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Crowley Classics

Our Valentine's essay from the Master Therion was originally prefixed to The Scented Garden of Abdullah the Satirist of Shiraz (also known in Persian as Bagh-i-Muattar), which Crowley had privately and pseudonymously published in 1910 e.v. from London. In his two introductory essays to this infamous collection of satirical imitations of Persian erotic poetry, as in his many fascinating and significant annotations upon his own verses, Crowley imitated the styles and attitudes of Sir Richard Burton in his publications for the "Kama Shastra Society." What makes Burton's comments so impressive, here and there among the miscellaneous data of his footnotes, is the magisterial intimacy and precision of his discussions, based upon his own global investigations of human copulative practices. Crowley's adoption of a similar stance is sometimes successful in this piece in eliciting a degree of objective procedural detail which is not always present in his more literary or magical essays upon sexual subjects.

    R. is the Father, W. the Son,
    And E. the Holy Spirit, three and one:
    But if they esoterically are read,
    My equal name shall glitter out instead.

                     "Arse makes life golden, want of it dull yellow;
                     The rest is only leather and prunella."

    At least, the rest is but préliminaires. An acute observer of my acquaintance remarked to me recently that it was the actual mess caused by emission, and the necessity of cleaning up, that, by allowing time for passion to cool, prevented a great deal of copulation which would otherwise take place. There is a great gulf fixed between the "short time" and the "all night," and that great gulf is filled with Condy's Fluid! This applies equally to Sodomy. If the semen is safely bestowed in mouth or anus of the beloved one, the temptation is to begin all over again; bar the trifle of fatigue, one is in the same position as at first; its loss between the legs or in the hand rouses a sentiment of disgust² which is fatal to passion. Even the mouth, like the vagina, remains in a somewhat greasy condition after it has achieved the holy task, and we have no hesitation in plumbing for the anus as the one vase into which the perfumed oil of manhood may be poured without exciting a reaction.³
    This point being established, let me further⁴ make a distinction between the two great classes of sodomites. Ulrichs has pedantically christened them Urning and Uranodioning: for the former we have no colloquial name: the latter we term Bimetallist.⁵ Being himself an Urning, he has naturally failed to grasp the vase gap that divides the classes, which is that between an indulgence and a morbid craving: between the insane delusion that one is Jesus Christ or Julius Caesar and the sane and healthy resolve to emulate the exploits of these worthies in mysticism and war respectively. We pity the Urning, as we pity the consumptive or the drunkard above all other pitiable folk. We do not acknowledge any nervous weakness as having a peculiar claim on us, just because it lies in the same plane⁶ as one of our hobbies.
    Now this question of Bimetallism leads us to the subject of the reasons for our indulgence, since we are not (as some silly Germans would pretend) equally with the Urning the slaves of an uncontrollable paramoia, to use a somewhat discredited but useful term.
    "Why, in short, (quoth Mr. Moses Monometallist) loving women as you do, sir, do you go to boys and men? Is it only for variety? If not, in what does the charm consist?
    I will enumerate the conditions, and that cheerfully, since it will incidentally enable me to justify that very remarkable phrase used above, the spirituality of Sodomy.
    A woman can afford two pleasures to a man, which a boy cannot: namely:
                                (1) the pleasure of the cunnilinge
                                (2) common copulation
(both these either with or without "red and white roses," i.e. menses and leucorrhoea).
    Common to either sex (besides opifex and artifex) are obviously all forms of masturbation with the hand, mouth, breast, armpit, etc.: active sodomy: most forms of sadism and masochism; nearly all forms of coprophilia: and so on. (These latter forms are so symbolic that sense of sex is a minor matter.)
    A man can afford to a man two pleasures which a woman cannot give him: namely:
                                (1) passive sodomy (pleasure of the pathic)
                                (2) irrumation (pleasure of the fellator).⁷
