Thelema Lodge
Ordo Templi Orientis
P.O.Box 2303
Berkeley, CA 94702 USA
February 1997 e.v. at Thelema Lodge
Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers
Flaming Year Ghost, Ghost of Flame | |
You whose vision comes unbidden; | |
Sacred seeker, seeker lame | |
Voyeur in Her vast star-midden. | |
(Virgin Goddess, Bright Star Maiden) | |
Enigmatic Tetrahedral | |
Esoteric bridge of longing | |
Numinous, in Her cathedral, | |
Cryptic star-track, Angel thronging. | |
Dance, Star Maiden, dancing cry | |
(Shakti Devi, Goddess Viti) | |
Dance the deer back; deadly dye | |
Autumn frosted, sad the city. | |
(Virgin goddess, Bright Star Maiden) | |
Enigmatic Tetrahedral | |
Esoteric bridge of longing | |
Numinous, in Her cathedral | |
Cryptic star-track, Angel thronging. | |
This poem had its first publication as an excerpt in an article about poetry which Grady prepared for The Magickal Link 3:10 (Berkeley: O.T.O., October 1983), and was first published in full in the McMurtry: Poems volume (London & Bergen, Norway: O.T.O., 1986), before being included in the third volume of The Grady Project (Berkeley: O.T.O., December 1988).
Observers so well, yet so diversely, equipped as Von Moltke and Théophile
Gautier, concur in amazement at this city of miracle. As one would expect,
the truly original mind of the strategist finds worthier expressions than that
of the mere expert in words.
Gautier, writing of St. Basil's, explains himself in such forcible-feeble
photography as this: "On dirait un gigantesque madrépore, une cristallization colossale, une grotte â stalactites retournée."
The soldier sums the whole city in a phrase of inner truth: "On se croit transporté dans une de ces villes que l'imagination sait se representer, mais qu'en realité l'on ne voit jamais."
All of us, I hope, and in particular my Lord Dunsany and Mr S. H. Sime,
have seen these cities of the imagination; and the more we have travelled the
world, the more we have grown content with our disappointments. Delhi, Agra,
Benares, Rome, London, Cairo, Naples, Anuradhapura, Venice, Stockholm, all
fall short in one way or another of making one exclaim as I exclaimed when my
eyes first fell upon the great east wall of the Kremlin, its machicolated red
brick crowned by the domes of the cathedrals, its Tartar towers culminating in
the glorious Gate of the Saviour, flanked by ineffable St Basil: "A hashish
dream come true." There is nothing in de Quincey, Ludlow, or Baudelaire so
fantastic-beautiful as the sober truth of Moscow. It has not been planned; it
obeys no "laws of art." It is arbitrary as God, and as unchallengable. It is
not made in any image of man's mind: it is the creation of mind loosed from
the thrall of even so elemental a yoke as mathematics.
It is the imagination incarnate in metal and stone. It is the absurd in
which Tertullian believed. It is a storm of beauty, a mad poet's idea of
heaven. It mocks human reason. It belongs to no school or period; it could
not be imitated or equalled, because the mind of even the greatest artist has
limitations, grooves of thought; and in Moscow, it is the unexpected which
always happens. Happens: the Kremlin is an accident. The town itself is an
accident. There is no particular geographical reason for it being where it
is. As to natural advantages, it has none. There is a small river, perhaps
half as wide as the Harlem River or the Thames at London Bridge, and a hill no
higher than Morningside or Ludgate Hill. Go to the top of Ivan Veliky one
clear day and you will see but vastness of plain all ways to the horizon, save
for that low mount-line whence Napoleon first saw the city. It has no
Vesuvius, no bay of blue, no crested Posilippo. It has no seven hills. It
has no mountain setting, no mighty river, no possibility of background but the
sky. And there it is, unassailably magnificent, sheer warlock's work. It is
the sudden crystallization of one of those "barbarous names of Evocation" of
which Zoroaster speaks. It is the efflorescence of a Titan vice, the judgment
of the God that turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt upon a spinthria of the whole race of giants. For, like the Thyrsus around whose spear twist vine
tendrils, every dominant form of the Kremlin is a fantasy upon one theme, and
that a theme of which the sun himself is but the eidolon. It is the Lord of
Life, the Giver of Life, the bountiful, the single, the master of ecstasy, the
fulfiller of promise, the witness of the invisible, the viceregent and arbiter
of the godhead, the mainspring of manhood, the compeller of destiny, that is
commemorated in this wilderness of wonder.
