Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers

    Join with the members and friends of Thelema Lodge in celebration of the Gnostic Mass in Horus Temple, every Sunday evening beginning after nightfall. Call the lodge ahead of time for information and directions if you have not attended before. Arrive by 7:30 to await with us the Deacon's summons into the temple, leaving a few minutes to spare for lounging in the library and chatting in the kitchen -- or smoking on the porch -- with fellow Thelemites before we all go in together. There are often guests and newcomers to meet at mass, or old friends returning from afar (like our beloved brother "Mr C." whom we successfully invoked after seven years away, no doubt via Nikolai's mention of him in these pages last month). By communicating together in the mass just as the Priest has done, all of the People present are participating, and lending their Wills to the unified intention of the ritual. It is the strength of our shared trust together which enables us to accomplish this, and which keeps us truly a Community -- and somewhat sorry for the sober, circumspect citizens of "savage countries".
    In keeping with this concept of a community of celebration, it has long been a tradition in our temple -- ever since it was founded by the then E.G.C. Patriarch, Hymenaeus Alpha, twenty-one years ago -- to be as inclusive as possible, particularly in regard to the availability of the officers' roles, and the training of the whole community in the workings of the ritual. The best mass is one in which many active celebrant "clergy" are present as People in the temple, and where even the guests can easily find instruction in the central roles. Our temple schedule, usually posted in the lodge kitchen, is kept by the lodgemaster. All who are involved with the temple community are invited to consider serving the lodge as officers in the mass. If you want to give it a try, get a team together and make sure everyone knows the parts, and then request a date on the temple calendar.

    The greatest master leads by emptying people's minds and filling their cores, by weakening their ambition and toughening their resolve.
    Are you then able to love people and lead them without imposing your will? Next best is to be a leader who is loved. Kings who rule by fear are worse still. A ruler who is despised is the worst of all.
    Strength may make one a master of others, but true power makes us masters of ourselves. Empowerment of self is incompatible with power over others. Masters don't take sides, they welcome both saints and sinners. Rejecting none, the master is available to all people.
    A real master governs so that the people are hardly aware of her existence. Trying to control is no way to govern. Stop trying to control, let go of fixed plans and concepts, and the world will govern itself. Supreme virtue for a leader lies in not trying to control.
    Rely on actions, not words, to govern, and then the people will say that they are leading themselves. Employment of force in order to govern will always rebound upon the government. Just following the people is the best way to lead them.
    Your words are most trusted when you have the least to prove. Residing in the Tao, the master sets an example for all beings.

    Originally published in The Fatherland 5:22 (New York: 3 January 1917), this article appeared with a parenthetical subtitle, "Being a prologue and epilogue to The Vampire of the Continent." An editorial note drew attention to "this remarkable work," a book which was at that time being promoted and sold by The Fatherland Corporation, directed by George Sylvester Viereck, whose slogan was "Fair Play for Germany and Austria-Hungary." This note continues: "We herewith publish Aleister Crowley's analysis of the book. Mr Crowley is an Irishman, a member of Cambridge University, and a poet of fine distinction. Frederic Harrison, editor of the English Review, stated some time ago that Mr Crowley was the first metrical artist in the English language since Swinburne."
    Crowley published more than a dozen essays under his own name which expressed sympathy for the German cause during the First World War, and criticism of England in various tones of hatred or disgust. More than many of these wartime pieces, all of which were written for Viereck in New York between January 1915 and the American mobilization for war nearly three years later, this piece presents puzzles regarding Crowley's actual attitudes and sympathies, and his status as an Englishman. Claims (supported only by a few transparent publicity stunts) made by Crowley to Irish nationality during the war were a complete fiction; he had never been in Ireland and could claim no Irish ancestry, nor had he previously represented himself as Irish.
    This essay presents none of the direct silliness of some of his earlier pseudo-treasonous writings, such as the directions he provided in 1915 for German bombers to single out his aunt's house in Addiscombe, Croydon. However, it seems carefully designed to progressively alienate its American readership, so that long before it concludes screaming for a century of continual Atlantic warfare, the possibility of any of its readers being able to agree with its thesis seems precluded altogether. If, as he later quietly claimed, Crowley made his declarations of German sympathy in coordination with a campaign by British military intelligence agencies to discredit Viereck and his cause in American eyes, it becomes easier to comprehend his statements here, which run contrary to opinions he is known to have entertained in any other context throughout his life. It is a simple matter to see how the statements with which this essay concludes might have worked to prepare Americans to enter the European conflict against the Central Powers, in defense of England, and how this article might have poisoned the readership against anything else in Vireck's magazine.
    The essay's title was adapted from a famous phrase, "Delenda est Carthago" (meaning "Carthage must be destroyed"), in a speech by Cato the Elder (234-149 BCE) urging Rome on to the Punic Wars (as reported in Pliny's Naturalis Historia XV:xviii:74). It is interesting to note that Crowley's vampire lore in the concluding paragraph seems to have been lifted wholesale from Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897).

