Thelema Lodge
Ordo Templi Orientis
P.O.Box 2303
Berkeley, CA 94702 USA
May 1997 e.v. at Thelema Lodge
Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers
The lodge is expected to provide basic guidelines for mass officers, and
the following points have been considered in defining the practical
responsibilities of those who are privileged to serve us as clergy in Horus
Temple. Please consult with the lodgemaster or one of our bishops for further
discussion of these matters.
1. The basic necessities of wine and roses for each mass are the
responsibility of all three officers in the mass team. At least seven fresh
roses of some suitable color, and at least 3 liters of still red table wine or
any sparkling wine. (Three liters amounts to two magnum bottles, or four
standard wine bottles.) The total cost is likely to be about twenty-five
dollars, and the three officers may apportion the responsibility among
themselves as they see fit. Officers for whom the cost of these supplies
represents a significant burden must take care to find a supportive team with
which to work. The lodge welcomes gifts of red taper candles (or other
candles), but mass teams are not expected to concern themselves with the
temple candles.
2. Celebration of mass requires the magical focus of the officers in
advance of the ritual, and the roles of priestess, priest, and deacon entail several hours of preparatory concentration. Officers ought to arrive quite
early, and unless special arrangements have been unavoidably necessary and
fully worked out in advance, all mass officers are expected to be present in
the temple at least a full hour in advance of the calendared mass time. At
least two of the officers are strongly advised to occupy the temple even
earlier, to see to airing and sweeping the room when necessary. Careless
delay on the part of the team while the assembled people are awaiting mass is
inconsiderate, and causes problems for those who must schedule their return
home afterwards. (Officers absent without adequate notice half an hour before
the announced mass time should expect to be replaced with at least a tinge of
disgrace.)
3. It is the duty of the team, traditionally undertaken or coordinated by
the deacon, to cleanse and purify the temple before mass. The temple is best
swept clean in daylight. Since it is not possible to enforce much clean-up
after mass, it becomes the responsibility of the incoming mass team to be sure
all vestments and equipment are properly hung, stored, or positioned when they
first occupy the temple. If repairs or adjustments are needed, or if any
special arrangements of temple furniture or temporary ornaments are
contemplated, these are to be worked out in consultation with the lodge
officers.
4. On nearly all public occasions we strive at Horus Temple to avoid
alterations to the wording of Liber XV, or to the directions it provides.
When slips occur, it is unwise to try disguising them as intentional changes,
and much better to simply back up a bit and get it right. Although performed
as a dramatic ritual, the mass is not a stageplay; it is a magical working
done according to precise formulae, and it succeeds on the intimate level of
the inner alchemy of its officers and of each communicant, where no clever
line or silly pun, no fancy robe, no ornate tool, no "abbreviated missal for
popular response" or spiffy script can take us. The priest's and priestess's
parts ought to be completely and comfortably memorized, although it seems
better to request prompting from the deacon, or even to consult a script
during a brief pause, than to rush nervously through, or to omit, any portion
of the liturgy. A deacon whose knowledge of the ritual and whose presence of
mind are less than absolute should ordinarily have a mass script open and
ready, to assist or to prompt calmly if necessary. Deacons are also
encouraged to know their lines very well, but should concentrate on leading
the people and projecting an understanding of their part, rather than making
too much of a stunt out of being able to glibly reel off the words.
5. The national administration of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica within the
O.T.O. resists our long-accepted local practice of occasionally introducing
minor and appropriate variations to the list of gnostic saints' names. If in
the preparations for a mass it emerges that the team's developing
understanding of gnostic sainthood has led to special consideration of the
claims of additional saints which are likely to spill over as inadvertent
spontaneous interpolations during mass, the officers are requested to discuss
their ideas with the lodgemaster or one of the bishops. (It would seem a
terrible violation of privacy and autonomy to mythologize a living individual
as a saint, and despite Crowley's own bad example we do not appropriate in
this way the unfinished lives of our biological contemporaries.)