This Basil church (might one not say Basilisk church?) is the solution of
the platonic antinomy of the Many and the One. There are no two spires alike,
either in color or in form or in juxtaposition. Each asserts that unity is in
multiplicity in unity; each is a mathematical demonstration of the identity of
being and form.
Here is the arcanum of the Brothers of the Rose and Cross; here the
solution of the problem of the alchemists; here the square is circled, here
the cube is doubled, here is perpetual motion in unmoving stone; the volatile
is fixed, the fixed is volatile, Hermes has laid Christ the cornerstone, and
Hiram-abif has set his seal upon the pinnacle of the temple.
And as I gaze in this July full moon, facing the Northern Lights, eternally
brightening and never growing brighter, behind the frozen dream, suddenly the
rich silence breaks into sound. Incomparable beauty of the bells of Moscow!
There are no other bells in the world that can for a moment be compared with
them. And they play music. Not tunes vulgarized by cheap association, not
imitation of any other music, but melodies all their own, as wonderful to the
ear as is the city to the eye. In accord with the miracle of the building,
they repeat the great work accomplished in every phantasy of phrase, the
lesser bells answering the greater like the nymphs caressing Bacchus.
It is stupendous, unbearable; the consciousness breaks into ecstasy; one
becomes part -- that peculiar part which is the whole -- of the choral colossus.
There is no more limitation; time, space, the conditions of the ego, disappear
with the ego itself in that abyss of eternity, that indivisible and
instantaneous point, which is the universe.
Within the churchs is infinite prodigality of gold. Except in St
Saviour's, a modern Europeanized bad church, height is always so
disproportionate to breadth that one might fancy oneself in the torture
chamber of a Sadistic god. Up and up, out of sight, stretch the fierce
frescoes, with their snakes and dragons that devour the saints, their gods,
bearded as their own popes, and their devils, winged and speared like the
horsemen of the steppes that their forefathers feared. All sight, in these
dimly-lit shrines, ceases before the shaft of the divine instrument starts
from the curves -- slight enough -- of the roof. When these churches were
built, the windows had to be minute, because of winter. Ivan the Terrible was
ignorant of "chauffage centrale." The effect is unpleasing, the void breaks
in upon form and eats it up. It turns the whole edifice into a magic mouth
gold-fanged, whose throat sucks up the soul into annihilation.
There is no truly original feature in the art of the frescoes, which recall
the Primitives. It is the superb barbaric indifference to balance, which
plies gold on gold. Only the faces, hands, and feet in ikons are uncovered;
the robes, carved in gold or silver-gilt, or woven in pearl and every other
precious stone, cover the canvas. These faces and hands are indecipherable,
would be so even in good light. At first, one dislikes the gap in the gold.
At second, one gives up criticism and adores. The whole overpowers; nothing
else matters. One is in presence of a positive force, making a direct appeal.
The lumber of culture goes overboard. Fact, elemental fact, reaching beyond
all canons, is with one and upon one. There are the coffins of a hundred
Tsars, red copper slightly bronzed, each with name and date in high relief,
the simplest ornaments in holy Russia. Above the coffins of the Romanoffs
hangs a marvellous golden canopy. Along one side are mighty banners, ikons encased in gold. And the Sanctuary has St Michael, mighty and terrible,
slaying the serpent; for this is the Church of the Archangel. The floor is
purple with porphyry, rough and uneven blocks on which the squarer never
toiled, but polished by millions of devout feet for centuries.
Go into the Church of the Assumption. Here is the fresco of Jonah with his
adventures from the casting-overboard to the preaching in Nineveh. And one
passes from the corridor direct into a dim sanctuary, its pictures, painted
with infinite detail, invisible even by the light of a taper -- and one
acquiesces in the eternal truth that invisibility is no drawback to the
appreciation of a picture! Further along, a sombre clerestory holds a vast
reliquary of gold and silver, the covers half drawn to show most aged bones of
saints; here a hand, there a foot, here again a bone which piety has decorated
with gold wires.
