Thelema Lodge Calendar for March 2000 e.v.

Thelema Lodge Calendar

for March 2000 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.

Thelema Lodge
Ordo Templi Orientis
P.O.Box 2303
Berkeley, CA 94702 USA

March 2000 e.v. at Thelema Lodge

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers

Equinoctial Mass

Sol enters Aries for the Vernal Equinox on Sunday evening 19th March at 11:35; the same evening will also show us the full moon in Virgo at 8:44, though Luna will have gone into Libra by the time of Sol's transit. In celebration of spring we will offer a special equinoctial performance of Liber XV in Horus Temple, offered by three of our leading gnostic bishops. Arrive by 7:30 as usual for this holiday ritual, marking the new year for Thelemites as anno IIII₈, 96th year of the aeon, attributed in Tarot to the Adjustment trump. "The equilibrium of all things is hereby symbolized. It is the final adjustment in the formula of Tetragrammaton, when the daughter, redeemed by her marriage with the Son, is thereby set up on the throne of the mother; thus, finally, she 'awakens the Eld of the All-Father.'" -- The Book of Thoth

. . . and the man of Earth.

O.T.O. initiations will next be given here on Saturday 25th March, with all members who would like to attend requested to make advance arrangements with the officers of the lodge in order to know the time, place, and degree to be worked. Thelema Lodge offers initiation into the preliminary Minerval degree of Ordo Templi Orientis, and on through the Man of Earth grade (I°-IV°) of O.T.O. All candidates must submit completed application forms to the lodgemaster at least one month in advance to be eligible, and must maintain good contact with the lodge throughout the period of their candidacy. Applications can be obtained at most lodge events, and require the sponsorship of two active initiate members of (at least) the degree being sought.
In requesting sponsorship, an aspirant assures two initiate members that the intentions and expectations which are being brought to the initiatory experience itself, and subsequently to the work of the degree, will be such as make for worthiness and success at this level. Sponsorship creates a formal relationship within the Order between the aspirant and the two members who offer their subscriptions. The meaning and maintenance of this relationship should be seen as a part of the initiation process for the candidate, and part of the work of the degree for the sponsors. As an intimate fraternal bond, sponsorship may sometimes be arranged quite casually, but it ought never to be transacted negligently, or without due regard to the best interests both of the applicant and of the Order.

The Hour of Sacrifice is to Come

Early this summer members of Thelema Lodge plan to present our twenty-first production of the ritual cycle known as The Rites of Eleusis, based upon performances originally directed by Aleister Crowley in London ninety years ago. An initial planning meeting for all who would like to become involved in this great endeavor will be held on Tuesday evening 13th March at 8:00 in the lodge library. Our anticipated performance schedule will be at twelve-day intervals over ten weeks, opening with the Rite of Saturn in the dark of the moon on 3rd June, and concluding with the Rite of Luna at the full moon on 14th August. All who intend to present the god-forms of the rites should be present at this meeting, where essential preliminary details will be worked out. Those interested in assisting with subsidiary roles should also attend to make contact with their god-forms. For further information speak with Caitlin, who has graciously agreed to serve as our managing director for this year's Rites of Eleusis cycle.

Believe It Or N.O.X.

Wednesday evenings - the first and last of the each month - are meeting times in the lodge library for our venerable enterprise in the concentrated conversational consideration of Thelemic issues, the College of Hard N.O.X. Join Mordecai, our dean for these discussions, this month on Wednesdays the 1st and 29th of March at 8:00 to contribute your own "two cents worth" (the tuition fee for each session) and enroll amongst the fellows of the college. Topics will be proposed in advance for all who care to contact the Dean during the preceding week, but the discussion can usually be bent about to accommodate nearly any subject of interest voiced by the participants. (There will be no need to shout.) As we gather in old-fashioned audible chat amid the bookshelves, some may not suspect - or may even be shocked to learn - that a hidden virtual college is simultaneously spreading the substance of our interactions all around the world. If you can't get here in person (or even if you just don't want to), contact N.O.X. Online and let your digits do the talking. Register as a participant for N.O.X. Online at N.O.X. Online EGroups Registration

The Serpent's Tail

The Scales of the Serpent pathworkings continue on Thursday evening 2nd March with Atu XIX, the Sun, symbolizing openness and play; a week later on 9th March we will work Atu XX, the Aeon, autonomy and decision; and on Thursday 16th March the series concludes with Atu XXI, the Universe, extension and completion. These workings are held at Cheth House in north Berkeley, with all welcome to join in (even at this late stage of the working) by calling (510) 525-0666 for directions. Arrive at 7:30 for a brief preliminary discussion before the bell resounds and we all file silently into the temple. For comfort bring a small sitting cushion, and for the altar consider the option of bringing some small offering for the path.
On Saturday 18th March at noon Cheth House will hold an "epilogue ritual" for The Scales of the Serpent, called "The Weaving of the Golem," and featuring a collective chanting of all 231 Gates. Come prepared to chant and chant hard!