6. National church policy would like to see baptism and confirmation be
considered necessary for mass officers. This qualification is accepted in
Horus Temple as a completely personal matter for each individual, and the
lodge cannot undertake to administrate over such fine points of ecclesiastical
status among its members. Only in the office of gnostic bishop, in those
cases where the bishop demonstrates familiarity and understanding both of the
mass and of our local community and its traditions, is clerical status likely
to be accepted as conveying any special authority in Horus Temple. All of our
regularly involved gnostic bishops are now technically designated as
"auxiliary bishops" by the Order, meaning that they are likely to have
deserved their authority through long practical familiarity and leadership in the E.G.C., rather than having it conveyed automatically in one of the upper
degree initiation ceremonies. The rituals of baptism and consecration are
occasionally offered in Horus Temple following the mass, and any enthusiasm
for them should be directed to one of our bishops. (If any of our officers
ever suspect that they have had the audacity to celebrate light, life,
liberty, and love without having attained to all of the requisite degrees,
ordeals, blessings, and accomplishments as outlined by the national church of
their choice, then let them deal internally with the most high for these
irregular joys, and keep the problem to themselves.)
7. Cakes of light for Sunday communion continue to be always fully cooked
and biologically sterile according to the established practices of our temple
as directly outlined by the church Father. (It has been our experience here
that those members who choose to cultivate an obsession upon theoretical
objections to this directive -- however needless and silly it may seem -- are
usually seeking an excuse for unrelated non-participation.) If cakes are to
be baked in the lodge kitchen, this process ought to be complete no later than
an hour before calendared mass time, and officers will be expected to bring
their own ingredients and supplies (and also to clear away all their materials
as soon as they are finished, of course). No extraneous ingredients should be
present in the cakes, nor should they be so large, thick, rough, or hard as to
physically challenge the communicants who will consume them. Cakes of light
should be dry when served, and the ideal shape and size might be that of a
nickel. (The cake which the priestess especially prepares for the priest is
not bound by the popular protocol, and they may determine its nature for
themselves.)
The Section Two reading group meets at Oz House on Monday evening 19th May,
beginning at 8:00. Join Caitlin for a discussion and selected reading of En Route, a novel published in 1895 by the Parisian civil servant Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907). We follow the continuing spiritual adventures of
Durtal, the central character of Huysmans' notorious "decadent" novel Là-bas
four years earlier. Both books are included on Crowley's "suggestive and
helpful" reading list of imaginative literature, probably because they were
influential in the fictional presentation of ritual and of spiritual
psychology. Huysmans defined a new kind of narrative figure with his
hypersensitive, aesthetically motivated, morally complicated, and basically
helpless, unhealthy, and unhappy hero Durtal. This autobiographical character
had been drawn "down below" to experiment with Satanism and sadism in the
earlier story, criticized by Crowley as "extravagances caused by the Sin-
complex." En Route finds Durtal in recovery, dazed from the "black" rituals
and the heartless copulations of his averse Catholicism. As any true Satanist
will, he ends up a devout Christian as a punishment for his sins. Crowley
calls it "an account of the follies of Christian mysticism," and indeed this
novel captures the texture of obsessive devotion and the spiritual techniques
of monastic perversion to an extent not often penetrated by nineteenth century
fiction. It may not sound like good clean fun, but Huysmans is also a
fascinatingly intelligent writer, throwing away ideas and researches of all
kinds throughout his fiction, and En Route contains some outstanding passages
on the spiritual implications of music and architecture.
The Houses in Astrology workshop with Grace meets on Friday evening 30th
May at the Temple of Astrology in Berkeley. Call (510) 843-STAR to attend
this workshop, which will be covering the twelfth house this month. With this
meeting we complete a cycle through all twelve of the houses, and as we
observe the closure we will also be plotting a future course along some new
organizational principle.
The Law is for All is being read and discussed verse by verse in a cozy
study circle meeting in the lodge den an hour before the gnostic mass each
Sunday. Call Michael at (510) 601-9393 for information, or simply show up by
7:00 on Sunday evening and offer to take part.
Accepting the task half a century ago of introducing this carefully
simplified "popular edition" of one of Crowley's more difficult works, Louis
Wilkinson recommended Crowley's Commentary on Liber AL in the plainest
possible terms: "The gain that the reader will get from this book will be primarily religious. For the 'Law' is in its essence a religious Law; its sanctions, its injunctions, and its prohibitions are religious. At the same time it is not a dogmatic religion in the sense in which most religions are dogmatic; it is a Faith for the individualist, as is clearly shown by its central text, 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.' 'Discover your own true will,' is the meaning of this; 'and then act in harmony with it to the utmost of your powers.' The aim of the Commentary on the Book of the Law is to guide the reader along the path of the discovery of his own true will, in accordance with which, and only in accordance with which, he can rightly think and act. This is why 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.' Only by so doing will you be shown your own true thought and life."