And through all moves the concourse of many women and some men, prostrating
themselves, crossing themselves ceaselessly, kissing the frames of the relics
one by one, testifying most notable to the vitality of the faith thus mummied,
the faith, which, as Eliphas Levi said, has not inspired a single eloquence
since Photius. The popes are the most despised of the people; the cult is
bound hand and foot in the winding sheet of a formality one hundred times more
costive than the Roman: and yet it tingles and throbs with overwhelming life.
Again the antinomy of things is conquered; it is as if lucus a non lucendo
were recognized as an absolute and irreversible canon of philology.
The secret is in the Russian himself. He is the natural martyr and saint,
the artist in psychology. Most people are exquisitely aware that even the
commonest Russian regards the sexual act as a serious scientific experiment,
with grave concern studying the personal equation in all its details, never
admitting enthusiasm until the stage directions so ordain. This principle is
carried as far in religion. The people cross themselves when they feel like
it, prostrate themselves by no discoverable rule. Each man carries out his
cult with no reference to his neighbor. Each is present in order to work
himself into religious ecstasy. If he succeeds, he has been to church; if
not, he hasn't.
The Russian understands suffering itself as a thing to observe, not to
feel. He accepts the hardships of his lot as God's experiment with man. The
means is nothing, the end all. Hence the patient longing of his dog-like
eyes, and the beautitude glimmering from his pale cheeks. Hence the joy in
sorrow and sorrow in joy of his whole mental composition. Hence his long-
suffering and his fierceness, his tenderness and his brutality. The Great
Mean is realized by the exhaustion of the extremes. It is the Chinese Taoist
philosophy in practice, and at the same time the antithesis of that plan of
achieving everything by doing nothing.
As instructive as the Russian at prayer is the Russian at debauch. He
drinks to get drunk, realizing the agony of the limitations of life as much as
Buddha, though the one finds sorrow in change, and the other seeks change as
the remedy of sorrow. And so all his gaiety only amounts to a wish that he
were dead, or at least mad; he strives to overcome the enemy, life-as-it-is,
by entering a realm where its conditions no longer threaten and obsess.
His method is childish, to our supercilious eyes, for we have gone through
the mill of the Renaissance and a hundred other educational crises, while
Russia -- with deadly exception presently to be noted -- has remained a "spring
[shut] up, a fountain sealed."1 But all our pleasures have some primitive
physiological basis in one or other of the senses, and the man who enjoys a
mutton chop has no need to envy him who turns from some nauseously bedeviled
kickshaw. In Russia the essential elemental thing is always there, and even
the mistakes of its art and life turn to favor and to prettiness. A savage
woman of twenty is always splendid, though she blacken her teeth and tattoo
her face and hang her ribs with spent cartridges and thrust a fishbone through her nose; our civilization resembles a hag dressed by Poiret.
All this is Moscow, the heart of holy Russia; whose crown is the Kremlin;
it does not apply to Warsaw, with its sordid gangs of Jews and Roman
Catholics, or to Petersburg with its constantly increasing taint of sham
Parisianism. Paris at its best is a poor thing; unless it is one's own in a
most special sense one must be very intimate with artists to escape the
commercial gaiety of Montmartre, the ruined boulevards, and the general
tawdriness of its second-rate monuments. But the worst elements of Russia
have annexed the worst elements of Paris:
"Whose manners still our tardy apish nation
Limps after in base imitation."
Paris is the Circe that turns Russians into swine.
Politically, the influence of Rousseau has been deplorable.
The "contrat social" is as out of place in Asia as frock coats and lavender
trousers on the tawny limbs of the Samurai. Pushkin, the national poet, is
but an echo of Byron. It was at that period that Russia discovered Europe,
and it has discovered nothing since. What we most like in Russian literature
we should most dislike. One's natural feeling is toward familiar things. It
is not the western garnishry of Tolstoi that we should admire. His perfectly
insane views on poverty and chastity and non-resistance are the truly Russian
utterance. Where those views are tinctured by national considerations they
become French, and his lofty craze for chastity degenerates into a neo-
Malthusianism, as craven in its theory as it is disgusting in its practice.
The authentic Russian says, "Let God be true, and every man a liar": it is the
voice of his own holy spirit that speaks, and that voice cares nothing for
conditions. "If thine hand offend thee, cut it off,"2 said Christ, and
immediately Russia produced a sect as sinless as the Galli, the shorn priests
of Cybele, the fellow martyrs of Atys. There is no talk of the "interests of
the community," and the rest of it. Shelley's "Masque of Anarchy" anticipated
Tolstoi's non-resistance with a plan of campaign whose principal tactic was to
allow yourselves to be mown down by artillery in order to fraternize with the
gunners. It is, incidentally, a perfectly practical plan -- in the long run.
