Pyrrhotechnics

Liber HAD Observations

2007-04-10T14:25:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from "An instruction for obtaining Hadit":

"17. Let the Aspirant observe duly the Feasts appointed by the A.·. A.·. and perform such rituals of the elements as he possesseth, invoking them duly in their season.This is the second practice of Magick Art (ccxx. II. 35-43)."

"30. Summary continued. Preliminaries.These are the Magick Arts to be practised.
During the preparation, perform the Invocations of the Elements.
Observe the Feasts appointed by the A.·. A.·."

According to the E.G.C. Manual these Feasts may be conducted "as official E.G.C. rites by the membership of the Church under the direct or indirect supervision of a Bishop." The current COLMH mandates in particular the performance of The Invocation of Horus on the Equinoxes by local O.T.O. bodies.

"23. Let the Adept aspire to the practice of Liber XI. and preach to mankind.This is the fourth Practice of Ethics (ccxx. II. 76)."

Liber XI is Liber NU", "An instruction for obtaining Nuit". Citing the verse listed:

"4 6 3 8 A B K 2 4 A L G M O R 3 Y X 24 89 R P S T O V A L. What meaneth this, o prophet? Thou knowest not; nor shalt thou know ever. There cometh one to follow thee: he shall expound it. But remember, o chose none, to be me; to follow the love of Nu in the star-lit heaven; to look forth upon men, to tell them this glad word."

From the "new" commentary to this verse:

"The last part of this verse presents no difficulty."..."Observe that I am here definitely enjoined to proclaim my Law to men, 'to look forth' instead of retiring from the world as mystics are wont to do. I may then be confident that this Work is a proper part of my Will."

"24. Let the Adept worship the Name, foursquare, mystic, wonderful, of the Beast, and the name of His house; and give blessing and worship to the prophet of the lovely Star.This is the fifth practice of Ethics (ccxx. II. 78, 79)."

Its interesting that points 23 and 24 are the only ones of this Liber to specify an "Adept" (i.e. an individual who has attained the Knowledge and Conversation of his/her Holy Guardian Angel and recognized as such by the A.·. A.·.) They are also the last practices of ethics listed.

"33. Summary concluded.These are the practices to be performed in token of Thanksgiving for success. (...)

2. Preaching of (grk.) Thelema to mankind.
3. Blessing and Worship to the prophet of the lovely Star."

A Grk. word for "thanksgiving" is 'Eucharistos'. And of course the practices that precede this, demand "might" on the part of the aspirant.

M. Motta Quotes

2007-03-21T23:16:00.001-07:00

If you want to hear unpleasant truths about yourselves, write to our present address.

The practice of "Yoga" as a system of gymnastics, so common in the United States and other Western countries, has nothing to do with the true practice of Hatha Yoga; the 'sris', 'mahatmas' and 'gurus' who run "Yoga Academies" are, in the worst cases, con-men, and in the best cases amateurs without serious qualifications.

Commenting on the following from Chpt. V of Book IV prt. 1:

Suppose you have chosen a white cross. It will move its bar up and down, elongate the bar, turn the bar oblique, get its arms unequal, turn upside down, grow branches, get a crack around it or a figure upon it, change its shape altogether like an Amoeba, change its size and distance as a whole, change the degree of its illumination, and at the same time change its colour. It will get splotchy and blotchy, grow patterns, rise, fall, twist and turn; clouds will pass over its face. There is no conceivable change of which it is incapable. Not to mention its total disappearance, and replacement by something altogether different!
Any one to whom this experience does not occur need not imagine that he is meditating. It shows merely that he is incapable of concentrating his mind in the very smallest degree.

That is to say, his capacity of self-observation is insufficient to perceive the changes that take place even when his attention relaxes flagrantly. I have had the experience of lazy people - sometimes, also, lying people - coming to me, declaring loudly that they are meditating very well after a quarter of an hour of a first attempt - and then demanding some Grade. Usually, one above mine...

Preaching

2007-03-21T23:14:00.001-07:00

Note that Liber LXIV pertains to the path of Shin (the 20th key) and is described as:

An instruction in a suitable method of preaching.

Note also the description of Liber CCC:

A special instruction for the Promulgation of the Law. This is the first and most important duty of every Aspirant of whatever grade. It builds up in him the character and Karma which forms the Spine of Attainment.

See also this quote from Liber CCC:

Note, pray thee, the instruction in CCXX I:41-n-44, 51, 61, 63 k.t.l. on which We have enlarged in Our tract The Law of Liberty, and in private letters to thee and to others. The open preaching of this Law, and the practice of these precepts, will arouse discussion and animosity, and thus place thee upon a rostrum whence thou mayst speak unto the people.

Its always been curious to me that persons who claim to subcribe to the principles of Thelema are seemingly content to only extend their ideas as far as the nearest neopagans (usually because they're "safe" - please note the safety emphasis by A.C. above). Is it any surprise that these same folks will endlessly criticize fundamentalist christians within the safety of cyberspace or their basement? Can we say "pathetic"? Overall, this speaks for ones confidence and certainty in whats being communicated - assuming that even the barest principles can be agreed upon by a single "individual." The idea that Thelemites are elitist snobs who wouldn't deign to cavort with the likes of "them" (i.e. the successfull in contrast to the losers) doesn't cut it for me anymore. Moreover, it reeks of fear.

Furthermore, the idea that "preaching" is antithetical to Thelema isn't born out by either the Crowley material or his example. If Jerry Falwell and a bad experience with mommy and daddy defines ones terms then this reaction is hardly surprising.

The conversion argument needn't come into the equation either - assuming there is a capability in the application of "pure will." Chuck it up to another selective application of Liber AL in complete opposition to another one of the Prophets instructions - apparently he got over what a number of folks are still hung up on.

Tau

2007-03-21T23:13:00.001-07:00

Taking each letter of Tau in full we get 418.

Tau + Vau + Vau + Vau or the Cross ("the Sign of Light", "Mine is the symbol of Osiris") + the Nail (thrice).

The Dagger is Mercury: it is used to calm too great heat, by the letting of blood; and it is this weapon which is plunged into the side or heart of the Magician to fill the Holy Cup. Those faculties which come between the appetites and the reason are thus dealt with.

Students of the gospel will recollect that in the martyrdom of Christ these three were used, the dagger being replaced by the nails.

the Dagger expresses the determination to sacrifice all

-excerpts from Book IV part. 2 chpt. IV

R. Amen! I am willing to be slain.
Verily I shall rise again!

http://www.luckymojo.com/crowley/000tfritual.txt

Its interesting that this isn't noted in Liber D or Liber LVIII. See also this.

"It is Thou!"

Yoga for Magick

2007-03-21T23:12:00.001-07:00

"A person who can't sit in one position with comfort and quiet, who can't breathe with evenness and regularity, who can't temporarily still the mind of its many wondering thoughts, who can't channel powerful energies through the body because of ill health - will be hard pressed to spiritually advance."

- James Wasserman, from the intro. to Yoga for Magick by Nancy Wasserman

Notocon VI Presentations and Presenters

2007-03-13T08:52:00.000-07:00

http://www.knightstemplar-oto.org/content/notocon/presenters.php

For your consideration

2007-03-13T08:44:00.000-07:00

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. I proclaim the Law of Light, Life, Love, and Liberty in the name of IAO.

Note that this is pronounced in the east and consists of 26 words. 26 = YHVH. Add 7 and you get another interesting number.

Also note the first words spoken in the West:

The PRIEST: I am (...)

"I am" of course is a translation of the Kether name of God or AHIH.

Anubis75 also pointed this out to me:

I Am A Man Among Men = 93

93 is the Flaming Sword or "the Pentagram unwound" (Abrahadabra as the key of the Pentagram) among other things. The pronouncement of the LOGOS in the East suggests this as a reciprocating formula. This also recalls the Crowely quote, "I am Thelema."

"Even as the lightning lighteneth out of the East and lighteneth even unto the West, so is the coming of the Son of Man." (see Liber 58 - referring to number 111).

Regarding Banishings and Liber XV: when functioning as Priest, I always have the Deacon perform a banishing before Liber XV - particularly as this has the benefit of effectively removing whatever "ghostly enemies" exist and I believe, assists in focusing the Officers. The Priest is, after all, a magician, before being crowned Priest.

The 1st version of Liber XXV appears to me particularly appropo. On the other hand, wouldn't The Opening of the Pyramid be even more appropriate? See in particular The Paris Working, The Grimorium Sanctissimum and the pre-Mass ritual formulation by A.C. which I believe included this.

http://community.livejournal.com/oto_community/18648.html

"New" Commentary to Liber AL II: 70

2007-03-08T08:14:00.000-08:00

"Exceed by delicacy": this does not mean, by refraining from so-called animalism. One should make every act a sacrament, full of divinest ecstasy and nourishment. There is no act which true delicacy cannot consecrate. It is one thing to be like a sow, unconscious of the mire, and unable to discriminate between sweet food and sour; another to take the filth firmly and force oneself to discover the purity therein, initiating even the body to overcome its natural repulsion and partake with the soul at this Eucharist. We 'believe in the Miracle of the Mass' not only because meat and drink are actually "transmuted in us daily into Spiritual Substance", but because we can make the "Body and Blood of God" from any materials soever by Virtue of our royal and Pontifical Art of Magick. (...)
We therefore train our adepts to make the Gold Philosophical from the dung of witches, and the Elixir of Life from Hippomanes; but we do not advocate ostentatious addiction to these operations. It is good to know that one is man enough to spend a month or so at a height of twenty thousand feet or more above the sea-level; but it would be unpardonably foolish to live there permanently.
This illustrates on case of a general principle. We consider the Attainment of various Illuminations, incomparably glorious as that is, of chief value for its witness to our possession of the faculty which made success possible. To have climbed alone to the summit of Iztaccihuatl is great and grand; but the essence of one's joy is that one possesses the courage, knowledge, agility, endurance, and self-mastery necessary to have done it.
The Goal is ineffably worth all our pains, as we say to ourselves at first; but in a little while are aware that even that Goal is less intoxicating then the Way itself.
We find that it matters little whither we go; the Going itself is our gladness (...)"Be strong!" We need healthy robust bodies as the mechanical instruments of our souls. Could Paganini have expressed himself on the "fiddle for eighteen pence" that some one once bought when he was "young and had no sense"? Each of us is Hadit, the core of our Khabs, our Star, one of the Company of Heaven; but this Khabs needs a Khu or Magical Image, in order to play its part in the Great Drama. This Khu, again, needs the proper costume, a suitable 'body of flesh', and this costume must be worthy of the Play.
We therefore employ various magical means to increase the vigour of our bodies and the energy of our minds, to fortify and sublime them.
The result is that we of Thelema are capable of enormously more achievement than others, even in terrestrial matters, from sexual orgia to creative Art. Even if we had only this one earth-life to consider, we exceed our fellows some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, some an hundredfold.
One most important point, in conclusion. We must doubtless admit that each one of us is lacking in one capacity or another. There must always be some among the infinite possibilities of Nuith which possesses no correlative points of contact in any given Khu. For example, the Khu of a male body cannot fulfil itself in the quality of motherhood. Any such lacuna must be accepted as a necessary limit, without regret or vain yearnings for the impossible. But we should beware lest prejudice or other personal passion exclude any type of self-realization which is properly ours. In our initiation the tests must be thorough and exhaustive. The neglect to develop even a single power can only result in deformity. However slight this might seem, it might lead to fatal consequences; the ancient adepts taught that by the parable of the heel of Achilles. It is essential for the Aspirant to make a systematic study of every possible passion, icily aloof from all alike, and setting their armies in array beneath the banner of his Will after he has perfectly gauged the capacity of each unit, and assured himself of its loyalty, discipline, courage, and efficiency. But woe unto him who leaves a gap in his line, or one arm unprepared to do its whole duty in the position proper to its peculiar potentialities!

Horse Stance Update

2007-03-07T07:42:00.000-08:00

Who wast Thou, O Caesar, that Thou knewest God in an horse?

-Liber VII 6:28

Monday, March 5th, 2007 e.v.

I go through several open hand forms. J timed me for 1 minute & 33 seconds. An 18 sec. improvement from last week.

