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From: "John B. Fleming"Subject: HERALD-TEPAPHONE Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 15:41:24 -0500 (EST) A QUARTERLY PUBLICATION OF IAO CAMP, ORDO TEMPLI ORIENTIS WINTER SOLSTICE, 1995-6 E.V. VOLUME I, NUMBER IV _________________________________________________________________ _Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law._ _________________________________________________________________ IAO Camp, Ordo Templi Orientis P.O. Box 5793 Bloomington, Indiana 47407 (URL) http://www.sephiroth.org/iao/ (e-mail: rbowyer@intersource.com) _Personnel:_ The Non-existent Brother R. B., Camp Master and Proofreader to His Majesty The Non-existent Sister R. H., Treasurer Fr. In Profunda, Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda Sr. Shekinah, Minister of Protocol and Appetizers Sr. Manibhadra, Minister of Caffeine Fr. Wayne (Formerly Known as the Magician Formerly Known as Wayne), Secretary and Minister of Magical Formula Fr. Appetitor Lucis, Chief of Cybernetics Fr. R. A., Distinguished Guest _Outside Contributors:_ Soror Continuity Dr. Michael Melchizedeck, Ph.D. The Great God Critter A. Quiller III Adam Weishaupt Haon Dor Sapiens Dominibatur Astris _________________________________________________________________ The _Herald-Tepaphone_ is the quarterly newsletter of IAO Camp, a duly chartered body of Ordo Templi Orientis. The _HT_ is published on the Equinoxes and Solstices. Subscriptions are $3.00 per issue or $10.00 for one year (4 issues), make checks or money orders payable to Bowyer. Membership in IAO Camp and/or O.T.O. is not required to subscribe or to submit material. Text submissions may be sent on paper or on 3.5 in. disk for WordPerfect or Microsoft Word (preferably on Macintosh), illustrations had better be on paper at present. All copyrights reside with the individual authors if they are willing to 'fess-up. The opinions expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect those of IAO Camp, the Ordo Templi Orientis, or of anyone else. _________________________________________________________________ In this issue... * IAO Goes On-Line! * New Members! * New Contributor! * Top Ten Reasons to Join O.T.O. * Just What is a Kabbalistic Cross? * The Dirtwitch Review * Yuletide Interlude * Words of Inspiration from Our Beloved Prophet * Book Search * Poet's Corner * Lovecraftian Qabalah * Announcement * In Memoriam * Typhonian Tomes: Being a Guide to the Works of Kenneth Grant * The Lady Freemason * Reviews + Secret Texts: The Literature of Secret Societies, edited by Marie Mulvey Roberts and Hugh Ormsby-Lennon + The Occult, Colin Wilson + Magical Hearth: Home for Modern Pagans, Janet Thompson + The 1996 Opus n' Bill No-Nonsense Astrology Calendar, Berkeley Breathed + Absinthe: the Green Goddess, Aleister Crowley + Tao Te Ching: Liber CLVII, translated, with an introduction and commentary by Aleister Crowley + Humanism in the Renaissance, Sem Dresden + The Christian Interpretation of the Cabala in the Renaissance, Joseph Leon Blau + Liber Kaos, Peter Carroll + The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon: Lemegeton, Book I, translated by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, edited, annotated, introduced, and enlarged by Aleister Crowley + Art and Symbols of the Occult, James Wasserman + In a Graveyard at Midnight: Folk Magick and Wisdom from the Heart of Appalachia, Edain McCoy + Celtic Heritage, Alwyn and Brinley Rees + The Occult and the Third Reich: The Mystical Origins of Nazism and the Search for the Holy Grail, Jean-Michel Angebert * Correspondence + From Sr. Continuity + From Dr. Michael Melchizedeck, Ph.D. * IAO Camp Calendar, Winter 1996 * Note from the Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda * DISCLAIMER _________________________________________________________________ IAO GOES ON-LINE! Yes, the rumours are true! IAO Camp, home to some of the most eminent Luddites in the O.T.O., is now a presence on the World Wide Web. While we have been discussing the possibility of establishing a Homepage for some months, Fr. Appetitor Lucis (one of our two new Minervals) proceded to set one up on his own initiative. And a bang-up job he did, too! The IAO Camp Homepage includes our Calendar of Events, _Liber AL_, links to every other O.T.O. body on-line that we have discovered, as well as complete back issues of this very newsletter--the _Electric Tepaphone_, if you will. Shortly after this issue goes to press we expect to have capsule profiles of each Camp member available for your mystification, as well as other neat stuff. So log on to _http://www.sephiroth.org/iao/_ without delay--and be sure to sign our guestbook! _________________________________________________________________ New Members! We are proud to announce that the Camp now has two brand new Minervals; Frater Appetitor Lucis and Frater R.A., who were received as guests of the Order in November. Fr. A.L. has already distinguished himself by creating our Website, while Fr. R.A. has constructed some much needed new pillars for our Gnostic Mass Altar. Congratulations and good wishes to the both of them! _________________________________________________________________ New Contributor! We are always interested in hearing from outside authorities on matters relating to Magick. Now a friend of ours named Critter, who happens to be a Traditional Witch, Javacrucian, and Tepaphone aficionado to boot, joins us as Witchcraft columnist and reviewer. Welcome aboard! _________________________________________________________________ Top Ten Reasons to Join O.T.O. 10. You will no longer be a Trog. 9. Learn to levitate. 8. Everything always runs exactly on time. 7. Great parties, dude! 6. Will enable you to be more Christ-like. 5. You can look down your nose at all those cheesy Golden Dawners. 4. Holographic picture ID card. 3. Your mother will be _so proud!_ 2. We have an extra Hebrew letter. 1. You never have to spend Thanksgiving with your parents again. _________________________________________________________________ Just What is a Kabbalistic Cross? by Soror Babel ha-Gedulah I came from a somewhat unusual background. My mother is Jewish but my father is Roman Catholic. When I first got into Magick I was very interested in the so-called Kabbalistic Cross, because it seemed like a way of reconciling my parents' differing beliefs while furthering my own (i. e., Magick). But the more I studied the Kabbalistic Cross, the more cans of worms it opened. As everybody knows, the Kabbalistic Cross is the beginning and ending part of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram taught in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (TM, ® + ©, pat. pend., etc.). The Pentagram Ritual was written by Mathers, and he got the inspiration and the basic format from Eliphas L=E9vi's book _Transcendental Magic_. This is important because L=E9vi was Catholic (they say Mathers converted to Catholicism, too), and most non-Catholics don't understand the significance of the Sign of the Cross. Everybody knows how you make the Sign of the Cross, and that it confers spiritual protection (I once saw an old lady crossing herself when walking in front of a certain O.T.O. Temple!), but not everybody knows that it's used at the beginning and end of Catholic rituals ranging from private prayer all the way up to the Mass. So it's natural for a Catholic Magician like L=E9vi to open and close a very important ritual such as the _Conjuration of the Four_ (his prototype of the Pentagram Ritual) with the Sign of the Cross. But in the Kabbalistic Cross you don't follow the usual Catholic wording, 'In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.' Instead you say 'For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.' L=E9vi can't seem to decide whether you should say those words in Greek, or in a mix of Latin and Hebrew (see pages 51 and 234 of _Transcendental Magic_). Mathers wants you to say them in Hebrew, but he changes the meaning to 'Thou art the kingdom...,' etc. Nobody knows whether Mathers made this change for some esoteric purpose or just because he didn't really know Hebrew. Certainly his transliteration of the vau-conjunctives as '_ve-Geburah_' and '_ve Gedulah_,' when they should be pronounced '_u Gheburah_' and '_u-Ghedulah_,' argues that his knowledge of Hebrew was pretty minimal. But regardless what language you use to say these words while making the Kabbalistic Sign of the Cross, they open another can of worms. These words conclude the 'Lord's Prayer' in PROTESTANT Bibles. They are absent from Catholic Bibles because Catholic Biblical scholars consider them a late and inauthentic interpolation. And of course Protestants reject the Sign of the Cross as a superstitious ritual, so by combining them we're making Luther and the Pope shack up, against both their wishes (I can hear some Thelemites shouting 'Good!'). L=E9vi is aware of what he's