Previous Scales of the Serpent Next M. Sanborn article

Contes Drolatiques

The collection of Amusing Tales by Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) will be our subject for reading and discussion together in the lodge library on Monday evening 20th March. Join Caitlin at 8:00 for a good look at this classic imitation of late medieval narrative styles, comprising thirty stories in the tradition of Boccaccio and Rabelais. Balzac devoted most of his career to the dozens of stories and more than thirty novels depicting early nineteenth century French life, known collectively as the Human Comedy. Renowned for this overarching and interwoven fictional chronicle of his times, Balzac was not content to let his "modern" fictional studies drift without an anchor to the traditional range of French narrative attitudes from the past. Thus the Droll Stories lie outside the bounds of the great "comedy" of Balzac's France; as their author expressed the relationship, "like a laughing child" he strung up "the arabesque" of these old- style comic stories around the established structure of his great fictional project.
The Section Two reading group at Thelema Lodge, now in its sixth year of monthly meetings, began by selecting favorites from the second section of Crowley's "General Reading" course in the A

study curriculum. Drawn up for his early A

group in London around 1910 e.v. and published (apparently without substantial revision) a decade later in the Blue Equinox, and again in Magick in Theory and Practice, this bibliography lists "books, principally fiction, of a generally suggestive and helpful kind." Essentially it is a course of light reading in the literature of fantasy, combining significant literary works with books written for children and the latest in shocking popular fiction. Some of the items have since declined into obscurity, but Caitlin and the lodgemaster have dredged them all up and made each one the subject of at least one evening's study and discussion. In fact, to keep our group going now that we've longsince completed the original list, we've added works from Crowley's subsequent suggestions of favorite erotic literature in Liber Artemis Iota, and then continued with our own additions to the curriculum. This month's entry by Balzac, which includes the shocking tale of "The Succuba," comes down to us with the Artemis Iota seal of approval.

Previous Section Two Next Section Two

Doubting Every Statement

A new study and discussion group is organizing this month for a complete collective investigation into Crowley's greatest magical treatise, Liber ABA, or Book Four, also known as Magick. We will be using the vast and beautiful edition currently in print from the Samuel Weiser publishing company in association with the O.T.O. Liesl, our Abbess at Thelema Lodge, will be the facilitator for this group, which meets in the lodge library on approximately alternate Tuesday evenings, usually the second and fourth in each month. For our opening meeting on Tuesday 14th March we will be discussing and reading selected passages from Book Four Part One, the introductory treatise on yoga and magical discipline which Crowley published in 1911 e.v. as a little square book priced at "four groats" (one shilling). For Tuesday 28th March at our second meeting we will plan to cover the first half of Book Four Part Two, up to the "Interlude." Arrive by 8:00, and bring a copy if possible, though our library can supply a few for those who lack them.
"Let us begin by doubting every statement."

Thelemic News Webzine

After over two years of planning and procrastination . . . The Beast Bay is now online! This is a Thelemic "weblog" where visitors are invited to comment upon existing articles in threaded discussions, and also to post new articles that spawn further discussions. Topics span from traditional Thelemic themes to more general areas of interest to Thelemites, including social justice, sex worship, self- realization, and weird humor.

Crowley Classics

    Last year in these pages we reprinted Crowley's account of the expedition to the Himalayan mountain known as K2, or Chogo Ri, during the summer of 1902 e.v. That expedition never got very near the peak of the world's second highest mountain -- nor did any other of several subsequent attempts succeed for more than fifty years -- but simply to have survived through two months of camping upon the great Baltoro glacier was respectable achievement enough. At least the party returned alive, even if broken up into several separate groups which were no longer on speaking terms. Three years later some of them did reunite to try another Himalayan expedition, this time an ascent of the spectacular peak called Kangchenjunga. Beset by accidents, and problems with the management of their huge crew of native porters, this 1905 e.v. expedition got into serious trouble. During a retreat forced by harsh weather conditions one member of the team, a Swiss army officer and experienced Alpine climber named Alex Pache, was buried in an avalanche and killed, along with the three coolies attached to him. The others continued back to their base camp and the expedition broke up, leaving Crowley to travel on through Burma and into China with his wife Rose and infant daughter Lilith.
    The "Club" for which Crowley affects such disdain in his parenthetical reference in this article was the British Alpine Club, which had criticized him in the past for reckless techniques in his successful unorthodox ascents, and was quick to distance itself from him after the 1905 climbing accident (although of course the death of Pache had been in no way Crowley's fault).
    Crowley's account of the Kangchenjanga attempt was first published very soon afterwards in late 1905 e.v. as a series of five articles in a weekly imperial newspaper, the Allahabad Pioneer Mail. The present editor has never been able to examine a copy of these articles, but presumably they were much the same as the series Crowley sold to Vanity Fair four years later. The installment with which we begin here (which seems to have been second in the series, though it opens the copy we have in the O.T.O. archives) appeared originally in Vanity Fair (London: 6 October 1909) on page 439. Thanks again to Caliph Hymenaeus Beta for his assistance in providing the text for our newsletter.