My goal is to reach 5 min. and its painfully obvious that I've got a way to go.

As far as G.D. goes, its becoming less and less likely that we'll be competing in Riceville this year. Driving to Iowa doesn't exactly thrill everyone involved and the competition in the weapons category was more than a little thin (they combined the belts for this) last year. We were also the only K.F. group there - tae kwon do and karate groups being the majority.

A number of us have expressed interest in competing at the local Diamond Nationals although the strictly "kung fu" Aug. tournament in D.C. admittedly interests me more. With either of these, the competition would be much more palpable. However, commitment levels would have to increase amongst the small membership we have in order to really be effective as a group. We'll see.

Knowing before Breaking

2007-03-05T14:14:00.000-08:00

The use of capitals "Me" and "Thee" emphasizes that Hadit was wholly manifested in The Beast. It is to be remembered that The Beast has agreed to follow the instructions communicated to Him only in order to show that 'nothing would happen if you broke all the rules.' Poor fool! The Way of Mastery is to break all the rules -- but you have to know them perfectly before you can do this; otherwise you are not in a position to transcend them.

- from The "new" commentary to Liber AL II: 12

The tendency to advocate the breaking of the "rules" when it comes to what Crowley instructed- as if doing so were as simple as batting an eye, appears to me rather rampant amongst too many aspirants. Do they know what Crowley instructed "perfectly" - or are they more interested in convincing others that they've transcended Crowley?

When I come across people (whom I know haven't mastered or even attempted what Crowley instructed -particularly the yoga), practicing and promoting very different practices from what Crowley advocated - what exactly does that say about their seriousness? If the Aspirant takes "one step" on this path, where is it writ that the practices are then up for grabs? Where exactly does Crowley dismiss the practices or even promotes "variants"?
On the contrary, he repeatedly emphasizes the practices - as they are - over and over again.

Even with having made substantial commitments in some other field of endeavor (like the putting on of plays or participation in a Church ceremony), why would an aspirant assume such a "position" regarding the magick/yogic practices? How consistent is it to rigidly adhere to what is advocated in one place (theres a libidinous tendency here too) and be at complete odds or woefully ignorant of the other?

Unfortunately this sort of tendency has the overall consequence of making Occultism look like a very bad joke - particularly to those folks who have at least a modicum of common sense or who have actually read the material. Without the "method", one's essentially stuck with superstition.

More often than not the real "rule" amounts to this:

If its difficult, skip it and move on to something thats easier and makes you feel good about yourself.

Contrary to the popular caricature of Crowley as simply a "rule breaker", I think his writings indicate a fairly methodical and practical approach to the Great Work. His breaking of the rules was the exception - and a somewhat notable one at that.

XV Observations

2007-03-01T07:21:00.001-08:00

Above it is the super-altar, at whose top is the Stele of Revealing in reproduction, with four candles on each side of it. Below the stele is a place for The Book of the Law, with six candles on each side of it.

-excerpt from Liber XV

It's interesting that there are four letters to the words Chokmah and Binah in Heb. and that there are four candles on either side of the Stélé (where these sephira would be if we were to superimpose the Tree of Life onto the super-altar). And of course if you add the three letters that compose the Heb. word Kether, you get 11.

Another consideration is that the 4 candles on either side could signify 44, the number of DM (blood) in Heb. and the number of Horus. Moreover, if one takes the Stélé as 3, one obtains the number 434 or Daleth in full.

Additionally, the Stélé as three could allude to the triple tongue of flame of Atu XX; the three levels of the super-altar signifying the three mother letters and the Caduceus superimposed on the Tree of Life:

Shin-Stélé; the four candles flanking suggesting wings ("under the shadow of the wings of YHVH")
Aleph - The Book of the Law; the six candles flanking where the serpents rest their heads.
Mem - The Holy Graal

As Sabazius and Helena note in their commentary to Liber XV, this 3-fold arrangement may also parallel the O.T.O. lamen.

They also conclude their discussion on this arrangment with this interesting statement:

The twelve candles surrounding the Book of the Law may correspond to the twelve signs of the Zodiac surrounding the Sun, and the Paths which designate them.

Of course if we attribute the number of the Sephira signifying the Sun (Tiphareth) to The Book of the Law, with the six candles flanking on both sides, we acquire 666. Also note that the name Therion has 6 letters and To Mega Therion (see the Ace of Disks), 12.

As alluded to above, this arrangment could suggest a vertical arrangement of the Supernals (see in particular the Cry of the Vth Aethyr):

Kether (Aiwaz) - the Stélé
Chokmah (Therion) - The Book of the Law
Binah (Babalon) - the Holy Graal

Accendat in nobis Therion ignem sui amoris et flammam aeternae caritatis

Knight of Disks

2007-02-27T13:38:00.000-08:00

After practicing three open hand sets (the most recent one being a chow lee fut set called Moi Fa or "plum blossom") yesterday evening J. tested how long I could hold a horse stance. Only 1 minute and 15 seconds. Unfortunately I didn't have two poles balanced on my legs and arms to convince any observers I was in a deep enough stance. When I lived in Buffalo I remember hour long classes that consisted soley of remaining in this stance. Of course I couldn't hold this for an hour, but I'd like to imagine that some of that training has carried over.

I should also note that last Thurs. I got the opportunity to observe Sifu S. perform a tai chi set thats not the one we usually conclude the class with. Admittedly, I've not seen anything quite like this and learned that it was Chen style tai chi. Apparently Sifu S. has been learning this from a master of this style and occasionally mentions his interest in teaching a class on this.

INLAND EMPIRE official trailer

2007-02-23T15:45:00.001-08:00

J. and I are planning to see this Dies Solis. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to Mr. Lynch's foray into digital.

de Jesus is coming

2007-02-19T11:54:00.000-08:00

Check out this article as well as the gesture Jose Luis de Jesus is giving. Apparently enthusiastically identifing with the "anti-christ" is a little more accepted in Puerto Rico than it is in the States. But then again, how can we be so sure? How many "Thelemites" do you know would be as enthusiastic about getting a similar tattoo?

On an aside, personally, its curious to me why some self-professed "Thelemites" aren't a little more "okay" with Crowley's identification with the Beast 666. Are the folks in Puerto Rico drawn by simply another individual proclaiming himself "god" or is there something else they are connecting to? How exactly are powers awakened and reawakened?

Are the same individuals who are reticent or even embarrassed by this beastly identification the same folks who have difficulty doing "Will" and "Resh" or even proclaiming "93" to a Brother or Sister? Could this point to a caricatured "lack of faith" or to a feigned intellectual over-arching cynicism? Crowley was certainly aware of the negative associations of both the name and the number of the deity he identified with (see An Essay Upon Number). For all of the hoopla I've heard about getting beyond Crowley, foregoing this basic identification doesn't bode well.

Do we fear we may sound like a crazed heavy metal band by noting this identification? Apparently, for individuals who like to brand themselves as following their "will", allowing others to co-opt their gods as they please is second nature.

Luke-warm Christianity was repugnant to me when I was a Christian. Luke-warm and tepid "Thelema" (or Thelema as a free-for-all spiritual toy box - so long as you do the Mass and Inits) interests me even less. In either instance - whether intellectually acute or vacuous - if the primary source material isn't seriously tackled, the identification doesn't matter one whit (with one notable exception). By their fruits ye shall know them.

Again, Crowley (and Liber AL for that matter) certainly wasn't bashful about his identification with 666 or about the practices he advocated. Addressing both in painstakingly produced writings or as an old man in a packed courtroom more than aptly demonstrates Crowley's courage and an engagement with Assiah that many only dream of. Was Crowley's enthusiasm in these instances anti-intellectual, shortsighted or symptomatic of his being a false prophet? Does a cursory examination of his writings suggest a shallow adoption of this identity - or something deeper? Do we do Thelema a disservice by skirting around the issue or are we struggling to get out of a closet Crowley was out of in 1904? No doubt we've advanced leaps and bounds beyond the Prophet...

Are so-called adherents to Thelema being intellectually honest with themselves (not to mention others) when they reject this identification or these practices? By not seriously addressing (or even admitting) obvious discrepancies and conflicts with Crowley has written - why should (or would...) anyone take these wankers seriously?

If one were to judge Crowley on the basis of his "adherents", what would one find? For me, much of this comes down to their enthusiasm in respect to the primary source material. Do they live and breathe Thelema, or do they depend on you to quote Crowley for them? Do they do the Work or do they make endless and intellectually absurd excuses for not doing the practices advocated by Crowley?

Continuuing with de Jesus:

"Antichrist is the best person in the world," he says. "Antichrist means don't put your eyes on Jesus because Jesus of Nazareth wasn't a Christian. Antichrist means do not put your eyes on Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Put it on Jesus after the cross."

And de Jesus says that means him."

Check out his hand gesture here too as well as the predominant numero on the puerto rican website.

"In response, supporters have picketed Catholic congregations and burned religious materials, including crucifixes."

"The transcendental sciences admit of neither doubt nor puerility." - E. Levi

Lion Dance

2007-02-18T19:20:00.001-08:00

The lions take over the restaurant

2007-02-18T19:19:00.001-08:00

The lions take it to the streets

2007-02-18T19:12:00.001-08:00

Open hand kung fu demonstration

2007-02-18T19:11:00.001-08:00

U.S.G.L. Education Committee Website

2007-02-18T17:49:00.000-08:00

Originally, the link to the United States Grand Lodge Education Committee posted in Agapé 8.4 did not work for me. Doing a search on my name I discovered that this is now functional.
Check it out. I have also added this as a link.

Piggie Pig Pig

2007-02-18T15:56:00.000-08:00

J & I attended a lion dance put on by Johnny Wu's group at Hong Kong Noodle in Dinkeytown MN in honor of the Chinese new year. Sifu who regularly participates with this group informed me of the time and location of this gala event and I made it a top priority to be there. The Year of the Pig (or Boar) is especially sacrosanct for me as this is the sign I was born under in the Chinese Zodiac. Here is the totem of this holiest of holy animals:

shíqqûç shômem

After J and I ate some yummy Chinese cuisine, the tables in the center of the restaurant were removed and the customers began to conglomerate around the edges of the room. The cries of a baby foreshadowed the clamor that would eventually make its way through the restaurants entrance. The drums were beating, the cymbals clanged, whistles blowed, firecrackers were going off ...and the lions quickly began to take over the restaurant:

After greeting the patronage, the lions made their way back into the kitchen to give homage to the cooks. J and I gave a nice lion a dollar to ensure our own good luck for this year. The auspiciousness of the occasion was very overwhelming. Johnny solemnly wished the patronage good luck (and some other things which I couldn't quite make out) and after more dancing - the lions, costumed adults and children - along with the Buddha - retired from the restaurant.

Heres an image of the most holy Buddha (who was played with inordinate reverence by a lady):
After a brief exit, the troop came back and demonstrated some open hand and weapons kung fu. Heres a picture of a child demonstrating his skill:
Slowly, the lions made their exit from the restaurant. But outside, they were yet wielding their awesome powers over the city:

Agape VIII:4 available

2007-02-07T11:34:00.000-08:00

The latest issue of Agapé, Volume VIII number 4 (February 2007) is now available.

The darkness of blue light

2007-02-07T08:12:00.000-08:00

Sun-set signifies the critical event of the Old Aeon - the catastrophy resulting from the triumph of Set (“The Prince of the Powers of the air.” - Ep.2:2) over the crucified Asar, with its parallel equinoctal “miracle” in the sun’s “rising.” We give the sign of the god Shu, who painfully divides (like a dagger or burin)Geb from the coital embrace of Heaven. As foreshadowed in the Old Aeon (whose element was Air), this was the Sign given by the son rising reborn from the Tomb in the Atu called Judgement, with the lunar mother (water) and father (fire) flanking. This tri-fold familial arrangement suggests the initiatory trials, consequences, formula and reward for “stealing fire from heaven”.

This Sign is also congruous with the association of the Western quadrant to the Sephira Yesod (the habitation of Ommo-Saathan -=666- in the old G.D. Neophyte Ritual) in The Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram and to the cardinal zodiacal sign of Libra - as well as to the generative Yod of Macroprosopus. The A.·.A.·. association of this quadrant to the slain god Babalon and to the cherubic zodiacal sign of Scorpio(alchemical eagle) is again suggestive.