doing here. He calls the words an 'occult versicle of the Lord's Prayer, which the _Vulgate_ leaves untranslated,' and says that 'It has been retained by Protestants in their _New Testament_, but they have failed to discern its lofty and wonderful meaning...' He also tells us that the words 'for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen' are 'found in the Greek text of the _Gospel according to St. Matthew_, and in several Hebrew copies...' In fact, they do show up in some Greek manuscripts of _Matthew_. The earliest one dates from the fifth century, and the others are eighth century or later. Of course there are no ancient Hebrew copies of the _Gospels_ (L=E9vi liked to make up authorities to support his ideas). I agree with the Catholic scholars who consider this 'occult versicle' an inauthentic inclusion, but it's not hard to see the logic of including it. It follows one of the major thematic agendas of the _Gospel of Matthew_, because it links Jesus with King David to underscore the idea that Jesus really is the 'branch Davidian,' the promised Messiah. The formula which is being put in Jesus' mouth in the Lord's Prayer ('Thine is the kingdom...,' etc.) comes from the Prayer of David, in _I Chronicles_, 29. This prayer is familiar to all students of Kabbalah, because the names of the Sefiroth from Gedulah (Chesed) down to Hod are found here, in order. For orthodox Kabbalists, this proves that David was a Kabbalist and knew all about the Tree of Life. For L=E9vi, the Protestant ending of the Lord's Prayer proves the same thing about Jesus. Ready to open another can of worms? L=E9vi's point in combining the Sign of the Cross and the ending of the Lord's Prayer is that the words correspond to the names of Sefiroth which form a cross. But they don't. First of all, David does not use the word Malkuth for 'kingdom,' but a synonym, _Mamlakah_ (I have a Hebrew _New Testament_ based on the _King James Bible_ (!), and it also uses _Mamlakah_ to translate 'kingdom.'). Second, the words in the occult versicle do not translate into Hebrew as Geburah and Chesed, as L=E9vi says, or even Geburah and Gedulah (another name for Chesed), as Mathers says. They translate as Geburah and Tiphareth, which means they do NOT form a cross! So if we want the occult versicle to form a cross, we have to change it to say 'the kingdom and the power and the mercy.' Or if we want to keep the words of Jesus/David intact, we have to change the Sign of the Cross to the Sign of the Funky Triangle with a Line Sticking Out from One Side. Either way it's a little awkward, and it ruins the perfection of L=E9vi's grand idea of the 'Kabbalistic Cross.' One more small can. L=E9vi was right about one thing that Mathers has wrong. In Kabbalah, Geburah is always on the left side of the body, not on the right side as Mathers and the Golden Dawn say. So, if the Kabbalistic Cross actually was a cross, you'd make it the way Catholics do instead of 'backwards,' the way Orthodox Christians and G.=B7.D.=B7. Magicians do. So what can we do with this kitchen full of worms? Maybe the easiest answer is to dump L=E9vi's Kabbalistic Cross and substitute something else. At IAO Camp, Soror Shekinah makes the Sign of the Cross while intoning the _Shema_ ('Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One') in her personal Pentagram Ritual. Frater Oudeis' 'Ceremony of the Six Seals' (in the _Herald-Tepaphone_ vol. I no. 2) contains two different alternatives to the Kabbalistic Cross, both based on the _Sefer Yetzirah_. I should point out that Shekinah and Oudeis both wrote their alternative 'Kabbalistic Crosses' because they couldn't make sense of L=E9vi's Kabbalistic Cross. Another solution would be simply to use the words of King David from _I Chronicles_, 29 (maybe combined with some passage from _Proverbs_, such as 3:13-20 or 7:4 or 9:10, etc.). But what if you really like the Kabbalistic Cross and you don't want to get rid of it? One member of IAO Camp who is very well aware of all these problems still does the Golden Dawn Pentagram Ritual just as he's always done it. His reasoning is that it's worked for G.=B7.D.=B7. Initiates for a hundred years, and even though we're not G.=B7.D.=B7. Initiates we probably know more now about the intricacies of the Kabbalistic Cross than Mathers himself did. Thus, we have a more complete command of the ritual than the G.=B7.D.=B7. guys, just because = we know how messed up it is. This reminds me of Crowley's magical technique of persisting in something you know is absurd ('From Greenland's Icy Mountains,' etc.) Finally, there's the point that L=E9vi's intent is more important than the imperfection of his actual ritual. What he was trying to do was to achieve a synthesis of all religions into One Religion. This is exactly what Western Magicians have been trying to do since Hellenistic times. Hermetic and Gnostic Magicians treated Greek, Egyptian, Hebrew, and Sumerian gods as so many aspects of GOD, Renaissance Magicians tried to synthesize Hermetic ideas with Christianity and Kabbalah, and L=E9vi is following in their footsteps. His intent in the Kabbalistic Cross was to make a brief ritual that would synthesize Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and even Orthodox Christianity (see p. 234 of _T. M._, again), into a single expression of Christian faith. This faith was then synthesized with Judaism through the Kabbalah, and thus united with Hermeticism, etc. L=E9vi says that, 'True religion is universal religion,' and to attain to religious universality, the truly catholic religion, we must be 'more catholic than the Pope and more protestant than Luther.' (see pages 197 and 211 of _T. M._) Even if the rituals we use in pursuing this goal are flawed, the goal remains lofty and wonderful. And so even if the Kabbalistic Cross is not technically correct, it still conveys a marvelous and magical idea, and synthesizes the quarreling sects of Judaism and Christianity into the great universal wisdom-religion of Magick. What more do you want? _________________________________________________________________ The Dirtwitch Review by Stone Mudrunner Hi, I'm the Stone Mudrunner, and welcome to my column. I'm a traditional Witch and I guess I'd better make clear that I don't talk for all Traditions, or even all members of my tradition. (Hell, I won't talk _to_ a lot of 'em, let alone _for_ 'em!) I was going to write about the Wheel of the Year, but instead let's take a look at basic spellcraft from the view of a witch. First, it's an article of faith for us tree huggers that we can change the world by ritual action. I don't really think that something that is at its best is reasoned religious belief and at it's worst is Pagan fundamentalism is a good topic here. That's mostly because a spell is intended more to have an effect on the operator rather than the operand. I've reached the conclusion that a great many operations in ceremonial Magick are more similar to Wiccan spell work than one would think. The main point is to create a given 'space' in the mundane world, where the operator can, free from distraction, create a very specific frame of mind. In order to do this, one needs to construct a ritual conducive to the desired mind-set. Of course, any magickal practitioner will have a set or ritual action that they habitually use to open and close magickal space, so that much is taken care of. The meat of the ritual will be very specific to the work at hand. Several things will be needed. One will be a magickal link between the operator and the operand. The more direct this link is the better. (Remember all those nice Renaissance sex spells requiring pubic hair and spittle?) A symbolic link is better than none, but there will be a definite attenuation of the association. Every bit as important to the work at hand as the link is the pattern of ritual action. Humans function best magickally when they are completely attuned to what they're doing. Therefore, all the elements of the ritual should be selected to reinforce and REINTEGRATE the complete being of the operator. A good spell working should energize the 'Higher' (I hate that word) aspect of the Witch, either through visualization, invocation, or meditation. The ritual should also energize the emotions of the worker. If the emotions of the worker are not engaged the Magick will fail. There can be no effective Magick without this vital part of the person involved. If you are not an emotional time bomb that detonates at the moment of ritual climax, you lose. The mental aspect of the operator should also be involved--by use of appropriate symbols, ritual dialogue or 'dramatic' activity. One must have ones intellectual faculties firmly harnessed to the working. (This includes making use of the willful suspension of disbelief while performing ritual. If you can watch _Star Trek_ you can believe for a ritual.) Finally, one must have the physical body attuned to the working. The gestures and