Thelema Lodge Calendar for September 2002 e.v.
Thelema Lodge Calendar
for September 2002 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.Copyright © O.T.O. and the Individual Authors, 2002 e.v.
Thelema Lodge
Ordo Templi Orientis
P.O.Box 2303
Berkeley, CA 94702 USA
September 2002 e.v. at Thelema Lodge
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Announcements from
Lodge Members and Officers
Rapturous Garden:
Summum Bonum
"The great work, the summum bonum, true wisdom, and perfect happiness;"
these are the objects of our aspiration at Thelema Lodge, whether in our work
and in our amusements together as a community, or along our individual paths
as Thelemites. The formula comes from the priest's blessing issued to
communicants at the conclusion to the gnostic mass. We celebrate this pagan
eucharist ritual together every Sunday evening in Horus Temple, providing
visitors as well as members and friends an opportunity to participate together
as Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. The lodge also offers Thelemic fellowship and
a forum for shared study and scholarship in our classes and reading groups, as
well as initiations through the Man of Earth degrees of Ordo Templi Orientis.
Our community of celebration observes an annual cycle of solar holidays which
is balanced upon the two equinox points of spring and autumn. These solar
dates have always served mankind for seasonal boundaries, and as we follow our
"Lord visible and sensible" in his progress through the seasons, we are
constantly reminded of the possibilities for development "in our particular
orbit" as well. Autumn overtakes us this month, right about the time when
we'll be circling round the temple for communion in the multiple climax of our
gnostic mass; Sol enters Libra at 9:56 on Sunday evening on 22nd September. A
few hours before mass there will be a ritual to observe the mid-point of the
year and the closing of the summer, beginning at 3:33 in Horus Temple. Later
we will mark the point of equinox at the conclusion of mass with the selection
of a lodge word from the altar. Be with us as we let the "perpetual radiance"
of Our Father the Sun "hearten us to continual labor and enjoyment" for the
dark half of the 98th year of the aeon. (This will also be the weekend of the
harvest moon, full Saturday morning 21st September at 6:59.)
To take communion in the gnostic mass, on Equinox Sunday or any other
Sunday at nightfall, arrive at the lodge by 8:00 and assemble with the rest of
the congregation in the library as the officers of the evening's "mass team"
prepare the temple, and themselves, for our ritual. When attending for the
first time, contact the lodgemaster several days ahead by telephone for
directions to the temple. We seldom have a mass without a first-time visitor
or two, and although the liturgy involves a complex role even for the
assembled People, it is easy to join in simply by following the example of the
rest of us, and gradually learning the various gestures and responses. After
a few consecutive masses most newcomers find that they know most of their role
without trying, and then with a little private study of the script they can
make themselves perfect in the sanctuary of the gnosis. The next step, once
an aspirant has become comfortable in the part of a simple communicant, is to
study the roles of the three officers in the mass. The priestess and priest
roles are best thought of as a complementary pair and learned together with a
partner; the role of deacon is an elaboration upon the part played by the
People in the mass. For the novice, after learning the canon of the mass
through individual study and memorization of the text, there will still be
much to discover in privately celebrating the ritual with an informal mass
team. Only when all three officers work together with ease and enthusiasm is
the new team ready to serve the lodge at mass in Horus Temple. Our temple
schedule is maintained by the lodgemaster, who is happy to assign a mass date
to new teams who have prepared themselves to participate fully in our gnostic
celebration.
Shake the Glittering Spear
Our current cycle of The Rites of Eleusis, Aleister Crowley's mystic drama
of the planetary powers, plays out its central acts this month with three
performances in the East Bay, held at twelve day intervals. The rites of Saturn and Jupiter last month were impressive successes, and we look now to Mars with a strong sense of ceremonial momentum. As the god of forceful contests, Commander Mars is ready for any challenge -- indeed there may be no
other way of relating to this god than by opposing his forces, except by
cheering on his glorious victories at "The Rite of Mars" on Tuesday evening
3rd September. The performance, beginning at 8:00, will be at Sequoia Lodge,
2666 Mountain Boulevard in the Oakland hills. Brother Jeffrey has modelled
this cycle's military rite upon the conclusive conflict in the War of the
Roses, the battle of Bosworth in 1485. Here King Richard III (unable to
barter his kingdom in a pinch for a horse) was killed, and Henry VII assumed
the English throne. Richard leads the black army, opposed successfully by
Henry's reds, their progress figuring the triumph of Mars and his replacement
by Sol thereafter. Wear medieval garb if you have it, or chose black or red
and prepare to be all that you can be in the gore and the muck and the chaos
of confrontation. All recruits are ordered to pack their own provisions for
this campaign, as no catering facilities will be available in camp.
Molten Fire of Delight
For age comes oblivion, for majesty comes embarrassment, for command comes
defeat, and for the strength of light and life there comes at last the
darkness of the night. "The Rite of Sol" will blaze forth at noon on Sunday
15th September in north Berkeley at Sirius Encampment. Performed as a
hieratic ceremony, this ritual includes a feast (to which all attending are
welcome to contribute).
Masses of Red Hair and Roses
It's not easy to be neutral about Venus, so her rite can be one of the more
disturbing and profound of the seven. (It's also not easy to be serious or
precise about Venus, making it sometimes among the more ridiculous of the
lot!) Celebrate "The Rite of Venus" at Sequoia Lodge, 2666 Mountain Boulevard
in the Oakland hills, beginning at 8:00 on Friday evening 27th September to
see how irresponsibly alluring and seductive a really well-organized goddess
can be. As we learn, the head can fool the heart (for at time, at least), and
young man Mercury, who seems quite a lover at first, may not have the courage
to attach himself to the goddess for long.
Within the Guarded Border
Sirius Encampment offers a seminar on the Second Degree initiation ritual
and its symbolism, to be held on Sunday afternoon 29th September at 2:00.