However, we do not mourn the suns "departure" into the “caverns of the dark”. We invoke the pastoral “blue sky’s queen” and the Kether name of god within the “voluptuous night sky” - and like a thief in the night, steal the fire of Death, “whirling amid the suns”. With the Dagger, we joyously create the Sacramental Sign.

Levi on Equality

2007-02-01T21:07:00.000-08:00

We must insist, however, upon one reflection, namely, that the intellectual and social chaos in the midst of which we are perishing has been caused by the neglect of initiation, its ordeals and its mysteries. Men, whose zeal was greater than their science, carried away by the popular maxims of the Gospel, came to believe in the primitive and absolute equality of men. A famous halluciné, the eloquent and unfortunate Rousseau, propagated with all the magic of his style the paradox that society alone depraves men - much as if he had said that competition and emulation in labour render workmen idle. The essential law of Nature, that of initiation by effort and of voluntary and toilsome progress, has been misconstrued fatally. Masonry has had its deserters, as Catholicism its apostates. What has been the consequence? The substitution of a cast-iron level for the intellectual and symbolical level. To preach equality to what is beneath, without instructing it how to rise upward, is not this condemning us to descend ourselves? And hence we have stooped to the reign of the Carmagnola, the Sanscullotes and Marat. To restore tottering and distracted society, the hierarchy and initiation must be again established. The task is difficult, but the whole intelligent world feels that it is necessary to undertake it. Must we pass through another deluge before succeeding? We trust earnestly not, and this book, perhaps the greatest but not the last of our audacities, is an appeal unto all that is yet alive for the reconstitution of life in the very midst of decomposition and death.

--Eliphas Levi, The Ritual of Transcendental Magic Chpt. IX

Alchemy Works

2007-02-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

There is an incense sacred to Tetragrammaton. After the cakes of light and the incense of Abramelin, it is the most powerful of all known perfumes.

-Crowley, Confessions

I've purchased incense (galbanum, storax, etc.) and oils (Mathers' Abramelin recipe) from Alchemy Works over the years and they come highly recommended. This particular item recently caught my eye:

http://www.alchemy-works.com/incense_tetragrammaton.html

In particular, check out Crowley's notes to the incense column in Liber 777.

Also check out the availability of the Abramelin recipe based on the new translation of this text.

Aquarius Sunset

2007-01-31T06:35:00.000-08:00

by Cal Thomas (emphases mine)

The ideologically decrepit anti-war crowd returned to Washington last weekend for a reunion. The older among them abandoned hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Vietnamese to imprisonment, torture, death and re-education camps. Their demonstrations were encouraging to the communist Vietnamese, sending the message that America lacked the will to win. These aging hippies and their progeny now want to do the same to millions of Iraqis, who have democratically elected their leaders.
This is the sunset of the "Age of Aquarius." Yesterday, when they were young, they were the pampered generation that eschewed self-control for self-indulgence. They were (and are) so vain; they probably thought the world was about them. They were the redeeming generation that would save their parents from their sins by ending war, curing racism and cleaning the air and water. Their failure has long been obvious to all but them. To them, intentions, not success, are paramount. Because they believe their intentions are noble, they absolve themselves from the negative consequences of their actions.
As with the Vietnam anti-war protests, several of the same Hollywood actors spoke against the effort to make Iraq a stable and independent nation. Hollywood is the land of make-believe where love means never having to say you're sorry and acting means never having to take responsibility for your words and behavior, which are written and directed by others. These stars live behind gates with security alarms and guards who protect their privileged lives.
Is there anyone else's freedom these celebrities would defend? Do any other lives have value beyond their own? Since none of the older demonstrators took responsibility for what occurred in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, would any like to pledge now that if their protests help embolden the insurgents and Taliban to fight on until Iraq is in their clutches they will accept blame?
Why do these people always oppose America's efforts to defend itself and others? Why did they not protest in Washington, or in Baghdad, when Saddam Hussein was practicing genocide and his sons were raping and torturing their fellow Iraqis? Will we ever see an anti-Taliban protest? How about a demonstration against suicide bombers, or even those who produce and detonate roadside bombs in Iraq? Why do these people think only their country is evil?
This is the doctrine of the privileged and the pampered. It is salvation on the cheap. It makes the protestors feel good, even righteous, but does nothing to solve the problem, which isn't the United States, but a very real enemy that intends to kill us. Unlike Vietnam, the Islamofascists won't leave us alone if we leave Iraq before stability is established. They will send more fanatics to our shores. Watch the TV drama "24" for what could be our prophetic and imminent future with a nuclear device exploding in major cities. Having concluded we don't have the stomach to fight them on their turf, they might understandably deduce we are even less willing to fight them on ours.
While President Bush may have chosen Iraq and Afghanistan to counterattack in this war, the war would have come — and, indeed, had already come prior to the attacks on these two countries — had he decided to do nothing.
"Peace is controversial," said Jesse Jackson last weekend. His comment has about as much relevance in an age of terror as a declaration against lust. Peace doesn't result when America does nothing to confront evil. Peace comes through facing and defeating evil wherever and whenever we can. If freedom is not on the march against tyranny, then tyranny will be on the march against freedom. Neither is static. Peace doesn't "happen." To the extent peace can be attained on earth, it arrives through strength and willpower.
Forty years ago, the protestors pledged to achieve:
Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind's true liberation
They liberated neither their minds, nor the world. The Vietnamese who were murdered were not liberated. Today's terrorists will not be defeated if we embrace the inane doctrines of the protestors.
A better song for them might be Brenda Lee's "I'm Sorry," the first part of which goes:
"I'm sorry, so sorryThat I was such a fool…"

Jim Nobles and Michael Medved

2007-01-30T18:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.michaelmedved.com/

If you can't convince, coerce

2007-01-30T12:26:00.000-08:00

Forcing Girls to Cheer for Girls by Dennis Prager (emphases mine)

High school cheerleaders must now cheer for girls' teams as often as for boys' teams thanks to federal education officials' interpretations of Title IX, the civil rights law that mandates equal playing fields for both sexes. According to The New York Times, almost no one directly involved wants this -- not the cheerleaders, not the fans, not the boys' teams, and not even the girls' teams. But it doesn't matter: The law coerces cheerleaders to cheer at girls' games.

Of all the myths that surround Left-Right differences, one of the greatest is that the Left values liberty more than the Right. Regarding a small handful of behaviors -- abortion is the best example -- this is true. But overwhelmingly, the further left one goes on the political spectrum, the greater the advocacy of more state control of people's lives.
That is why, with the exception of Nazism -- which was an acronym for National Socialism but, rightly or wrongly, because it was race- and nationalism-based and because it allowed private enterprise, Nazism has been generally considered a far-right, not far-left, doctrine -- nearly all totalitarianism of the 20th century was on the Left.

By definition, the moment one crosses from center to left, one accepts more government control of people's lives. Therefore, the further left society moves, the more there is government control over its citizens' lives. It is astonishing that this obvious fact is not universally acknowledged and that the Left has somehow successfully portrayed itself as preoccupied with personal liberty with regard to anything except sexual behavior and abortion.
Taxation is an obvious example. It is difficult to imagine greater government control of a person's life than forcing the person to give half or more of his honorably earned money to the state under threat of being imprisoned. All rational people acknowledge the need for taxes -- who other than the state should pay for police, roads and national defense, and serve as the last resort for the truly helpless? But all rational people should equally acknowledge that the greater percentage of one's money the state forcefully confiscates, the less liberty the individual has.
But the single greatest example is law. The means by which the state exerts control over the individual is law. As with taxes, the more laws, the less individual liberty. And just as rational people acknowledge the need for taxation, all rational people appreciate society's need for laws. But just as taxes increase the further left one moves, so, too, the number of laws passed increases.

As liberalism has moved left in the past 50 years, there has been a veritable explosion of legislation. That is why the mainstream, i.e., liberal, news media, characterize local, state and federal legislatures as successes or failures based on the number of laws the legislature has passed. The worst legislature is one that repeals laws, and the next to worst is a "do-nothing" Congress or state legislature, in other words, one that has not passed enough new laws.
There are many reasons for the liberal/progressive/Left's adoration of laws. Three of them are:

1. Most activists on the Left believe that they, not only their values, are morally superior to their adversaries. Therefore, coercing people to adhere to "progressive" values is morally acceptable, even demanded. It is thus quite understandable that laws would compel high school cheerleaders to cheer at girls' athletic events as much as at boys'. And true to leftist totalitarian models, not only is behavior is coerced, but emotions as well. As The New York Times article reported, "a statewide group of physical education teachers in California called for cheerleaders to attend girls' and boys' games 'in the same number, and with equal enthusiasm' as part of its five-year goals." It is Orwellian, but not inconceivable, that either the California legislature or a California judge will require "equal enthusiasm" from cheerleaders at the girls' games.
2. "Progressives" are often unsuccessful in competing in the marketplace of ideas. Same-sex marriage and affirmative action are two contemporary examples. And when persuasion fails, laws are used. If you can't convince, coerce.
3. The more secular the society, the more laws are needed to keep people in check. When more people feel accountable to God and moral religion, fewer laws need to be passed. But as religion fades, something must step into the moral vacuum it leaves, and laws compelling good behavior result.

Unlike the nearly contemporaneous French Revolution, which affirmed "egalite" along with "liberte," the American Revolution never held equality equal to liberty. The Founders knew that you cannot have both, and so, the further left one moves, i.e., the more like France and Western Europe we become, the more coerced equality and the less personal liberty we will have.

Now even high school cheerleaders know that.

Magical Power

2007-01-29T17:34:00.000-08:00

Two things, as we have shown, are necessary for the acquisition of magical power - the emancipation of will from servitude and its instruction in the art of domination. The sovereign will is represented in our symbols by the Woman who crushes the serpent's head and by the radiant angel who restrains and constrains the dragon with lance and heel. In this place let us affirm without evasion that the Great Magical Agent - the double current of light, the living and astral fire of the earth - was represented by the serpent with the head of an ox, goat or dog, in ancient theogonies. It is the dual serpent of the caduceus, the old serpent of Genesis, but it is also the brazen serpent of Moses, twined about the TAU, that is, the generating lingam. It is, moreover, the Goat of the Sabbath and the Baphomet of the Templars; it is the Hyle of the Gnostics; it is the double tail of the serpent which forms the legs of the solar cock of Abraxas. In fine, it is the devil of M.Eudes de Mirville and is really that blind force which souls must overcome if they would be freed from the chains of earth; for, unless their will can detatch them from this fatal attraction, they will be absorbed in the current by the force which produced them, and will return to the central and eternal fire. The whole magical work consists therefore in our liberation from the folds of the ancient serpent, then in setting foot upon its head and leading it where we will. "I will give thee all the kingdoms of the earth, if thou wilt fall down and adore me," said this serpent in the evangelical mythos. The initiate should make answer: "I will not kneel to thee, but thou shalt crouch at my feet; nothing shalt thou give me, but I will make use of thee, and will take that which I need, for I am thy lord and master" - a reply which , in a veiled manner, is contained in that of the Saviour.

-Eliphas Levi, The Ritual of Transcendental Magic Chpt. VI

From the beginning

2007-01-28T14:50:00.000-08:00

The Mass has to be done in a proper Temple. Somewhere or other I have photographs of the Altar complete with priestess... In any case, you have to build up the Mass properly from the beginning. We cannot have any makeshifts, as is possible in putting over Masonic rituals.

-Crowley, Oct. 11th, 1944 e.v.

The Horns of Dilemma

2007-01-27T19:31:00.000-08:00

And I believe in one Gnostic and Catholic Church of Light, Life, Love and Liberty, the Word of whose Law is THELEMA.