movements of the ritual must match it's aims. It's no good adopting the Osiris Posture or Rending the Veil if you're trying to get your neighbor naked! By integrating the link to the operand with the concentrated alignment of the four faculties one focuses one's will to the matter at hand. Rather like a proper sword thrust, everything will be in line to achieve the operator's end. When everything is properly prepared, and the climax has come, the final act should be a cathartic event, using emotion to power the Wheel to achieve and end. Maybe I'll talk about the Wheel later. _________________________________________________________________ A Yuletide Interlude by Frater 'Agidzomai Every Christmas carol contains profound magical secrets which are open to every one who has made a study of the correspondences of the Holy Qabalah. To illustrate this fact I have explicated one such antient arcanum, 'The Twelve Days Of Christmas'. We note immediately that the twelve days follow Christmas, the rebirth-of-the Sun/birth-of-the-Son at the Winter Solstice. The days are twelve in number and thus refer to the signs of the Zodiac. The unknown author of this work tells us that on each of the twelve days he was given a marvelous present by his True Love, and this is the key which unlocks the enigma of the song. In modern times we identify the Holy Guardian Angel with the True Will, but during the Christian era the Word of the Law was not Thelema but Agape; hence the adepts of the Middle Ages identified the Holy Guardian Angel with the True Love. This is substantiated by innumerable works of mystical literature in which the Deity is represented as a divine lover or 'heavenly bridegroom' (e.g., _Song of Songs_ and _Revelation_). The interpretation of the carol is now clear: an adept of the Osirian Age attained to the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel, union with his True Love, here symbolized as the Advent of the Christ Child whose birth coincides with the glorious renewal of the Sun, and this True Love gave him twelve 'gifts'-- i.e. initiatory mystical experiences, or 'gifts of the Holy Spirit'-- related to the twelve signs. The song is an epithalamium celebrating his marriage to the Divine Lover, Adonai, and at the same time a record, in poetical language, of his attainment. The exact meaning which these visions had for the anonymous adept who received them must remain a matter of conjecture, but careful Qabalistic exegesis can reveal the bare bones of their meaning and provide solid evidence for my interpretation by clarifying the relationship between the twelve mystical gifts and the twelve zodiacal signs and Hebrew letters to which they correspond. The song progresses from a single 'gift' to the plenitude of divine grace on the twelfth day, so we will analyze this last and loftiest day. _'On the twelfth day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me Twelve ladies dancing'--Pisces_ Even contemporary American slang and vulgarism testify to the identity of ladies and fish, and this equation is of the highest antiquity--cf. the _vesica piscis_ as symbol of the female principle. The ladies dance to indicate that the adept has overcome all the burdens, fears, and restrictions which characterize this dark sign. Veneration of the twelfth sign as the summit of Initiation may seem strange until we consider that the carol is a product of the Osirian or Piscean Age, during which the number twelve was seen as a glyph of perfection, the _ne plus ultra_ of human spiritual evolution, just as eleven is today venerated as 'the principal number of Magick' in the Aquarian Age: it is thus completely natural for the Piscean adept to regard Pisces as the greatest of his visions. _'Eleven lords a-leaping'--Aquarius_ The lords leap into air, the element of which Aquarius is the Kerubic emblem. This is emphasized by the addition to 'leaping' of the letter 'a', representing the Hebrew Aleph, the eleventh Path, attributed to elemental air (note how nothing in these old mystical texts occurs merely by chance!). The obvious parallel between leaping lords and dancing ladies assures the adept that the ancient Mysteries of Initiation will be preserved in the coming Age of Aquarius, and that mankind will indeed 'leap' to new spiritual heights. Observe the intricate intercrescence of the Old and New Aeons in these images of Pisces and Aquarius: by speaking of 'ladies' in the age of patriarchy, our adept has adumbrated (from knowledge acquired in his communion with the H.G.A.) that balance of the sexes which will typify the androgynous Age of Horus, while the presence of male 'lords' in the latter age stresses that the good works of the Osirian epoch will not be cast away as in the catastrophic upheavals of the previous Equinox of the Gods. _'Ten drummers drumming'--Capricorn_ Continuing the account of his revelatory experience, the author passes from visions of cosmic and aeonic scope to matters of a more personal and material nature. The symbolism here is distinctly earthy: 10=3DMalkuth=3Dearth, and the heavy throb of the drumming underscores th= e earthiness of this vision. Since Capricorn is ruled by Saturn it is a very heavy and earthy sign, associated with monetary concerns and frequently with 'evil' (it corresponds to Trump XV, The Devil), but here the drummers beat a happy tempo to accompany the leaping dancers already discussed. Thus the adept is told to rejoice, because his material needs will be met. _'Nine pipers piping'--Sagittarius_ Pipes symbolize divine inspiration and their presence in this vision assures the adept that his philosophical and religious pursuits (governed by Sagittarius) will hereafter be guided by his True Love or Angel. Note also that this commemorates his attainment, since 9=3DYesod and Sagittarius=3DSamekh, the path leading from Yesod, beyond the path of Mars (here represented by the alliteration of 'p'=3DPeh, the letter of Mars) to the dwelling of Christ and the Holy Guardian Angel in Tiphareth. _'Eight maids a-milking'--Scorpio_ Scorpio is the Kerub of Water, and its watery nature is brought out by the alliteration of 'm' (m=3DHebrew Mem=3Delemental water). It is stress= ed that this is no more the stagnant water of putrefaction and death (Mem=3DTrump XII, The Hanged Man, while Scorpio=3DXIII, Death), however, because now water is to the adept the milk (Mem=3D40=3Dchalab, 'milk') o= f that Mother who resides on the distant shore of the Great Sea, Binah. It must be borne in mind that these remarks apply to the religious consciousness of an Osirian master: The Hanged Man, Mem, is the type of the Dying Solar God, and only through his death (Scorpio=3DXIII) could Initiation occur in that doleful age, yet all this suffering--the pain of his obligation--has now been transformed to joy by the coming of Adonai, the True Love, the newborn Christ. The puzzling extra 'a' in 'a-milking' affords an illustration of the astonishing subtlety of this song's symbolism, for the letters Nun (=3DScorpio), Mem (alliterated in the line), and the additional letter Aleph (otherwise inexplicably present), form in Hebrew the sacred word Amen, signifying the completion of the Great Work (its numeration, 91, is a Mystic Number of Kether as well as the numeration of Malka, the Virgin or Maid; thus it signifies the ultimate union of Kether and Malkuth). By the exegetical method of notariqon the phrase 'maids a-milking' becomes mam, an Indo-European root signifying 'breast' and accentuating the symbolism of the milk of the Great Mother (Mama). The idea of a 'milking maid'--i.e. a lactating virgin--could only refer, in this Christian context, to Mary the Virgin Mother, suckling her divine Son. The number eight verifies all this because 8=3Ddad, the Hebrew for 'breast', and also 8=3DHod=3DMercury the ruler of Virgo. _'Seven swans a-swimming'--Libra_ The Venereal symbolism of this vision is unmistakable. Both 'seven' and 'swans' pertain to Venus, who rules the airy sign Libra. The birds, creatures of the air, are 'a swimming', i.e. causing airy forces (a=3DAleph=3Dair) to manifest on water; this shows that the age-o= ld confusion of air and water (which so vexed the Golden Dawn, the last great Osirian Order) has been clearly reconciled in the mind of the adept; this newfound equanimity betokens the Balance, Libra. It is probable that the mystery is revealed by Love. _'Six geese a-laying'--Virgo_ Geese are an ancient symbol of the Great Mother, known in Christian tradition as Mary, the Virgo Mater. Yet these geese are 'a laying', i.e. they have been fertilized like Mary by the Holy Spirit, the Ruach or breath, represented by the prefixed Aleph. This fertilizing force is also represented by the letter Yod, the secret fire concealed in the reed of Prometheus as well as in the Caduceus of Mercury who rules the sign of the Virgin. In this vision the mysteries of Creation and the true significance of parthenogenesis have been unveiled for the adept. _'Five