    In course of time the continental powers find it necessary to build a navy, to wreck these nests of pirates in self-protection, and the usual result is, that the island is annexed to the continent, and its people, properly policed, become tranquil; they may even be turned into excellent citizens, since they possess the material of courage and energy in that degree which originally started them on their piratical career.
    But where the island, while retaining in the full its insular characteristics, is large enough and strong enough to develop into a sovereign state, the sporadic piracies of its aborigines become incorporated in the policy of the nation. A nucleus is formed, usually upon the banks of some great river, and the central authority is not slow to perceive that the welfare of its increasing population depends upon sea-power. The history of all island nations illustrates this view. Islands form the natural stronghold of every lawless race. However extended a sea coast may be, it may yet be turned; if a hinterland exists, the pirates can be suppressed by overland attack. Thus we see that the Vikings soon lost their power, the Danish ships of war were ultimately conquered, not upon the sea, but by attacks upon their base. Venice was destroyed from the rear. The sea power of Holland fell, not so much because of British victories on the North Sea, but because the country itself was unable to resist internal pressure. We know how easily England herself was turned out of France; and to this day she has never been able to make good her footing in any country requiring an army to defend it. India is practically an island, owing to the impossibility of invasion from the north. Yet India has always been understood by England as her weak point. Egypt, by reason of deserts, is almost an island, yet there again is a weak point. Canada is politically an island, owing to the inveterate pacifism of the inhabitants of the United States. Gibraltar is only joined to the main land by a bare and narrow neck, which can easily be swept by the gunfire from the rocks. But since the range of modern artillery has increased so greatly that Gibraltar can be shelled from the hills beyond Algeciras, it has been recognized by military authorities that the fortress is indefensible, and proposals have actually been made to abandon it. We can see England's new fear of Spain in her policy towards that country, in her haste to place an English princess in the arms of the successor of Charles V. Further east we find Malta, an island -- Aden, insulated by many miles of the most inhospitable desert in the world -- Ceylon, the naval base of India, an island -- Penang, an island -- Singapore, an island -- Hongkong, an island. When England obtained possession of Wei-hai-wei she was compelled to abandon it without a struggle after a few years. Similarly the English outposts in the Pacific and in the West Indies are all islands. British Honduras can hardly be called a British colony at all; the conditions there are very exceptional.

    To turn to other island powers, history shows us the same picture. All successful Corsairs have been invulnerable by land. The islands of the Mediterranean have always been strongholds of pirates. The situation of Japan in the east is singularly like that of England in the west. Rome only beat Carthage after the destruction of her sea-power, by dint of using her command of the Mediterranean to land an army in Africa and attack Carthage by land. The power of Spain was not destroyed by the dispersion of the Armada, but by her disasters in the Netherlands.
    From all this we perceive easily that England is not at all to be blamed for her piracies. Her situation compelled it. We must further remember that not only were the original inhabitants of Great Britain of a predatory disposition, but the invaders who conquered England in part and mingled with the inhabitants were all sea-rovers: the Norsemen, the Danes, the so-called Saxons, and the Normans, were all brigands who were being pushed off the continent because their ravages had become intolerable to civilized people. It is therefore criminally unthinking in us to blame England for her policy of piracy. She is of necessity a pirate, by situation and by heredity. It would by equally absurd to blame the crocodile or the tiger. Even England's hypocrisy must not shock us. It must be regarded in the light of a tribute paid to continental virtue . . . . Perhaps we might even be optimistic enough to suggest that it represents the beginning of a conscience. This much being conceded, we must no longer regard England with detestation and contempt. To do so is unreasonable, and therefore immoral. We must not shed crocodile tears over the crocodile. But on the other hand, we cannot tolerate the crocodile. We need to cross the river, in pursuit of our peaceful avocations, and we must find the weak spot in the armor of the crocodile and give him to our handmaidens for a play! This weak spot is evidently to be found in Ireland. When Ireland becomes a sovereign, independent state, a good deal will have been done. But this is not nearly enough.