The Ancient Ways Pan Pagan Festival at Harbin Hot Springs will be held on
4th through 8th June. Contact the Ancient Ways store at 4075 Telegraph Avenue
in Oakland or call (510) 653-3244 in the afternoons for information, or call
Sirius Oasis at (510) 527-2855.
A publisher, hearing recently from Mr Percy Mackaye, to whom he had sent a
book for review, was advised by this great poet to have the volume rebound;
for the cover was so brutal and repulsive that, for his part, he had thrown
the book into the wastepaper basket without further investigation.
Here is the calibre of Mr Mackaye's mind.
What insight! What knowledge of the world! How much must one know who
judges of literature by what is not even its outward show, but an accident for
which the writer is not, as a rule, in any way responsible.
This revelation of genius, the power to divine Hercules not from his own
foot, but from the boot of somebody whom Hercules had never met, sent me
headlong to the library; for alas, my own shelves were bare of any such
masterpieces as Percy Mackaye's.
The covers of his books were neither brutal nor repulsive; my path to the
chefs d'oeuvre themselves was easy.
The "frightfulness" only appears on beginning to read. I began with A Thousand Years Ago. In a preface the great poet explains
why he wrote this play; for which much thanks.
The scene is laid in Pekin. Mr Mackaye has read the encyclopedia for China
under the letter C, and for Drama under the letter D, and confined his
information. But it must have been a somewhat poor encyclopedia.
All his characters rant like Ancient Pistol; wordy bombast, all at the top
of their voices. "By the carcass of Charlemagne, I am dog-aweary of twanging these gutstrings for breakfast." (Dog-aweary is a new one on me, but it is
probably poetic license. This stuff is printed as if it were blank verse, but
the scansion is as poor as the sense.)
To get the Chinese flavor, Mr Mackaye deems it sufficient to preface every
other speech by an oath introducing the name of what he probably supposes to
be a Chinese God. The emperor keeps on ejaculating "by holy Confucius!" "Great Buddha!" "My star!" His name, by the way, is Altorma, which does not
sound very Chinese, somehow. But it doesn't matter much, for his courtiers
talk Arabic, saying "Salaam!" when asked to salute a superior, who then
assumes a "toploftical" attitude, though probably still "dog-aweary."
The book is full of such delightful finds -- almost every page has a gem.
"Is he at the door?" "Not him."
The play itself is the veriest rag-bag of stale device. The princess whose
hand depends on the guessing of three riddles; the potion which if dropped on
a sleeping lover's lips will make him tell his secret thought; the prince who
disguises himself as a beggar, and so on. As the princess herself says, "O, you poor, bloody heads on Pekin's wall. Have you, then, died for this?"
I thought perhaps that Mr Mackaye might be happier at home; so I turned to
Yankee Fantasies. Here also he graciously explains himself, and why he did
it, and his importance to the theatre, and again I am very glad. He tells us
how impossible it is to represent dialect graphically, but in the text he
proceeds to do it, and by great Buddha, I am dog-aweary.
But I do adore his stage directions; the climax of Chuck woke me up. Here
you are:
"A locust rasps in an elm.
"Faint crickets chirp in the grass.
"An oriole flutes from an apple tree.
"From his hole, the wood-chuck crawls cautiously out, nosing, as he does so, a crumpled and earth-soiled veil, which clings to his dusky hair, half clothing him.
"Pulling from his burrow an ear of corn, he sits on his haunches, silently nibbling it -- his small eyes half shut in the sunshine."
I do honestly hope the greatest success for Mr Mackaye, the modern
Shakespeare, because I want to see Sir Herbert Tree as The Woodchuck.
And now I am awake enough to get on to Gettysburg. This play is printed in
blank verse, minus capitals at the beginnings of the lines. But Mr Mackaye is
out to prove that blank verse need not be poetry. He ambles along with
perfectly commonplace thought and language, which happens to scan. It simply
makes the play read like shocking bad prose.
"O' course; but I must take my little laugh. I told him I guessed I wasn't presentable any how, my mu'stache and my boots wa'n't blacked this morning. I don't jest like t' talk about my legs. Be you a-goin' to take your young school folks, Polly?"