gold rings'--Leo_ This is without doubt the holiest and most profound of the twelve mystical experiences recounted in this carol, and to this day it is given a unique reverence whenever the song is sung, as if even the uninitiated carollers intuitively perceive its sanctity. There are in all six 'gifts' of birds and five 'gifts' of people, obviously denoting Macrocosm and Microcosm respectively. In the midst of these appears the gift of 'five gold rings' symbolizing the marriage-- the unio mystica--of Microprosopus and Macroprosopus at the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, represented by the abbreviation 5=3D6. This is restated even more subtly in the 'five gold rings' themselves: 5 is the Pentagram, Microcosm, while gold=3DSol=3DTiphareth=3D6, the Hexagram, Macrocosm. Both these adjectives, 'five' and 'gold', modify 'rings', the symbol of unity, the mythical serpent Ouroboros who bites his own tail. Note that 'serpent'=3DTeth, the letter of Leo (note also that Leo=3DTrump XI and 11=3D5+6). This vision is the rapture of union with the True Love, Adonai. But since the unknown Medieval adept who left this song to us was an initiate of a Christian esoteric tradition, this gift must contain some reference to the mysteries of the Crucifixion--another aspect of the symbolism of Tiphareth, where the marriage takes place. We need not search long to find it. The rings, as noted before, are serpents, and 'serpent' in Hebrew is Nechesh=3D358=3DMessiach, 'the Messiah'; gold=3DSol=3DTiphareth=3D6=3DVau=3Dthe Son. Five in this sense is clearl= y a reference to the five wounds of Christ, and of course 5=3DV=3DVau which means 'a nail' (Vau also corresponds to Trump V, The Pope). The mysteries of this revelation are infinite, so I will leave any further analysis to the ingenium of my readers. _'Four calling birds'--Cancer_ These birds are presumably perched upon Cheth, a fence, and they sing because Cheth=3D418=3Dthe Great Work complete. These four birds are none other than the Tetragrammaton--the Father, the Mother, the Son, the Daughter--and we immediately recall that Cancer governs families. The birds call out to the adept to remind him that even in the patriarchal Age of Osiris the Great Work entails the recognition of both male and female aspects of divinity: the Daughter is the necessary completion of the formula. In Christian symbolism, moreover, birds represent the souls of the faithful, so that these four birds singing on the fence 418 are also the souls of four adepts who have attained before and who call to the adept to join them in the ranks of the heavenly host (heavenly because birds are creatures of the heavens). _'Three French hens'--Gemini_ The hens are from France because Europeans have traditionally associated that country with all aspects of love, and Gemini rules Trump VI, The Lovers (corresponding to the six letters in the word 'French'), which traditionally depicted not two but three figures (three hens). Further, the sequence of hens, turtledoves, and a partridge calls to mind (does it not?) the words of Odo of Tusculum. This great Christian teacher once compared the faithful to a variety of birds. Some flee from the hand like hens, he said; some are cunning like partridges, and some love solitude like turtledoves. Now these French hens 'flee from the hand': flight is a Mercurial action, and 'hand'=3DYod=3DVirgo, ruled by Mercury. This vision is clearly intended = to differentiate between the passive, earthy manifestation of Mercury in Virgo and his active, airy manifestation in Gemini. The vision is a vivid illustration of the importance of not mixing the planes. _'Two turtledoves'--Taurus_ The alliteration of 't' refers to the earthy nature of the sign (t=3DTau=3Delemental earth), but the Venereal aspects are not to be neglected. The dove is the bird of Venus, ruler of Taurus, and the number two reminds us that doves mate for life. Odo of Tusculum said that turtledoves like solitude and that doves are guileless; we may assume that both are connoted here. The solitary birds come together and their union is firmly established through the force of Earth. The vision teaches that the essence of love is the innocence of the dove. _'And a partridge in a pear tree'--Aries_ Again the alliteration is significant, as 'p'=3DPeh=3DMars the ruler of Aries. The partridge is cunning, but here we see that this cunning is unnecessary: the bird perches in a tree, safe from all predators below, and surrounded by an abundance of delicious fruits. Surely this wonderful tree can be no other than the Tree of Life! The partridge is the adept himself (Aries governs personality and self), resting as we all desire to do among the branches of that Holy Tree. Traditionally the carol is sung in a peculiar pattern, beginning with a single 'gift' for the first day and progressing with each new day to new pinnacles of inspiration, but always repeating the full list of 'gifts' from previous days. This, of course, is a widely-used technique of invocation, well attested in the literature of Merkabah mysticism. Its purpose is to induce a trance state through the constant repetitions, and at the same time to overwhelm the rational faculties through the enormous numbers of 'gifts' bestowed. On the twelfth day alone the adept receives 78 separate items from his Beloved (the number of cards in the Tarot, hence another symbol--like 12--of completion and perfection), and in the full course of the twelve days he receives no less than 364 (this plus the One Supreme Gift--the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel--equals 365, another number of perfection, being the complete Solar Cycle). Contemplation of this profusion of divine gifts exalts the consciousness of the caroller beyond the limits of rationality into the celestial realms, so that by continually singing this song anyone might attain to the same ecstatic states as the unknown adept who composed it. Thus 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' is far more than a record of one man's attainment: it is an actual invocation, a ceremony in song by which aspirants may achieve their own union with the True Love. Finally, there is a possibility of interpreting this Christmas carol as the outline of a twelve-degree system of Initiation employed by some medieval Order now otherwise forgotten by history. In the first degree, corresponding to Aries, the candidate is given a Tree, i.e. the correspondences of the Holy Qabalah which form the basis for the Western Esoteric Tradition, and successive initiations lead the candidate toward union with the True Love--the Bridal of the Rosy Cross--in the Fifth Degree. But further explanation of this alternative interpretation is superfluous, as it is obvious to even the most casual observer. _________________________________________________________________ Words of Inspiration from Our Beloved Prophet 'Members of the Order are to regard those without its pale as possessing no rights of any kind, since they have not accepted the Law, and are therefore, as it were, troglodytes, survivals of a past civilization, and to be treated accordingly. Kindness should be shown towards them, as towards any other animal, and every effort should be made to bring them into Freedom.' --Fr. Baphomet X=B0 (in Liber CI) _________________________________________________________________ BOOK SEARCH This is a new column that, hopefully, will appear in each issue. We are always contacting each other looking for this or that publication so we will print a list of desired, needed, would kill for books, articles, etc... that we are searching for. Any help would be greatly rewarded. Also we welcome any requests! Soror Shekinah: (can be reached at rbowyer@intersource.com, or camp mail box) I am looking for material on Florence Farr of Golden Dawn, G. B. Shaw fame. Specifically the following: * _An Introduction to Alchemy and Notes_ by S.S.D.D., in _A Short Enquiry Concerning the Hermetic Art_ by a Lover of Philalethes, London, 1714. _Collectanea Hermetica_, vol 3, edited by W. W. Westcott. London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1894. * _Modern Woman: Her Intentions_. London:Frank Palmer, 1910. * _The Music of Speech_. London:Elkin Mathews, 1909 * Florence Farr and Olivia Shakespeare, _The Beloved of Hathor_, and _The Shrine of the Golden Hawk_. Croyden, England: Gordon Craig, 1901[sic,1904]. (Two plays possibly together, written at the same time as the Cairo Working). * John Todhunter, _A Sicilian Idyll_. London:Elkin Mathews, 1890. * Various editions of a publication called _The Occult Review_: 7, no's 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, 1908; 8, no's 1 and 2, 1908 * A publication called _The New Age_, published in London from May 1907 to December 1908. I do not have the specific citations, but I do know the names of the articles if I can locate the publication. I realize that these are not your run of the mill occult books, although I believe they should be. Thank again for any help. _________________________________________________________________ Poet's Corner _Additional Verses for Frosty the Snowman_ Mithras the Sun-God Was a jolly happy soul, And he slew a bull On solstice day So the world would not get cold. Mithras the Sun-God Is a solar myth they say, But the Gnostics know He obeyed the crow And he killed that bull one day. The Sun required a sacrifice To keep from getting dim, And when Mithras slew the bull, old Sol Came down to feast with him. Mithras the Sun-God He saved the world from Night, And his immolation Also brought salvation To the men who sought the Light. _Pater accipe, Sancte accipe Thuricremos leones, Per quos thuradamus, Per quos consumimur Ipsi, O Meithra!