    Those politicians who are so soft-hearted, or soft-headed, that they talk of peace with England must be utterly blind to the lessons of history and geography. "Britannia est delenda" should be the one motto of every continental politician. Does not France understand that the strangle hold of 1814 has only become the embrace of 1914 that it may turn again into a strangle hold in 2014? Count zu Reventlow is admirable beyond words in his demonstration that England has never been bound by blood or sentiment or honor, but only by business considerations. England is already considering at this moment whether it would not be better to throw over France and come to an agreement with Germany. The only thing that restrains her is her fear of the German fleet. Such political insight as I am proud to share with Count zu Reventlow declares that any peace concluded between England and any other nation is a Judas kiss.
    There is only one solution to the problem of English piracy: the sovereignty of England must be destroyed once and for all. England herself has understood this with admirable, if devilish, clarity. It is for this reason that she has not only destroyed the sovereignty of Ireland, but deliberately ravaged and depopulated it. She must be made to swallow a dose of her own medicine. England must be divided up between the continental powers. She must be a mere province, or, better still, colony of her neighbors, France and Germany.
    Peace with England at this time would be a crime against humanity. The British fleet is unassailable; in spite of German valor it has remained practically intact. While this is so, England, at any moment, without giving any other reason but moral indignation (which is her principal industry and never likely to run short), can throttle the whole world. Those who talk of peace at this time must therefore be unhesitatingly suppressed. No matter what may be our sufferings and sacrifices, we must go on to the end. We must die, that humanity may live.

    Now, there is only one way to destroy the power of England: the country must be conquered. And before it is conquered, it must be invaded, or starved into surrender, such surrender to involve the destruction, or handing over, of her whole fleet. Now, before England can either be starved or invaded, her fleet must be either destroyed or rendered impotent. There is only one way to do this: it is by ruthless prosecution of submarine warfare. While England's fleet exists, trade with America could always be stopped, when it suited British policy to do so. The only thing for Germany to do is to concentrate the whole of her intelligence and power upon the building and manning of submarines, in such numbers, and of such excellence, that England is starved, and her fleet destroyed. If it takes ten years -- or a hundred years -- it must be done. From the broadest standpoint of humanity, nothing else is really worth doing.
    Let Germany make peace with France and Russia -- if we must talk peace. Let her give up, if necessary, the territory which it has cost so much blood and treasure to take and hold. Let her do this, that she may be able to concentrate her whole power against the vampire.
    Count zu Reventlow has found the word of the situation: that word "vampire." Let him look therefore to tradition. It is not enough to kill a vampire in the ordinary way. Holy water must be used, and holy herbs. It must be severed, limb from limb, its heart torn out, and a charred stake thrust through it. If one precaution is omitted, the vampire lives again, to prey upon the innocent and the just. Britannia est delenda.
   

    For this topic, the following simplified associations for the ten Sephirot may be helpful. Always realize that any list of key words for the Sephirot is only useful up to a point -- the point this time being to get a notion of bias to personality on the Tree of Life diagram:

    10. Malkut: Physical sensation.
    9. Yesod: Dream, imagination.
    8. Hod: Reasoning about material things.
    7. Netzach: Emotional feeling about material things.
    6. Tipheret: Perspective on life.
    5. Geburah: Reasoning about right and wrong.
    4. Chesed: Feelings of spiritual well-being.
    3. Binah: Very abstract reasoning.
    2. Chokmah: Excitement without known cause.
    1. Keter: Peaceful feeling with lack of distinction between self and not- self.