Were I not resolved to keep politics out of this paper, I could adduce some
singular evidence to this effect.
St Basil's is unquestionably supreme among these monuments. Its likeness
to the others is so much more like, its opposition so much more salient, its
violations so absolute, and its unity so achieved, beyond theirs. Ivan the
Terrible had the eyes of the architect put out, so that he might not make
another masterpiece for another emperor.
How curiously ineffective are words to conjure vision! Even poetry can
only reproduce an impression, and by no means the cause of the impression.
Here is St Basil's from the front.
On the extreme left, far back, a column on open arches with a windowed
spire; next, a low grey phallus, the gland of grey stripes salient from a
green background spiked with red pyramids. Then a lofty phallus, the shaft
ornate in red and grey, the gland striped with orange and green in spiral;
under it nestles another phallus, its gland covered with flat diamonds of red
and green.
Then another, lofty, with a straight stripe of red and green. Now comes
the main spire, shaped rather like a wine-bottle, fretted with myriad false
arches, adorned in red, green, and Naples yellow. Its gland is gold. Then a
grey shaft supports a gland trellised with green, yellow diamond pyramids
filling the spaces. Last comes a high lingam decorated with false arches, its
gland of red and green pyramids set spiral. At the foot is a grey covered
balcony; and admission is gained by a quasi-Chinese causeway whose spires are
covered with green-grey scales, ribbed with red, white, and green. The whole
is further ornamented chiefly with bars of red, white, yellow, orange, and
green in various combinations, and the flat spaces with painted flowers in
pots, executed in a style somewhat recalling certain phases of post-
impressionism.
There is the northern aspect. So ineffective is it to expose the mechanism
of a masterpiece! As one walks round it -- round is a correct term, for the
ground plan is circular, not angled -- new towers swing into view, always
fantastically varied, yet never permitting the impression of the whole to
alter by a jot.
"The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof";3 and yet "in Him is
neither variableness nor shadow of turning."4
Notes:
1. The Song of Solomon 4:12.
2. Mark 9:43, cf. Matthew 5:30.
3. Psalms 24:1.
4. Epistle of James 1:17.
Reverend Urine, as some of us called him, dug deep into life's dumpsters
and brought back real joy. I first met him in the late 1980s, thought him not
a beatnik, not a hippie, not a punk, but somehow all three. He had obviously
come from hell, yet his batteries of irony, wit, and satire were still fully
charged. In some way he was transmuting all the fear, pain, anger, and grief
of America's dying culture into the artful amusements of his own personal
"Anarcho-Pan-Thelemik Kulture Fest." Though I found him mostly unreliable in
cooperative projects and business affairs, he still managed to be both an
excellent friend, and an honest voice in many group discussions. At a highly
stressful time in my life he would often come through with accurate enough
sarcasm to remind me to laugh at myself. I was sorry to see him go off to
Austin, but he loved Ariadne and Becky and Alex very much, and he was clearly
happier than when I first got to know him, so I knew he was doing the right
thing.
When I heard he had lung cancer I can't say I was surprised, after all he
did smoke a lot of cigarettes, and live on junk food, and do other things that
are not reputed to be healthy, but I, like everyone else in our community,
still harbored the hope that such a rare and valuable being would, against all
odds, pull through. But he didn't. And we can't do anything about it, except
miss him. He was one choice Thelemite. Though he didn't have an
exceptionally long life, he did have the love of many, many people, and of at
least one god. So I close this tribute with one of Criss' favorite verses
from a particular author's works:
Seek Nuit! Be Hadit! | |
With the might | |
and by the rite | |
of Ra-Hoor-Khuit! |
Derived from a lecture series in 1977 e.v. by Bill Heidrick
Copyright © Bill Heidrick
After a while, like a constellation in the sky formed of individual stars,
each little Tree of Life joins with others to form a pattern. A six-fold
grouping like the Achad "snow-flake" is a little constellation. Experiences
are often isolated like that, as groups of thoughts and interests in the mind.
The whole mind is like an universe. It is filled with such things. The
constellations or clusters of Trees of Life collect together in galaxies of
thought, spiral pools of self-awareness, separated by great gulfs from other
thoughts.