    The latter is a small matter, and we are justified in concluding that as far as gross gratifications go, the advantages, substantial though slight, rests with the woman. The supreme pleasures are common to both, except cunnilingism (especially during the monthly courses) on the one side, and passive sodomy on the other. Both are pleasures of a somewhat masochistic order, and if we had definitely to choose, it would be hard. Glory to the Creator whose bounty has not forced us to this alternative; aye! blessed for ever be His holy name, and thanksgiving in the highest for His loving-kindness towards the Children of Men!
    Why then do we so dearly cherish the passion of man and man, since of the myriad pleasures of love, two only are peculiar to it? Why, at the risk of liberty, do we pursue the shy kisses of silly English boys, often of the lower classes,⁸ when every type of woman (from the moustachioed and muscular belly- dancer from Spain, with a constrictor cunni developed till the penis issues aching and bruised from her dangerous defile, to the soft and rosy maiden of our own dear land, with slender limbs and velvet flesh, whose pleasance is like a single slim petal of hyacinth, is at our disposal for sums ranging from half-a-crown to fifty guineas?
    To ask the question is to acknowledge that one is still no better than the brutes; and to answer it is (consequently) to attempt to teach a dog dog- Latin!
    O man! how can I hold talk with thee, who hast not lain upon a bed, expectant, fearful, of thou knowest not what; tremulous; stammering foolish words in pretence of conversation; thine eyes hard shut lest thou shouldst see thy lover move and perhaps (oh, worst of woes!), frighten him from thee; fearful, oh! infinitely fearful lest he should not love thee after all, fearful lest he should fear, lest he should leave it for thee to say the soft words (oh, the burning cheeks, the bitten lips!) whose hidden fire shall kindle the great blaze? How talk with thee, whose quickened hearing has not known him creep ever closer, yet afraid to touch thee, has not heard the rushing of his heart, the shortening of his breath? How talk, if thou have not felt one trembling foot seek thine, one hand steal near thee and yet nearer? Till thou feel the tremor of his body; till his hot breath stir thine hair! Why, neither thou nor I can tell of that swift attack (is it a minute of an hour?) when without word spoken the bonds of convention snap - hast thou seen a village, with its smug Swiss thieves, whelmed by the avalanche, the avalanche of elemental force, the avalanche of God? Nay, I remember nothing; I know I found myself naked in his naked arms, his giant member still throbbing and beating in my flooded bowels, and the world aswim before mine eyes.
    I tell thee, man, that the first kiss of man to man is more than the most elaborately manipulated orgasm that the most accomplished and most passionate courtesan can devise.⁹ That is, is not a physical, but a spiritual pleasure.
    I tell thee, as I walk the sunsmitten streets of Mandalay, where lives a boy I love, that the very foundations of the soul tremble as mine eyes fall upon him.
    I have never spoken to him; I doubt if I could command myself to speak to him. Have I faced death in a hundred forms, and never winced,¹⁰ to fear (at last) the frown of a Nubian slave? Strange, friend monometallist! But true!
    With sodomy, too, no children come, to cloud one's love with cares material and profane. I love my own children deeply, intensely; but they are rivals to my wife. Nothing can intervene between my boy and me but the slow foot of change, for sodomites are mortal; but that immortal longing in them which is - That twins them with the Lord of Resurrection; and even as I plunge my member into the sarcophagus, the flesh-eater, the podex of my lover, and withdraw it, its strength renewed as the eagle's, so do I know that when the Eater of all flesh devours me altogether, I shall arise in my strength, through the blessed resurrection of our Lord Jesus, the lover of John the beautiful, into a world where erectio penis shall be the rule and not the exception. Where, please God, we shall all be Sapphists and Sodomites, joined each to each in one incredible spinthria, with the extreme orgasm (which is the Holy Ghost) abiding upon us and within us for ever and ever.
    Shall I find you there, my lost darling? As I pass from the swoon of death to feel the fresh wind of Heaven blowing on my cheek, shall I find you first to meet me in those Elysian glades?

                                "In what ethereal dances?
                                By what eternal streams?"