Mr Mackaye, like other amateur minor poets -- if you can call him that --
never suspects that there is a reason for using blank verse, that the only
excuse for using it is to produce an effect which cannot be produced elsehow.
Without exaltation of theme and treatment, blank verse is a blunder, and one
can usually spot the poetical booby by his abuse of it.
In the books at my disposal I can find few lyrics. It may by that Percy
Mackaye -- how full of suggestion is that name! -- has written some odes which
leave the "Nightingale" and the "Grecian Urn" and "Melancholy" in the
wastepaper basket along with that book with the brutal and repulsive cover; he
may have "Prometheus Unbound" beaten a mile; he may have "Lycidas" and
"Adonais" taking the count; he may be able to give cards and spades to
"Atalanta" and "Dolores" and "Epipsychidion" and "Anactoria." Hope so. I
want some first-rate fresh poetry to read. Hope so. But I have not seen it.
Instead, I see this!
"Long ago, in the young moonlight,
I lost my heart to a hero;
Strong and tender and stern and right
And terribler than Nero.
Heigho, but he was a dear, O!"
At the conclusion of this, one of the listeners asks: "Was it a fragrance or a song?" In my considered opinion, it must have been a fragrance.
I am aware that this is a very short article, but there are really limits
to the amount one can write about Nothing.
Pragmatic Earth Sign, Bird of Light | |
Frigidity | |
Rigidity | |
Dramatic Birth Line, Word in Flight | |
Clarity | |
Polarity | |
Star Snake Shining, Blind Sperm Spinning | |
Normality | |
Reality | |
Bright Roots Twining, First Beginning | |
Quality | |
Frivolity | |
This poem was originally published in 1986 e.v. in the London/Bergen volume of McMurtry: Poems and then at Thelema Lodge in The Grady Project two years later. More recently it has appeared in Australia in the O.T.O. journal Beastly, and subsequently in The Red Flame.
Derived from a lecture series in 1977 e.v. by Bill Heidrick
Copyright © Bill Heidrick
The Tree diagram itself belongs to Hod, since it is a way of organizing and
understanding in rational terms. The Tree as an idea also belongs to Netzach
and other Sephirot. Life is more complete in Netzach. After deliberate
intellectual work in Hod, a point is reached where the right decisions are
automatically made without intellectualizing. The whole heart and soul
participates. It takes time to reach such a stage.
Before we go on, let's look again at the idea of putting Trees within
Trees. This is a crucial thing. Using a single Tree of Life to analyze
situations over simplifies. With compound Trees within Trees, if you can't
find meaning in one way, you can find it in another. A Tree may describe a
single task or experience, or what life was like during the daylight hours.
Such a Tree can be considered to be within one Sephira of the Tree of night
and day. That Tree, in turn, is within one Sephira of a myriad of other
Trees, encompassing an entire life and continuing on to a further Tree which
encompasses all of humanity. This sort of nesting of things, within things,
within other things can be used in studies of many different systems of
knowledge. The atoms are like society; their electrons orbit a center.
Society is like the solar system with the planets orbiting the Sun. The solar
system is like the galaxies orbiting one another. This relation goes on
indefinitely. This nesting of Trees within Trees is a version of that, using
the pattern of the Tree of Life. More complex relations are also possible
using this and other ways of projecting or multiplying the diagram, like
parallel universes relating mathematically.
In solid state physics the structures of crystals are studied. Crystal
lattices are examined, among other things. The lattices show positions of
atoms, ions or molecules, whatever makes up the crystal. They are all very
regular patterns, like the Tree of Life, but three dimensional. That's all
very nice, but the mathematics that describes such things can become awkward.
A mathematical physicist may choose to go into what is called phase space.
Instead of plotting the locations of the atoms, phase space involves plotting
the dimensionality of the space between the atoms, as though those separations
of atoms were discrete things like atoms themselves. What is the crystalline
Tree of Life? The positions of the Sephirot are easily seen, but for some
things the Sephirot are not easy to use. They are ten separate things, not
obviously interrelated. It can be a strain to always speak in terms of the
Hod relating to Chokmah and similar matters through complex situation changes.