It is within our power to move these lights as though we were the creator
of an outer universe. It's possible for us to shape these in our own selves,
fashioning light without limit inside our minds. This kind of work has to be
undertaken slowly, with a good deal of calm. Pushing too fast can create a
rift between two galaxies of collected thought, feeling or ways of thinking.
We constantly undergo growth and change. Any major change in where a person
lives, the style of life, philosophy or anything similar is like going from
one galaxy to another and taking a few star systems along.
Sometimes a drastic experience will occur, like a discharge of electricity
in this inner world. A "star" will go nova or a great body will pass suddenly
through. Like a discharge in a spark chamber, such an event will leave dots
of light in its wake. These are the things that a new idea does while passing
through a human mind. It will awaken new constellations, new clusters of
Trees of Life. Such a path can be seen. Eventually it may fade out, but the
trace can be strengthened. The mind can bring these things together, move
them and draw more of them into union. It's like forming a sculpture, working
with light. This is the way our mental life proceeds. That's the basic
theme. Techniques of manipulating and designing will be examined a little
further in this series.
The essential idea is that you design this yourself. You model the
convolutions of your own mind. Consider one of the variations on the Magus
Atu in the Crowley-Harris Thoth Tarot. In a painting not used in the final
version, a stylized brain forms part of the background, looking a little like
the serpent that climbs up the Tree of Life. Scattered about the surface of
this brain are many symbolic objects. The mind links all these in its own
fashion.
A pictorial alchemical allegory can be quite strange. It's full of
bizarre, mysterious things. It may not make any sense at all on first
impression. After a little study, one can begin to see patterns. Often there
is a sun on one side and a moon on the other. In the midst may be a mixed
image, half male and half female, related to the sun and moon. The first
thing in any puzzling situation is yourself and an external perception. Next,
begin to construct the Tree of Life in some detail to link and make sense of
the perception. Perhaps, like an alchemical allegory, there will be a
Tipheret kind of thing which you can see. There may then be a Yesod kind of
thing that you can see. After a little time, a feeling tone will form in
mind, without clear rational content. That is the beginning of a Yesod aspect
on a larger Tree of Life. To try to make sense of a complex perception at
once, is simply to become confused. In the early part of study, there are
only glancing touches of meaning. Next, discrete symbols or functions become
more noticeable; in an alchemical picture, these may include natural trees
decorated with signs of the zodiac, planets, and similar devices. With the
examination of such details, a Hod forms on a smaller Tree of Life within a
greater Yesod, the feeling tone that comes from seeing such an unusual sight
becomes differentiated. Relations appear between the various parts, gradually
linking them together. Eventually a general meaning of the whole image starts
to form. Some portions of an alchemical picture represent earthly events,
some celestial events, some depict changes in the stages of an alchemical
process. Different animals and objects appear to symbolize transformation
from base matter into pure gold and the philosopher's stone. Eventually such a strange picture makes some sense, more than just a feeling tone; and then
you've gotten more than a simple Yesod image. You've built up a way of
relating to an understanding of the thing, first internally to the fantasy and
then externalizing to a practical sense in a Hod of a greater Tree. How does
it feel aesthetically? That is work on a Netzach image. Is it a composite
diagram that makes sense to you? That is work on Tipheret, and so on. This
is the way we think, grow and understand. It is the same, whether the object
of awareness is a strange picture, a complex memory or a physical experience.
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, and my family were members of Valley
Episcopal Church, a relatively conservative church in west Van Nuys. From
preschool up to the age of sixteen I attended first "Bible School" and then
Confirmation classes, usually three or four days a week, in addition to going
to public school. My parents were not actually that religious, but my father
would regularly lead us in saying Grace, and we always observed Easter and
Christmas with our extended family and friends. Religion was valued in our
house not because it was God's truth but because it was a family tradition, an
ethnic identity; most of my relatives were far more active in organizations
like Kiwanis Club than in their church. In our house the Bible was never
considered anything remotely like the literal word of God. I remember my
mother once describing her actual religious beliefs in terms like "I think
there's something there, but I don't know what".