shall I find you, sweet acolyte of Salmacis or of Terpsichore, of Bacchus or Sabrina? Will it be you on yonder bank of yellow moss by the sunspangled rivulet that tumbles noisily from the throne of God? Will it be you with your fine golden hair like spiders' webs in the sun, changed to an aureole, and your seductive face still as ever the incarnation of one single never-ending scarlet kiss? Will yours be the long pale hands to mould my body to your liking; and yours the faithful, the unfailing member that never said me nay?
    Oh come to me there, darling? Lean upon the golden rampart, and watch for me to come! Be first to meet me, sweetheart! forgive me for all the wrong I did you here. I will try and be a good wife to you, darling, if you will give me one more chance to hold your love.
    I had heaven in your kisses, and I went to seek it in the cloister.¹¹ I loved you always; it was but a boy's folly; forgive me! I may never cling to you on earth again: pray God that Heaven may be one long, long life of such bliss as we had of one another long ago by yon slow stream on whose banks I have wandered (many a time since) crying like a lost soul concerning you in the words of Milton lamenting his beauteous-buttocked Lycidas "Oh! who hast reft my dearest pledge?" Alas! neither Fate nor God could I accuse: the dread hollow voice of my own stricken soul answered me "Thine own folly, thou miserable of the fortunate of the sons of men!" Ah! but I beat my breast - in vain - in vain!
    Ay! the joy we had of each other under those blue-grey hills! Do you remember the day of the storm, when we huddled under the rocks, and lit a fire of bracken and pine twigs? How you stripped me by force - for I was afraid, and jealous, and coquettish - and took your pleasure of me, thrice in the one delicious hour? By the memory of that cave, I conjure you, be first to meet me in the Elysian fields!
    I must express regret for having intruded what may appear to be a personal matter into an essay on the German model, but the good Bimetallist will forgive me. He will know that the old poet was right who wrote:

                                "The passion of man for woman
                                    May serve a lad for a span.
                                But utterly superhuman
                                    Is the passion of man for man.
                                Let him but taste the wine!
                                    It grips him body and soul.
                                          Once and for all,
                                          Whatever befall,
                                    He is bound to the golden goal
                                By the joy of his shuddering spine."

    He will know that in the rites of sodomy duly done, even more than in the rites of heterosexual passion, lies the great secret of the Universe, the Key of the Gardens of God . . . .
    But I must not proselytize; many are called, but few chosen; a sodomite is born, not made; you can't make a silk sodomite out of an English grocer's boy; one sodomite doesn't make a scandal; take care of the boys, and the girls will take care of themselves; strike while the tool is hot; don't bugger in haste, or withdraw at leisure; a turd in the hand is worth two in the bush; a prick in time saves nine; it's a wise Wilde that knows his own Q; one good turn deserves another; frig wise and fuck foolish; there's better boys in the choir than ever come out of it - all of which goes to show that it took no genius to write "John Ploughman." Not that if Charles Spurgeon had been¹² one of us, his style would have approximated to that of Walter Pater; a stylist is as direct a miracle of God as a sodomite. No! I must not proselytise! there are enough of us in the world; a select body of idealists, of men linked in a perfect freemasonry of style and manner, of ships (as it were) who have dropped anchor in a safe harbour, of conquerors at ease in the towns they have captured, whose inhabitants are too crass and stupid even to know themselves slaves.
    Yes, we are a goodly company, the blest; our lives are spent in sunny gardens and yours in subterranean sewers; we are so blissful that we rarely notice you; when we do, it is to say: God have mercy upon these blind and miserable slaves, and bring them out into His light and joy and liberty!
    Wherefore I pray Him (Oh thou all-loving, all-transcending God!) that should this essay fall (as seed by the wayside) into the hands of the young and beautiful, the unspotted from the world, that He will bless it to them, that they may dwell with us in the Heaven which is Here and Now, and (after) in the Palace which of His lovingkindness He hath prepared for us in that Garden of Gardens which is approached only through the narrow postern gate of Death.