-Baphomet, Ecclesiae Gnosticae Catholicae Canon Missae

I don't give
a pound of
mule mucous
for any fucking
"Transformation Symbolism
in the Eucharist"
if you can't dance to it
or if it isn't dope
or possessed of a dick-sized
aperture
then shit on it

-Ed Sanders, noted author of The Family, from An Anthology of New York Poets, (New York: Random House, 1970)

These quotations summarize nicely two opposing and frequently encountered attitudes concerning the Gnostic Catholic Church and what it stands for. Crowley, in his closing remarks from "Is Thelema a Religion?" (vide supra), anticipates the quagmire raised by the religious expression of Thelema.
The problem that we have set for ourselves is to propagate the Gnostic Catholic Church without falling prey to the obvious and more subtle pitfalls that attend such a venture. The foremost in my mind would be a misguided attempt to graft Thelema to the vestiges of Christianity. The EGC of OTO is not a dissident sect of Christianity (unlike "Satanism," with which the OTO is often confused by the ignorant). Nevertheless, occasionally one observes the unnecessary adoption of elements of Catholic Belief into EGC work. I feel that as Thelemites, with our own sacred books, theogony, ethics and neo-gnostic ritual tradition, we have no need to borrow worn-out customs and formulae.
The EGC is not the exclusive domain of the OTO. It exists independently as well. It derives from one or another of a thicket of dissident episcopal successions, some of which date back to the "first Vatican schism," a result of protests over "papal infallability" in the late 19th century EV. It is a loosely organized scattering of bishops engaged in experimental theology, without universally-recognized central authority (although some groups hold an occasional synod). These EGC groups deserve our respect and friendship, but it is time we recognized that our EGC rests on additional premises that these churches do not share.
Of these various churches, a few share our name of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica or a variant such as Ecclesia Gnostica Universalis or Ecclesia Gnostica Spiritualis. Most devolve from identical or parallel "episcopal successions" to those of the modern OTO/EGC. While a small minority of these churches are sympathetic to Thelema or even overtly Thelemite, most are Christian, expressing variants of Roman Catholic and Orthodox belief. The more liberal of the Christian EGC groups incorporate early gnosticism, hermetic Platonism and study of the prisca theologia generally. They have produced serious scholars and have contributed much to the recent popularization of gnosticism. In this respect the liberal churches have much in common with our tradition, but there the similarity ends. Their mass formula, although close to ours in some respects, is that of the old aeon "dying god." The theoretical writers among these Christian churches (who acknowledge our existence with barely concealed embarassment) feel it necessary to distance themselves from Thelema by criticizing our "legitimacy" on points of doctrine that, while doubtless relevant to Christian theology, are of no importance whatever to Thelemic philosophy. For example, they criticize the lack of "intention" in its technical Catholic theological sense in our episcopal consecrations, and (my personal favorite) our ignorance of the true significance of the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Such distancing is natural and predictable, no more or less than what I am attempting here. Therefore, let it be said that these two traditions of EGC have agreed to disagree.

-Hymenæus Beta, On the Gnostic Catholic Church (1990 e.v.) Emphases mine.

Kenneth Anger

2007-01-24T06:28:00.000-08:00

I'm looking forward to the Anger film presentation at the Walker on Friday (http://calendar.walkerart.org/event.wac?id=3625) - particularly the opportunity to view Invocation of my Demon Brother on the big screen (Mick Jagger's stirring moog synthesizer performance is worth the admission price alone). I had viewed Scorpio Rising in a small film room (carpeted steps amounted to seating) at the Walker a year or so ago at an exhibit honoring Americana (http://tinyurl.com/yv2k8z) that I enjoyed immensly (Ronnie Specter's demonically inspired objections notwithstanding). Of course the timing of the release of Anger's work (1947-1954) on DVD is impeccable. Check out Lashtal.com:

http://tinyurl.com/2p92aw

See also this review in the NY Times:

http://tinyurl.com/2ktz29

(BTW, I love that the "friendlier half" of Anger's filmmaking is the supposed non-Occult half and that Crowley has been elevated from "satanist" and "spooky" to "mystic." Occasionally even secularlists acquire a clue. Of course, consider the dupes that currently pass for "mystic", and one might wish that Crowley was still being labelled a "satanist").

And this note in the Star Tribune:

http://www.startribune.com/1553/story/945594.html

After viewing Deepa Mehta's very moving "Water" at the Walker (http://tinyurl.com/25r4wa) , the director took questions from the audience. Lets hope that Anger and the Walker facilitate this same opportunity for the audience Friday night.

I also hear that this seminal filmmaker is a high ranking member of the O.T.O.

Check out this entry from a Walker Art Center blog:

http://blogs.walkerart.org/filmvideo/?p=159

Also this from MN Citypages:

http://citypages.com/databank/28/1364/article15085.asp

I Don't Judge Religions

2007-01-23T19:23:00.000-08:00

From 9/11 to this day, callers to my syndicated radio show have asked: "Is Islam a religion of violence?"

And since 9/11, I have given the same response: "I don't judge religions; I judge practitioners."

It is easy to dismiss this response as a politically correct cop-out, but there are good reasons for this response.

First, in medieval, or even parts of early modern, Europe, many people would have asked, "Is Christianity a religion of violence?" And 2,000-3,000 years ago, people might have asked, "Is Judaism a religion of violence?"

Second, the question is often impossible to answer because religions are almost never unified in their values (and often not even in their theology). For example, most evangelical Christians have almost no values in common with fellow Christians of the National Council of Churches (NCC). Conservative Protestant Christians share far more values with traditional Catholics, Orthodox Jews and Mormons than with fellow Protestant Christians of the NCC. And liberal Jews (not only secular ones, but many Conservative and most Reform Jews) share more values with liberal Christians and liberal atheists than with Orthodox Jews. So when assessing Christianity or Judaism, which Christianity and which Judaism are we assessing?

Third, when groups are violent, how much of their violence is directly caused by their religion -- or by their irreligion? Alongside Hitler (who believed in no religion), Stalin and Mao were history's greatest mass murderers, and they were atheists. Could one have asked, "Is atheism a violent ideology?" As for religious evildoers, did European Christians who supported the Nazis do so because of, or despite, their religion?

Fourth, even when a group does attribute its violence to its religion, as in the case of Muslim terrorists, does that mean the religion itself preaches violence?

Many people would offer a fifth reason not to judge religions -- that doing so is inherently biased, even bigoted, and outsiders have no right to judge others' religions.

But that objection to judging a religion is invalid.

We judge secular ideologies all the time; why not religious ideologies? Why is it permissible to say that conservatism is selfish and mean-spirited or to say that liberalism is naive and foolish, but one cannot say anything negative about a religion? I believe that the Judeo-Christian value system as devised largely by American Christians rooted in the Jewish Scriptures is the finest value system ever made -- and many people label this view "bigoted" and "intolerant." Yet, many of these same people have no problem asserting that secular liberal values constitute the finest value system ever made. Why can one say that without any fear of being labeled "intolerant" or "bigoted"?

The problem with assessing religions is that many who do so are in fact prejudiced; they are often outsiders out to prove another religion false. Or they may have grown up in a religion and for whatever reasons come to hate the religion in which they were raised -- some ex-Catholics, for example; or were merely born into that religion -- such as some anti-religious Jews.

So, too, anti-Semites' assessments of Judaism emanate from a hatred of Jews and their religion, not from honest questions about Judaism. On the other hand, not every critique of Judaism or Jews is necessarily anti-Semitic. Likewise many contemporary attacks on Christianity and Christians are bigoted -- such as when Christian fundamentalists are likened to Islamic fundamentalists and radicals. There are no Christian groups comparable to Islamic groups that routinely murder innocents or seek to violently impose Islamic law on Muslims and non-Muslims. But here, too, not every criticism of Christians or Christianity emanates from anti-Christian bigotry.

There are also people who are prejudiced against Islam. But because in our time the vast majority of violence intentionally directed against innocents is perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam, and because freedom and religious tolerance are rare in countries that call themselves Islamic, one need not be prejudiced to ask challenging questions about Islam and/or Muslims.

So where does that leave us?

One: It is fair -- and even necessary -- to attempt to morally assess religions just as it is to morally assess any non-religious ideology.

Two: Ideally those criticisms should come from those within the religion being judged. The absence of Islamic self-criticism -- relative to Christian and Jewish self-criticism -- has been the greatest problem to many non-Muslims.

Three: It is very difficult to judge an entire religion for the four reasons offered above and because those making such judgments must be free of either a religious agenda (to "prove" another religion false) or an anti-religious agenda (to show religion in general as morally inferior).

For the reasons offered here, regarding Islam, I have decided to restrict my critiques to practitioners rather than to the religion itself. But those who offer reasoned moral critiques of Islam are not necessarily "Islamophobic," any more than all moral critics of Christianity or Judaism are necessarily "Christianophobic" (why is there no such word, incidentally?) or anti-Semitic. The word is used to intimidate the most necessary endeavor of our time -- non-hostile, non-prejudiced, respectful, open discussion of Islam. And no one needs it more than good Muslims.

-Dennis Prager

Science, Religion and Thelema

2007-01-22T19:14:00.001-08:00

The motto of The Equinox is "The method of science - the aim of religion." Crowley points out (Magick Without Tears, ch. 31, "Is Thelema a 'New Religion'?") in a discussion of this motto that "[h]ere the word 'aim' and the context help the definition; it must mean the attainment of Knowledge and Power in spiritual matters." Crowley makes this more explicit in his editorial to the "blue" Equinox of 1919 e.v.:

The world needs religion.
Religion must represent Truth, and celebrate it.
This truth is of two orders: one, concerning Nature external to Man; two, concerning Nature internal to Man.
Existing religions, especially Christianity, are based on primitive ignorance of the facts, particularly of external Nature.
Celebrations must conform to the custom and nature of the people.
Christianity has destroyed the joyful celebrations, characterized by music, dancing, feasting, and making love; and has kept only the melancholy.
The Law of Thelema offers a religion which fulfils all necessary conditions.
The philosophy and metaphysics of Thelema are sound, and offer a solution of the deepest problems of humanity.
The science of Thelema is orthodox; it has no false theories of Nature, no false fables of the origin of things.
The psychology and ethics of Thelema are perfect. It has destroyed the damnable delusion of Original Sin, making every one unique, independent, supreme, and sufficient.
The Law of Thelema is given in the Book of the Law. [...]
The O.T.O. is the first of the great religious Societies to accept the Law. It trains groups by way of progressive initiation.

Here, Crowley makes clear Thelema's fitness to supercede Christianity (and other religions that deny nature and human nature), and in closing characterizes the O.T.O. as "religious." But in what sense does Crowley mean religious, in discussing Thelema generally and the O.T.O. in particular? Is Thelema a "new religion"? Or does the term "religion" require redefinition in the light of Thelema? In the chapter from Magick Without Tears cited above, Crowley first restores the word to its original meaning through its etymology:

Religion: [...] Latin: religio, piety. Collecting or paying attention to: religens as opposed to negligens, neglecting; the attitude of Gallio. But it also implies a binding together, i.e. of ideas; in fact, a 'body of doctrine.' Not a bad expression. A religion then, is a more or less coherent and consistent set of beliefs, with precepts and prohibitions therefrom deducible.

Crowley goes on to define the word "religion" in another, second, sense,

the sense in which [J.G.] Frazer (and I) often use the word: as in opposition to 'science' or 'Magic.' Here the point is that religious people attribute phenomena to the will of some postulated Being or Beings, placable and moveable by virtue of sacrifice, devotion, or appeal. Against such, the scientific or magical mind believes in the Laws of Nature, asserts 'If A, then B' - if you do so-and-so, the result will be so-and-so, aloof from arbitrary interference. (Ibid.)

I take Crowley to accept the former definition, even while quite often employing the latter. This is consistent with his emphasis on religion that is compatible with, rather than opposed to, magick and experimental science. That Crowley also used the word "religion" in its usual sense, as antithetical to science and magick, need not obfuscate the issue if the reader closely examines context to determine how the word is employed. However, when one is confounded with the other, there is no end of trouble, a danger Crowley recognized in his closing remarks:

To sum up, our system is a religion just so far as a religion means an enthusiastic putting-together of a series of doctrines, no one of which must in any way clash with Science or Magick. Call it a new religion, then, if it so please your Gracious Majesty; but I confess that I fail to see what you will have gained by so doing, and I feel bound to add that you might easily cause a great deal of misunderstanding, and work a rather stupid kind of mischief. The word does not occur in The Book of the Law. (Ibid.)
(...)