Somehow (probably from my older brother) I found out around the age of five
that some people didn't believe in the reality of the God of the Bible, or
even in the existence of any kind of god at all. As I was already at that age
often in a place where I was surrounded by people worshipping and praying to
the Biblical God, I started to pray for some kind of sign from God of His
existence. I kept this up for a few years, but by the age of eight I had
become firmly convinced that indeed there was no God. In later years I came to
see the logical difficulties with dogmatic atheism and began to profess
agnosticism, but this was merely to demonstrate my antidogmatism, not out of
any actual belief in the possibility of God. I still loved much of the Bible
as literature (the Book of Jonah, Song of Songs, and the Gospel of John, just
to name a few), and in fact considered the first six chapters of Ecclesiastes
as perhaps the very greatest philosophical statement ever written. Though I
couldn't take it at all seriously as history I still appreciated it as myth
(from early childhood I've never gotten enough of tales, legends, fables,
stories of all kinds), and while I could earnestly endorse commandments like
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself", the same chapter of Leviticus goes
on to say "Thou shalt not sow thy field with two kinds of seed; neither shall
there come upon thee a garment of two kinds of stuff mingled together", so I
was not inclined to see in it an altogether appropriate guide to modern
living.
It would take several tedious pages to adequately describe the biographical
details of my journey from confident antireligious skeptic to doubtful seeker.
Perhaps it was mainly fueled by the emotional stresses of a contemporary
adolescence, and even further dramatized by all the larger existential
questions implicit in just being human. It was also a conscious intellectual
process, initiated by my discovery of the idea of mysticism per se. The welter
of conflicting dogmas, contradictory claims, and social expediencies, which so
turned me off to the world of organized religion, became less important when I
saw that a thread of real religious experience seemed to run through most if not all religions. Still, having the intellectual recognition that it's
possible to have a personal relationship with God (whatever that may be) seems
a far cry from actually having the relationship itself. So as I was leaving my
teens I began the search for some kind of personal experience of God. I was
mistrustful of organized religion (of organizations in general), and
philosophically an extreme individualist, and therefore did not become a
member of any movement, but I widened my previous readings in literature,
history, science, and philosophy, to include things like astrology, Kabbalah,
Hinduism, and Buddhism. My circle of friends also widened to include people
like Mr. O., who introduced me to much along these lines, including ceremonial
magic and Thelema.
I moved to San Francisco in 1976. Shortly thereafter I began to study the
life and writings of Aleister Crowley, and it quickly appeared that here was a
religious philosophy particularly well-suited to me. It exalted individualism.
It valued both reason and revelation, claiming to properly balance them. It
inveighed against all dogma, seemingly including that of its own adherents.
After more than a year of reading, and many discussions with Mr. O., we found
out from a local newspaper that a branch of one of Crowley's magical orders
was active over in Berkeley. Mr. O. consulted some friends he trusted and we
became convinced that this group was indeed a legitimate lineage of the
Crowley tradition, so we decided to check it out. There are numerous
permutations of Thelemic organization, varying widely in aims, in styles of
ceremonial, and ranging from masonic to ecclesiastical to collegiate in
structure. The group which we found at that time (Ordo Templi Orientis, or
O.T.O.) is a quasi-masonic social club and mystery school which offers members
a series of secret initiation rituals, along with maintaining a church wherein
public communion rituals are performed. Mr. O. and I attended one of these
public rituals, were not turned off by the "vibe", and applied to undergo (in
early 1978) the group's introductory initiation ceremony.
The O.T.O. is a "secret society" in the sense that efforts are made to keep
the details of the initiation ceremonies a secret from those who have not
undergone them. This fact has led to a great deal of silly and/or hysterical
behavior from both conspiracy theorists and misguided initiates alike.
Personally, I find that the secrecy may teach one some valuable lessons in
self-discipline, humility, and fellowship; it can also serve to heighten
tensions which are sometimes subsequently released in experiences of self-
recognition. And while I may not divulge any word or action of the rite which
I went through at that time, I may certainly describe what I experienced
spiritually. Looking back I recognize this as one of the most defining events
of my life, and yet it seems that writing about it is nearly impossible for
me. More than a decade afterward I tried my best and came up with this
entirely inadequate poem:
To bathe in a shining fragrant swell of polyphonic melody | |
is nothing to the song the universal being sings | |
Nor can poor symphonies of meaning | |
in these strings of words | |
ever cast one nilth of all the spells | |
that are contained in just one nothingth of infinity | |
And strive I may with every art | |
that ever graced the human race | |
I'll never convey the slightest clue | |
to anyone of what I knew | |
and now know just as memory | |
of light of song of ecstasy | |
-- but if I could, you'd see |
For the space of what could not have been more than three seconds of clock
time I experienced what I can only explain as eternity. And though its bliss
exceeded anything I could ever have imagined, in its aftermath I was
frightened by its absolutely overpowering reality. Many intense and varied
experiences followed in the months and years to come, often made more
confusing by my fear and attachment. Though a few glimpses of realization did
not establish me in conscious union, they did set me firmly on a path toward
it. I do not write all this to impress you with my "spiritual attainments" (an
eye-of-the-beholder judgment in any event) or to justify my own particular
practices, but merely to illustrate the basis of my viewpoint. I know that
none of my experiences constitute anything remotely like scientific proof of
the existence of God; however, they are unquestionably my authentic
experience, and I personally believe wholeheartedly in God, and in God's
intimate connection with all beings.