Open only to II° initiates (and above), this discussion will facilitate an exchange of technique, lore, policy, and tradition relevant to the
Consecration of a Magician. In particular we will explore the nature of the
commitment which candidates makes at this stage, to the Order, to themselves,
and to each of their brothers and sisters. Experienced officers in this
ritual as well as recent initiates of this degree are especially invited to
participate.
The Pentacle of Fire
In the Qabalistic theory of the Four Worlds, Assiah, the Fulfilled World,
is attributed to the final heh of the fourfold name of God (IHVH), and to the
element of Earth. It is the world we live in; the world of matter. Yet we hold
that this world was transformed at the Equinox of the Gods, even as it was
foretold in the biblical book of Revelation. The Beast showed his true face in
the face of our Prophet, and the Great Harlot rode forth, naked and rejoicing,
as Woman freed herself from the fetters of the old oppression.
Could it be that, at that moment in 1904 e.v., our world was transformed
from the dross of earth to the fiery rapture of Divine Being? Certainly, the
former solidity remains with us as an echo, for those who choose to cling to
it. But the Fulfilled World is not what it was before. Instead of a world of
limits, it is a world of opportunities. Instead of a stopping-place, it is a
beginning. We are not a receptacle, a final heh; we are the voice that roars
the new yod. On Sunday afternoon, 22nd September at 3:33, Thelema Lodge celebrates the yearly Autumnal Equinox in recognition of the epochal Equinox of the Gods, as the transmutation of our Pentacle of Earth into the Pentacle of Fire. There is, after all, no turning back.
Pappa Pisses
Issuing a formal apology to "the illustrious shade of Robert Browning" for
the "audacious parody in title, style, and matter of his Christmas Eve and Easter Day," which Crowley published in 1904 e.v., the younger author wrote
that "there is hardly any poet living or dead who so commands alike my
personal affection and moral admiration" as Browning. This was in Crowley's
"Introduction" to Ascension Day and Pentecost, a long poem produced in just a
couple days of frantic scribbling (in mid-November 1901), in imitation and
burlesque of the great Victorian poet's 1850 book of verse, Christmas Eve and Easter Day, which contrasts low-church and high-church styles of worship. Crowley -- two generations later -- lamented that the intelligence of the elder writer had never extended to radical criticism of the whole wretched "repentance" tradition of the Christian faith. "It is curious," Crowley's introductory essay continues, "that Browning never turns his wonderful faculty of analysis upon the fundamental problems of religion, as it were an axe laid to the root of the Tree of Life. It seems quite clear that he knew what would result if he did so. We cannot help fancying that he was unwilling to do this." Crowley's admiration for Browning as an intellectual poet who did not compromise his portrayal of the great spiritual issues and psychological challenges of the Victorian era was a significant influence upon the Master Therion's entire literary career. Browning ranks with Shelley, Baudelaire, and Swinburne among the fathers of Crowley's poetic style, and of the four it is Browning about whom Crowley had the most to say. Over forty references to Browning and quotations from his verse may be found in Crowley's basic writings, all of which evince a respectful admiration. The fascination with extreme states of excitement, with obsession and criminality and decadence, and the abrupt informality of Browning's poetic technique can easily be traced in Crowley's own verse, early and late. During the Prophet's final years, his library pitifully reduced by war-time penury in a boarding house, his life-long copy of the huge volume of Browning's complete poetical works remained a constant companion to the old man. Join Caitlin and the Section Two reading group at Thelema Lodge, meeting on Monday evening 23rd September from 8:00 till 9:30 in the library, for an evening with the poetry of Robert Browning. With a focus upon the "dramatic lyrics" of this great Victorian vast production of fictional verse, we will be proclaiming and expounding Mr Sludge the Medium, Bishop Blougram, Karshish the Arab physician, Fra Lippo Lippi, Caliban upon Setebos, Paracelsus, and the other strange personalities which served Robert Browning as "personae" for his poetic voice. Readers and listeners alike will be welcome.
Previous Section Two Next Section Two
Caliban On Patmos
Being the Last Adventure of the Beloved Disciple
by Aleister Crowley
Come, kids, lambs, doves, cubs, cuddle! Hear ye John
Pronounce on the primordial protoplast Palingenetic, palaeontologic,
And beat that beggar's bleeding 





With truth veracious, aletheiac, true!
John ye hear. Cuddle, cubs, doves, lambs, kids, come!
First, God made heav'n, earth: Earth gauche, void; deep, dark.
God's Ghost stirred sea. God said "Light!" 'Twas. Saw light,
Good, split off dark, call'd light "day," dark "night." Eve,
Morn, day I. Said, "'Twixt wets be air, split wets!"
Made air, split wets 'neath air, wets top air; so,
Call'd air "heav'n." Eve, morn, day II. Said, "Low wets,
Cling close, show earth." So. Call'd dry "earth," wet "sea."
Rubbed hands, smacked lips, said "good."
(Here John was seized
By order of Augustus. He maintained,
In spite of the imperial holograph,
"My seizer must be Caesar," with a smile:
And for persisting in his paradox
Was disembowelled: so Genesis got square.)