Kangchenjanga:
The Story of the 1905 Expedition
by Aleister Crowley
Bandobast

How ridiculous appear those persons who claim that romance is dead, when one remembers that one has but to walk down to Northumberland Avenue and take one's passage on a pirate ship! How ridiculous, when a single week's march from the railway plunges one into the depth of a gloomy and forbidden land, into forests whose leeches make them all but impassable, and upon glaciers whose terrible solitudes have never yet been invaded by man! Yet this spice of adventure is not to be obtained without an infinity of trouble. Now that amateurs - mostly Austrians, more shame to England and the Club that has crushed every spark of mountain ability from the youth thereof! - hold all the strictly Alpine records, the glamour that superstition lent has all but faded from the great European chain, while the Canadian hills are unlikely ever to recover from the infamous nomenclature which has branded their innocent snow- fields with the names of so many nonentities by a scheme of mutual admiration which was formerly the monopoly of belles-lettres. Even in the Himalayas, the last resort of the lover of solitude and common decency, we have been saddled with such horrors as Mount Godwin-Austen, Mount Bullock- Workman, and the unspeakable like. Only the punning allusion with its Nirvanic suggestion renders Everest a pleasant enough substitute for the noble Chomo Kankar - but it is a mere piece of luck that Colonel Everest was not called Colonel Snooks. Many, with a cynicism not unforgivable, would urge that it would be in full accordance with the spirit of the age that a beautiful mountain should own some hideous name - it is to avoid that spirit, though but for a while, that I am about to seek the solitudes of Kinchenjunga. As a concession, let me promise that should I succeed in reaching the summit, it will be my pride and pleasure to rechristen it Mount Brodder.
Arriving at Darjeeling after an uneventful voyage, I first gave vent to my feelings, as in my previous article, and then set about to see what preparations were necessary. Had I been Mr Pierpont Morgan I should presumably have approached the King-Emperor with a view to purchasing his Indian dominions; it would have been a waste of money, for the resources of the Empire are generously at the disposal of the reasonable traveller. Nothing can exceed the personal kindness and practical help which everybody concerned is only too ready to bestow. The Government will take every possible trouble that can be of any service; that is, to a responsible expedition with an intelligible object. It is no doubt true that a certain charming lady, who has acquired no small reputation in Mahomedan circles by beating her husband from time to time in front of his coolies, somewhat loudly complains that she finds Anglo-Indians uncivil and disinclined to help. If this is really so, it is most extraordinary. Don't you think so? For myself, I must not let slip the opportunity of saying how very highly I value the innumerable kindnesses I have received on all hands. From the very start my formidable task was smoothed on its broader lines, while in the details I received much help when an enthusiastic Italian gentleman, M. Rigo de Righi, the able young manager of the Drum-Druid Hotel, at which it is my much-prized privilege to stay, proposed to me to allow him to join us. As he speaks both Hindustani and Tibetan, and has had six years' experience of the natives of these parts, my scruples were easily overcome.

Defamation of Character!

    The next business requiring attention was to find a head man to contract for and manage coolies. M. de Righi knew an excellent fellow; but he was in prison! This, however, as you know, is no drawback to a man's character in this country. Crime is common enough, but so is conspiracy. It is consequently the merest toss-up whether a given prisoner is a sinner or a victim. Anyway, if he is a good man at his job, nobody cares. So when he came out I engaged Nanga Sirdar in spite of the following communication of a jealous rival: -
    "To the General Sahib, Darjeeling.
    "Sir, - I beg most humbly and respectfully to bring to your kind notice that your honor I am Nima Serdar conductor of Sikim feuld and interpeter tibetan language, and your honour has been submitted my Testimonial and your Trustworthy my certificate and allow me for act after a some weeks and therefore your honor beg to inform you I having heard Nungan Sirdar was servant of woodlands Hutal and he stole a Rickshow of his Masters and sold at in Kurseong a Gentleman when the Manageress got traceing and he was santenced for One year, and alone said Nungan Sidar freen from the Jail to this morning and appear before you for the work, he is acused, how will be found gentlemans cook, and you will kindly enquiring to the Matter and consedered, and I shall ever, pray.
    I have the honour to be, Sir,
        Your most obedient servent,
            NIMA SERDAR BHOTIA,
                   Darjeeling, 24 6-05."

Thanks for the information sent by Mr Dover from Gantok, in Sikham, I began to get a grasp of the bandobast - that nightmare of the amateur lexicographer - that would be requisite. Darjeeling is practically the last post where supplies can be obtained; it is unsafe to reckon on anything beyond. Now, if a coolie carries 80 pounds and eats 2 pounds a day, how many coolies must one engage to carry 100 loads of 80 pounds each to a distance of 20 marches from the base of supplies? I leave my readers to work out the answer, but the net result of my own problem, which was very much more complicated, was that I decided to send on 8,000 pounds of rice, dal, ghi, salt, satu (made of barley, gram, and other foods, which they mix with hot water and chew; Mr Dover remarks that a man can only eat 1 1/2 pounds, eating all day), chiles, and other nutritious and succulent commodities for the coolies to Jongri, at the south foot of the Guicha La, one of the passes over the east branch of the south outlying spur of the Kinchenjunga massif, the spur that connects it with Pandim. In view of the persistent rains of Sikhim, this food had to be tinned and soldered up, and, in view of the presumable carelessness of the coolies, I decided to pack the tins in a rough wooden framework. Behold, then, a vast collection of old paraffin tins, crates, sacks of food, carpenters, plumbers, and other necessary adjuncts to the task of carrying civilization to the snows upon the verandah outside my room in the Drum-Druid Hotel.