Notes:
1. There is of course not the most shadowy reason in ethics for the attitude of the law. The most confirmed sodomite (bimetallist) may beget quite as many children as another, while monogamy is the fashion. If man were expected to fertilize some dozens of women every night, like a stud ram, I don't say: but he is not. But on the positive side, a strict adherence to sodomy, except for the practical purpose of begetting children, or for pacifying women, an object which a parallel development of Sapphism would more rationally fulfil, would avoid the numberless crimes and calamities inseparable from sexual intercourse -- venereal disease (almost entirely), seduction, abortion, concealment of birth, child-murder, social tyranny, et omnis horrida cohors malorum.
    As few people seem to know the fons et origo legis, I may here be permitted to sketch it in outline. When the power of the Crescent menaced that of the Cross, sodomy was put down with Draconic rigour because the Turks believed that the Messiah (a reincarnation of Jesus) would be born of the love between two men. Sodomy was thus a religious duty with the Turk: at any moment his passion might be used to bring about the Millenium: so with the Christian it became a heresy, and was punished as such. People who were beyond suspicion, such as Princes of the Church, could always obtain dispensations, and in fact habitually did so. The documents are extant. This was to the medieval mind a far more urgent matter than any mere persistance of Levitical tradition, founded as it was on a popular superstition scarcely less gross than their own.
    But today no man can bring forward wither the population nonsense or the heresy nonsense, so he brings up his dinner instead, under the equally absurd delusion that the process is physically dirty. In the interests of Light and Truth, one cannot too widely disseminate the grossly phrased, but noble, American proverb that "A turd jumps away from a live prick like a grasshopper from a snake." Anyway, one can wash! (The pathics of Laknau, when offering themselves for hire to British officers, draw long strips of muslin from their recta, whose perfect cleanliness is thus beyond suspicion. O si sic omnes!)
    The sole effect of the law as it stands is to make life in England insupportable for the wretched Urning, and to expose every man, whether he be a sodomite or not, to the attacks of blackmailers of the vilest sort.
    Suppose I am threatened by these gentry; suppose I catch them and prosecute them; suppose they get the maximum penalty, and I leave the court with applause and the strongly expressed thanks of the judge for the courage and skill with which I have discharged so unpleasant, albeit so useful, a public duty.
    Very well; does that convince my jealous wife?
    Does that prevent people in the street from pointing me out as "the man who was mixed up in that buggery business, don't you remember? Of course there was nothing against him; it's difficult to bring home these things, don't you know? But we think what we think, don't you know?"
    While your admiring friends openly boast of you as a "dam clever bugger, by God! He had half the boys in London, and when they started to black mail him, he turned right around like that (gesture) before you could say 'knife,' by God! and didn't they get beans, by God!"
    But could I fight an English election? How would my chiefs in the army look at it, when it came to the actual point of choosing one of two men for promotion? What price that fat tutorship?
    There are dozens of weak innocent fools in London at this hour who, making these reflections, paid the first fatal moderate demand.
    There are dozens of strong-minded men who have come to the conclusion that they may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, especially as the former is real, and the latter imaginary, and so a posteriori turned their thoughts ad posteriorem. Some men are born sodomites, some achieve sodomy, and some have sodomy thrust upon them; the Urning, the Bimetallist, and the carcerophobe.
    There are some sodomites which were so born from their mother's womb; and there are some sodomites, which are made sodomites of men; and there are sodomites, which have made themselves sodomites for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake. (The Urning, the Bimetallist and the carcerophobe, and the holy sodomite to whom his passion is a sacrament, leading him on the straight road into the very arms of God.) He that is able to receive it, let him receive it!
    The law manufactures sodomites as it manufactures habitual criminals.
    Legalize sodomy, and you will diminish it; or even if, as you seem to fear, you increase it, you will see no change in society but an advance in refinement, and possibly, parallel with the fall in the price of Mercury, Iodine, and Sandalwood oil, a slight increase in the demand for that preparation of the supra-renal capsules which is so useful in obstinate cases of internal haemorrhoids.

2. Pray analyse the sensation aroused in you by the story which ends (Mrs Awkins, asleep, being awakened by the cup of tea which she has spilt over her lap), "There you are, Awkins! All over my stummick again!"

3. A skillful sodomite should be able to withdraw his penis nearly dry. The subsequent moisture of the anus will act as a pleasing lubricant, when the next round of preliminaries is over.

4. This has been already anticipated in the long note above.

5. I would suggest allopath, homaeopath, and eclectic as a fitting classification of humanity.

6. A little obscure. I suppose the author means: a scientific whist player need not pity a gambler more than he does a drunkard; a father of twelve pity the raper more than the brawler; or the polo enthusiast pity the man who thinks he is a horse more than him who fancies himself a tea-pot. -- A.L. (Major Luity's note seems to us as obscure as the text. But the point clearly is that the sound apple does not pity the bad apple any more than the bad orange.)

7. Conversely, it is interesting to observe that a woman can afford two pleasures to a woman, exclusively:
      (1) tribadism (cunnus as cunnum)
      (2) cunnilingism.
A man can afford three pleasures to a woman, exclusively:
      (1) sodomy
      (2) irrumation (pleasure of the fellatrix)
      (3) copulation.
    Of these tribadism is rather artificial, and hardly to be distinguished from ordinary masturbation; so that the balance is strongly in favor of man. This explains why very few women are exclusively Sapphists, but many bimetallists; and enables one to comprehend the hatred of woman for sodomy, and the toleration with which men regard Sapphism.