_ Mithras the Sun-God Asia Minor was his home, But his chosen priest Travelled from the East And established his cult at Rome. Mithras the Sun-God Had an initiatory cult, Through seven degrees They sought Light and Peace In a subterranean vault. There must have been some magic In that Phrygian cap he wore, For when they placed it on their heads His initiates were reborn. Jesus the Sun-God Made Mithras go away, But he waved goodbye Saying 'Don't you cry, I'll be back again some day!' [The middle section, corresponding to 'Thumpety-thump-thump...' in the original, is adapted from an invocation inscribed on the wall of the Mithraeum under Santa Prisca.] _________________________________________________________________ Lovecraftian Qabalah by Haon-Dor _Ph'nglui mglw'nath Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn._ Kenneth Grant is to blame for this. It was some years ago when I obtained a copy of _The Magical Revival_ and, while I found a good deal of the book informative, the section in Chapter Six comparing Lovecraftian and Thelemic concepts just about made me gag. Even allowing that he was writing in the early Seventies when Lovecraft studies was still labouring under August Derleth's Manich=E6nism, Grant's table was still pretty shallow1. The natural result of this was that I determined to produce my own table of correspondences. To be sure this was a daunting task even for someone who's a long-time Lovecraft fan as well as a practicing Magician, but I went ahead with it anyhow, and you may now shudder before the results. For the most part, I have tried to restrict myself to the 'objective' portrayal of the Mythos, however some personal touches were unavoidable, and are identified as such. In particular, much of Table 2, the Elemental correspondences, is of my own devising. I have utilised the best editions of the primary sources at my disposal so as not to be unduly influenced by other 'occult' interpretations of the Mythos2. One of the many strange things I discovered was that, despite their supposed alienness, the entities of the Cthulhu Mythos actually fit very comfortably into the _777_ tables. This, among other things, makes me wonder just who the _real_ aliens are. With some reservations, I have accepted August Derleth's idea that at least some of the Great Old Ones were linked to the four Elements. I have also accepted, for convenience as much as anything else, Chaosium's distinction between the Great Old Ones and the more 'cosmic' Outer Gods. It is wise to bear in mind that Lovecraft was often deliberately haphazard with his terminology, and that he used the label 'Old Ones' to refer to several different classes of entities. It is best if the reader does _not_ take these tables as a rigid classification system in any sense. I have used the regular _777_ format as revised for the new edition of _Magick_. I have decided not to number these new columns so as to avoid possible confusion with 'official' additions which may eventually be published. Most of the entries are taken from Lovecraft's own works, which I am treating as 'Canonical' for our purposes; these are printed in CAPITAL LETTERS on the tables. Those entities developed by others3 but used by Lovecraft himself form a nebulous intermediate class and are printed in small caps {_Bold_ in this WWW edition}. Entries taken solely from HPL's associates and later imitators4 may be thought of as 'Apocryphal', and are printed in regular type. Lastly, my own contributions are given in _italics._ 1The Tree of Life diagram in _Hecate's Fountain_ is better, but still a little idiosyncratic in my opinion. 2My opinion of Grant's work has already been mentioned, and I have similar reservations about 'Simon', Colin Wilson, Robert Turner _et al_. I consider the work of the modern 'Esoteric Order of Dagon' to be of a higher calibre, however. 3Principally Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Ambrose Bierce, Robert Chambers, Arthur Machen, Frank Belknap Long, and Clark Ashton Smith. 4Such as Ramsey Campbell and Brian Lumley. TABLE I _KEY SCALE_ _OUTER GODS_ _GREAT OLD ONES_ _ALIEN AND MONSTROUS RACES_ 0 YOG-SOTHOTH 1 AZATHOTH MI-GO, Insects from Shaggai 2 NYARLATHOTEP THE MILLION FAVOURED ONES 3 SHUB-NIGGURATH, Quachil Uttaus, OUTER GODS generally CATS FROM SATURN, GHASTS Abyss YOG-SOTHOTH (as UMR AT-TAWIL), Daoloth Atlach-Nacha NIGHTGAUNTS, DIMENSIONAL SHAMBLERS, _Hounds of Tindalos_ 4 Ubbo-Sathla Chaugnar-Faugn GREAT RACE OF YITH, GNOPH-KEH 5 Cthugha, YIG SERPENT MEN 6 'OLD ONES' OF ANTARCTICA 7 SHUB-NIGGURATH Abhoth 8 NYARLATHOTEP _Hastur_, Ithaqua FLYING POLYPS, TCHO-TCHO PEOPLES 9 CTHULHU, DAGON & HYDRA, OLD ONES generally SPAWN OF CTHULHU, EARTHLY CATS, DREAMLAND CREATURES generally 10 SHUB-NIGGURATH Shudde M'ell, _Tsathoggua_ GHOULS, Cthonians, Voormis 11 _Hastur_ Byakhee 12 NYARLATHOTEP Eihort Hunting Horrors 13 CTHULHU, Glaaki ZOOGS 14 SHUB-NIGGURATH Abhoth Spawn of Abhoth 15 Ithaqua Wendigos 16 NYARLATHOTEP (as DARK PHARAOH) GHATANOTHOA, _Tsathoggua_ SHANTAKS 17 DAGON & HYDRA, Zhar 18 Ubbo-Sathla Star Vampires 19 NYARLATHOTEP (as FACELESS SPHINX) SHOGGOTHS 20 Ithaqua GNOPH-GEH 21 Yibb-Tsill Chaugnar-Faugn 'Brothers' of Chaugnar-Faugn 22 Y'golonac 23 CTHULHU DEEP ONES 24 YIG SERPENT MEN, Servants of Glaaki 25 COLOURS OUT OF SPACE 26 NYARLATHOTEP (as BLACK MAN), SHUB-NIGGURATH Dark Young, MEN OF LENG 27 Cthugha 28 AZATHOTH (as DAEMON-SULTAN) 29 DAGON & HYDRA DEEP ONES, MOON BEASTS 30 AZATHOTH (with OUTER GODS DANCING AROUND) IDIOT FLUTE-PLAYERS 31 Cthugha Fire Vampires 32 Hziulquoigmzhah, _Tsathoggua_ FORMLESS SPAWN, GHOULS, DHOLES, BHOLES 32 bis Shudde M'ell Cthonians 31 bis AZATHOTH The OUTER GODS TABLE II _KEY SCALE_ _ELEMENTS_ _OUTER GODS_ _GREAT OLD ONES_ _ELEMENTAL RACES_ _LOCI_ _CULTS_ _ELEMENTAL WEAPONS_ 11 Air NYARLATHOTEP _Hastur_ Byakhee _Carcosa_ _Cult of the Yellow Sign_ _Obsidian Dagger_ 23 Water YOG-SOTHOTH CTHULHU DEEP ONES R'LYEH CTHULHU CULT _Chalice_ 31 Fire AZATHOTH Cthugha Fire Vampires Fomalhaut _Bone Wand_ 32 bis Earth SHUB-NIGGURATH Shudde M'ell Cthonians G'harne WITCH CULT Star-Stone of Mnar 31 bis Spirit AZATHOTH The OUTER GODS CENTRE of the UNIVERSE CHURCH of STARRY WISDOM SHINING TRAPEZOHEDRON TABLE IV _KEY SCALE_ _NOTABLE SORCERERS_ _PRINCIPLE GRIMOIRES_ 0 1 EICH-PI-EL, KURANES AL AZIF 2 ABDUL ALHAZRED NECRONOMICON 3 _Eibon_ _Book of Eibon_ Abyss KEZIAH MASON, The WHATELEYS NECRONOMICON 4 KURANES, NEPHREN-KA, _Von Junzt_ _Unausprechlichen Kulten_, _Cultes des Goules_ 5 Haon-Dor, _Ludvigg Prinn_ _De Vermiis Mysteriis_ 6 RANDOLPH CARTER PNAKOTIC MANUSCRIPTS 7 AZENATH WAITE SEVEN CRYPTICAL BOOKS of HSAN 8 JOSEPH CURWEN The King in Yellow, Celaeno Fragments 9 OBED MARSH R'LYEH TEXT, PONAPE SCRIPTURE, Revelations of Glaaki 10 RICHARD UPTON PICKMAN G'harne Fragments, _Cultes des Goules_ _________________________________________________________________ Announcement Some people who don't wish to be named would like to announce the birth of Shadowmind and Dreamdancer, 185 lbs. and ??? lbs. respectively. They sprang full-grown from the womb of the Goddess, full-grown members of the Priesthood! _________________________________________________________________ In Memoriam The members of IAO Camp wish to congratulate Frater Wayne (Formerly Known as The Magician Formerly Known as Wayne) on the occasion of his Third Degree Initiation. Happy deathday to you! Happy deathday to you! You look like a corpse, And smell like one too! _________________________________________________________________ Typhonian Tomes: Being a Guide to the Works of Kenneth Grant By Frater In Profunda III=B0 _Part Six: Outside the Circles of Time_ (Muller 1980) In some of his earlier books Grant touched on the later work of Frater Achad; namely his proclamation of the '=C6on of Maat' to supercede the =C6on of Horus. Now he devotes an entire book to the subject, bringing in the related work of Nema (then known as Andahadna) and others in Cincinnati's Bate Cabal. From the opening chapters, it would seem that Grant has accepted Achad's assertion that Crowley 'failed to utter a Word for the =C6on of Horus'. 