Instead of focusing on the Sephirot, we can study their separations. There
are 22 paths on a Tree of Life connecting Sephirot, a little more or less in
different designs of the Tree. Instead of thinking about paths connecting the
Sephirot, think about Sephirot connecting the paths. In this way, the paths
become 22 letters. Given this context, what is the relation between the
letter Aleph and the letter Gimmel? Keter directly ties them, but Chokmah,
Da'at and Tipheret mark differences between these two letters. This is a very
different sort of perspective, one we haven't discussed before. It's a world
in which some things suddenly become much more difficult and others become
very easy. Each of these different ways of using the Tree of Life is a
similar little mind wringer. Learning and experimenting with different modes
or methods enhances the mind, giving it a selection of tools for different
situations.
The principles of the Tree of Life are valid in one Tree; but, once you
have learned something of this simple Tree, it's time to learn other
perspectives and relations. Learning the basic Tree pattern amounts to
discovering the Tree of Life. Projecting the Tree of Life involves changing
it or extending it. Multiplying it is the kind of thing we've been discussing
here. Take ten Sephirot, each one containing a full Tree of Life with ten
Sephirot. That makes 100 Sephirot. Each one of those contains another Tree
of Life, that's a 1,000 Sephirot. Each one of those contains yet another;
10,000 points of real, individualized and aware consciousness which can be
mastered. Such complexity cannot be held all in the conscious mind at one
time, but it can be reached as though through the index of a book. Focus on
any particular Sephirot. Proceed with any detail within that particular
Sephirot or until you get down through successive stages to a point of
clarity.
This approach was pioneered by Moses of Cordova. Someone might come with a
problem: "My mother in law has a skin disease and my wife hates me, and I
don't understand what all these things are about." Moses of Cordova could
say; "Well, what is happening there is that within Yesod there is a Binah.
Within that Binah there is another Yesod. In your home, in the Yesod that is
the place where you are just relaxing and thinking, your Mother in law is like
a Binah, ruling that home. Because she has a skin disease, her daughter is
upset and this upsets the life of your home. There are three Trees nested
within one another ..." -- the poor fellow would wander away thinking "what is
going on!?" For Moses of Cordova, it made sense. It can make sense to you
too, but it takes practice. Find occasions to string a Tree of Life simply,
like a gauze net over a part of your life, a little experience or encounter.
Identify the parts of that in very small detail. Usually it's easy to find a
polarity, something that you can build a Tree of Life across, perhaps
something that you like or dislike -- either one, it doesn't matter which.
That's the two extreme points, the Keter and Malkut of a Tree beginning to
manifest. Beyond this, the analysis may begin.
In this connection I think I better tell you that the FBI has been and is hot on my trail. You will probably remember their investigation of Agape Lodge in 1942 or 1943 where -- as far as I know -- Jack and WTS were involved because of complaints by neighbors. Have any other Lodge members been questioned at that time? O was called, or better, summoned to the F.B.I. H.Q. and severely cross questioned. At least since that time (1943), possibly since 1942, my telephones have been tapped. A friend of mine was called to the FBI last week (they had recorded a phone talk) to tll {sic} them about it (whether I am a Nazi, or a Communist, what he knew about A.C., whether he had been in California, whether he knew thelemic literature, etc. etc.). It so happened that I had not seen that friend for a year or two, and that he knew or remembered only vaguely about my talking or showing him Liber AL, and OZ; and that he is a loyal friend. He has been the first who -- to the annoyance of the FBI -- called me up at once and asked me what I had committed, and that they had a 200 page file on my case.
The whole thing is against A.C. and against Thelema (they knew that I had testified in 1934 for A.C. in his libel suit and that the British since then have consistently refused a visa to me).
I should not wonder now if they have not for a long time watched my envelopes to know the names of those with whom I correspond, in order to get data on the spy net that I control, in the USA and especially in California, but also abroad. For many years we have had the most peculiar, sometimes naive and childish experiences. The pieces only now seem to fit together into a scheme. I presume they know the names and addresses of everybody in Cal. To what extent they check on them I don't know. The fact is that our phone at H.Q. is also tapped. As nobody can find the place the first time, we have arranged for visitors to call us up on the phone from the nearest town or phone, so that I can meet them and take them up to our house. We are quite secluded and it begins to be funny for us to see soon after a visitor has phoned that some lout passes near by to try to get the number of the License Plate or see what wicked plotters are there.
Of course, we have nothing to hide. We have no secrets. Nor do we try to do anything even in the slightest to the detriment of the U.S., or the Government. In fact, my friend advised me to frankly write to Edgar Hoover and ask for an interview (a thought I've had before). But I'm poor at talking, I could never expound 93, or, in case of an attack, defend my or our position decently. The time, I feel ever surer, will come for things of that sort. I like a fight, a real fight. But it is the Gods who will prepare the day, and patience can be a great virtue. One must know to wait.