    The idea of Shadow Trees is related to the study of trees within each Sephirot. It often happens in a person's life that there is a kind of a bias or tendency to limit thinking to one point of view. Such a bias is occasionally described by saying that a person is "locked into a Sephira". This may be caused by mistaking the little Tree that grows within one particular Sephira for the whole Tree of Life. In the case of Geburah, all the experiences of life are there, but all are over-shadowed by Geburah. Such a person would be overly moralistic; always insisting on doing the right thing, always demanding of themselves and of others that there be no flaw or irregularity. In such people, the standards are set so high and prosecuted so rigidly that every avenue of life takes on the blood red hue of Mars. Such a person can be said to be locked into the shadow-tree of Geburah. With points of view based in Malkut, Yesod, Tipheret or Keter, there is more of a balance of perception. If a person is locked into either the left or the right pillar Sephirot, the point of view will generally seem lopsided. In the case of Hod, the point of view demands that everything make sense. In the case of Geburah, everything has to be "right", not just logically but morally. Homicidal maniacs are a prime example of people who are locked into Geburah. For a person locked into Hod, stubbornness on detail is more common. Hod personalities are not particularly violent or dangerous, but tend to be overly critical of surprises, unable to relax and unwilling to let things take their own course. A Geburah personality has force enough to be dangerous. A Binah personality is more rare, typically a person so distant or so abstract as to be virtually inhuman.

    On the other side of the Tree, a Netzach personality constantly tries to grow but never really holds ground anywhere. Such a person continually makes decisions on a non-logical basis.

    Psychological problems often involve more than one Sephira. A manic depressive type might bounce back and forth between Netzach and Geburah. The depressive state can degenerate from a Geburah perspective, while the manic or excited state tends to come from Netzach. It's rare to find a pure example of a person's entire consciousness embedded in one Sephira. Two or more Sephirot may be involved, often in a sort of "leakage" from one to another. Excessive pressure in Geburah will usually vent itself through Hod. A person who is in an extremely tense, earnest and effortful state will try to figure out how solve some problem or produce some desired change. Since the awareness of Geburah forces absolutes, the practicality of Hod can be overridden; and inappropriate things may be attempted. Brutality on the small scale or world impacting outrages like those of the Nazis may result.

    A preponderantly Chesed personality is typically found in someone who makes no provision for his or her own welfare. Everything seems blessed and blissful, but this type has to depend on luck to stay alive.
    It would be very rare to see anyone maintain a Chokmah point of view for any length of time. The physical body itself tends to collapse in that state. Such a perspective ignores the limits of the material world, so great is the energy and so transcendent the perception.

    For the middle pillar Sephirot, points of view are less extreme. Malkut is itself the base condition of all things, the natural state. Every life begins there. Such a personality would be slow, boring to others but very reliable. There is nothing particularly wrong; just little going on.
    A Yesod personality tends to overindulge in fantasy. So long as it is passive fantasy, there will be little harm. Such a person may be creative, an originator of stories or artistic designs. However, without aid from other people or involvement of other Sephirot, the stories remain untold and the art never fully manifests outside the mind.
    A person with the point of view of Tipheret is pretty well off. That's about the best place to be stuck, if you are going to be stuck anywhere. Tipheret is not only balanced from left to right, between mind and emotion, but from bottom to top, between matter and spirit.
    Keter is oneness, and a mind in such a state is profoundly at peace. A Keter point of view sees no distinctions and feels no concerns. Such a state is fleeting, but may seem eternal while it is experienced.

H. had several questions about the Chakras, OTO degree work and rituals. Here are some observations that came up in the process of the email exchange:

    The idea of working with chakras is that the mind is distributed over the body, not only in the brain or any single site in the body. There is considerable anatomical evidence that this is correct.
    Crowley's notes on the OTO degrees and the chakras in Equinox I, 10 are helpful, but brief. Interestingly, medieval European illustrations and older Roman images often show faces on body armor and mystical statues where parts of the body are associated with chakras in Hindu studies.
    Some methods (Tree of Life approaches in Qabalah) favor a mental approach. Some methods directly or indirectly attempt to work with chakras and kundalini. However, each of us is human. The direct method may vary, but the end result may be the same. This can include the mechanisms, such as the glandular and nerve complexes that are especially associated with chakras and the raising of kundalini.
    It's good to remind oneself from time to time that the chakra idea originated as a medical concept, not a spiritual concept. Chakras are locations in the body, usually associated with nerve plexi and glandular sub- systems, which behave with a degree of independence or autonomy from the body as a whole. In a sense, they are little minds associated with functions and regions of the body. Everyone uses such things to stay alive and to perform learned actions. If we had to directly and consciously control every internal part of our bodies, we would die. These parts mind themselves to an extent, as though they had little computers inside. When they are directed to work together for a certain over-all result, that is similar to having a dance or sporting event involving many people.
    The Muladhara may seem to be silent only from the continuity of its sound. That is the steady hum of the dynamo, maintaining existence. When Kundalini awakens, the dynamo increases its revolutions from maintenance to active power. The other chakras brighten, like lights receiving full voltage. In this way of likening the body to a machine, the machine begins to perform its proper functions.
    It is also appropriate to use the microcosm (individual human) and macrocosm (world or universe) parallels in this. Just as the Muladhara and other chakras in the body of one person have "mantras" of sorts -- not just the sounds one can make to stimulate them, but the actual characteristic "vibrations" of those chakras --, so also there are parallels in the world at large. The Muladhara in a human body is like the Mantra that maintains the Universe. One can find those macrocosmic things, through harmonies with the microcosmic things. But, of course, that is the material magick.
    All mystical systems use at least one paradigm or model. Sometimes it's as simple as character identification in a myth or story. In Freemasonry, social life is the principle model, although myth is used as well. In the case of the Golden Dawn system, it is the concept of attainment via the Sephirot on the Tree of Life. In Kundalini, it is the natural pattern of awareness and function in the physical body -- something also used by many sorts of martial arts training.

M.K. raised some points of discussion about the Eternal Child. Here are a few short affirmations and thoughts along that line in consideration of Thelema.

    The Child is also the ancient. Through those eyes, everything is NOW and the ages are a mantle about the shoulders. That is not something that people can handle very well in company. The calm gaze of a child can be difficult to meet.
    The Child is an absolute god-form, not one which has little attributes and is subject to assignment of place. It is too strong to look at. People shy off and try to identify "childishness" or enmity instead.
    The Child will be there, but it can be hidden. It comes back at the end, no matter how hidden. The fall of ideals is the breaking. It is necessary to fulfillment of incarnation, but it obscures the Child for a time. The Child sometimes draws the mantle of ages close about. Our end is ashes in this world. To shed the last drop of blood for the Lady is to feed the fire of time like wood tossed on a hearth. It's the fire that's immortal in the world. We will come back to warm ourselves by it, consuming incarnation after incarnation to keep it burning into the light of ages to come. The adept strives to become a little pile of dust in the City of the Pyramids, then not one particle of dust; but that's the greater emancipation. Through all of this, the Child is ever the same, back and back again with the eyes of eternity.

G. passed along a question from another: What would be done for gender in associations on the Tree of Life, if another species on a distant planet studied it?

    The use of gender, male or female, on the Tree is a symbolic thing. Because human beings have bodies of those two types and many human cultures make a group of male and female stereotypes, it is useful to speak of masculine and feminine in explaining things to human beings from such cultures. If there are beings on other plants, they might or might not have gender of two types and cultural conditions that make our symbolic language useful. Such things are not essential to the ideas that the Tree of Life shows.

A. Raised a question about the path of the serpent on Trees other than the usual kind.

    On the simple Achad prismatic tree, the easiest way to picture the serpent would be to have it branch and merge, with three bodies at some points and one at others. That not particularly difficult, since maintaining three modes of thought at one time isn't an extreme use of the Tree.
    With the multiple or icosahedral tree, it's a little more difficult. In that case the branching and reentrant serpents of each prism have a common tail. The head can also be considered common, but not easily since it would have to be the surface of the inscribing sphere.
    More simply, considering the surface of a sphere, Draconis and the celestial globe can form a very different sort of Tree but one also applicable to the Sepher Yetzirah. The Golden Dawn approach to Astrology and Tarot on a sphere would be usable.

Events Calendar for March 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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