'Thelema' _cannot_ be the Word because it is the 'word of the _Law_,' not of the _=C6on_! This is most charitably described as excessive hair-splitting, and I really can't imagine why in the Macroprosopus Grant would want to undermine his own work and authority--supposedly _based on Crowley's_--in this way. Evidently our author thinks better of this, for most of the book is devoted to demonstrating that Maat is a future =C6on after all, but that certain adepts have been able to intercept this Current-to-be _now_--hence the book's title. We spend a good deal of time sipping Grant's usual, and increasingly _outr=E9_, Qabalistic _soup du jour_. I would describe it, but it really must be experienced: the numbing sensation is unique. He sort of ties this book in with _Nightside of Eden_ by refering to some transmitted writing called the _Qabalas of Besqul_ which he declines to quote or describe in any detail. Grant proceeds on a lengthy account of the writing of Nema's _Liber Penn=E6 Pr=E6numbra_, which is supposedly the Holy Book of Maat, in the early Seventies. Here I must say that I am operating with Inside Information, as I personally know someone who was involved in those Workings. My informant tells me that Grant's account of the events is _seriously_ inaccurate, and that when pressed for an explanation, he proclaimed himself to be more interested in the mythology of the events and put pressure on Nema to resign from the 'Typhonian O.T.O.' Incedentally, _none_ of those involved had been in his order at the time of the Workings, something Grant just manages to _not quite_ make clear. In fact some people saw this entire book as an attempt by him to acquire some of the credit for Bate Cabal's work. To be brief, Nema's writings1 often seem more like bad New-Agey science-fiction than Magick. Indeed, with her 'intergalactic transmissions', time-travel, planetary gestalt race-consciousnesses and the 'Comity of Stars'2, she often sounds like a UFO channeler who took a wrong turn on the way to Sedona. Grant ties this in with his fixation on Lam, whose portrait he was given by Crowley (and which, I am told, overlooks Grant's writing desk to this day). This picture, which Crowley called 'The Soul of a Tibetan Lama', does bear a strong resemblance to some descriptions of UFO aliens, and Grant stretches this for a lot more than it is worth. It gets worse as Grant covers her other major channeling, the _Books of the Forgotten Ones_, where we are treated to ninety-third-rate Lovecraft _pastiche_. The 'Forgotten Ones' are apparently primal atavisms in the human racial unconsciousness that were sealed away at some point and are now returning because modern nuclear explosions have re-opened the gateway. We are treated to such revelations as this: 'On the ground that they have misinterpreted the magical allegories and types, we discount the theories of Dickhoff and others who exalt the Elder Gods as Martians, and abhor the Great Old Ones as the snake-like and invading spawn from Venus. The Elder Gods are the Maatians (not Martians!) who, when manifesting as the Ophidian Current are known as the Great Old Ones.' Grant's style remains consistent, though marked by increasing shifts between first and third person. Certainly there are more than enough new strange words to satisfy anyone. We get 'undistortedly', 'id-entifier', 'sub cthonian', 'imbibition', 'kalography', 'astronomical plenilune', '_oneiric perichoresis_', 'Voodic', 'blent', 'lucubration', and the rather puzzling 'co-sexual'. All things considered, I don't think it is too remarkable that it took Grant over a decade to get another book in print. 1The original material in question may be studied in the early numbers of the Cincinnati Journal of Ceremonial Magick, and in the recently released Maat Magick by Nema. 2Maat herself is apparently a sentient neutron star out in space somewhere. Next issue: get your scuba gear kids, we're plunging into _Hecate's Fountain_. _________________________________________________________________ The Lady Freemason (from The Pearl, 1969) As a Brother of old, from his Lodge was returning, He called on his sweetheart, with love he was burning, He wanted some _favours_, says she, 'not so free, Unless you reveal your _famed secrets_ to me.' 'Agreed--'tis a bargain--you must be prepared, Your legs well exposed, your bosom all bared, Then hoodwinked and silent, says she, 'I'll be mum, In spite of the poker you'll clap on my bum.' To a chamber convenient his fair charge he bore, Placed her in _due form_, having _close tyled_ the door, Then presented the points of his sharp _Instrumentis_, And the Lady was soon made an 'Entered Apprentice'. His working tools next to her gave he presented, To improve by them seriously she then consented, And handled his _jewels_, his _gavel_ and _shaft_, That she in a jiffy was passed 'Fellow Craft'. She next wanted _raising_, says he, 'there's no urgency,' She pleaded that his was a _case of emergency_, His _column_ looked to her in no way particular, But she very soon made it assume perpendicular. He used all his efforts to raise the young elf, But found he required much raising himself; The task was beyond him, Oh! Shame and disaster, He broke down his charge, and she became _Master_. Exhausted and faint, still no rest could betide him, For she like a glutton soon mounted astride him, 'From _refreshment_ to _labour_,' says she, 'let us march.' Says he, 'you're exalted--you are now _Royal Arch_.' In her zeal for true knowledge, no labour, no shirking, His _jewels_ and _furniture_ constantly working, By night and by day, in the light or the dark, With pleasure her lover she guides to the _Mark_. _________________________________________________________________ Reviews 'Treat 'em Rough.' _Secret Texts: The Literature of Secret Societies_, edited by Marie Mulvey Roberts and Hugh Ormsby-Lennon. AMS Press, 1995 (349 pp.). Looking at the title, one would expect this to be a collection of manifestos, instructions, rituals and other primary source documents relating to Masonry, Rosicrucianism, Illuminism, the Golden Dawn and other Western esoteric bodies. Naturally, in the great tradition of 'blinds to deceive the profane', this is nothing of the sort. What we have here is a collection of essays dealing mostly with history and literary criticism of authors who were somehow involved in esoteric movements--usually in the most tenuous fashion. As such the book is mostly an exercise in the academic practice of pontification by 'authorities' who have no connection whatever to their subjects, and only the vaguest inkling of the complexities involved, mostly because they read each others' flawed commentaries rather than the primary sources. Certainly they would never _stoop_ to actually asking the advice of any modern secret societies. That said, I must report that there are a few good things waiting here for the diligent reader. Ingeborg Kohn's article on Jos=E9phin [S=E2r Merodack] P=E9ladan is an excellent introduction to this important figure in Nineteenth Century art and occultism, and Paul Rich's study of Kipling's interest in Freemasonry and its effect on his work (especially in _Kim_) is a real gem. These are balanced however, by such effluvia as R. A. Gilbert, who really must have a commission from the United Grand Lodge of England to make Freemasonry seem as dull and pointless as humanly possible. His piece on 'The Golden Dawn in Popular Fiction' is a monument to the Art and Science of Missing the Point. Sacramentally, dilucid, in fine, then, we must consider these texts to be, on the whole, extremely un-secret. -- Br. H. A. 98.6=B0 F., 37=B0 C. _________________________________________________________________ _The Occult_, by Colin Wilson. Random House, 1971 (603 pp.). His assertion that airborne bacteria contaminating cheese gives rise to maggots is on a par with the rest of it. Recycle now. -- Critter _________________________________________________________________ _Magical Hearth: Home for Modern Pagans_, by Janet Thompson. Samuel Weiser [alleged], 1995 (133 pp., $9.95). Don't be fooled by that Ankh on the spine: _Magical Hearth_ is actually a Llewellyn book in disguise. It combines two popular Llewellyn genres, the witchier-homes and-gardens genre (_The Magical Household_, etc.) and the Wiccan-family values genre (_The Pagan Family_, etc.), with a pronounced emphasis on herbal tea. The author displays the erudition characteristic of some Llewellyn authors, too: she writes 'who's' when she means 'whose', 'imbibe' when she means 'imbue', and--my personal favorite--'Cabala' when she means 'Sephirah'. It's all so sad that I cried in my tea. -- A. Quiller III _________________________________________________________________ _The 1996 Opus n' Bill No-Nonsense Astrology Calendar_, by Berkeley Breathed. Day Dream Publishing, 1995 (16 months, $12.99). Opus and Bill the Cat are certainly the Marsyas and Olympas of our times. Here they at last reveal the _inner truths_ of astrology. Far more useful than any number of Llewellyn calendars. -- Sapiens