STATEMENT OF OPERATION "SNEAK".
I arrived in New York from France June 1941.
Soon after my arrival the surveillance of me and my movements seems to have started.
Since 1942 my telephones have been tapped; possibly since 1941 when I lived at
1007 Lexington ave, though I have no evidence of this; but certainly
when I lived at W. 71st St, during the whole period (eight years) when
we lived at 260 W 72nd St. And, of course, when we took our house in
Hampton N.J.
As a result whenever I began a new business enterprise it was interfered with
and wrecked. Mrs. Germer's flourishing music studio has been
destroyed with the most devilishly sinister means. Her best students
have been weaned away or influenced against her, trained to spy on
her, to trap her probably with a view ultimately to frame her, and
through her, me. Some students quite likely were ordered to carry
secret microphones.
It is true that telephones may legally only be tapped
(a) for a limited period only;
(b) by permission of established authorities;
(c) by notifying the persons tapped
then we are not aware that any of these legal rules have been
observed.
The F.B.I. or organisation that has been organising this persecution had
established an office just opposite, and one the same floor-level of
our studio apartment in 260 W 72nd St. New York. From there close
watch was maintained of all our activities. Cars (Cadillacs) were
ready to trail us, even when Mr. G. himself went to meet an
appointment with doctor or dentist, or took Mrs. G. there. From there
a watch service seems to have been organized. When we went to a
theater, opera, or movie there was sure to be a watcher to take the
time of our return at the door, often very late at night.
From the opposite window our apartment windows could be easily seen.
Once Mrs. G.'s most successful singer was invited to the rooms or
offices of the F.B.I. opposite, and was shown how well she could
observe the goings-on in our apartment.
There is evidence that the superintendents of the apartments we had were paid
to spy. This is positive of the apartment-building at 260 W. 72nd St.
Hampton N.J. -- our house there is secluded, but watched closely since we
bought it. A great number of men, women, boys and girls keep close
watch; they must follow instructions from a center which again has
access to the telephone tapping and know our intended movements and
returns. The license numbers of the cars of our visitors were
regularly registered, probably to obtain their names in order to
contact them later. They, though former friends, became invariably
alienated, or began to ask strange questions such as Catholics,
Communism.
Worse than this; Both Mrs. G. and I. have personal files with books,
papers, records, letters etc. While living in New York, we used to
take long vacations, such as one month in the Adirondacks, the
Catskills, 3 months in California, 2 months in Canada. The
regulations in New York say that one key must be left with the
superintendent of the building. We noticed that our papers have been
carefully and systematically searched, not by burglars but people who
were after other things. From Mrs. G.'s files some extremely (to her)
important and valuable records of her former professional activities
have been stolen. In my files, during the New York period, I could
see how greatly they were in disorder. Some books were stolen.
When I moved to our house in Hampton I bought steel filing cabinets
with keys and locks. Yet the Yale locks did not prevent the intruders
from entering our house during our absence, but also had means to open
the steel cabinets, search and take books, papers away from my library
and files. We were while we still had our apartment in New York, in
the habit of leaving our house in Hampton Monday morning, working in
New York till Thursday night, then returning to Hampton. This
schedule was known accurately by the spy system. During the three
days they had ample time to search and keep a tab on what letters were
being written, to whom, and from whom received. The things that have
been stolen have no interest or value to an ordinary burglar. The
hand that is manipulating this has other interests.
Another angle is that our apartment at 260 W. 72nd St. in New York was
wired or connected to a microphone system. The owner of the next-door
apartment was contacted by agents and from being a close friend of
Mrs. G. in particular, began silly questions, and peculiar talk.
Later she tried to interfere in the music lessons of Mrs. G., and
finally the wall connecting to our apartment had either a microphone
installed or otherwise wired. This on top of the automatic telephone
tapping practice.
In our house in Hampton N.J. it seems evident that one has gone a step
further, and that it is wired electrically to record even intimate
conversations. If we plan to drive to Washington N.J. there are sure
to be agents appointed to watch our movements. The same applies
generally. When we plant to drive to New York, or visit so-called
friends (now most of them active agents of the 'System' trying to trap
us into certain kinds of statements which they lead up to, or at least
alienated) out of town, the spys are informed beforehand by phone
tapping or microphone, and can lay their plans to search our records
in our absence.