-Hymenæus Beta, On the Gnostic Catholic Church

LVX/Helios associations

2007-01-22T09:49:00.000-08:00

Morning:

LVX Symbol - Cross (Earth; Assiah)

Action - Redemption

Sign - Resurrection

Midday:

LVX Symbol - Swastika (Air; Yetzirah)

Action - Destruction

Sign -Mourning

Genesis - Virgin

Evening:

LVX Symbol - Trident (Water; Briah)

Action - Preservation

Sign - Triumph

Genesis - Evil Serpent

Midnight:

LXV Symbol - Pentagram (Fire; Atziluth)

Action - Creation

Sign - Rising

Genesis - The Sun

Essential Considerations

2007-01-21T21:02:00.000-08:00

Some say that scientific method is inapplicable to religion, that the two are irreconcilable, the one rational, the other irrational. If one confines the argument to the main currents of scientific and theological thought in this century this indeed appears to be the case. The progressive secularization of western society has led to the retreat of the religions into televised irrationality, cult behavior and irrelevance. Meanwhile, science has established a new orthodoxy with a bewildering priestcraft of specializations. Exceptions to this trend remain outside the mainstream, although there are signs that this is changing. Philosophers since Wittgenstein have reached the brink of reason and reported back that something more than pure thought is needed to comprehend existence. Physicists and cosmologists are beginning to sound like theologians, and vice versa, in what at times seems a return to the pre-Enlightenment unity of science and theology, though falling far short of the days when theology was considered the chief of all the sciences.
Thelemic philosophy as developed by Crowley has anticipated much of this, and Crowley's thoughts on the subject are essential to a meaningful examination of religion and Thelema generally, and the O.T.O. and Gnostic Catholic Church in particular. (...)"

-Hymenæus Beta. From the Preamble to On the Gnostic Catholic Church

Midday Meditations

2007-01-19T15:57:00.000-08:00

The morning transition from the severity of the dying Asar (the sacrificed ram -who has given of its blood for a questionable redemption) to the strong and virtuous yellow youth of midday could not be more marked. We are firmly in the present and bask, burn and bloom in the ascending strength of the Child. The young man has gained der rheine thor and invokes those gods in sympathy with the central aspects of the lord of the Æon. However, the invoking son is balanced in his exceeding by the “love” of the mother (Geburah being feminine). We raise our hands above the “moving might” of the conjoined solar and lunar orbs and activate the All-Father in “female form.” We are the sworded sphinx emerged victorious from the tomb of Asar; the exalted lion-serpent sun of the south.

However, our voyage is set on intoxicating the innermost and we fix our basilisk eye on what is concealed within our magical self. The semblances and shapes and elemental masks we reveal to ourselves are not to be mistaken for that pearl of great price concealed deep within.

Concealed within the house of the Khabs we adore, is the ever-going compliment of the light shedding Nu. “Be thou Hadit.”

Morning reflection

2007-01-18T22:39:00.000-08:00

The Thelemites daily salute of the physical sun in its “rising” reflects in his relationship to his “Lord and Father” the act of transition from the Old Aeon to the New. Whereas with Old Aeon consciousness the transition from Night to morning was perceived as catastrophic (reflected most tangibly in perspectives regarding the sexual act and physical death) and consequently decisive – in the New Aeon this view is shown to be fundamentally false. Not surprisingly, the morning solar adoration begins our conscious day by reminding us that a significant transition and change has occurred. This transition has its parallel in the seasonal Equinox in nature but is essentially magical and macrocosmic in scope; the god Horus (whose formula is N.O.X.) has taken his place in the East, replacing his Father Osiris or Asar (whose formula is L.V.X.). In giving the Signs of the Outer Adept in the East, we do not shirk or dismiss our past but intelligently and with great skill take from it those things that are found to be of worth. As suggested within the Equinox ceremony itself, the morning of the individual may be viewed as an opportunity to identify and remove or even abolish those things in ones life that essentially impede one – to increasingly incorporate through the path of the charioting Helios a microcosmic transition that has its source in the Supernals; a shedding or unraveling of the funerary wrappings of the past towards a fuller and perfected consecration of the future. This in turn confirms what we have come to know and abide in.

Night of Pan Catalog

2007-01-17T19:37:00.000-08:00

#21 is currently available.

Email: mkolson@attglobal.net and request the latest catalog.

Tempered Solstice

2007-01-08T17:34:00.000-08:00

Agape VIII: 3 is available

2007-01-07T19:36:00.000-08:00

http://oto-usa.org/news_item.html?id=79

If you have constructive criticism of the submission I made to this or other issues of Agapé, let me know.

Fifteen

2006-12-13T06:12:00.000-08:00

Fifteen is the number of antagonism and of catholicity.

-Saint Alphones Louis Constant, La Clef des Grands Mysteries, p. 61.

S. Constant addresses "The Devil" in the fifteenth chpt. of Transcendental Magic and Waite specifically cites from Chpt X of The Great Secret in respect to this subject:

"Reason alone gives the right to liberty. Liberty and reason, these two great and essential privileges of mankind, are so clearly united that one cannot be renounced unless the use of the other is also given up. Liberty wills the triumph of reason and reason imperiously demands the reign of liberty. Liberty and reason are more important than life to man. It is beautiful to die for liberty, and it is sublime to be a martyr for reason, because reason and liberty are the very essence of the soul's immortality.
God Himself is the free reason of all that exists.
The devil, on the other hand, is false irrationalism.
To forswear one's reason or one's liberty is to disown God. To make any appeal to what is irrational or fatalistic is to evoke the devil. We have already said that the devil does exist, and that he is a thousand times more horrible and pitiless than the legends describe him, even at their most gruesome. For us and for reason, he could not possibly be the fine fallen angel of Milton, nor flashing Lucifer, trailing his starry glory through the night with here and there the glitter of lightning. Such titanic fables are impious. The true devil is the one sculptured in our cathedrals and depicted by the naive illuminators of our Gothic books. His essentially hybrid form is the synthesis of all nightmares; it is hideous, deformed and grotesque. He is fettered and binds others in fetters. He has eyes everywhere, except in his head; he has faces in his stomach, in his knees, and on his unspeakably filthy rump. He is everywhere where folly can find a footing, and everywhere he drags behind him the torments of hell.
He himself does not utter a syllable, but he makes all our vices speak; he is the ventriloquist who operates the gluttons, the Python of abandoned women. At times his voice is as impetuous as the whirlwind, at times it is as insinuating as a low hiss. To converse with our troubled brains he inserts his forked tongue into our ears and to undo our hearts he shakes his tail like an arrow. In our head he slays reason, in our hearts he poisons liberty, and he does this always and of necessity unremittingly, because he is not a person but a blind force; he is accursed, but accursed with us; he is a sinner, but he sins in us. We alone are responsible for the evil which he makes us do, because as for him, he has neither liberty nor reason.
The devil is the beast; Saint John hammers this home in his marvellous Apocalypse; but how can one comprehend the Apocalypse without the keys of the holy Qabalah?
An evocation, therefore is an appeal to the beast, and only the beast can respond. We might add that to make the beast appear one must first form it within oneself and then project it outside. This secret is that of all the grimories, but it was only expressed by the ancient masters in a very veiled manner.
To see the devil it is necessary to make oneself up like the devil and then look in a mirror. This is the secret in its simplicity, so that even a child could understand it. Let us add for the benefit of men that, in the mysteries of sorcerers, the devilish countenance is imprinted on the soul by the astral intermediary, and the mirror is darkness animated as the head reels.
Every evocation would be in vain if the magician did not commence by damning his soul in sacrificing for ever his liberty and his reason. It is easy to understand this. To create the beast in us it is essential to kill man; which is what was represented previously by the sacrifice of a child, and even more distinctly by the profanation of a host. The man who elects to perform an evocation is a wretch who is embarrassed by reason and wishes to magnify in himself the bestial appetites, so that he can turn them into a magnetic centre endowed with a fatal influence. He wishes to personify unreason and fatalism; he wishes to become a disordered magnet, and an evil one too, to attract to himself the vices and the gold which feed them. It is the most terrible crime which the imagination could dream of. It is the rape of nature. It is the direct and absolute outrage thrown in the face of divinity; but also, and happily so, it is a frightfully difficult task, and most of those who have attempted it have come unstuck in the accomplishment. If a man who was strong enough and perverse enough were to evoke the devil in the required conditions, the devil would materialize. God would be held back and terror stricken nature would be subjected to the despotism of evil.
It is said that years ago a certain man undertook this monstrous work and that he became pope. It is also related that on his death bed he confessed to enveloping the whole Church in a web of black magic. One thing is certain: this pope was as deeply instructed as Faust, and it is claimed he was the author of several wonderful inventions. We have mentioned him already in one of our books. However, the proof, according to the legend itself, that he did not evoke the devil, that is to say, did not become the devil, is his repentence. The devil never repents. (...)"

5 + 5 + 5

Note that the front of the crown of the magician is composed of three upright pentagrams and that HAD in full (10 + 111 + 434) equals 555.

Filia et Pater

2006-12-11T19:28:00.000-08:00

The old man has to be locked up together with the tree in a closed house, and not in the open air; the house should be wet with dew and not dry. No wonder the tree will grow there, for it has its roots in the earth, it feeds itself abundantly with air and vapour (water); every element is present, for the fire is represented by the fire which is in the tree. So the tree has everything necessary for its growth.
The moist vapour, which is beneficial to the tree, also benefits the old man, in consequence of which he rejuvenates himself more easily, by eating the fruit of the tree, so that his shrivelled, wrinkled skin becomes smooth again through the moist warmth. It is the reason why physicians rightly and successfully prescribe tepid baths for people who are shrivelled and emaciated by old age.
If you consider it well, the tree is the daughter of the old man, who, like Daphne, is changed into a tree, so that the old man expects to be rejuvenated by her, and not without reason, because she has sprung from him.

-excerpt from Atalanta Fugiens by Saint Michael Maier

http://www.maicar.com/GML/Daphne1.html

The tree of emblem IX grows in the "gardens of Wisdom", which is pictured by Maier in emblem XXVII, the epigram of which begins as follows: "The rose-garden of Wisdom has an abundance of various flowers"; without a key for unlocking this rose-garden one will try in vain to ascend to Parnassus, according to the epigram. With this, emblem XXVI is connected, the motto of which reads: "The fruit of human wisdom is the Wood of Life". The picture of it shows Lady Sapientia, with a banderole in each of her hands on which stand the words: "Many a long day and health" and "Wealth and honour". The text of the banderoles is from Solomon, Proverbs (III, 16), and so is the motto (III, 18): "She (Sapientia) is a tree of life, to them that lay hold upon her and happy is everyone that holdeth her fast". Both emblems, about the rosegarden and the Wood of Life (embl. xxvii and xxvi) are - with the texts from Solomon - taken from the Rosarium Philosophorum and belong together. Regarding the Rosarium Philosophorum text, this is taken from the part of the Aurora Consurgens not published in print, in which well-known alchemical statements are mixed with texts from Solomon, the Prophets and the Song of Songs, in order to render the transmutation processes of the imperfect into the perfect, which occur in various fields, but which are closely connected; the transmutation of metals, the approach of man to God, by way of Solomonic wisdom, fathoming nature, and Christ's work of redemption, by which man and world are freed from eternal doom.
The Tree of Life is an analogy with the cross, to which humanity owes its salvation (embl. xxvi).
The tree with gold apples in the gardens of wisdom from embl. IX is also the tree that flowers in the closed rose-garden of embl. xxvii. This evokes associations with Mary and Christ; Mary is the closed garden in which the Tree of Life grows.

-excerpt from the commentary by H.M.E. de Jong

Weekend Thelemite

2006-12-10T15:16:00.000-08:00

Although this may sound cliche, I think education may be a key. If a candidate is even loosely well acquainted with class A documents BEFORE taking an initiation we could probably cut down a good deal on THE SHOCKING TRUTH about what Thelema is about. Also I've heard alot of talk lately about people not taking their roles within our order seriously in an attempt to create a sort of "weekend thelemite" oppurtunity for themselves. A brother recently told me that apon completion of his Minerval initiation he asked for a 1st degree application. When it was handed to him and he asked a specific individual for sponsorship they responded in no uncertain terms, " Do you understand what you're getting into? Do you understand what this means?" (Pointing to the application) "LIFELONG COMMITMENT!!!"