Crowley published this silly bit of verse to illustrate a trivial point about
Browning in a footnote to an early essay entitled "The Excluded Middle, or,
The Sceptic Refuted: A Dialogue between a British Man of Science and a
Converted Hindu" (reprinted in 1906 in Works II). In a parody of scholarly
commentary, this brief essay is enormously lengthened with a plethora of
footnotes and documentation, with notes on notes on notes, seemingly ad
infinitum. Crowley calls this "my system of continuous footnotes, on the
analogy of continuous fractions" and the following examples are those which
directly relate to the poem. Mentioning the name of John Lane in a preceding
note, Crowley gratuitously glosses his Christian name: "Not to be confused
with John, the beloved disciple, who wrote 'Caliban on Patmos.'" Caliban is
in turn glossed as "a dwarfish miscreate, celebrated in the works of Browning
and Shakespeare (W.)," with Shakespeare then glossed as "dramatic author,
flourished A.D. 1600 circa; wrote The Tempest, Susannah, or, The Two
Gentlemen of Veronica's Garden, the Manxman, and other plays." To this
note on a note on a note, there is a footnote explaining about The Tempest
that "a garbled version of this was misbegotten in A. D. 1904 on a London
stage; the worst actor of a dreadful crew, in spite of his natural aptitude
for the part of Caliban (q. v. supra . . .), bring one Beerbohm Tree."
Another gloss, then, gives information about the actor Beerbohm Tree, and so
on. Returning to the note where we just began (glossing John Lane's Christian
name), there is also a comment on Patmos which reads: "Text appended: --" and
then consists of the poem, enclosed in square brackets. The title is intended
to remind readers of two of Robert Browning's best known "dramatic lyrics"
from his 1864 collection Dramatis Personae, the poems entitled "Caliban upon
Setebos, or, Natural Theology in the Island" (loosely based upon Shakespeare's
Tempest) and "A Death in the Desert" (concerning the final hours of John of
Patmos).
An Exceedingly Tall Tale
The organizers of the 2001 NOTOCON (National OTO Convention) made the
curious but welcome decision to invite Thelema Lodge's own Michael Sanborn to
participate as a lecturer. His chosen topic: "The Tradition of the Godman."
What did it mean? He had no idea. It wasn't until he was actually present in
the exotic environs of Long Beach, California, that he gathered such wits as
he possessed in order to spring forth a meandering depiction of the history of
the teaching of the Holy Guardian Angel, from Sumerian times to the present
day, complete with florid metaphors, baffling leaps of reasoning, and utterly
dadaistic digressions. He still doesn't know what hit him. For those who
missed this unprecedented display, we will be presenting -- once and only once
-- the video, recorded with far more finesse than the event warranted, at 8:00
on Wednesday evening 18th September at Thelema Lodge.
Rites in Review
This memoir, the first of two parts, has been edited from a recording of Leigh
Ann's recollections of her involvement with The Rites of Eleusis between
1996 and 2002 e.v. Over these past seven years she has revised, directed, and
performed the leading role in each of Crowley's seven planetary rites.
Luna, on 29 July 1996, was celebrated in the Blue Lodge Room at the Scottish
Rite Masonic Temple in downtown Oakland. Mercury was done at Grace's Temple
of Astrology in Berkeley on 3 September 1997. Venus, on 11 September 1998,
was hosted by Sirius Oasis in Berkeley. Sol was in the back yard at Oz
House on 13 June 1999. For Mars we were at the Julia Morgan Theater in
Berkeley on 27 June 2000. Jupiter was celebrated at Sequoia Lodge in the
Oakland hills on 2 August 2001. Saturn completed this personal meta-cycle
just a few days before Leigh Ann recorded these reminiscences, on 10 August
2002 e.v. at the Labyrinth in Oakland.
Doing Crowley's Eleusis
by Leigh Ann Hussey
The first rite I ever saw was a Saturn; that was '95 e.v., at Grace's
house. Afterward I jumped on my bike and took a ride through the Berkeley
hills to try and clear my head. That was a very, very strange rite, that one!
Then came Jupiter at Glenn's house, which was sort of tied up with how I got
involved in the O.T.O. in the first place. A friend who had become a mason
was crowing about that, and I was all jealous. He's also a member of O.T.O.,
and used to run the camp in Tacoma. He said, "Well, shoot, if what you want
is the secret passwords and handshakes, why don't you join the O.T.O.?" And
so I thought, "Dang, so why don't I join the O.T.O.?" At that point I was
kind of at a loose end, because I'd left my N.R.O.O.G.D. coven. I called up
Sirius and said, "Hi, Glenn! I'd like to have a Minerval." "Sure," she said.
(Well, that was difficult -- not!) So I started hanging out with those folks
and going to things that they went to, and that first Jupiter was the one
where I met Caitlin, when she squirted wine into my mouth.
That's how I came to know about the Rites. How I came to do Luna was
being a violinist, and everybody going "Ooo! ooo! ooo! You're a violinist; you
should do Luna." So I thought, "Well, okay --" and then I looked and I saw
what I was getting myself into; it was like "Oh, my god! this is
interminable!" And so I basically rewrote it almost entirely, because as I
understood it at the time the message of Luna is "virginity is bad, sex is
good." And I said, "We don't need to preach this to an audience of twentieth
century Thelemites. We don't! I mean, hello! -- it's 1996 e.v., and all of
us know that sex is good; so I need to have another message -- what do I want
to tell these people?" And I thought, well, what I will tell them is: "God is
you. God is in you." And I did this. Basically I took the stories of
Actaeon and Endymion and conflated them, and had Endymion show up in the
sanctuary of Artemis and fall in love. And so my Soror Taurus shot him, and
he died, and was sort of dragged off into a corner and covered up on the
stage. A certain number of libating sorts of things went on, and presently
the cover was flung off, and out came Pan, from where Endymion had been. The
gist of it being that the real god was inside the callow youth, and had to be
-- sort of -- broken out. Barrett was such an earnest young man; he was just
totally perfect for the part. (I don't know about it ruining him for life; I
think his earnestness ruined him more than anything.)