And continue it Karl did, more than forty pages of it, dated as late as 1955 e.v. In the course of time, nearly every American acquaintance, OTO or not, came to be considered a spy.
P. remarked about a psychological theory that release of repressed emotions or memories is identical with ecstasy and spiritual development.
That view seems to be an exaggeration made to put forward a particular
theory. There is some truth in it, but not to that extreme. Attainment of
the heights of spiritual development does require transcending petty worries
and such repression. Some spiritual development is always possible, without
that release. Many of the more effective techniques actually use such stress
emotions to break through, and it is possible that spiritual ecstasy requires
some balancing with such flaws in the psychology -- the old theory that beauty
is not possible without ugliness to give it a contrast. Tarot uses imagery to
open paths in the mind which may be inaccessible to words alone. Magick
explores the paths of the mind, often applying the functional relations of
mental processes to things sensed in outer life. Qabalah combines structure
with mysticism. All transform the conscious mind via unconscious association.
Initiations are forms of psychodrama, and most employ crisis induction to
produce the necessary change. Religious initiations, such as marriage, 1st
communion and priestly consecration, may ask little more than overcoming stage
fright and making a commitment in plain words before witnesses. Even those
initiations commonly require formulas of dramatic change that involve a death
and rebirth of sorts.
Initiations intended to advance grades or degrees in organizations of a
mystical or magical character commonly employ sensory stimuli (lights and
physical exertion are the most common) and crisis induction questions or
situations.
For individual work, the Goetia are sometimes used to externally personify
character and emotional faults as "spirits" which may be controlled by
external means. Crowley advocated what he called the NOX formula, deliberate
use of stressful emotion to induce excitement for ultimate use in another way.
The normal state of a living organism, human as well as everything else, is
passivity, bordering on sleep. Stimuli are required to do anything, whether
those stimuli are physical drives (hunger, pain, pleasure etc.) or mental
drives (conceptions of necessity, of impossibility, of attraction etc.). To
obtain an ecstatic experience deliberately, it is necessary to create a
situation in mind and/or in body which provides the correct stimulation.
Refined methods may use purely mental structures for this; but commonly some
physical aspect is also necessary, even if it is only a form of body yoga
where internal body sensations are used to induce ecstasy.
It is also necessary, for a deliberate and controlled ecstatic experience,
to prepare oneself to "go in that direction" when the conditions are created
for that effect. This includes both avoidance of distraction and training to
react in a particular way to the selected stimuli.
The ecstatic experience requires some stress or problem to exist.
Resolution of that problem is liberation from that stress. Ecstasy is the by-
product of that release. More narrowly still, this is why people sky-dive --
the fear of free fall overcomes some other mental, emotional or physical
problem for a moment of ecstasy. In the latter case, the resolution is
usually temporary, but the ecstatic experience may be enjoyed repeatedly. In
the former case, a permanent resolution of a repressed negative emotion may
produce ecstasy only once, with no possibility of recapturing that pleasure by
the same means later. Magical techniques are intended in part to produce
either repeated ecstasy or a progression of ecstatic experiences. Initiations
are intended to induce an ecstatic experience under circumstances that imprint
or re-direct the mind into some new sort of work, new view on life or other
association with the purpose of the initiation. As the name implies,
initiations are beginnings of something new. The ecstatic experience may take
place during the ritual or later, as the situation produced by the ritual
plays itself out.
M. asked about summoning a spirit to material manifestation and about shape changing.
To manifest on the physical plane, a spirit must have either a material
observer capable of transforming a spiritual perception into physical results
or a vessel to inhabit. The former is called a "materializing medium" -- in
that case the effects on the physical plane are produced by a human being.
The latter varies greatly, from using a human being as a container for the
spirit, using some object, using a material like water or smoke on to the
extreme of producing some sort of substance just while the spirit is present.
These different approaches also vary in difficulty. The easiest is to allow
the spirit to inhabit a living human being. The most difficult is to have the
spirit use some lifeless matter or form itself to a physical presence from
whatever is already in the environment. A materializing medium works well,
but this sort or person is very rare and the results may have more to do with
fantasy than the independent workings of a particular spirit.