...My point is if we express this sort of seriousness and need for a serious attitude to our candidates we will inevitably produce more well rounded and well informed initiates.

-Jonathan Wilton
Reply to AIShMLChMH LJ entry 11. 06.03 e.v.

The Great Work

2006-12-06T06:45:00.000-08:00

The great Work is not the chimerical art of creating gold; it is that of directing the natural fire as a gardener directs water to nourish his plants. In this manner minerals are not created but matured.

-Levi, Correspondence with Baron Spedalieri, quoting from Transcendental Magic

Note that the Great Work pertains to the Hebrew letter M-I-M ("The Son Slain". See Col. XLV of Liber 777). Compare the above reference to the XIIIth Æthyr of Liber CDXVIII.

The legs of the victim are crossed, while his head and elbows form a triangle. Now, the triangle surmounted by a cross signifies in alchemy the end and perfection of the Great Work, a meaning which is identical with that of the letter TAU, the last of the sacred alphabet. The Hanged Man is, consequently, the adept, bound by his engagements and spiritualized, that is, having his feet turned towards heaven. He is also the antique Prometheus, expiating by everlasting torture the penalty of his glorious theft.

- Levi, Transcendental Magic, Chpt. XII.

12. Then the holy one appeared in the great water of the North; as a golden dawn did he appear, bringing benediction to the fallen universe.

The LORD bring you to the accomplishment of your True Wills, the Great Work...

-Crowley, Liber XV

To go through the first you must be painted all over with blood up to your waist, and you cross your legs, and then they put a rope round one ankle and swing you off. I had such a pretty white petticoat on, and my Prince said I looked just like a white pyramid with a huge red cross on the top of it, which made me ever so glad, because now I knew I would be the Saviour of the World, which is what one wants to be, isn't it?

-Crowley, Konx Om Pax, "The Wake World"

The Liberal Mind:

2006-12-04T22:23:00.000-08:00

Psychological Causes of Political Madness
By Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr, MD

Like all other human beings, the modern liberal reveals his true character, including his madness, in what he values and devalues, in what he articulates with passion. Of special interest, however, are the many values about which the modern liberal mind is not passionate: his agenda does not insist that the individual is the ultimate economic, social and political unit; it does not idealize individual liberty and the structure of law and order essential to it; it does not defend the basic rights of property and contract; it does not aspire to ideals of authentic autonomy and mutuality; it does not preach an ethic of self-reliance and self-determination; it does not praise courage, forbearance or resilience; it does not celebrate the ethics of consent or the blessings of voluntary cooperation. It does not advocate moral rectitude or understand the critical role of morality in human relating. The liberal agenda does not comprehend an identity of competence, appreciate its importance, or analyze the developmental conditions and social institutions that promote its achievement. The liberal agenda does not understand or recognize personal sovereignty or impose strict limits on coercion by the state. It does not celebrate the genuine altruism of private charity. It does not learn history’s lessons on the evils of collectivism.

What the liberal mind is passionate about is a world filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation and injustice. Those who occupy this world are “workers,” “minorities,” “the little guy,” “women,” and the “unemployed.” They are poor, weak, sick, wronged, cheated, oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited and victimized. They bear no responsibility for their problems. None of their agonies are attributable to faults or failings of their own: not to poor choices, bad habits, faulty judgment, wishful thinking, lack of ambition, low frustration tolerance, mental illness or defects in character. None of the victims’ plight is caused by failure to plan for the future or learn from experience. Instead, the “root causes” of all this pain lie in faulty social conditions: poverty, disease, war, ignorance, unemployment, racial prejudice, ethnic and gender discrimination, modern technology, capitalism, globalization and imperialism. In the radical liberal mind, this suffering is inflicted on the innocent by various predators and persecutors: “Big Business,” “Big Corporations,” “greedy capitalists,” U.S. Imperialists,” “the oppressors,” “the rich,” “the wealthy,” “the powerful” and “the selfish.”

The liberal cure for this endless malaise is a very large authoritarian government that regulates and manages society through a cradle to grave agenda of redistributive caretaking. It is a government everywhere doing everything for everyone. The liberal motto is “In Government We Trust.” To rescue the people from their troubled lives, the agenda recommends denial of personal responsibility, encourages self-pity and other-pity, fosters government dependency, promotes sexual indulgence, rationalizes violence, excuses financial obligation, justifies theft, ignores rudeness, prescribes complaining and blaming, denigrates marriage and the family, legalizes all abortion, defies religious and social tradition, declares inequality unjust, and rebels against the duties of citizenship. Through multiple entitlements to unearned goods, services and social status, the liberal politician promises to ensure everyone’s material welfare, provide for everyone’s healthcare, protect everyone’s self-esteem, correct everyone’s social and political disadvantage, educate every citizen, and eliminate all class distinctions. With liberal intellectuals sharing the glory, the liberal politician is the hero in this melodrama. He takes credit for providing his constituents with whatever they want or need even though he has not produced by his own effort any of the goods, services or status transferred to them but has instead taken them from others by force.

It should be apparent by now that these social policies and the passions that drive them contradict all that is rational in human relating, and they are therefore irrational in themselves. But the faulty conceptions that lie behind these passions cannot be viewed as mere cognitive slippage. The degree of modern liberalism’s irrationality far exceeds any misunderstanding that can be attributed to faulty fact gathering or logical error. Indeed, under careful scrutiny, liberalism’s distortions of the normal ability to reason can only be understood as the product of psychopathology. So extravagant are the patterns of thinking, emoting, behaving and relating that characterize the liberal mind that its relentless protests and demands become understandable only as disorders of the psyche. The modern liberal mind, its distorted perceptions and its destructive agenda are the product of disturbed personalities.

As is the case in all personality disturbance, defects of this type represent serious failures in development processes. The nature of these failures is detailed below. Among their consequences are the liberal mind’s relentless efforts to misrepresent human nature and to deny certain indispensable requirements for human relating. In his efforts to construct a grand collectivist utopia—to live what Jacques Barzun has called “the unconditioned life” in which “everybody should be safe and at ease in a hundred ways”—the radical liberal attempts to actualize in the real world an idealized fiction that will mitigate all hardship and heal all wounds. (Barzun 2000). He acts out this fiction, essentially a Marxist morality play, in various theaters of human relatedness, most often on the world’s economic, social and political stages. But the play repeatedly folds. Over the course of the Twentieth Century, the radical liberal’s attempts to create a brave new socialist world have invariably failed. At the dawn of the Twenty-first Century his attempts continue to fail in the stagnant economies, moral decay and social turmoil now widespread in Europe. An increasingly bankrupt welfare society is putting the U.S. on track for the same fate if liberalism is not cured there. Because the liberal agenda’s principles violate the rules of ordered liberty, his most determined efforts to realize its visionary fantasies must inevitably fall short. Yet, despite all the evidence against it, the modern liberal mind believes his agenda is good social science. It is, in fact, bad science fiction. He persists in this agenda despite its madness.

Excerpt from an upcoming book http://www.libertymind.com/

Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr, MD is the author of The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness. He received his medical and psychiatric training at the University of Chicago and served for two years as a psychiatrist in the United States Army. He is currently in private practice in the Chicago area.

New Lawrence Sutin book

2006-12-03T19:42:00.000-08:00

Apparently I missed meeting Lawrence Sutin at the bookstore down the street from me in Oct.:

http://tinyurl.com/yzykb5

The owner claimed to know Sutin and that she had a signed copy of "Do what thou wilt"for sale when I asked her where the "occult" section in her store was a few years ago.

If you haven't been in the Book Trader store (http://tinyurl.com/yg5k77) , its chok full of used books (mostly paperbacks) with an assortment of oddities (including a few skulls) for sale; I purchased a wooden arm with a hand giving the "fig" gesture (see Liber XV) as a protective amulet from the "evil eye."

My favorite quote from the above article:

"While unaffiliated with any particular belief system, Sutin respects them all—including Aleister Crowley's system of ceremonial magic."

Hard to believe, that.

I'm curious if Sutin mentions Bennett and Crowley as two of the earliest adherents and expositors of Buddhism to the West?

A Greater Feast for Death

2006-12-01T06:29:00.000-08:00

Write, & find ecstasy in writing! Work, & be our bed in working! Thrill with the joy of life & death! Ah! thy death shall be lovely: whoso seeth it shall be glad. Thy death shall be the seal of the promise of our agelong love. Come! lift up thing heart & rejoice! We are one; we are none.

-Liber AL II: 66

ON THE TREE ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE

2006-12-01T05:04:00.000-08:00

Zarathustra's eye had noted that a youth avoided him. And one evening as he walked alone through the mountains surrounding the town which is called The Motley Cow - behold, on his walk he found this youth as he sat leaning against a tree, looking wearily into the valley. Zarathustra gripped the tree under which the youth was sitting and spoke thus:
"If I wanted to shake this tree with my hands I should not be able to do it. But the wind, which we do not see, tortures and bends it in whatever direction it pleases. It is by invisible hands that we are bent and tortured worst."
Then the youth got up in consternation and said: "I hear Zarathustra, and just now I was thinking of him."
Zarathustra replied: "Why should that frighten you? But it is with man as it is with the tree. The more he aspires to the height and light, the more strongly do his roots strive earthward, downward, into the dark, the deep - into evil."
"Yes, into evil!" cried the youth. "How is it possible that you discovered my soul?"
Zarathustra smiled and said: "Some souls one will never discover, unless one invents them first."
"Yes, into evil!" the youth cried once more. "You have spoken the truth, Zarathustra. I no longer trust myself since I aspire to the height, and nobody trusts me any more; how did this happen? I change too fast: my today refutes my yesterday. I often skip steps when I climb: no step forgives me that. When I am at the top I always find myself alone. Nobody speaks to me; the frost of loneliness makes me shiver. What do I want up high? My contempt and my longing grow at the same time; the higher I climb, the more I despise the climber. What does he want up high? How ashamed I am of my climbing and stumbling! How I mock at my violent panting! How I hate the flier! How weary I am up high!
Here the youth stopped. And Zarathustra contemplated the tree beside which they stood and spoke thus: "This tree stands lonely here in the mountains; it grew high above man and beast. And if it wanted to speak it would have nobody who could understand it, so high has it grown. Now it waits and waits - for what is it waiting? It dwells too near the seat of the clouds: surely, it waits for the lightning."
When Zarathustra had said this the youth cried with violent gestures: "Yes, Zarathustra, you are speaking the truth. I longed to go under when I aspired to the height, and you are the lightning for which I waited. Behold, what am I, now that you have appeared among us? It is the envy of you that has destroyed me." Thus spoke the youth, and he wept bitterly. But Zarathustra put his arm around him and led him away.
And when they had walked together for a while, Zarathustra began to speak thus: "It tears my heart. Better than your words tell it, your eyes tell me of all your dangers. You are not yet free, you still search for freedom. You are worn from your search and over-awake. You aspire to the free heights, your soul thirsts for the stars. But your wicked instincts, too, thirst for freedom. Your wild dogs want freedom; they bark with joy in their cellar when your spirit plans to open all prisons. To me you are still a prisoner who is plotting his freedom: alas, in such prisoners the soul becomes clever, but also deceitful and bad. And even the liberated spirit must still purify himself. Much prison and mustiness still remain in him: his eyes must still become pure.
"Indeed, I know your danger. But by my love and hope I beseech you: do not throw away your love and hope.
"You still feel noble, and the others too feel your nobility, though they bear you a grudge and send you evil glances. Know that the noble man stands in everybody's way. The noble man stands in the way of the good too: and even if they call him one of the good, they thus want to do away with him. The noble man wants to create something new and a new virtue. The good want the old, and that the old be preserved. But this is not the danger of the noble man, that he might become one of the good, but a churl, a mocker, a destroyer.
"Alas, I knew noble men who lost their highest hope. Then they slandered all high hopes. Then they lived impudently in brief pleasures and barely cast their goals beyond the day. Spirit too is lust, so they said. Then the wings of their spirit broke: and now their spirit crawls about and soils what it gnaws. Once they thought of becoming heroes: now they are voluptuaries. The hero is for them an offense and a fright.
"But by my love and hope I beseech you: do not throw away the hero in your soul! Hold holy your highest hope!"
Thus spoke Zarathustra.