So, having done that, I thought, "Well, shoot, you know; I'll do another
one, and, well, let's make it the next one; let's make it Mercury. And
that's how I got into doing the cycle backwards. Except that, in a sense, I'm
not going through the cycle backwards, I'm going up the Tree, one new Sephirah
every year. I started out by looking at the small picture; I started out
looking at each rite as its own thing, rather than at the complete set. It
was only as I came towards the end of the cycle, towards Mars or Jupiter,
that I was beginning to look at the whole picture of the Rites and what does
the whole thing mean. So, when I was doing Mercury, I basically recreated
the world by word, through all of the traditions that have the world created
by word in the first place. I split my Mercury into two, and had him sort of
wander off at the end, dressed up as Odin, in a floppy hat. It wasn't very
memorable, because I didn't have a very strong grasp of Mercury.
I totally didn't have any grasp of Venus. I had no idea what I was going
to do to Venus to make it personal to me. By then I had decided, "Okay, I
have to make each one of these -- I have to give it my own stamp." It was
while I was working on Venus that I came up with a conception for Mars. I
still have a note of it in my Newton (my PDA): "Do Mars as Templar tragedy."
And, you know, I just had this total brain fever, and so I wrote it all down,
and I said, "Okay, put this away for two years. Now I have to think about
"Venus". What the fuck am I going to do?" And I was reading and digesting
the script, and Venus says "Brother Libra, I "command" you to declare the
mystery of Venus," or the "secret" of Venus, or whatever the line it is that
she says: "Brother Libra, I command you --" and suddenly it all sort of
shifted over, and I could see how I could turn it into this total fetish show.
And then for Sol I did the Aztec thing, with Tony Davis holding up my
dripping heart -- oh, it was fabulous! -- and Charles Humphries starting out as
Iztli, the god of the obsidian knife, for the Bez character. Caitlin was
Coatlicue, she of the serpent skirt, with Tony as Tezcatlipoca, who is
Quetzalcoatl's dark-mirror brother. And I was Quetzalcoatl. And so we had
Iztli sort of transform, because Quetzalcoatl says "No more human sacrifice is
necessary," so Iztli is banished from the temple -- and he comes back as
Cortez. And so that's how we coped with that; and then we shifted forward
into the future and had Caitlin, the intrepid archaeologist, discover the
golden phallic symbol thingy inside my empty tomb, and basically smite Brother
Leo with it -- "I strike thee with my rod and cause thee to declare" -- and he
delivered Brother Leo's speech as a lecture, in blank verse.
Then I was finally able to do Mars, as the Templar tragedy. I played fast
and loose with history, and the crusades, and Jacques DeMolay, and had the
Templars going over to the Holy Land and finding the Rose to go with their
Cross. In fact I got an iron rose, a cast-iron rose which I spray-painted
gold to make it both iron for Mars and gold for Sol. So that when they're
sifting through the ashes at the end they find Sol, who is in disguise. So,
they find the rose in the Holy Land, and DeMolay becomes a gnostic -- he
becomes a Sufi. At the last speech, I kept "Unity uttermost showed," but all
of the rest of it is poems by Hafiz and Rumi, including my favorite, favorite
Rumi poem of all time:
When my bier moves on the day of death,
Think not my heart is in this world.
Do not weep for me and cry "Woe, woe!"
You will fall in the devil's snare: that is woe.
When you see my hearse, cry not "Parted, parted!"
Union and meeting are mine in that hour.
If you commit me to the grave, say not "Farewell, farewell!"
For the grave is a curtain hiding the communion of Paradise.
After beholding descent, consider resurrection;
Why should setting be injurious to the sun and moon?
To you it seems a setting, but it is a rising;
Though the tomb seems a prison, it is the release of the soul.
Shut your mouth on this side and open it beyond,
For in placeless air will be your triumphal song.
He collapses, and they drag him off to his trial, where he declares "I'm not a
Christian, I'm not a Muslim -- I'm not a this, I'm not a that." Brother
Capricorn (as the Grand Inquisitor) says "Do you have anything to say for yourself before I commit you to the flames?" He answers, "Aye! feast!
rejoice! there is no dread hereafter. There is the dissolution, and eternal
ecstasy in the kisses of Nu," and so he gets dragged off to the pyre. The
best part about that one was that I had been not knowing, all the way through,
if I had the audience; because I couldn't see them. It was in a theater
situation, and of course we had lights shining on us all the time, so I
couldn't see the audience to know what they were thinking or what was
happening. Then I was standing off in the wings, and it was dark, and they
had set up the stake and scattered the rose petals around it. Caitlin and
Charles (as ordinary Templar brothers) come out from opposite sides, kind of
furtively, to gather ashes (as it was said had been done; people gathered
ashes from those pyres as talismans and souvenirs and relics and whatnot). As
I'm standing in the wings, Caitlin says the line about "Look! In the ashes of
the pyre are rose petals," and she picks them up. I could hear audible gasps
and sobs, and I knew I had them, and I had had them all along! That was
definitely a defining moment for me, knowing that I had had them all along,
all five years.
So then Jupiter; it's like, well, how the hell am I going to follow that?
Okay, I have to do something completely different. So, I threw Trimalchio's
feast, complete with the roast pig with the red hat on his head, and did my
take on the gunas. It was actually kind of cool, because Michael Sanborn said
afterwards to me that he had hardly ever seen a better presentation of them.
And I did that all in classical dactyls, because I wanted it to have that
classical flavor. I did the entire thing in dactyls, much to Elton's dismay
and distaste (but, what the heck?).
So, having done that, it's like, okay, well, how am I going to top that?