In the case of shape changing, the same conditions apply for summoning of a
spirit. Each of us is in fact a spirit inhabiting a material body. It is
very difficult to change the shape of that body to resemble another physical
thing, aside from minor and gradual adjustments. Through practice, one can
change ones self-image to another form. It is more difficult to make that
form visible to others. The most common technique for shape shifting aims at
possessing another body, not changing ones own body. This is the practice of
inhabiting the body of a bird, animal or other human. The last is considered
immoral, but all of these acts of possession are difficult.
J. raised a question about "Laws of Nature" and modern science.
Although some physicists still favor the notion of Laws of Nature, most do
not. The water-shed was Heisenberg and Schrodinger. The Uncertainty
principle is often explained as "observation altering results", but that's a
euphemism. Heisenberg notes that knowledge of the state of small quanta
presents a fundamental ambiguity. To an extent, knowing position fuzzes out
knowledge of motion and knowledge of motion fuzzes out knowledge of position.
When Schrodinger and Dirac described small quanta, probability distribution
mathematics turned out to be necessary. The classic case is a particle in a
"box". It turns out for small quanta that there is a finite probability of
finding the particle outside the box, even through system constraints would
appear to require the particle to stay in the box. Bose and Fermi discovered
that some particles, notably electrons, do not have the quality of identity.
It is not possible to solve the equations for a Helium atom and conserve the
assumption that electrons can be distinguished from one moment to the next.
Although electrons are often described as particles, they also exhibit a wave
phenomenon nature, as though they were patterns of wave interference which
mimic some of the behavior of particles. In particular, an electron can go
from one place to another without traversing the space between those points.
The upshot of all this was fall-back to the model theory of epistemology:
The "laws" of physics are actually summaries of data, not anthropomorphic
constraints on the universe from a divine mind or set of rigid relations. All
phenomena described by modern physics are held to be described by probability
relations, not absolute laws. One outcome of this was the development of
chaos math and physics, the mathematics of progressed random perturbations in
large aggregate systems. In Newtonian physics, the systems are artificially
simple and predictable with precision. In large aggregate real systems, as
also in small quanta systems, prediction is only possible by probability
distributions. For large aggregate systems, the number of events and
particles tends to produce "strange" but stable results. For small aggregate
systems of small quanta, single events have no finite solution predictability at all, just probable result distributions, which have no significance for
precision prediction of a single event.
Even in older physics, the "action at a distance" nature of vector force
fields presented an intractable problem in terms of a philosophy of "Laws of
Nature". The system began to totter when Michelson and Morley were unable to
detect motion through the luminous aether. The rise of Uncertainty and
Quantum Mechanics put paid to the hope of a "law" that would explain away
these difficulties. All this upset Einstein, who did not want to believe in a
god who played craps with the universe.
Actually, stepping out of physics, this really comes down to the same issue
seen in theology on the questions of Determinism and Free Will. It turns out
that all large aggregate, large quanta systems appear to be determined. All
small quantum single events are undetermined. When you pour sand in a box,
you cannot predict where individual sand grains will lodge. You can predict
the general shape of the composite mass of sand grains in the box.
5/4/97 | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | Thelema Ldg. | ||
5/5/97 | Beltaine in Berkeley Hills. Leaving OZ house 6:15PM | Thelema Ldg. | ||
5/6/97 | New Moon in Taurus 1:47PM | |||
5/11/97 | Thelema Lodge Luncheon Meeting 12:30 | Thelema Ldg. | ||
5/11/97 | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | Thelema Ldg. | ||
5/13/97 | Thelema Lodge Library night 8PM (call to attend) | Thelema Ldg. | ||
5/17/97 | Thelema Lodge OTO initiations (call to attend) | Thelema Ldg. | ||
5/18/97 | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | Thelema Ldg. | ||
5/19/97 | Section II Group reading with Caitlin: Huysmans Enroute 8PM at OZ House | Thelema Ldg. | ||
5/21/97 | Tarot with Bill Heidrick, 7:30 PM in San Anselmo at 5 Suffield Ave. | Thelema Ldg. | ||
5/22/97 | Full Moon in Sagittarius 2:13 AM | |||
5/18/97 | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | Thelema Ldg. | ||
5/26/97 | Sirius Oasis meeting 8PM Berkeley | Sirius Oasis | ||
5/28/97 | Thelema Lodge Library night 8PM (call to attend) | Thelema Ldg. | ||
5/30/97 | "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.
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