Fortunately, every time I think I've figured it all out, it changes in some
way, a door opens or shuts, a tollbridge or an unmarked fork appears in the
road ahead. My outlook has to widen to include more of the universe. Along the
way I've managed to avoid the worst ravages of dogmatitis by continuing to
study and derive inspiration from most of the major religious traditions. The
Thelemite's holy scripture has in it the phrase, "All words are sacred and all
prophets true", and I've taken this as a license to follow my own natural bent
in this area. Thus I've come to profess a God which lives in each and every
faith, yet is not limited to any single one of them. Still, I can also
recognize that as particular human beings we must each come to our own
particular interface with God. I am a Thelemite not because Thelema has the
best revelation, or the latest revelation, or the truest revelation, but
because it turned out to have the revelation with which I could fall in love
and find happiness. I have no need to convince others, but nonetheless my bias
is now explicitly declared. I am a Thelemite. Make of that what you will.
Note to Web edition -- These links are not all current. Some work, some have faded away. Some have been updated here since the original date of publication.
http://otohq.org/oto/
http://www.nuit.org/thelema/
http://www.holli.com/~nihil777/thelema.html
http://wolf.co.net/spamgift/catalog.html
http://www.AvatarSearch.com/index.html
http://pubweb.parc.xerox.com/map Link now obsolete
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu
http://www.wilder.net/tlc/
http://www.avesta.org/umbris.html
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/home.html
http://webmania.com.au/~chrisp/oto/
2/2/97 | Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple | Thelema Ldg. | ||
2/3/97 | Brigid Ritual at Oz House 7:00 PM | |||
2/7/97 | Chinese New Year (Year of the Ox) | |||
2/7/97 | New Moon in Aquarius 7:06 AM | |||
Thelema Ldg. | ||||
2/8/97 | Party for Zoe Sophia Magdelena and parents Heather & Lew 6PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
2/9/97 | Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple | Thelema Ldg. | ||
2/11/97 | Mardi Gras parade in Berkeley | |||
2/12/97 | Thelema Lodge Library night 8PM (call to attend) | Thelema Ldg. | ||
2/14/97 | Feast of St. Valentinus (Lupercalia) | |||
2/16/97 | Thelema Lodge Luncheon Meeting 12:30 | Thelema Ldg. | ||
2/16/97 | Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple | Thelema Ldg. | ||
2/18/97 | Sun into Pices 6:52 AM | |||
2/19/97 | Tarot with Bill Heidrick, 7:30 PM in San Anselmo at 5 Suffield Ave. | Thelema Ldg. | ||
2/22/97 | OTO initiations. Call to attend (Degree advancement) | Thelema Ldg. | ||
2/23/97 | Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple | Thelema Ldg. | ||
2/24/97 | Sirius Oasis meeting 8PM Berkeley | Sirius Oasis | ||
2/25/97 | Thelema Lodge Library night 8PM (call to attend) | Thelema Ldg. | ||
2/28/97 | "The Houses in Astrology" workshop with Grace in Berkeley 7 PM | Thelema Ldg. |
The viewpoints and opinions expressed herein are the responsibility of the
contributing authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of OTO or its
officers.
Thelema Lodge
Ordo Templi Orientis
P.O. Box 2303
Berkeley, CA 94702 USA
Phone: (510) 652-3171 (for events info and contact to Lodge)
Production and Circulation:
OTO-TLC
P.O.Box 430
Fairfax, CA 94978 USA
Internet: heidrick@well.com (Submissions and circulation only)