8. I cannot too strongly urge my readers to select their lovers from their equals in rank and fortune. It is the only safeguard against betrayal; further, it fulfils the Greek ideal, and silences the voice adverse criticism.
-- A.L. (Solon properly forbade the practice of sodomy to slaves; and perhaps after all the English, slaves at heart as they are, do well to observe his law.)

9. Besides all this, there is the question of "nature" and "against nature."
    "Praise Lacedaemon, and despise Corinth!
    God gave me Daphne; I won Hyacinth."

    All our modern devices, though applications of nature, are against and above nature; therefore of God. Nature's man is the cave-man. We take no paternal pride in the pariah dog, the product of Nature; in the highly bred setter, the product of man's genius applied to nature's very raw material, through centuries and chiliads of struggle, we do. There is no poetry in the panting Puritan prone on his puffing and perspiring Priscilla: the love of Adrian and Antonious is a monument for all ages. Is there better poetry in the world than Wilde's ". . . on Adrian's gilded barge The laughter of Antinous" or F-----'s "the splendid Syrian youth with scarlet mouth Standing upon the summit of the world?" Why, to kiss my boy is a canzonet, and to suck him off a sonnet; his mouth is a madrigal, his lips are lyrics, and his eyes idylls; to be beneath him is an epithalamium, and on top of him an epic.

10. The author of this essay was with the force that captured Theebaw in 1886, and with the Soudan Expeditions of recent years. -- A. L.

11. A high Anglican, he lived for three years, immediately after his ordination, in monastic seclusion at L---. -- A. L. (He was presented with a London living in 1900, and held it till his sudden conversion, and exodus, to Rome.)