-Saint Friedrich Nietzsche

The Lord's Prayer

2006-11-30T09:46:00.000-08:00

"The triad, being the fundamental principle of the whole Kabalah, or Sacred Tradition of our fathers, was necessarily the fundamental dogma of Christianity, the apparent dualism of which it explains by the intervention of a harmonious and all-powerful unity. Christ did not put His teaching into writing, and only revealed it in secret to His favoured disciple, the one Kabalist, and he a great Kabalist, among the apostles. So is the Apocalypse the book of the Gnosis or Secret Doctrine of the first Christians, and the key of this doctrine is indicated by an occult versicle of the Lord's Prayer, which the Vulgate leaves untranslated, while in the Greek Rite, which preserves the traditions of St. John, the priests only are permitted to pronounce it. This versicle, completely kabalistic, is found in the Greek text of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, and in several Hebrew copies, as follows...The sacred word MALKUTH substituted for KETHER, which is its kabalistic correspondent, and the equipoise of GEBURAH and CHESED, repeating itself in the circles of heavens called eons by the Gnostics, provided the keystone of the whole Christian Temple in this occult versicle. It has been retained by Protestants in their New Testament, but they have failed to discern its lofty and wonderful meaning, which would have unveiled to them all the Mysteries of the Apocalypse. There is, however, a tradition in the Church that the manifestation of these mysteries is reserved till the last times."

- Levi, Transcendental Magic

THE CRY OF THE HAWK

Hoor hath a secret fourfold name: it is Do What Thou Wilt. (1)
Four Words: Naught - One - Many - All. (2)

Thou - Child!
Thy Name is holy.
Thy Kingdom is come.
Thy Will is done.
Here is the Bread.
Here is the Blood.

Bring us through Temptation!
Deliver us from Good and Evil!
That Mine as Thine be the Crown of the Kingdom,
even now.

ABRAHADABRA.

These ten words are four, the Name of the One.

COMMENTARY (B)

The "Hawk" referred to is Horus. The chapter begins with a comment on Liber Legis III, 49. Those four words, Do What Thou Wilt, are also identified with the four possible modes of conceiving the universe; Horus unites these. Follows a version of the "Lord's Prayer", suitable to Horus. Compare this with the version in Chapter 44. There are ten sections to this prayer, and, as the prayer is attributed to Horus, they are called four, as above explained; but it is only the name of Horus which is fourfold; He himself is One. This may be compared with the Qabalistic doctrine of the Ten Sephiroth as an expression of Tetragrammaton (1 plus 2 plus 3 plus 4 = 10). It is now seen that this Hawk is not Solar, but Mercurial (3); hence the words, the Cry of the Hawk, the essential part of Mercury being his Voice; and the number of the chapter, B, which is Beth the letter of Mercury, the Magus of the Tarot, who has four weapons, and it must be remembered that this card is numbered 1, again connecting all these symbols with the Phallus. The essential weapon of Mercury is the Caduceus.

(1) Fourteen letters. Quid Voles Illud Fac. Q.V.I.F. 196 = 14².

-LIBER CCCXXXIII

A.M. Notes:

(2) Compare to Liber XXXVI, substituting "Many" with "Two".

(3) Compare Crowley's surprise - a little over a year after the publication of The Book of Lies - of the identification he receives of Christ with Mercury instead of with the Sun (Jan 1- 2nd, 1914 e.v.). "This came as a complete surprise, we having till then considered him as an entirely solar symbol connected especially with Dionysus, Mithras, Osiris." - Confessions.

The Formula of IAO, The Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram and Planetary Rulerships

2006-11-29T05:25:00.000-08:00

ATU I: The Magician. "His attitude suggests the shape of the Swastika or thunderbolt, the message of God." The Sign of the Swastika. Rashith ha Gilgalim. YVD = 20 which in turn indicates Kaph, "The initiation of Whirling Force" and ATU X "Fortune". "....I proclaim the Law of Light, Life, Love and Liberty in the name of..."

I as the "...one crown of all the ten..." "...and in Iota did prolcaim that tenfold core and crown of flame." The Wand.
ATU XVI: The Tower. "Human figures thrown thence suggest the letter Ayin by their attitude." The Sign of the Trident. The emerging twins Horus and Harpocrates, suggesting the Alpha and Omega and the children flanking the Priestess:"Greeting of Earth and Heaven." The image of the blasted tower suggests the story of Babel/Babylon and with this in mind, note the connection to the Slain God BABALON and the associations of Scorpio, Water and the West in Liber XXV, Liber V as well as to the Neptunian Solar-Phallic Dragon of Liber DCCC. The Priestess bears a sword which is the weapon of Mars and the Children further suggest Cauda and Caput Draconis; "The Sign of Apophis and Typhon." In respect to these officers note also the Serpent, Scorpion and Eagle of ATU XIII.

Thou shalt pour forth a flood of poison to destroy the works of the Magician.

- Liber LXV IV: 24

A as the Pentagram, the lineal figure of Mars. Alpha, the Sword.

ATU XIX: The Sun. "Below is a wall, in front of which, in a fairy ring, two children wantonly and shamelessly embrace." The Sign of the Cross. The Priest (bearing the Lance/Phallus) concealed within the Tomb (suggesting ATU IX). Note that the above Signs are contained within the Cross and that the Pentagram is "of the cross." Again, "The Priestess and other officers never partake of the Sacrament, they being as it were part of the Priest himself."

O as the redeeming"Son-Sun";"The open eye".

I + XVI + XIX = 36 = 6 x 6

"To conceal themselves, they are disguised as Isis and Osiris."

-The Supreme Ritual

Upcoming Presentation

2006-11-22T05:44:00.000-08:00

I've recently been informed that my proposal for the VIth Biennial National Ordo Templi Orientis Conference has been accepted by the selection committee:

From Gold Forge Steel!
An Analysis of the symbolism in The Gnostic Mass

Its hard to believe that this will be the 6th O.T.O. conference I've attended. My first presentation ("Heretical Comments") at the previous conference had a reasonably good turnout (although - except for J - there wasn't a single local face in sight) and I'm looking forward to seeing some familiar and unfamiliar faces there. Unlike the serious looking individual pictured above, I'll probably be wearing a shirt and tie and brandishing a smile.

Q. C. and the Powers of the Sphinx

2006-11-21T14:35:00.000-08:00

Unto Thee - To go - Sol
The Kingdom - To Know (i.e. "Knowledge and Conversation") - Air
and the Power - To Dare (Courage) - Fire
and the Glory - To Will - Water
To the Ages, Amen - To Keep Silence - Earth

"Water is sometimes very aggressive. In IRE, SCIRE, AUDERE, VELLE, TACERE, (1) is Spirit (2) is Air (5) is Earth quite obviously. But (3) and (4) are both very active. I take (3) to be fire dashing recklessly on. The (4) Velle must be Water. It is the steady incomprehensible current of Will: Binah set going by Chokmah."

-Crowley note in his copy of Legge to the 10th Hexagram, LI.

216

2006-11-21T12:26:00.000-08:00

AVRAVB - Night Demon of the 1st Decan of Libra
ARYH - Lion
BBA MTzYOA - The middle Gate. [Vide Kaballah Denudata cuisus Pars Prima continet Locos Commune Kabbalisticos. p. 184.]
GBVRH - Courage
DBYR - Oracle
DM ONBYM - Blood of grapes
YRAH - Dread, fear
OVMQ - Profound. [Psalms xcii. 6.]
RVGZ - Anger, wrath
RVChB - Latitude

- Liber D

I once hoped much from this number, as it is the cube of 6. But I fear it only expresses the fixity of mind. Anyhow it all came to no good.
But we have DBIR, connected with DBR, adding the Secret Phallic Power.

- Liber LVIII

Note that DBR is also "Voice" which Crowley relates specifically to "The Vision and the Voice" in his analysis of the 2nd formulation of the word Abrahadabra ["This is by separating the One (Aleph) from the Many (diverse letters)."]

Kingship and the Lion-Serpent

2006-11-20T18:11:00.000-08:00

Saint Alphonse Louis Constant, detailing the kabbalistic signs for the seven spirits (planetary) described the spirit of the sun as "a serpent with the head of a lion". While he did not identify this planetary spirit as Baphomet, it does appear that he identified the "lion serpent" with SVRTh (which adds to 666) from the kamea of Sol (note that Agrippa, Barrett, etc. list planetary "spirits" as "demons"). Below is the image of the "Infernal Characters of the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac" from Levi's Transcendental Magic. It should be more than a little obvious as to what the figure in the center of this image is:
COMPASSION is really a certain Chinese figure whose names are numerous. One of them is BAPHOMET.

-Liber LXXI

Serpent (TITh)= 419
Lion (ARIH)= 216
+ 31 (AL - the God associated to Chesed and the Key to Liber AL) = 666

Note that the initials of the above Hebrew names for "serpent" and "lion" compose the word "Enchanter", which is the Password of the 7°=4▫ Grade (see Liber 777, Col. CXIV).

Overstepping

2006-11-17T05:50:00.002-08:00

"...I need not tell you how jealously we must guard the honor of the Third Order and maintain its dignity. It has been my special pride that even a Zelator of the A.·.A.·. was superior all around to highest-sounding titles in all other systems. I err, if I err, on the right side by being cautious in this matter.
I am confirmed, however, by recent events since I wrote last week, in my opinion that you are totally wrong in favouring any relaxation of the A.·.A.·. system in general. On the contrary, we should reinforce the boundaries by thicker wire with more and sharper barbs. I can trace nearly all the disasters which have overwhelmed aspirants to a single cause: that of their overstepping the limits of the tasks peculiar to their Grades.
Last week we had the closest shave of a fatal accident both and physically, to one of us here. Death might easily have occurred, temporary insanity did occur, in fact there was Hell to pay all around and the cause was that instead of confining himself to the work outlined in 185, he started a crazy retirement which would have been hard on a 6˚=5▫, performed the rites of the Abyss without the necessary preparation, involved himself in a Qabalah more suited to the path of Aleph than that of Tzaddi where he ought to have been, and roared out diatribes against the concubine-crushed Therion and Jesus Strasnfeld Christ, instead of attending to a somewhat conspicuous mote in his own eye. His record is a mixture of parodies on John St. John and your latest Qabalah, for he ate a piece of wood "in a Yogin and ceremonial manner" and when asked why, replied: "Gecause." His ego expanded until the Universe was an unconsidered item in its vastness. He turned "love under will" to "hate under impulse," destroyed the proportions of everything and nearly dying of thirst and sun stroke, frightened the local barber. I think we have saved him but I blame myself unsparingly for having allowed him to know more than was good for him.
I am seriously alarmed at the efficiency of my methods. In the last year, I have had two incredibly brilliant successes, and I still have hopes of the third in spite of this sinister accident. Especially here where pupils are so closely in touch with me and have access to manuscripts of the most terrific character, the danger of their dynamiting themselves is most serious.
We have given the world a weapon of incalculable possibilities. Our only course is to insist on the most rigid discipline in those who are learning to use it. I have been warned repeatedly by adepts, both in the body and out of it, that I have undertaken a desperate responsibility. I know it. I have known and willed and dared. I have kept silence too, in face of this criticism of my act. What I have done, I have done; and I am prepared to abide the consequence like Prometheus before me but I am certainly free to do all in my power to keep my children from cutting themselves with tools I have put in their hands, and the only way to do it is to train them with vigilant rigour in the prudent manipulation thereof.
...Above all, be constantly on guard against the Ego. You have abolished it on principle but in practice it comes back again constantly through the force of physical and mental habit of thinking and acting. Beware of success! 'Success is thy proof; the proof that our Law is the Law. Petty personalities are not worth a snap of the fingers."...