Skating in Hades

Under the constant personal supervision of M. de Righi or myself the work went steadily on, till on July 24th and 25th 110 loads in all left for Jongri. Mr White, of the Political Department, was kind enough to supply the coolies for this purpose; and I have also specially to thank him for the trouble he took in sending for his photographs from Gantok and Calcutta, so that I might have an opportunity of examining them. In spite of my continual ill-health - people who would go to Darjeeling as a health resort would go to Hades for the skating - the work went on steadily enough. Calculations, lengthy bargainings, careful weighings, more careful inspections, occupied days and nights - there is no "bridge" for the luckless man who is sent on ahead to make the bandobast. Whatever he forgets is finally forgotten. Neither wealth nor intellect will conjure up in the wilderness of glaciers a single ounce of sugar that has not been taken at the start and nursed carefully up to the moment it is needed. Lists, labellings, numberings, cross-checkings, weighings - where is Romance gone now? And I feel with a peculiar shame that nine-tenths of the population of London would do this job a great deal better than I can. Well done or badly done, however, it is done; and I have nothing to do but wait for my three old comrades, the shikaris Salama, Ramzana, and Subhana, who are coming over from Kashmir to stiffen the transport service, and the doctor, who with his two friends Reymond and Pache, should soon arrive from Switzerland. Being extensively ill, I take ten days in Calcutta to recruit; and no sooner does the beautiful warmth of the plains get into my Darjeeling sodden carcass, than I feel fit to do anything in the world. As the Duke of Wellington pointed out long ago, Calcutta is only "unhealthy" for the beef-and- pork, guzzling, whiskey-swilling folk who insist on treating it as if it were Sussex.
I wish the rest of the party would turn up. But they have been shipwrecked in the Gulf of Suez - which is undignified - and I suppose will turn up four days late with a ton or so of provisions which they are bringing out from Switzerland. So that I have let this article run on, perhaps unduly; but what fun it will be in three weeks' time when I can go in for a thousand poetical descriptions of the march to the foot of the mountains!

Previous Crowley Classic (to be continued)

from the Grady Project:

This passage has been selected from Grady's 1954 thesis The Millennial Glow: Myth and Magic in the Marxist Ethic.

Another Extract from the section on "Magic" in
"The Universe of the New Tribalism"

by Grady Louis McMurtry

. . . the chorus of the Greek drama (Jane E. Harrison, Themis, Cambridge: University Press, 1912, pp. x-xii.) is merely the vestigial dance of the Koures, and the leader of the chorus was originally the tribal magician who could coerce the forces of fertility in nature by bending this magical essence to his will, and will is

Definitional
      Magic . . . is briefly this: how can a
               desirable object be coerced?
                                           -- Paul Radin

All of the concepts of magic revolve around and return to the substance-essence dichotomy, the substance known that comprises the material of the universe and the equally material active, vital, essence intelligence that knows because, being of the same material, it can penetrate, by means of its activity, into the substance and thereby know it. But this substance is itself in motion, and the motion of substance generates a "will" or "god" (Thales: "All things are full of gods.") or "power" or "force of nature" of "elemental force," which is the "elemental" of demonology, and this "will," which is nonvolitional or "blind," as in the "windowless" monads of Leibniz, can also be penetrated or grasped and thereby directed or controlled by the active intelligence of essence. The developmental essence we were discussing in the last section is exactly this type of nonvolitional force. Or as Engles says:

                        . . . history makes itself in such
             a way that the final resultal ways
             arises from conflicts between many
             individual wills, of which each
             again has been made what it is by
             a host of particular conditions of
             life . . . . the historical event . . .
             may itself be viewed as the product
             of a power which, taken as a
             whole, works unconsciously and
             without volition.
                                   -- Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Correspondence, 1846-1895 (New York: International Publishers, 1942), p. 476.

This, of course, is merely an echo of Hegel. . .

Previous Grady Project (to be continued)

One Member's Opinion

Ebony Anpu and the Hawk and

Jackal System: a personal interpretation

part eight:

The Silver Esbats

by Nathan W. Bjorge

    This month's topic is the Silver Esbats, or moon coven rituals, of Ebony's system. The Full Moon ritual is said to take place in the House of Life, and is under the presidency of the deity Horus. For the Egyptians, Horus represented the "black earth," or fertile portion of the Nile river valley. He was a god of life. The living king was Horus, as the dead king was Osiris. The New Moon ritual, conversely, takes place in the House of Death, and the presiding deity is Anubis, as psychopomp of that realm. The overall system's name, Hawk and Jackal, derives from the alignment of these two deities with the Esbat rites. The two godforms are an expression of the dual manifestations of the Universe, whose synthesis is the subject of the system's work.
    During the Full Moon rite the energies of the moon's subsequent waning are summoned to reduce the obstacles to one's True Will. Likewise, during the New Moon ritual the forces of the waxing moon correspond to an increase in one's ability to do one's True Will.
    Hawk and Jackal is intended to operate as either a left hand or right hand Tantric system, depending on the circumstances of the ritual. The Full Moon rite is worked as a right hand Tantric ritual, the New Moon as left hand. Therefore, during the Full Moon rite sexual intercourse between the Priest and Priestess does not generally occur. Rather, the energy raised between them is sublimated and projected to the purposes of the ritual. During the New Moon ritual, on the other hand, the participants may engage in intercourse while in communion with the godforms which are "riding" them. The energy is not sublimated, but grounded through the human vehicle, fully out into the world. The fluids of this union may be used to anoint cakes of light - which cakes can be burned as incense during the following Full Moon. This ritual gesture works to link the Full and New Moon activities together in a cyclical dynamic, rather than as isolated workings.
    Both Full and New Moon Esbats share a common opening structure preparatory to the rite proper. This opening involves a symbolic rising action which recapitulates the larger initiatory elevation (discussed in previous articles) on the ladder of initiation of the three Thelemic "true grades." That is to say that the opening begins in elemental space, rises to planetary space, and then to Astral or stellar space.
    First comes a ritual bath for all participants of the working. Typically natron or hyssop are added to the bath water. Now assembled skyclad in the ritual space, the participants are ready to begin. An elemental banishing, typically the Star Ruby, is performed. Then comes an elemental invocation, in this case the Middle Pillar. The Middle Pillar uses only five of the seven main chakra points, and is therefore considered an elemental, as opposed to a planetary, ritual. At this point the coven's circle is equilibrated in elemental space.
    The ritual space and its participants are next equilibrated in planetary space. The Star Sapphire is performed, as invoking a balanced alignment of the planets by the seven-fold name ARARITA. Then comes one of the most important parts of the working, the chakra activation of the priest and priestess. This is also the point where the priest and priestess assume the godforms of the ritual. Generally these are Therion for the priest, and Babalon for the priestess - representing the microcosmic correlates of the macrocosmic Hadit and Nuit, respectively. There is also a more specific manifestation, depending on whether the moon is Full or New. During the Full Moon, the godforms are understood as also manifesting Thoth and Sesheta. Khonsu and Quersut are summoned during the New Moon. (More on these deities in next month's article.)
    The Priest activates the chakras of the Priestess first. She lies down and a general massage is given to relax her. Some subtlety is possible at this point. Real, not just symbolic, activation of the chakras is possible, and should be striven for. Many covens glide through the deity assumption phase as merely symbolic. Ebony used to stress the point that when one summons deity into oneself, it should be done seriously and with expectation of actual result. It can be surprising what is actually possible. Depending on the skill of the operator, the aura might be scanned for blocks in the chakras. Also touch can be used to sense irregularities.
    To actually activate the chakras, one says a short spell while laying on hands. Ebony assigned the following planets, colors, and deities to the chakra centers:
    Sahasara - Stars, Nuit, ultraviolet
    Ajna - Saturn, Set, indigo
    Vishuddhi - Jupiter, Amon, blue
    Anahatta - Venus, Hathor, green
    Manipura - Sun, Ra, yellow
    Svadisthana - Mercury, Thoth, orange
    Muladhara - Mars, Horus, red.
    The spell involves a sort of story based on these correspondences. Here are some examples from a 1997 e.v. recording of a recitation by Ebony:

    Muladhara: Thy Muladhara is under the protection of Horus, the crowned and conquering child - god of this aeon. The bright red flame. The tower. The army of the Men of Earth. The ability to take those things away from oneself that one wishes to banish. The art of war. Thy Muladhara is under the protection of Horus.
    Svadisthana: Thy Svadisthana is under the protection of Tahuti. Tahuti, the moon in its fullness. Tahuti, the magician and the exorcist. Tahuti, utterer of the words of creation from Ra.
    Manipura: Thy Manipura is under the protection of Ra. The center of balance in the body. The center of balance in the solar system. Thy center is the center of the solar system. As above, so below. As it is with the Sun and Ra, so it is with this person. Thou art centered. Thy Manipura is under the protection of Ra.
    Anahatta: Thy Anahatta chakra is under the protection of Hathor, the goddess of love. The goddess of love protects the heart of this individual. Hathor, the cow of heaven, whose pillars are the four directions. Whose legs are the four children of Horus. Hapi, Kebekhsenuf, Imset, and Duamutef. Thy heart is under the protection of Hathor, the house and home of Horus.
    Vishuddhi: Thy Vishuddhi chakra is under the protection of Amon. Amon, the hidden god. Amon, master of Thebes. Amon, to whom the largest religious edifice ever created was dedicated.
    Ajna: Thy Ajna is under the protection of Set, the god who sees in the darkness, the god of the starry realm. May this person see in the darkness as Set sees in the darkness. Token erect of thorny thigh. Thy Ajna is under the protection of Set.
    Sahasara: Thy Sahasara is under the protection of Nuit. The goddess of infinite space and the infinite stars thereof. Mother of all the deities under heaven.