12. He was. -- A. L.

    I never had the opportunity of knowing Anton Szandor LaVey personally, but I remember feeling that there was a strong bond between us while I was a member of his Church, from 1976 to 1980 c.e. Giving credit where it is due, I would like to write about my experiences with the Church of Satan, and of my original fascination with Satanism in my younger years.
    At the age of 12 I was told by my mother that there was a new religion called Satanism, and in this religion people pray to the Devil. She had heard of a Satanic Wedding, where the priest who married the couple walked around with horns on his head throughout.
    So there it was: "Satanism." I became fascinated by the idea that such a thing was possible. I thought that everyone hated the Devil, and I could not understand why people would even consider taking on this way of life. "Don't these people know that they are going to Hell for this?" I asked. But the concept remained in my mind and became part of my everyday thinking further on in life. Later, my sixth grade teacher asked her students to write a report about a man in San Francisco who owned a lion, which he had living with him. Should he be allowed to keep it, or should the lion be taken away to the zoo? I asked my father about the strange man who had a lion living with him in the city. My father replied that, yes, there was such a man, but that he was a Satanist. He told me that Satanists had short lives, and died violent deaths. (He was probably thinking about celebrity Church of Satan member Jayne Mansfield's decapitation, when the car she was riding in hit a tank truck.)
    Anton LaVey made headlines again when another respected Church of Satan member, a U.S. Navy man by the name of Edward D. Olsen, received a Satanic funeral in late 1967. What made it an outrage was that the U. S. Navy had participated, and the Russian Orthodox Church in San Francisco was up in arms over this. Later there was a Satanic Baptism for Zeena Galatea as well, and the following an interesting movie, Rosemary's Baby, allegedly featuring Anton LaVey as the Devil Himself.
    In my teens I stumbled upon an old copy of Adam magazine, featuring an interview with Anton LaVey. When asked why he founded the Church of Satan, LaVey replied in so many words that he was not satisfied with his finances, but that the Church of Satan brought him the capital he wanted. This was in 1972 c.e. There was a bookstore in San Anselmo, "Abraxas," which carried metaphysical and "underground" reading materials. On the lower shelf, towards the back of the store, there was a stack of Satanic Bibles selling for 95¢ each. I considered myself to be in a subterranean mode at that time, so the title appealed to me. I opened up this forbidden-looking book and started scanning it. Inside, there was language which showed disrespect towards the Judeo-Christian religion, and I liked it because Christianity was responsible for so much harm, suffering, and wrongdoing.
    At the College of Marin, I noticed copies of The Devil's Avenger by Burton Wolfe, and bought one. There was also a copy of The Complete Witch by Anton LaVey at the San Anselmo Public Library, which I checked out and renewed. Those were the first two books on the subject that I thoroughly read. The philosophy contained in The Devil's Avenger was appealing to me. It talked about the importance of free thinking, as well as dispelling some misconceptions I had about Satanism. I enjoyed reading about Shibboleth Rituals, which were "designed to exorcise and negate the influence of detestable personas and institutions through psychodramatic ridicule wherein each Satanist plays a role of somebody he detests or someone who represents an institution he hates."
    The Satanic Bible and The Satanic Rituals were the next books. (It was because of the Enochian Calls in the former book that I found an interest in John Dee and his works, and in Aleister Crowley's Liber CXXXIX.) After sending a letter off to the church requesting to join, I received the Nine Satanic Statements, along with an application letter. For $25 I became a contributing Member. I also returned an order form for The Cloven Hoof. The annual subscription rate for this periodical was $10, and my first bimonthly issue arrived on January XI and carried an article by Bruce Birkman entitled "Satanism for the Masses." Most of the LaVey articles which appeared in The Cloven Hoof were later reprinted in The Devil's Notebook. The Hoof was my subterranean connection to diabolical delights, and my only link with the Church at that time. Through this publication I was introduced to The Satanic Mass LP record. It featured selections from LaVey's rituals on one side, and on the reverse LaVey's reading of the Prologue and the entire Book of Satan from The Satanic Bible, while Wagner, Beethoven, and Souza played in the background.
    At times The Cloven Hoof would become comical, attesting to LaVey's great sense of humor. LaVey taught me that developing one's sense of humor was important to the magician, for there is no laughter in the kingdom of heaven. "What element, besides the obvious, in the average person's conception of God and Satan distinguishes each entity's personality? A sense of humor --- the presence or the absence of one. Can anyone picture God telling, taking, or enjoying a good joke? The idea is laughable. The Devil, on the other hand, laughs with demonic mirth, is possessed of a sardonic wit, and his eyes hold a glint of wicked bemusement. The farthest God, in his popular image, ever strays from sobriety is a beneficent smile. Satan sniggers with fiendish scorn at God, who sits in his ivory tower emitting nary a chuckle," wrote Diane LaVey in her essay for The Cloven Hoof (82nd issue, XIV A.S.). Mockery, satire, lampoon, iconoclasm, sarcasm, sardonicism, irony, scorn; all require humor, all propose introspection, as well as examination of their subjects. Rule Number Five of How To Be God (or the Devil) states that "a sense of humor is a must; a god who can't laugh at himself or find comic relief is a dull Jehovah, and most definitely un-Satanic" (Anton LaVey, in the 113th issue).