-A.C. to C.S. Jones, July 25, 1921 e.v., Collegium ad Spiritum Sanctum, Cefalú, Sicily

The Necessity of Formality

2006-11-16T14:17:00.000-08:00

"...I should like, however, to warn you that you talk a little too loosely about Grades, and use the word contacted as though contact were a verb. The latter is inexcusable, but the former matter requires a few comments. No one is less a formalist than I, as you know very well, and it is perfectly true that people who have never heard of the Order may be in a spiritual state equivalent to any Grade you like to mention. But there is also such a thing as definition, and we have to work practically within certain limits which are no doubt artificial, but which are useful for those who are living in a Universe, the consciousness of which depends upon an arbitrarily self-imposed form. I think you make the mistake which has been my own worst drawback, of despising such restrictions as are involved in the regulations of the A.·.A.·. and the O.T.O., of telling the truth on my own plane instead of that of the people to whom I am talking. I remind you of Vancouver when you handed out nominal Rose Croix Degrees. The result was to break up the practical work of the Master Magicians. I naturally welcome news of people attaining a high grade, but after all a grade is only a name. Take the question of Knighthood. No power on earth can make a Knight of a successful grocer. Knighthood depends on two things: firstly, it must be conferred by authority of another Knight; secondly, the new Knight must be bound by certain oaths, to act in a certain way. The English Aristocracy has been brought into contempt by neglect of these considerations. I have been chosen as the representative of the A.·.A.·. and my authority depends upon The Book of the Law no more and no less than any other statement in that Book. The Book of the Law is above me, which is not the case with any other book. Liber LXV, for example, is my inspired writing, but it is no more than mine, while The Book of the Law is the word of Aiwass, entirely beyond my criticism. That is the bed rock on which our work is founded. I am moved to re-state this because I notice that you omit to address me as always in recent letters. But if that relationship does not exist, you have no standing. My Grade depends on yours to a certain extent because of your action in claiming the MT Grade, which is part of my Magical History. Your grade depends on mine much more inalienably, because your claim to sonship identifies you as fulfilling certain promises in The Book of the Law. Besides this, we are all Magically bound by our statements. I must also emphasize that in taking the Grade of MT you did a very noble but a very terrible thing whose consequences cannot be evaded. You are, in a sense, artificial - none the worse for that of course, but yet very much hampered by your not having had the experiences of the intermediate Grades. You have made very good indeed in your particular work and you have justified yourself by discovering the key of it all. Our position is unassailable because it is founded on The Book of the Law, but that Book says nothing about other people except the Scarlet Woman, so far as I am aware. I have been exceedingly strict in refusing to advance people in the Order unless they have complied with the most minute regulations laid down in Liber XIII and elsewhere. You are responsible not to relax those rules. We must work on the chain system and we must see to it that everybody masters every detail of his task before he goes ahead to the next grade. This absolute thoroughness of all-around attainment is what gives its dignity to the title even of Neophyte. I know, none better, how plaguey inconvenient these rules are, but we must not break them. To do so proves our work tainted by lust of result. I remember the case of Windram, who had all sorts of qualifications both for Major and Exempt Adept, but he could not master the Astral Plane; and I kept him back till he had done so.
I want you to look at this matter from yet another point of view; that of the Aspirant. We should only confuse him if we depart from the strict simplicity of the Hierarchy given in The Book of the Law. We have the three speakers: Nuit, Hadit and Ra-Hoor-Khuit, the last of these being a synthetic unity of the twins Horus and Harpocrates. Of these, the messenger is Aiwass. The human representatives of this force are the Beast and the Scarlet Woman with a child or children. All other human beings are to be initiated as may be right according to the regulations of the A.·.A.·.. That is a fairly simple creed. If we complicate it, without warrant, if we exceed the limits laid down by The Book of the Law, we shall muddle the Aspirant. The Law is full of practical good sense. Note III - 22. Our exterior work should not go beyond the Establishment of the Crowned and Conquering Child as the Lord of the Aeon. I have been engaged recently in the criticising my own disobedience to certain detailed instructions in the Book, and have been able to trace the bad effects of every deviation from my orders.
It is for this reason that I have been concentrating more and more on the absolute practical task laid upon me. I want you to do the same. I may be working through another body and mind; in fact, I am, through more than one, as you would see, if you could read my recent Magical Records. But we can't have a second 9°=2▫ independent of me, in the A.·.A.·., because the essence of the Grade is the proclamation of a Word, and that word is Thelema, and it is a matter of history that I and nobody else proclaimed it. Another man might do infinitely more than I in any other respect, in all other respects, but not in that particular matter, and as the Work to which we are pledged is confined to this Word, we are ourselves confined to the strict letter of the doctrine. To go beyond this can only lead to misunderstanding and confusion. You cannot have two fathers any more than I can have two Holy Guardian Angels. But on theorectical and practical grounds it would be absolutely fatal to try to better our instructions. There is great danger in our own advanced way of looking at things. We analyze and refine as we progress and that is all very well for us in our own personal work: but this is our temptation - we are so anxious to bring others to share our illumination that we give them truths for which they are not ready. We must make a renunciation and attend wholly to the emancipation of manking from the Slave Gods. We must not impose the Law on the Mass of Mankind and leave it to them to make use of their freedom. I have resolved not to impart a great deal of what I have been getting since I came to Sicily. Our own freedom from illusion blinds us to the black darkness which wraps rond our brother and sister stars. They are colliding disastrously and our work is to restore each one to its orbit.
I am in a position to attend to two things: - Firstly, the formulation in words of the Truth. I have been given the power of writing in English for this purpose. It is my personal work - no one else can do it. All I ask is to be allowed to do it and to be helped to put the said writings within the reach of students. In other words, I want leisure freed from anxiety, and a publisher who will issue my work as fast as I prepare it. Secondly, I can train officers - I have great experience in breaking up complexes and making "sever the Ordeals." All I want is a supply of raw material.
The Book of the Law suggests that there is yet another work peculiar to me - I'm doing that as best I can and waiting without anxiety the opportunity to enlarge its scope. I want you , as far as you can, to strengthen my hand. I have been going through some very severe tests in the last month or two, and you will be glad to hear that the result leaves nothing to desire. A conviction is growing on me that the time is a t hand for some very remarkable developments in our Work, and your letter confirms it, to my, great satisfaction. I hope you will not have been bored with the above long dissertation on the Great Hierarchy, but it is of the utmost importance that you should refrain from removing landmarks, because of the generations to come. I have been chosen to do a work unique in the history of the World: I have produced scientific proofs of the existence of a discarnate intelligence. It is the beginning of rational religion. No other work can possibly compare with this one thing, and we have got to make the way of the Historian plain. The Establishment of this is the corner stone of The Book of the Law, and we have no reason for living except to Establish the Law. I am ready to die at any moment. I only consent to live in order tha my life may bear witness to my work....P.S. - I need hardly say that I have the most absolute confidence in you; my only anxiety is that your spiritual attainments may be intoxicating you so deeply that you may forget about paying the bill for the dinner. The world is our Inn, and we must give the host and his waiters and cooks the hard cash that they need, not the fumes of our wine.
You earned your right to take the Leap to 8°=3▫ by your acceptance of the responsibility of helping the folks in BC at the cost of your personal progress. I earned my chance to be chosen by the A.·.A.·. when I abandoned my Abramelin operation in 1900 for the sake of my B.B. in the G.·.D.·...."

-A.C. to C.S. Jones, Jun. 15, 1921 e.v.,
Collegium ad Spiritum Sanctum, Cefalú, Sicily
Emphases are mine

The Bennu Bird, the Phoenix and the Khu

2006-11-10T06:53:00.000-08:00

The word benu is related to the verb weben 'to rise' as well as to the ben-ben - the upthrust sacred stone of Heliopolis. The Benu bird was an important avian deity, originally of solar connections, which came to represent three major gods: Atum, Re and Osiris. As an aspect of Atum, the Benu bird was said to have flown over the waters of Nun before the orignal creation. According to this view, the bird finally came to rest on a rock at which point its cry broke the primeval silence and was said to have determined what was and what was not to be in the unfolding creation. The Benu was also said to be the ba of Re, and by the Late Period the hieroglyphic sign depicting the bird was used to write the name of the chief sun god. Believed to constantly rise anew like the sun, the Benu bird was called the 'lord of jubilees' which doubtless led to the conception of its long life and to it becoming the prototype for the Greek phoenix which renewed itself in a fiery death like the sun rising at dawn. According to Herodotus the bird lived for 500 years before it fashioned a nest of aromatic boughs and spices which it set on fire to be consumed in the flames. From the conflagration a new phoenix miraculously arose, which after embalming its father's ashes flew with them to Heliopolis where it deposited the ashes on the altar of the temple of Re. Although the bird was associated primarily with Atum and Re, its connection with rebirth also led to an association with Osiris.

The bird which first served as a symbol of solar deities in Heliopolis was probably the yellow wagtail (Motacilla flava) which, according to the Pyramid Texts (PT 1652), represented Atum himself. By New Kingdom times, however, the Benu was usually depicted as a grey heron (Ardea cinera), with long legs and beak and its head adorned with a two-feathered crest. Ususally the Benu is depicted atop a stylized ben-ben stone as a symbol of the great solar god, but its association with Osiris meant that it was also sometimes depicted in the sacred willow of that god. The bird was also represented wearing the Atef Crown in its role as a symbol of Osiris. According to the Classical vision of the phoenix, the bird was said to be as large as an eagle, with red and gold (solar or flame-coloured) plumage. Benu could also be depicted in hybrid form as a heron-headed man.

-Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt

The BENNU BIRD - = Khou Khu , or Yekh - The Magical powers. The Shining one. The Augoeides of Greek philosophy.

Also noted as "The Illuminated one."

-Egyptian Magic, by S.S.D.D. (Florence Farr)

Note that Yekh is attributed to Kether in Col. CXVI of Liber 777.

- from the Stélé of Revealing (obverse, 3rd register from top)

As S.S.D.D. notes (and as shown above), the hieroglyphic image of the Khu is the Bennu bird.

Yea, O my master, thou art the beloved of the Beloved One; the Bennu Bird is set up in Philae not in vain.

-Liber LXV IV: 22.

The Bennu Bird refers to the currents and sub-currents set in motion by the A.·.A.·. every 600 years approximately, that is, twice in the course of each Æon.

In "Liber VII," VII: 27, the Bennu Bird is identified definately with the Phoenix - or Set the Wild Ass - through the symbolism of the Wand of the Second Adept in the Ritual of Adeptus Minor of R.R. et A.C.

- A.C. commentary to Liber LXV IV: 22

Note that the Phœnix is associated to the Sephira Tiphareth in Col. XXXVIII ("Animals, Real and Imaginary") in Liber 777 ..."on account of its symbolism of the 5=6 grade." Also note that the Phœnix (" which is fabled to feed its young from the blood of its own breast" ) is equated with the Magician in the comment to The Mass of the Phœnix.

Quoting the above reference:

I am the Initiator and the Destroyer. Mine is the Globe - and the Bennu Bird and the Lotus of Isis my daughter!

-Liber VII, VII: 27

Khabs is the secret Light or L.V.X.; the Khu is the magical entity of a man.

-from the "Old" Comment of Liber AL I: 8:

This 'star' or 'Inmost Light' is the original, individual, eternal essence. The Khu is the magical garment which it weaves for itself, a 'form' for its Being Beyond Form, by use of which it can gain experience through self-consciousness, as explained in the note to verses 2 and 3. This Khu is the first veil, far subtler than mind or body, and truer; for its symbolic shape depends on the nature of its Star.

Further, this verse is to be taken with the next. The 'company of heaven' is Mankind, and its 'unveiling' is the assertion of the independent godhead of every man and every woman!

-from the "New" Comment of Liber AL I: 8. Emphasis mine.

Considering the Khu as a "magical garment" or the "magical entity" of the individual, consider the comment to Liber XLIV:

He summons the Universe, and crowns it with MAGICK Light to replace the sun of natural light.

Consider also the name Ra-Hoor-Khuit unto whom the Magician prays and the "adorations" he makes "as in Liber Legis":

Open the Ways of the Khu!