How am I going to finish my cycle and provide a good kick-off for this year's
cycle? I had been thinking for a long time that I was going to do Saturn as
Baron Samedi, so I just basically assembled it exactly that way. It turned
out that the script worked out just fine, because Brother Aquarius totally
fits for Agoue, and the Venus character is just right, and Brother
Capricornus; I had him be Ogou -- that was Elton. I redid all of the Magister
Templi's speeches, basically saying exactly the same thing, only shorter,
pithier, punchier, and rappier (so that it would be realistic coming out of
the Baron's mouth). What was interesting about that was, as an old friend of
mine used to say, the great thing about the African gods is, when you call
them they come; the bad thing about the African gods is, when you call them
they come. So, I drafted Sam Webster because I knew that he would be able to
handle it if the African gods actually showed up; he could stay outside of it
and kind of keep things under -- more or less -- control. While I didn't have
a complete personality displacement (as I have heard sometimes happens, or is
supposed to happen), because I had to have a little too much forebrain to be
able to deliver the aforementioned speeches, it was certainly the case that as
long as the Baron was there it didn't matter that I had a belly full of rum
and no food -- anyway, basically two shrimps for dinner -- and when the Baron
left, that became a serious problem. That's how I ended up being horizontal
for the remainder of the evening. But I woke up in the morning, actually --
once I finally woke up -- pretty okay, you know; not too hung over at all --
which I thought was kind of cool.
(To be continued)
Crowley Classics
First printed in 1904 e.v. in The Sword of Song; Called by Christians, The Book of the Beast, a publication of the Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth (Foyers -- given as "Benares," the ancient holy city of India,
on the title page -- 1904), and afterwards in the second volume of Crowley's Works (Foyers: S.P.R.T., 1906).
Introduction to
"Ascension Day and Pentecost"
by Aleister Crowley
Not a word to introduce my introduction! Let me instantly launch the Boat
of Discourse on the Sea of Religious Speculation, in danger of the Rocks of
Authority and the Quicksands of Private Interpretation, Scylla and Charybdis.
Here is the strait; what God shall save us from shipwreck? If we choose to
understand the Christian (or any other) religion literally, we are at once
overwhelmed by its inherent impossibility. Our credulity is outraged, our
moral sense shocked, the holiest foundations of our inmost selves assailed by
no ardent warrior in triple steel, but by a loathly and disgusting worm. That
this is so, the apologists for the religion in question, whichever it may be,
sufficiently indicate (as a rule) by the very method of their apology. The
alternative is to take the religion symbolically, esoterically; but to move
one step in this direction is to start on a journey whose end cannot be
determined. The religion, ceasing to be a tangible thing, an object uniform
for all sane eyes, becomes rather that mist whereon the sun of the soul casts
up, like Brocken spectre, certain vast and vague images of the beholder
himself, with or without a glory encompassing them. The function of the facts
is then quite passive: it matters little or nothing whether the cloud be the
red mist of Christianity, or the glimmering silver-white of Celtic Paganism;
the hard grey dim-gilded of Buddhism, the fleecy opacity of Islam, or the
mysterious medium of those ancient faiths which come up in as many colours as
their investigator has moods.1 If the student has advanced spiritually so
that he can internally, infallibly perceive what is Truth, he will find it
equally well symbolised in most external faiths.
It is curious that Browning never turns his wonderful faculty of analysis
upon the fundamental problems of religion, as it were an axe laid to the root
of the Tree of Life. It seems quite clear that he knew what would result if
he did so. We cannot help fancying that he was unwilling to do this. The
proof of his knowledge I find in the following lines: --
"I have read much, thought much, experienced much,
Yet would die rather than avow my fear
The Naples' liquefaction may be false . . .
I hear you recommend, I might at least
Eliminate, decrassify my faith
Since I adopt it: keeping what I must
And leaving what I can; such points as this . . .
Still, when you bid me purify the same,
To such a process I discern no end . . .
First cut the liquefaction, what comes last
But Fichte's clever cut at God himself? . . .
I trust nor hand, nor eye, nor heart, nor brain
To stop betimes: they all get drunk alike.
The first step, I am master not to take."
This is surely the apotheosis of wilful ignorance! We may think, perhaps,
that Browning is "hedging" when, in the last paragraph, he says: "For
Blougram, he believed, say, half he spoke,"2 and hints at some deeper ground.
It is useless to say, "This is Blougram and not Browning." Browning could
hardly have described the dilemma without seeing it. What he really believes
is, perhaps, a mystery.
That Browning, however, believes in universal salvation, though he nowhere
(so far as I know) gives his reasons, save as they are summarised in the last
lines of the below-quoted stanza of "Apparent Failure," and from his final
pronouncement of the Pope on Guido, represented in Browning's masterpiece as a
Judas without the decency to hang himself.
"So (i.e. by suddenness of fate) may the truth be flashed out by one blow,
And Guido see one instant and be saved.
Else I avert my face nor follow him
Into that sad obscure sequestered state
Where God unmakes but to remake the soul
He else made first in vain: which must not be."
This may be purgatory, but it sounds not unlike reincarnation.
It is at least a denial of the doctrine of eternal punishment.
As for myself, I took the first step years ago, quite in ignorance of what
the last would lead to. God is indeed cut away -- a cancer from the breast of
truth.
Of those philosophers, who from unassailable premisses draw by righteous
deduction a conclusion against God, and then for His sake overturn their whole
structure by an act of will, like a child breaking an ingenious toy, I take
Mansel as my type.3
Now, however, let us consider the esoteric idea-mongers of Christianity,
Swedenborg, Anna Kingsford, Deussen and the like, of whom I have taken Caird
as my example. I wish to unmask these people: I perfectly agree with nearly
everything they say, but their claim to be Christians is utterly confusing,
and lends a lustre to Christianity which is quite foreign. Deussen, for
example, coolly discards nearly all the Old Testament, and, picking a few New
Testament passages, often out of their context, claims his system as
Christianity. Luther discards James. Kingsford calls Paul the Arch Heretic.
My friend the "Christian Clergyman" accepted Mark and Acts -- until pushed.