    I look back at my experience as something which was very positive. True, there were many things I had to find out by doing them the hard way, and there were prejudices - not only against the Right-Hand Path but even against anyone on it - which I picked up through misunderstandings of various sorts. Not wishing to seem like some fundamentalist yahoo, I like to think that I do not have all the answers, and that I could be mistaken. Life is too short to poison it with bitterness, pessimism, cynicism, and negative emotions or thoughts, which serve only to close the mind and stunt development. True, Anton LaVey and I did not see everything eye to eye, but that is the beauty of free thinking and empiricism.
    Not until Year XX (1985 c.e.) did I realize that there had been a schism in the Church of Satan in Year X. Naively, I expected that somehow the differences could be settled between the Temple of Set and the Church of Satan. It seemed to me there were precious few of us, and it would only make our detractors happy to see us start sniping at each other in an unnecessary war. Sorry, Anton LaVey, but I differed with you here. On numerous occasions the Temple of Set was slighted and denounced with bitter hatred in The Cloven Hoof, and it went so far as to change the Hoof from a magical forum into a vehicle for venting frustrations. I do not have the desire to voice my differences with LeVay now, even though at the time I was disappointed with him. I wish to remember Anton at his best. It is my observation that dwelling on the negative has a tendency to weaken one's will.
    With this said, I thank you, Anton Szandor LaVey. You started something which I will treasure forever. You showed me the importance of living one's life to the fullest, and you have provided me with the necessary tools to de- program myself from "that lying specter of the centuries" which is Christianity. But as it happened, I terminated my membership in the Church of Satan as of 1980 c.e., feeling that if I was to provide answers to the 40 questions on their questionnaire, then I needed to have some of my own questions answered to my satisfaction, and in person, by one of the Church's representatives. When no such opportunity ever arose, I stopped subscribing to The Cloven Hoof.
    Then in 1983 c.e. I hooked up with the O.T.O. It seemed imperative for me to have some contact with other occultists, and I didn't think it wise for a beginner to practice magic in solitude too much of the time. Besides, I was curious about a gentleman by the name of Aleister Crowley. It stood to reason that if I really wanted to learn something about The Great Beast, the odds would be in my favor if I could take lessons from "the man who knew Crowley," Grady Louis McMurtry. Yet it was first the writing of Anton LaVey which had introduced me to Crowley, and to the O.T.O.
    When the Helms-Walker anti-occult initiative (SB # 3389) surfaced around 1985 c.e., I decided to take action. Letters were written and telephones called. I knew first-hand what a dastardly aberration evangelism could be - and still is. And, out of protest and support, I began to subscribe again to The Cloven Hoof, this time at an annual rate of $25. I kept renewing my subscription until the final issue arrived in 1988 c.e. Following this decision to halt publication, Dr. Michael A. Aquino gave an excellent presentation on the history of the Hoof in his own Scroll of Set.
    I consider it a special privilege to have studied with initiates from the Church of Satan. One Priestess who knew Anton LaVey said that he was one of the kindest, sweetest human beings she ever met. I know another person who was a great admirer of Anton LaVey, to whom I will refer here as Mr C., and he is a devout Satanist. Once, at a time when his wife was five months pregnant, Mr C. announced that he would have a son, who would be born on Anton LaVey's birthday, April 11th, and that his name would be Anton Szandor C. Well, guess what! Coincidences really do happen: Mr C. retains that name for his eight year old son, who was born of the 11th of April.
    Anton Szandor LaVey died at the age of 67, on October 29, XXXII A.S., after suffering for some time from a heart condition. It is said that this is what triggered a pulmonary edema. According to Susan Sward from the San Francisco Chronicle, family members "performed a Satanic funeral for him on Tuesday in Colma where he was cremated." In short, Anton LaVey arrived mysteriously on the scene and then disappeared into the flames.
    His grandson, Stanton Zaharoff, made a remark about Anton that touched me deeply. He said, "He wasn't what people would perceive him to be . . . He was a sweet and caring, highly intelligent individual. This guy was cooler than most friends of mine." Anton LaVey was one of the strongest critics of conventional religion in this century, and I suspect that this is one of the reasons why the fleecing shepherds were mortified about him. They conspired with slander, and some of the most obtuse and delusional paranoia imaginable from anyone representing themselves as reasonable people, "scholars," law enforcement personnel, "occult specialists," and experts, or "holy men of god." But one should expect all manner of fantastic and incredible nonsense from peddlers of the lies, religious delirium, and hypocrisy that is the "Jesus Racket." Ironically, it was LaVey who had the last laugh, by dying at St Mary's, a Catholic hospital. The chaplain and sisters are probably still exorcising his room!

    Xeper and Remanifest.
                       -- Adept Nikolai Guliaeff II° T.S.

    After the detailed approaches to the Tree which we have taken up, it's appropriate to get a little bit more into doing something positive with it. There are always times when life seems to be confused or dysfunctional. By looking for bias and obsession on the Tree, it is possible to seek an improvement.
    One Sephira may either be getting too much or too little. Alternatively, a person may be looking at the whole world from the attitude of one Sephira rather than keeping consciousness circulating over the Tree. For example, consider the view from Geburah. It's rather a splendid thing but awfully harsh. The other experiences that fit the rest of the Tree are there, but they are colored with the reddish fiery quality of Geburah. It's possible to get trapped within a Sephira. You can mistake one of the little trees inside a given Sephira for a whole Tree of Life. On the Middle Pillar, that's not particularly bad. If it's on either the Left or the Right, you are going to have trouble. Those are imbalanced places. Someone who views the entire Tree of Life or all the events of their life from Geburah, thinking that they are seeing the whole of life, will typically be forceful, irritable and pretty miserable. Such a person is difficult to know, always trying too hard and pushing too far. Every Sephirot or aspect of life is there in a way, but that way is all Geburah.

    Owing to the length of two of our articles this time, there was no room for the Primary Sources and Outbasket columns. Our regular columns will resume next issue.

Events Calendar for February 1998 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.

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