    At the end of the chakra activation the priestess sits up, crosses her arms in the sign of Osiris risen, and says "There is no part of me that is not of the gods." She now administers the same activation to the priest. The planetary equilibration of the ritual space is now complete.
    The coven's circle is now raised to alignment with stellar or Astral space. In his notes for this portion of the opening sequence, Ebony draws correspondence between time and the Astral pleroma. Ebony's was not a casual association between time and the spiritual absolute. There is a persistent association within the Western esoteric tradition between the spirit in its primal manifestation, and temporality. Time acts as the container, so to speak, of all other phenomena. (In the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, temporality is the fundamental horizon, or background, through which being comes to presence.) Much can be gained from a deep meditation upon this aspect of time.
    Invocation of the Astral absolute begins with a recitation of the Adorations. Ebony's version of the Adorations is a local tradition, which differs from other versions. The speaker begins by facing north for Nuit. AL I:14 is recited. The adorant now turns south for Hadit and declares AL II:17. The invoker briefly turns to the west to state AL III:36, then rotates to the east and declares AL III:37-38. The quarter callings of the Adorations act to lay the Astral onto the cleared elemental space already opened by the earlier banishings. Or as Ebony once explained, one is dropping the gods of the aeon into one's circle, or raising one's circle into their house.
    Finally, the Tesseract is worked to set the temple at the highest level and lay out the mandala of the new universe of actualized True Will that the moon ritual seeks to manifest. The Tesseract completes the opening sequence, and the coven is now ready to begin the moon ritual proper. Next month's article will involve a discussion of that ritual.

Previous article -- part seven (to be continued)

Media

GAIA COMMUNICATIONS WORLD NETWORK

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Fraternal greetings.

My name is Michael Keane, I am a member of the OTO based in Liverpool, England; and since 1978 I have been working as a music(k)ian under the name of The Royal Family & the Poor. Over the last 20 years, under this name, I have produced numerous LP's, singles and videos, some on Manchester based Factory Records and later privately releasing material on our own Independent Label, Gaia Communications World Network.

    The Royal Family & the Poor began in 1977 as a collaboration of two artists, myself and a friend, Arthur Mcdonald, who was the original vocalist. The very first recordings the Royal Family & the Poor were done on a £15.00 cassette machine and were nothing more to the average listener than white noise with an electrical drone. Over this, Arthur would read Situationist text taken from some of his own writings coupled with exerpts taken from Rauol Vanegiem's "leaving the 20th century"
    Our "sound" was created by my dismantling a radio receiver, wiring it up to a small analogue synthesiser and connecting them both to an old stereo gram. This would then be manipulated by moving magnets around the receiver in the radio. The Royal Family & the Poor began as an Aural- Psychic-audio experiment in transpersonal forms of communication between ourselves and the listener.
    The rehearsal room at home became our musickal, alchemical lab and The Royal Family & the Poor's Musick became a technique to explore consciousness. After all, what is Music(k) other than the ability to articulate the incommunicable, the occult or hidden? Music(k) can give insights of the Soul. It can teach us how to remain open and receptive to the new, the magical. It can move and inspire us to participate in creation, to mold, to draw, to etch, to carve, to Create; the creed of OZ, that "every man and woman is" an Artist or "a star."
    It was specifically this relationship between magic(k), Art and the ability of sound to effect changes in consciousness that began to fascinate us and so we decided to call our music "musick". Factory Records heard a tape of what we were doing and invited us to contribute to a double LP sampler showcasing four of Factory's new acts. It was quickly recorded live one afternoon in Joy Divisions first four track studio.
    After this first year the other members, including Arthur McDonald, left the group. As I had felt something profoundly moving in the musick we had made, the ideas behind it and the wave of energy which surged through our entire generation around these times, to say nothing of the wonderful music coming out of every dark corner in the UK, (called by the gutter-press "punk rock") I decided to continue any way that I could.
    It was 1982, the year that I had been working on a "Practical correspondence course on the Mystical Quabbala with S.O.L., when out-of-the-blue I had a visit from a friend who just happened to be doing photographs for a William Burroughs event in the town centre that evening. He thought I might like to tag along.
    The subsequent meeting was like something strait out of "Interzone" and shocked me by its Psychic reality. It was as if Burroughs had been expecting me. He shook my hand and treated me as if I was an old friend. In the hours that followed I experienced something that I had not felt since childhood, a sense of being loved by something far greater than myself. It wasn't until I returned home that I realised that that love I had felt from him had not left me. It never did and continues to inspire me today.
    "The great God Pan is dead, Pan, the God of Panic, the sudden awareness that everything is alive and significant. But Pan lives on in the realm of imagination, in writing, painting and Music." William Burrough's -- from "Dead city radio", CD -- Island Records, 1990.
    In 1985, The Royal Family & the Poor made the decision to leave Factory records for good and set about forming our own record label, Gaia Communications World Network. We quickly released one LP and a 12" single, as well as recording an entire collection of new material before the distribution company, (Red Rhino) collapsed, effectively wiping-out our label over night.
    During this period, with various members of the band coming and going, (in a sense, the Royal Family & the Poor has been a large collective with many different people) we did numerous performances in Europe and in the UK, with five C90 cassette releases, contributed to various compilation LP's and publications, performed ritual workshops and gave lectures.
    In 1995 the opportunity arose to procure a PC and phone line as well as to raise enough capital to re-launch our beloved long term project, " Gaia Communications World Network", (not to be confused with other fluffy-bunny "new age" groups of the same name!!).
    Our first new release will be a project which has been some ten years in the making, the third audio release by Gaia Records, recorded during 1989-1990, a CD LP release titled, "Songs For The Children Of Baphomet: A Musickal Celebration on the Theme of Magick and A Tribute to The Life & Works Of Aleister Crowley, (1875 - 1947)". This LP CD includes a free 28 page full colour booklet and over an hour of some of the best tracks the Royal Family & the Poor have done to date. Each copy will be individually numbered from 1 to 2000.
    We would like to thank the OTO for the copyright permission granted to us to use the Aleister Crowley material contained on the tribute LP, and we would also like to thank Frater A.M.T. and Frater H.B. for their invaluable support and encouragement with this project. We could not have done it without you, thanks!
    For all enquiries or further information regarding Gaia Communications and The Royal Family & the Poor you can either email us at directly or, if you prefer, you can go to our Web-site on-line at the addresses below.