Yet Deussen is honest enough to admit that Vedanta teaching is identical, but
clearer! and he quite clearly and sensibly defines Faith -- surely the most
essential quality for the adherent to Christian dogma -- as "being convinced
on insufficient evidence." Similarly the dying-to-live idea of Hegel (and
Schopenhauer) claimed by Caird as the central spirit of Christianity is far
older, in the Osiris Myth of the Egyptians. These ideas are all right, but
they have no more to do with Christianity than the Metric System with the
Great Pyramid. But see Piazzi Smyth!4 Henry Morley has even the audacity to
claim Shelley -- Shelley! -- as a Christian "in spirit."
Talking of Shelley: -- With regard to my open denial of the personal
Christian God, may it not be laid to my charge that I have dared to voice in
bald language what Shelley sang in words of surpassing beauty: for of course
the thought in one or two passages of this poem is practically identical with
that in certain parts of "Queen Mab" and Prometheus Unbound. But the very
beauty of these poems (especially the latter) is its weakness: it is possible
that the mind of the reader, lost in the sensuous, nay! even in the moral
beauty of the words, may fail to be impressed by their most important meaning.
Shelley himself recognised this later: hence the direct and simple vigour of
the "Masque of Anarchy."
It has often puzzled atheists how a man of Milton's genius could have
written as he did of Christianity. But we must not forget that Milton lived
immediately after the most important Revolution in Religion and Politics of
modern times: Shelley on the brink of such another Political upheaval.
Shakespeare alone sat enthroned above it all like a god, and is not lost in
the mire of controversy.5 This also, though "I'm no Shakespeare, as too
probable," I have endeavoured to avoid: yet I cannot but express the hope that
my own enquiries into religion may be the reflection of the spirit of the age;
and that plunged as we are in the midst of jingoism and religious revival, we
may be standing on the edge of some gigantic precipice, over which we may cast
all our impedimenta of lies and trickeries, political, social, moral, and
religious, and (ourselves) take wings and fly. The comparison between myself
and the masters of English thought I have named is unintentional, though
perhaps unavoidable; and though the presumption is, of course, absurd, yet a
straw will show which way the wind blows as well as the most beautiful and
elaborate vane: and in this sense it is my most eager hope that I may not
unjustly draw a comparison between myself and the great reformers of eighty
years ago.
I must apologise (perhaps) for the new note of frivolity in my work: due
doubtless to the frivolity of my subject: these poems being written when I was
an Advaitist and could not see why -- everything being an illusion -- there
should be any particular object in doing or thinking anything. How I have
found the answer will be evident from my essay on this subject.6 I must
indeed apologise to the illustrious Shade of Robert Browning for my audacious
parody in title, style, and matter of his "Christmas Eve and Easter Day." The
more I read it the eventual anticlimax of that wonderful poem irritated me
only the more. But there is hardly any poet living or dead who so commands
alike my personal affection and moral admiration. My desire to find the Truth
will be my pardon with him, whose whole life was spent in admiration of Truth,
though he never turned its formidable engines against the Citadel of the
Almighty.
If I be appealed of blasphemy or irreverence in my treatment of these
subjects, I will take refuge in Browning's own apology, from the very poem I
am attacking:
"I have done: and if any blames me,
Thinking that merely to touch in brevity
The topics I dwell on were unlawful --
Or worse, that I trench with undue levity
On the bounds of the holy and the awful --
I praise the heart and pity the head of him
And refer myself to Thee, instead of him,
Who head and heart alike discernest,
Looking below light speech we utter
Where frothy spume and frequent splutter
Prove that the soul's depths boil in earnest!"
But I have after all little fear that I am seriously wrong. That I show to my
critics the open door of the above city of refuge may be taken as merely
another gesture of contemptuous pity, the last insult which may lead my
antagonists to that surrender which is the truest victory.
PEACE TO ALL BEINGS.
Notes:
1. "In order to get over the ethical difficulties presented by the naive
naturalism of many parts
of those Scriptures, in the divine authority of which
he firmly believed, Philo borrowed
from the Stoics (who had been in like
straits in respect of Greek mythology) that great
Excalibur which they had
forged with infinite pains and skill -- the method of allegorical
interpretation. This mighty 'two-handed engine at the door' of the theologian
is warranted
to make a speedy end of any and every moral or intellectual
difficulty, by showing that,
taken allegorically, or, as it is otherwise said,
'poetically' or 'in a spiritual sense,' the
plainest words mean whatever a
pious interpreter desires they should mean" (Huxley,
Evolution of Theology -- A. C.
2. Probably a record for a bishop. -- A. C.
3. As represented by his Encyclopaedia article; not in such works as Limits
of Religious Thought.
4. An astronomer whose brain gave way. He prophesied the end of the world in 1881, from
measurements made in the Great Pyramid.
5. So it is usually supposed. Maybe I shall one day find words to combat,
perhaps to overthrow,
this position. P.S. As, for example, page 185. As a
promise-keeper I am the original
eleven stone three Peacherine. -- A. C.
6. Vide "Berashith."
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from the Grady Project:
These announcements and bits of news from Thelema Grand Lodge twenty-one years ago have been edited from issues of the first volume of The Magickal Link: Official Monthly Bulletin of Ordo Templi Orientis (Berkeley: 1981). The initial section appeared on page two of the premier issue that January. Section two was from issue number two, where it appeared as the leading article. The March and April issues contained no contributions from Grady, and our third item appeared on the first page of the issue for May 1981 e.v. (volume 1, number 5). The "temple kitty" note at the end appeared in a special box as the leading article in the sixth issue, in June. Nothing appeared "from the Caliph" in the following issue for July, but thereafter commences the sequence of articles for Grady's regular column on the first page of the Link which we have been reprinting in this column for the past year.
Notes from the Caliph
by Hymenaeus Alpha 777
I
The latest project at Grand Lodge is to get the Guild system going.