Dominibatur Astris _________________________________________________________________ _Absinthe: the Green Goddess_, by Aleister Crowley. Contra/Thought (alias Holmes Publishing), n. d. (19 pp., $5.95). It's really shameful that outfits like this continue to crank out these little booklets at extortionate prices; even more shameful is the fact that book-nerds like me continue to buy them. Holmes doesn't bother to tell you, but the text is reprinted from _The International_. Crowley's essay is preeminently a charming description of The Old Absinthe House of New Orleans, ca. 1918. It has some fine AC prose and a few insightful passages--but hell, for the price of the booklet you could buy enough wormwood to snocker you and all your friends and then write your own essays! -- Edmond d'Haraucourt _________________________________________________________________ _Tao Te Ching: Liber CLVII_, Translated, with an Introduction and Commentary, by Aleister Crowley. Samuel Weiser, 1995 (112 pp., $12.95). This book constitutes _The Equinox_ vol. III no. VIII, so all loyal followers of the Beast 666 (bunch of pathetic book-hoarding dweebs that we are!) must get a copy to make our collections more complete; besides, the truly alarming photo of Crowley is worth $13 all by itself. Of course Crowley didn't know Chinese, so this 'translation' is just his personal interpretation of the rather clunky translation by Legge. It is certainly of interest to Thelemites, but probably not to Sinologists. Perhaps the best thing about this book is that it seems to have been proofread more carefully than any O.T.O. publication in years; it contains only a handful of errata. -- R. B. _________________________________________________________________ _Humanism in the Renaissance_, by Sem Dresden. World University Library (McGraw Hill), 1968 (255 pp.). The scholarship of this book has probably been deconstructed and post modernized out of vogue by now, but it is still a good introduction to the epoch of European history out of which arose so much of modern occultism. Well before it was academically cool to discuss magic, Dresden was writing about the importance of astrology, Qabalah, and the Hermetic corpus to Renaissance thinking. He devotes sections to Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino, and Rabelais, and mentions occult writers ranging from Agrippa to Postel to Kircher. The book has its drawbacks--Dresden constantly pauses to remind the reader that scholars really don't know a hill of beans about Renaissance thought, and spends a lot of time arguing against popular misconceptions I've never even heard of--but on the whole it should serve nicely to acquaint aspiring occultists with an important part of their heritage. There are lots of pictures, too. -- Fra. O.T.M. _________________________________________________________________ _The Christian Interpretation of the Cabala in the Renaissance_, by Joseph Leon Blau. Columbia U. P., 1944 (167 pp.). 50 years after its publication, this survey of the Christian Qabalah remains the most important book of its type--mostly because it remains the only book of its type. Blau's erudition is extensive, and his book really is indispensible for students of qabalistic magic. I just wish somebody would bring his research up to date, and check out his speculations. For example, I noticed that Blau interprets a passage in Paul Ricci's _Isagoge_ as a reference to the Lurianic qabalists. I doubt that this is correct: not only was the _Isagoge_ written well before Isaac Luria was born, but (according to Blau's own dates) it had already reached a second edition 7 years before the birth of Luria's initiator! He may not be 100% reliable in details like this, but for a broad overview of the Christian Qabalah, Blau is still the best. Here's hoping that his work will soon be made obsolete. -- Oudeis _________________________________________________________________ _Liber Kaos_, by Peter J. Carroll. Weiser, 1992 (218 pp., $14.95). This edition of Peter Carroll's wisdom is conveniently divided into two sections: _Liber Kaos_ and the _Psychonomicon_. _Liber Kaos_ gives us a rundown of Mr. Carroll's theories, including 'Principia Magica,' 'Aeonics,' and 'Principia Chaotica.' Principia Magica teaches us the 'Chaos Magic Theory' which includes some muddled quantum theory, explanations of 'pseudo-time' and 'shadow-time' and Pete's 'Equations of Magic' (with graphs and tables, of course). The 'psychohistory' model of Aeonics that he presents is of mild interest, though he naturally assumes that the present or coming age is that of the Chaoist. The _Psychonomicon_, however, is far more useful. Especial attention should be paid to 'Liber Boomerang' as it contains several bits of eloquently expressed wisdom. The section on 'Eight Magics' is, again, of mild interest and contains dubious color attributions (Carroll's contrived creation, undoubtedly... _ooo, he's CHAOTIC_!). Carroll continues to contradict himself and make offensive statements ('...homosexuality is unsatisfactory, if the frenetic merry-go-round of partner exchanges in that discipline is anything to go by.') throughout. Sublime. The reader will be remiss not to carefully perform the two rituals at the end of this section. The Thanateros Ritual, utilizing bad poetry, weird paraphrases of _Liber AL_, orgasmic moans, and screams of 'death-terror,' is sure to annihilate your silly dualistic thought patterns. And after bleeding all over the Azathoth pentacle while sinking into a 'susurrating glossolalia' only to find the Blind, Mad Egregore himself angry at you for calling him needlessly, you'll doubtless be enlightened. This volume is, once again, riddled with stupid anecdotes from Carroll's life, though unfortunately not quite so many as are contained in_ Liber Null & Psychonaut_. However, we do learn how it is 'easy to teleport small objects at will' and how Carroll was given an 'octarine' gem by a 'Wizard' in India. These stories are presented in an offhanded way that makes them sound entirely incredulous and ridiculous--though it seems Carroll is purposely presenting them this way so that we will believe him, yet somehow we still don't. _Hmmm_. They are, however, valuable for entertainment. Be sure to be on the lookout for Carroll's latest book, _Psybermagick_. Surely it, too, will be a gem. -- A. L. _________________________________________________________________ _The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon: Lemegeton, Book I_, translated by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, edited annotated, introduced and enlarged by Aleister Crowley (illustrated second edition with new annotations by Aleister Crowley, edited by Hymenaeus Beta). Weiser, 1995 (134 pp., $16.00). First of all, I must reassure you that the illustrations are not those D&D-style drawings that mar the New Falcon edition of the _Goetia_, but rather the adorable little engravings by Louis Breton that you've seen in all those coffee-table books; they are supplemented by a few of Crowley's crude sketches, which have the advantage of having been drawn from life. The new edition irons out some errors which were present in the first edition, greatly increases the usefulness of the Enochian conjurations, and generally makes the book more convenient for reference; it even fixes the pile of mistakes in the Greek text of 365 from the 1994 edition of _Magick_. It is not, however, without its flaws. First, the book is printed on cheap, see-through paper. Second, the new edition introduces more than fifty new errors. Most of these occur in the Editor's Foreword, and most are very minor problems like the incorrect accenting of several Greek words; others, though, are more substantive errors of fact. For all these blunders we can thank the _Tepaphone_'s own 'R. B.',who had a hand in the translating and proofreading work for this new edition. Despite his arrogance and the occasional shallowness of his research, I really expected more of this intelligent amateur. R. B. tells me that a corrected reprint on real paper is already in the works, and will appear under the imprint of 93 Publishing: perhaps serious students should wait for this improved version. Meanwhile, the new edition is still better than the first edition. -- A. Quiller III _________________________________________________________________ _Art and Symbols of the Occult_, by James Wasserman. Tiger books, 1993 (128 pp., $14.99). It's an attractive occult coffee-table book, with slightly cooler pictures than most other occult coffee-table books. The text of course is Really Basic, in the way of such books. The author is obviously enthusiastic about Crowley (something rare in this genre), but still misquotes him just like King or Cavendish or Maple or those other guys. The dust jacket promises an 'extensive bibliography of classical occult works,' which has perfidiously been replaced by a one-page reading-list. Oh well, it still looks