Love is the law, love under will.

Brother Michael A. Keane./ Fra: A.N.L.
Liverpool, near England. ! :-)

GAIA E.MAIL - GAIA418@LineOne.Net or MichaelKeane@compuserve.com .

GAIA Home-page (Expected to be online in April) - http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/michaelkeane

Primary Sources

   777 and Technocracy:
    Here is an unusual letter from Grady McMurtry to Crowley in the early period of their acquaintance. This letter of 11/6/43 e.v. was written following a visit by Grady and a change of military assignment. The latter event apparently disturbed plans to get together with Crowley and continue what must have been a rather long-winded discussion. Grady extended the earlier chat in this letter, thus affording a view into their meetings that would have otherwise been lost. Beginning with thoughts on his pending motto, Grady proceeded into utopian theories blending the Technocratic movement, popular with his circle of Science Fiction friends of the time in southern California, with idealizations of Thelema. This is young Grady talking to elder Crowley, full of beans and dreams. Impractical as it is, some of these projections came near to happening in the hippy culture of the late 1960's e.v., around the time Grady started trying to bring OTO back from the brink of oblivion. These ideas found their way, transmuted, into Grady's later thought (see the excerpts from his thesis presently being serialized in the TLC). Crowley must have been taken a bit by all this enthusiasm. Not a little would have reminded him of his own youth.
    Crowley probably drew from the start of this letter to come up with "Hymenaeus Alpha" as a magical name for Grady, using the notion of 777 as the path of the lightning bolt on the Tree of Life to reflect the notion of "unification of the universe".

1684th Ord MM C. (Avn)Q)
    APO 635, AAF 473
    U.S.Army
    6 November 1943

Master:
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law"

This will give you my address - you will notice a change a change of unit as well as APO. As I will not be in on Saturday or Sunday I am going to use this medium of presenting an extension of our discussion the other night.

I have been thinking about your suggestion that I determine my motto. As I visualize it - my purpose is the unification of the universe - internal and external. The balancing of the mundane with the spiritual. The Great Work as you have shown it and more - much more. Quite a task. However I shall go ahead just as if I had good sense and allow my force (overdrive) to determine my course. To determine a concise statement of my aim is, however, a something else. I could say "I conquer" - meaning that I will be victorious in this matter - but it doesn't express the meaning. "I unify" - but what do I unify? "I will balance" - I am the monad - like and unlike are the same - the mundane exists because of the spiritual and the spiritual dwells in the mundane, etc, etc. and etc. Perdurabo means "I will endure unto the end" I believe. I think that I need a word which means "I will be the force that unifies (balances)". I will not only balance myself, I will "secure the greatest possible freedom of self- expression for the greatest possible number of Points-of- View", the process of which will evolve an environment of living that will make attainment of balance a natural goal. This "greatest possible number of Points-of-View" is a quotation in the mechanics of social economics. If it was not for this tremendous drive my sole interest in the mundane world would be the external exercise necessary for the Great Work and "A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a loaf of Bread - and thou --." But that is fancy. The drive exists and I must satisfy it or "come a cropper of mystical brawn".