Crowley recommended this highly in the "blue" Equinox. So do I. It is an
excellent system of lateral (horizontal) energy manifestation, as opposed to
vertical structuring. For this purpose I have created the GUILD OF DRAMA AND
THAUMATURGY. Obviously this places heavy emphasis on dramatic ritual, both
group and individual. Unfortunately I have not yet found the secretarial help
needed to provide communications. If there are any volunteers, please let me
know. -- H. A. 777
II
I have just returned from my latest Eastern tour. It was far out. In my
wartime career I have hit many a beach, but this was one of the strangest. On
the second day into the drop, I had a radio tape interview with Margot Adler
(author of Drawing Down the Moon). Jim Wasserman was responsible for that.
Then Vince rented a suite in the Park Plaza in Manhattan and I was announced
as the guest of honor. Other people present were Kenneth Anger, Bishop Simon
(of Necronomicon fame), and Bob Wang (who drew the cards for Regardie's Golden
Dawn Tarot). I thought it was quite a compliment for all of us.
The subject of my color slide lecture was "Group Ritual," using recent
slides of The Rites of Eleusis done by Chandria as the primary vehicle of exposure. The result was impressive. -- H. A. 777
III
Bev (our G. S. G.) has asked me to contribute an article. You see, I used
to think that I was in charge of this organization. After all, I've spent
forty years of an incarnation dreaming and building. But there have been
changes. There always are. This is a very important lesson for all of us.
Thelema has reached the stage of mass intelligence. Bring enough of it
together and you have what I call the "Star-burst effect." Like an atomic
bomb going off. Only this time it is beautiful energy manifesting. "Every
man and every woman is a star."
And that is the whole point of this little essay. The access of female
energy into the Order of the Temple in the last few years just blows me away.
I call it "catching the vision of Nuit." The realization of the continuity of
the Goddess. I realized all this as a moment of slight embarrassment. As
usual I had contributed articles to The Magickal Link as I am used to doing for the O.T.O. Newsletter. And then all of a sudden I realized that I was not needed. The way it happened was that one day my Lady Shirine and Bev disappeared and when I asked what was happening I was told that they were at Heidrick's, typing and publishing The Magickal Link. I had not been asked my opinion. Thank God. Now I could have been very pissed. After all, I'm the big cheese in this outfit. "His Mighty What's-His-Face." Right! Instead I was so happy. Now I can relax. The leadership for Thelema is being created right now. Otherwise we won't get through the 'eighties.
Thank you. Thank all of you. -- H. A. 777
IV
I am pleased to admit to one and all that we have a new temple kitty. His
name is Lucifer. He is a black kitty with golden eyeballs. Technically he is
called a "Sable-point Siamese." Right at the moment he is trying to crawl my
frame while I'm trying to type this. Which is a little distracting. But a
lot of fun. He reminds me of the (no, Lucifer, don't step on the typewriter
keys!)
-- well, that takes care of that Grady story.
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from the Library Shelf
"Preface" to the Pymander of Hermes
from Collectanea Hermetica (1894)
by William Wynn Westcott
This volume contains the English translation by Dr Everard, 1650, of
seventeen tracts (of which the Pymander is one) attributed to Hermes
Trismegistos, otherwise Mercurius Termaximus, or in the Egyptian language,
Thoth, or Taautes, or Tat. Of this Hermes no reliable historical details have
come down to us, but many of the ancient authors have referred to Hermes as an
inspired teacher who instructed the priests and rulers of the Egyptian nation
at a time almost certainly anterior to that commonly associated with Moses.
It has been asserted by men who have been called learned, that this Hermes was
really identical with Enoch, and by others he has been identified as Gautama
-- the Buddha. If the name HERMES be taken and the suffix ES be neglected,
and the word formed of the letters H R M be traced through Chaldee, Coptic,
Greek, and Latin forms, an analogy will be observed between Hermes, and Hiram
the hero of the myth of Freemasonry, a symbolical system of morals and
theosophy which is but a reconstruction of a portion of the Ancient Mysteries.
Now the Mysteries of Egypt, named Osirian, Serapian,and Isiac, are the most
ancient known to us, and were the parents of the Eleusinian Mysteries of the
Greeks. All these Mysteries were initiations, or forms of Esoteric
instruction relating to theosophy, properly so-called, that is the knowledge
of divine powers and beings, and the connection between Man and the Divine
Source from which he is animated and inspired. Now the tracts which have come
down to us, associated with the name of Hermes as their author, are all
concerned with that arcane wisdom which was developed in three directions:
Theosophy (religious and ethical teaching), Alchemy (the relation of the
material to the spiritual and the transmutations of the former into the
latter), and Magic (the employment of the higher powers latent in man upon the
physical plane). In the Hermetic tracts these several objects are not kept
distinct, but on the contrary, are almost invariably combined; hence the great value to a true student of Occultism of these very ancient writings. It is
not of course asserted that the Pymander or other Hermetic work has come down
to us it its original form, but it is contended that although varied in many a
line and possibly in many a doctrine by the Neo-Platonists and Alexandrian
school, and perhaps in later days by Christian philosophers, the Pymander,
Aureus, etc., do yet enshrine the very old Egyptian ideals, and are almost the
only remains now existing of the Wisdom of the hierophants of the Nile Valley.
Kenealy has asserted that the name Hermes meant, in the ancient Egyptian
language, an interpreter, and in a certain sense the later Hermes of the
Greeks and the Mercurius of the Romans conveyed the same notion; this author,
in his quaint conceit of Twelve Saviours, places Hermes under the name of
Thoth as the Sixth Messiah, and assigns to him the era of 1800 years before
Christ.
This Thoth, as an Egyptian divinity, is often represented as a human form
with an Ibis head; now the bird Ibis was notable as being the great destroyer
of snakes, and the snake as apart from the regal serpent, was an emblem of
evil, sin, and error; hence the Snake Destroyer fits in well with the
character of Hermes as a Teacher of divine truths, which would serve to crush
and beat down evil thoughts and actions.
