and wears a fancy three-cornered hat with a flower on it. Next to the small altar stands the deacon, Hoprig, in robes of white, with purple accenting, crowned by a wreath of mistletoe and a halo. Once the guests are all seated, Hoprig purifies and consecrates the temple, then he stands in front of the large altar, facing west.

Hoprig: We are met in the temple of the Peohtes in the kingdom of Brunbelois to celebrate one last marriage according to the rites of Llaw Gyffes of the Steady Hand. Despite the fact that my recently discovered canonization has forced me to resign my former office as high-priest of Llaw Gyffes, I, holy St. Hoprig, shall officiate here today because my successor as high-priest has not yet been appointed. Therefore, (bows briefly toward children) by the grace of King Helmas and Queen Pressina of Brunbelois, I call upon Lord Florian, fourth Duke of Puysange, to arise and stand here before me.

    Florian leaves his throne gracefully and poses nonchalantly in front of Hoprig, projecting an air of superiority.

Florian: I am Florian de Puysange.

Hoprig: And are you acquainted with those ancient usages by which we in Brunbelois insure the preservation of domestic tranquility?

Florian: I fear, most holy sir, that I am not so acquainted. But I assure you that this is not from any lack of enthusiasm on my part, but rather is the unfortunate result of my having only just arrived here yesterday, that is, upon the feast day of that most holy Saint Swithin of Winchester.

Hoprig: Well then, in belated recognition of one of my so estimable colleagues you shall not be immediately disemboweled, as would be our usual practice with a bridegroom who is unacquainted with our usages. Instead you will be instructed, as if you were a mere boy, by listening here to the words of our princely sage, the honorable Lord Janicot Buckley of Poictesme, as he discourses upon the customs of our ancestors.

    Lord Buckley's rap "The Chastity Belt" is played, and Helmas exits the temple; immediately after the rap ends the priestess, Melior, is ushered into the temple by Helmas. She wears upon her head a wreath of thistles, and about her middle a remarkable garment of burnished steel fastened with a small padlock; in her hand she carries a distaff, flax and a spindle. She is escorted to the side of Florian by Helmas, who then resumes his seat.

Hoprig: And are you, Melior, Royal Princess of Brunbelois, acquainted with those ancient usages by which we in Brunbelois insure the preservation of connubial bliss?

Melior: You know perfectly well that I am so acquainted Hoprig, since you yourself have often instructed me in those arts, even as recently as just last night, and rather a bit late if I do say so!

Hoprig: Be that as it may, we can now proceed, according to the ancient and primitive rites of Llaw Gyffes, to perform this marriage ceremony.

    Helmas and Pressina rise and come down from their thrones. Helmas gives his quince to Florian, Pressina gives her egg to Melior, then they resume their thrones. Florian offers the quince to Melior, who takes it and eats it, spitting out the seeds into the cup, which Hoprig proffers. Then she gives the egg to Florian, who cracks and empties it into the proffered cup, and then puts the empty shell into his hat. Hoprig replaces the cup on the large altar, then walks over to Florian and whispers in his ear. Florian looks momentarily astonished, but he soon tries to reassert his appearance of complacency, speaking to Hoprig out loud, if not with confidence.

Florian: Well, let us say, ___ times. (fill in the blank with the number of people who will take communion, that is, everyone except Hoprig)

    Hoprig uses the knife to cut the cake into the same number of pieces, and then places the pieces in the paten on the large altar. He then returns with the knife to the small altar, and taking up the bottle of wine, opens it, while making as if he is cutting off the head of a "white hen". He returns to Florian and Melior, standing at the large altar, and pours a little wine upon each of their feet. There is fanfare of trumpets and Helmas comes forward, with a great flourish, to present Florian with the key to a small padlock. Helmas remains standing next to Florian. Hoprig holds up a piece of the cake.

Hoprig: You know full well what this represents.

    Hoprig hands Florian the piece of cake, which is accepted, and then eaten, only after a good bit of hesitation and coaxing. Hoprig fills up the still egg- and seed-laden cup with wine and hands it to Florian.

Hoprig: According to the immemorial custom of the rites of Llaw Gyffes and the kingdom of Brunbelois it is both the privilege and the obligation of the bridegroom to specify the particular wedding toast which he desires all assembled to offer on this momentous occasion.

    Florian studies the cup in his hand queasily for a moment then, summoning his inner resources, declares himself resolutely.

Florian: Thou shalt not offend against the notions of thy neighbor!

    While the guests, led by the deacon and children, join in an exuberant cry of "Hear, hear!", Florian drains the cup, gagging only slightly, then returns it to Hoprig, who refills it and hands it to Melior along with a piece of cake. She eats it, then declares "Thou shalt not offend against the notions of thy neighbor!" and drains the cup while everyone cries "Hear, hear!". Then, together, Florian and Melior take their seats, while Pressina leaves her throne and the same tasting and toasting is repeated next by her and Helmas, who then also resume their thrones together. The taste and toast is then repeated by each guest, either individually or, if lovers, together. When at last everyone but Hoprig has communicated and resumed their seats, Helmas gets off his throne and goes over to Florian, who rises to greet him. Helmas pantomimes that Florian should accompany him and then leads his new son-in-law out of the temple. Then the deacon looks out over the entire congregation.

Hoprig: Now of course we all hope that our blissful newlyweds will always enjoy the same ecstatic happiness which they feel at this moment, but still, one must also be logical.

    Hoprig takes out the key to a small padlock and hands it to Melior.

From the Outbasket

    Red Flame No. 1, A Thelemic Research Journal, has appeared this July with The Poetry of Grady Louis McMurtry. Edited with a biography of Grady by Fr. Achad Osher 583, this work is the definitive edition to date both for the Poetry of Fr. Hymenaeus Alpha and his life story. The first edition is limited to 56 copies with most already sold, but a strong demand should evoke a second printing. US$26 (includes postage and handling) from Pangenetor Lodge, c/o M. Cornelius, P.O.Box 11667, Berkeley, CA 94701-2667. Other numbers of Red Flame are promised in the future at irregular intervals, No. 2 being "Friends and Acquaintances of Aleister Crowley", 30 chapters with short biographies of notables and their relations with Aleister.
    Grady's poetry has been a regular feature of the Thelema Lodge Calendar throughout its existence, including the tenure of Fr. AO. Many other OTO publications have carried parts of the Opus, and some short collections have appeared. Here at last is the great collection. Every presently available poem is here, beautifully typeset in large paper-back format, over 130 poems in all. A 26 page appendix gives all known variations in print, TS and MS, with notations of the sources. Readers of the TLC will be familiar with these poems, but here you have them free of the errors a rushed newsletter is err to. This is the edition to have for those who want to see Grady's poetical works and to enjoy them in banquet. The poems have been gathered from several collections, including the slides made from Fr. 's microfilm and provided by John Brunie, current Thelema Lodge Master.
    Not less important is the 40 page biography of Grady in the front of the book. Composed from accounts in letters, Crowley and Grady diaries and personal recollection, this is the best and most likable telling of Fr.H.B.'s life to date. From Lesser to Greater Feasts, with extensive coverage of the days with Crowley and the re-building of O.T.O., this is not to be missed.

Events Calendar for September 1994 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.

   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.