In your teachings and system of initiation such thoughts as "Every man and every woman is a star", "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law", "Love is the law, love under will", provide touch tones whereby ambiguous phrases and statements shown in their true light. Just so certain phrases of mine such as "Method is more important than Product" and "Machine Tools are the instruments of social change" are more than mere catch phrases but touchstones whose application to all material partaking to social economics shows it in its true light, i.e., significant or insignificant. Let us have an example. Under a Technate every person every person {sic} is assured an abundance, of the necessities as well as the finger things of life. Applying the touchstone "Method is more important that Product" we find that this apparently irrelevant information yields the following surprising conclusions:

(1) Marriage as an institution would gradually disappear. Surprising? Not at all. For the first time in human history woman would be economically independent of man. A woman, being economically independent, is no longer subject to the degrading necessity of marrying some stupid clerk to have a legitimate father for her children and to provide herself and her children with the necessities of life. A woman who is economically independent can, and often does, damn convention to do as she chooses. A nation of economically independent women and men would be a potent force. This is not to say that marriage would disappear over night - why should it? There are vast numbers of men and women who find their happiness in a life of monogamy. Nor is it to say that marriage would be forbidden or in any way frowned upon. To forbid is to restrict, and "the word of restriction is sin". Nor have we changed human nature or attempted any such change.
It is simply that by a change over to an energy evaluate economy we operate to provide an abundance of consumer goods - the result of having this abundance produces an environment congenial to the Law of Thelema, i.e., "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law"., "Love is the law, love under will". That is not to say that all love would be under will. The sudden realization of freedom and equality may easily cause a swing far in the opposite direction in which excesses of debauchery could do considerable damage. But it is hardly likely that it could do any permanent damage before the realization came, fostered by the Priests of Thelema, that while love is wonderful and "ain't nature grand?", true love is under will. Besides the most degrading scars of wholesale debauchery could hardly equal the harm caused by Prohibition, shame, or machine Politics. Each separately and not collectively. I am not one {to?} bow humbly before any manifestation of Woman (except the adoration of Nuit), but I consider the above as being significant.

(2) Education would continue until completed. With financial restriction removed public institutions such as schools and universities would come into their own. Liberal thinking would receive an unequalled impetus because, since each man is free to speak his own mind without fear of economic consequences (i.e., teachers who loose their jobs because the Board of Education must yield to offended respectability, etc.) the maximum possible points of view could be brought into focus. Each student, being economically independent, not only could but would be expected to continue his education until it was completed. Students might not leave school until much later than now - but what magnificently equipped brains they would have! (Brains, not minds. That is something else, again.)

(3) The maximum possible number of points of view would be developed. This was touched on in (2) above. "Every man and every woman is a star". True enough. And when every man and every woman is economically independent their natural tendency, undistorted by the false values of monetary economics, is to follow their basic Will. With each person following his basic will the maximum possible number of points of view will be attained. Perhaps there are thousands whose basic will, drive, karma, or what have you is so weak as to be almost hidden. We then find --

(4) There must be a Continual program of education for leisure (and living). From earliest history man has had to work for a living. Thus the tendency is that "Man must earn his living by the sweat of his brow", and "The poor will always be with us" could be taken literally because they applied to everyday life. Now we find that man does not have to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, neither are the poor any longer with us. Now we find ourselves in an environment where the law of the strong is our law and the joy of the world, where it is meet to "gather goods and store of woman and spices", etc., and come unto the adoration of Nuit in the uttermost of her voluptuousness. However, even tho this be so, the fact remains that the majority of our people have been conditioned to believe in, and think along the lines of, the teachings that work is good for the soul - they must be educated until they can understand that the work referred to is not manual labor {for} the sake of manual labor - but exercise that will give them bodies truly fit to be the vehicle of the soul. (By "Education" is meant the impartial presentation of facts with full freedom of the individual to determine which is true and does not refer to the European expression "propaganda". It is to be expected that there will be a few who either cannot or will not face the facts. Every civilized culture has its asylums for these few unfortunates who are not mentally equipped to stand the strain of thinking of accepting the world as it is.) That this education can be given painlessly and without great turmoil can be seen when we consider the tremendous job of reconstruction to be done to design the Continental industry for the most efficient operating techniques. Cities as we know them would not exist.

Previous Primary Sources (to be continued)

Events Calendar for March 2000 e.v.

3/1/00	College of Hard NOX 8 PM with Mordecai in the library	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/2/00	Scales of the Serpent series on Liber Arcanorum. 7:30PM At Cheth House: "Sun"	(510) 525-0666	Thelema Ldg.
3/5/00	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/9/00	Scales of the Serpent series on Liber Arcanorum. 7:30PM At Cheth House: "Aeon"	(510) 525-0666	Thelema Ldg.
3/12/00	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/13/00	Rites of Eleusis planning meeting 8:00PM in the library	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/14/00	Book Four Study Group with Liesl 8:00PM in the library	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/16/00	Scales of the Serpent series on Liber Arcanorum. 7:30PM At Cheth House: "Aeon"	(510) 525-0666	Thelema Ldg.
3/18/00	Scales of the Serpent series on Epilogue ritual chanting the 231 Gates at Cheth House, noon	(510) 525-0666	Thelema Ldg.
3/19/00	Vernal Equinox Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/20/00	Section II reading group with Caitlin: Balzacs "Droll Stories" Lodge library 8PM	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/25/00	OTO Initiations. Call to attend	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/26/00	Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/27/00	Sirius Oasis meets in Berkeley 8PM	(510) 527-2855	Sirius Oasis
3/28/00	Book Four Study Group with Liesl 8:00PM in the library	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.
3/29/00	College of Hard NOX 8 PM with Mordecai in the library	(510) 652-3171	Thelema Ldg.