The earliest record of the title Trismegistos, as applied to this Egyptian
sage, is found in Greek authors who lived some four centuries B.C. The Neo-
Paltonists, who were of Greek culture, looked upon Hermes as the embodied
LOGOS, or Word or Manifestation of the divine Spirit. The title may have had
reference to his mastery over the Three divine sciences -- Theosophy, Alchemy,
and Magic -- as indeed is stated in paragraph twelve of the Emerald Tablet
assigned to him, of which the words following are an old Latin version: Itaque
vocatus sum Hermes Trismegistus, habens tres partes divinae philosophiae totius mundi -- that is "possessing the three parts of the divine philosophy
of the whole world."
The name "Pymander" is of Greek and not Egyptian type; it is variously
spelled "Pimander," and "Poemandres." Its derivation appears to be form
poimen (a shepherd) and aner, genitive plural andron, and so the Guide of Man,
Shepherd of men, and is nearly equivalent to Messiah. In this tract the
Pymander is giving instructions to Hermes the sage, in the capacity of Divine
teacher to human pupil. A parallel conception is seen in the Bhagavad Gita,
where Krishna teaches Arjuna.
Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine refers to the Pymander as the "Thought
Divine," the Inspired Teacher of that Race -- vol. I, 63 -- and again at page
74 she speaks of Pymander as "the oldest and most spiritual of the Logoi of
the Western continent." She also notices the possibility of a Hebrew
derivation form PI, meaning a mouth, and command, of instruction. I observe
that Parkhurst associates with this word, the Greek Phemi (to speak), so
perhaps another form of the title may be "Phemander" -- one who spoke to man.
There are two other persons mentioned in the Pymander; these are Tat,
assumed to be the son of Hermes, and Asclepius, a grandson.
The Pymander has been many times printed, but it is a very difficult volume
to obtain. Recent edition have been those of Hargrave Jennings (1884), a
reprint of Everard's English version; John David Chambers (Edinburgh: 1882), a
new translation from the Greek; and that of L. Ménard (Paris: 1867).
Of earlier date are the Greek text of C. Parthey Berolins (1854); an
Italian version by C. Lenzoni (1548); a German edition by J. Scheible (1855);
a French translation, François Ficinus (1471), followed by Franciscus
Patricius (1593); Flussas (1574); H. Rosselus (1630 and 1676); and others
contained in volumes associated with the writings of Lucius Apuleius of
Madaura, and with the books attributed to Jamblichus of Chalcis.
The present edition is a facsimile reprint of the translation of the Rev Dr
Everard from an Arabic text, of which there were two editions published in
1650 and 1657 respectively; this edition is from the earlier one. No
alteration has been made except in the mode of spelling of a few words, the
archaic form of which in the original would, it was feared, distract the reader's attention from the subject. It is preceded by a preface by J. F.,
whose name is unknown. The second edition was a reprint of the Pymander, and
contained in addition an English translation of fifteen chapters of Asclepius
with a commentary.
Very little is known of the Rev John Everard, D.D., but Alsager Vian states
that he was born about 1575 and died about 1650. He entered the Church and
remained a minister for many years, but was frequently suspended, sometimes
for heretical doctrines and at others on account of political sermons. It is
most probable that he was in truth a Neo-Platonist at heart and was also a
disciple of the German mystic Tauler. His original works contain many
quotations from Plato, Proclus, and Plotinus.
With these notes I leave this Preface, without any attempt to comment on or
explain the subject matter of the Pymander, believing that it will be better
for a student to read and assimilate what he can from the original, rather
than to read the work through my spectacles, or those of any other fellow
student.
Should the present volume be found to supply a want, the remaining tracts
attributed to Hermes will be reproduced in a succeeding volume of this series
of COLLECTANEA HERMETICA.
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Thelema Lodge Events Calendar for September 2002 e.v.
9/2/02 | | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | | (510) 652-3171 | | Thelema Ldg. |
9/3/02 | The Rite of Mars at Sequoia Lodge in the Oakland hills. 8:00PM |
9/6/02 | New Moon in Virgo 8:10 PM |
9/8/02 | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | (510) 652-3171 | Thelema Ldg. |
9/15/02 | The Rite of Sol noon at Sirius Encampment | | Sirius Camp |
9/15/02 | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | (510) 652-3171 | Thelema Ldg. |
9/18/02 | The Tradition of the God-Man 8 PM video presentation | (510) 652-3171 | Thelema Ldg. |
9/20/02 | Pathworking with Paul 8:00PM at Horus Temple | (510) 652-3171 | Thelema Ldg. |
9/21/02 | Harvest Moon, full in Aries 6:59 AM |
9/22/02 | Equinox ritual 3:33 PM in Horus Temp. | (510) 652-3171 | Thelema Ldg. |
9/22/02 | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | (510) 652-3171 | Thelema Ldg. |
9/23/02 | Section II reading group with Caitlin: the poetry of Robert Browing. 8PM in library | (510) 652-3171 | Thelema Ldg. |
9/27/02 | The Rite of Venus at Sequoia Lodge in the Oakland hills. 8:00PM |
9/29/02 | IInd degree Seminar 2PM at Sirius | | Sirius Camp |
9/29/02 | Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple | (510) 652-3171 | Thelema Ldg. |
The viewpoints and opinions expressed herein are the responsibility of the
contributing authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of OTO or its
officers.
Thelema Lodge
Ordo Templi Orientis
P.O. Box 2303
Berkeley, CA 94702 USA
Phone: (510) 652-3171 (for events info and contact to Lodge)
Internet: heidrick@well.com (Submissions and internet circulation only)
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