nice on my coffee-table. -- Dennis Wheatley _________________________________________________________________ _In a Graveyard at Midnight: Folk Magick and Wisdom from the Heart of Appalachia_, by Edain McCoy. Llewellyn Publications, 1995 (212 pp., $14.95). Ms. McCoy seems to have a knack for writing books that I wish I could like but just can't. Her grasp of Appalachian economic history contains insights that I just can't reconcile with personal experience. (For instance, she maintains that the 'Celtic' settlers of Appalachia built frame houses in techniques learned from the Cherokee and didn't use log cabins.) That may be this book's worst failing--it's compiled from secondary and tertiary sources. Amazingly enough, she even complains that there is a dearth of folklore available from the region. Just as strange is her insistence that the Scotch settlers maintained their Celtic calendar, and then stipulates that Christmas was a traditional pagan time for annual divinations. (Funny, as a Celtic Witch I've always used Samhain.) Her section on magickal ethics is laughably New-Agey, and her attempts to turn what is essentially Christian magickal practices into some pseudo-Wiccan tradition suck. Basically this is a book that's the result of a little light reading, some wishful thinking and a Llewellyn contract. -- Critter _________________________________________________________________ _Celtic Heritage_, by Alwyn and Brinley Rees. Thames And Hudson, 1961, rpt 1991. This one's really good. Marked by solid scholarship and intelligent correlations, the Rees compare Celtic and Hindu mythologies, working on the assumption that both India and the surviving Celtic countries are on the geographic periphery of the Indo European cultural area, and are both likely to more clearly exhibit root concepts of the heroic age of Indo-European culture. By drawing parallels between the _Vedas_ and the four Cycles of British Celtic myth they illustrate some of the imbedded values of Celtic culture. The book has proven immensely informative, except for the part where I got lost in the complicated numerical symbolism common to both cultures. -- Critter _________________________________________________________________ _The Occult and the Third Reich: The Mystical Origins of Nazism and the Search for the Holy Grail_, by Jean-Michel Angebert, translated by Lewis A. M. Sunberg. Macmillan Publishing Co., 1974 (306 pp.) This is based upon the researches of a fellow named Otto Rahn (1904-1939), whose book, _Crusade Against the Grail_, earned him a job in the 'Ancestral Heritage' bureau of the S.S. Rahn's thesis was that the Cathars were the keepers of the Holy Grail, which was a stone tablet inscribed with secret knowledge. This was kept at the Cathar fortress of Monts=E9gur and later smuggled out and hidden before the place was taken by the forces of the Albegensian Crusade. So far so good, but Rahn evidently linked this to Nazi-style 'Aryan' racial theories, and Angebert (apparently a pseudonym for at least two people) uses this to derive a whole 'system' of Nazified occultism that makes Hitler the heir of the Cathars, Manich=E6ans and Gnostics. All this is accomplished with a grasp of religious and occult history that makes Kenneth Grant look good! In fact if you snip out the occasional moralising on the horrors of World War II, this book could be a 'primer' of Aryan-supremacist mysticism. Now, even assuming that Adolph and company were really hard-core Black Magicians (which is more than a little doubtful), it is obvious on the face of it that they must have been blithering incompetents, (think about it: they sacrifice tens of millions of innocent human beings and they can't even win a lousy war!) The main problem with this book is that Angebert (whoever they are) has _effectively accepted a Nazi racial interpretation of all occult lore as unquestionable fact_. That there might be a non-racist interpretation of anything does not even occur to our author(s), who seem ready to assume that any referrence to an 'elite' or 'elect' group in any tradition in all of history must pertain to some sort of Nazi-style 'master race' doctrine. Never mind that this is clearly not the case, or that even the concept of a 'biological salvation' (if we may so call it) is virtually inconcievable before the Nineteenth Century and thus is more a product of the scientific revolution than any 'occult tradition'. -- Adam Weishaupt _________________________________________________________________ Correspondence Cari Sorores et Fratres, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Thanks for the _Herald-Tepaphone_ Vol. I, Issue II. I would love if you could send issue I. Yours is a memorable newsletter and I'll be saving it in a binder I suspect; it would be nice to have the complete volume. (What is a 'tepaphone' anyway?) Your newsletter has a bold, iconoclastic feel that I personally appreciate, (I grow weary of young newsletters with a 'what is a Thelemite, how do we behave, what do other people think?' tone to them). I particularly enjoyed the multitudinous, sharp-as-a-tack book reviews. A couple of notes though: do you really call people 'trogs'? To their faces? And if you think they are 'trogs', do you actually date them? [...] (It is my personal experience that calling people who you don't know to be accepting of the New =C6on 'trogs' has never been a really good way to ever even introduce the subject; much like calling 'Malkuth Magicians'--you know, they can cause change by Earth law--'mundane'. Of course, if they are JoHo's, and they just woke you--before noon!--with their bull and phony smiles--then they are indeed 'trogs'. Nice limerick about 'J. E.'... Love is the law, love under will. Fraternally, XXOO, Sr. Continuity, Scarlet Woman Oasis, O.T.O. (If you think I have a big stick up my butt, You're welcome to come remove it if you can...) P.S. I hear cheese goes real good spread between the pages of library books... _Cara Soror,_ _Thank you for your kind words. You may not realise it, but yours is our very first fan letter! It does our hearts good to know that someone appreciates us._ _The stuff about Trogs is (mostly) a joke, and is not intended to bother anyone._ _We fear that our stick-removal equipment is not portable, but thanks for the invitation nonetheless._ _For reasons which are obvious we cannot discuss the arcana of the Tepaphone in such a public forum as this--we daren't even hint at this Supreme Mystery, as we are sure you will appreciate._ _-- the Propaganda Minister_ _________________________________________________________________ To the Propaganda Minister: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. We write in response to the absurd 'Unclassifiable Ad' in your last issue which purported to make every reader the 'real Head of the Golden Dawn'. This _travesty_ is wholly unacceptable in your otherwise fine publication! We know whereof we speak inasmuch as we, of the _New Reformed Orthodox Gnostic-Rosicrucian Traditional Thelemic Temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn_TM (which also incorporates the _Chivalric Order of the Sangre=E1l_® and the _Ecclesia Gnostica Perennis et Universalis_©), hold the _only existing authentic Initiatory succession_ and right to represent the _Great White Brotherhood_ (Pat. pending) in the Outer. In obedience to the astral directives of the Secret Chiefs (who include among Their number such luminaries as S. L. MacGregor Mathers, Aleister Crowley, A. O. Spare, Mme. Blavatsky, Ren=E9 Gu=E9non, Dr. Rudolph Steiner, Gerald Gardner, Anna Sprengel, Dr. Israel Regardie, J. Krishnamurti, and many Others of equal merit, if less fame) we have undertaken the _immense_ labour of reconstituting the G.=B7.D.=B7. Tradition in this =C6on. We emphasize that we, and our representatives, are the _only authorised agents_ of this Tradition and that all others must be regarded as spurious. As the facts in the case are so obvious and compelling, we regard debate on this matter as superfluous, and hereby extend an open invitation to all those sincere seekers of the Light to join with us in the Great Work. Love is the law, love under will. --Dr. Michael Melchizedeck, Ph. D. Chevalier du Graal, Grand Hierophant, Supreme Imperator, and Archbishop _Dear Dr.Phd,_ _Please take a number._ _-- the Propaganda Minister_ _________________________________________________________________ IAO Camp, O.T.O. Calendar of Events Winter, 1996 e.v. January 5 Regular Meeting, 8pm. 6 Gnostic Mass, 8pm. 18 CUUPS Class: History of the Golden Dawn, UU Church, 7pm. 26 Study Group: Banishing Rituals, 8pm. February 2 _Groundhogmass_, Regular Meeting, 8pm. 10 Gnostic Mass, 8pm. 15 CUUPS Class: Rituals of the Golden Dawn, UU Church, 7pm. 16 Study Group: The Star Ruby, 8pm. 24 Initiations, Black Sun Oasis. March 1 Regular Meeting, 8pm. 20 _Feast of the Supreme Ritual_ 21 _Equinox of the Gods_, CUUPS Class: G.=B7.D.=B7. Equinox Ritual, 7pm. 23 New Year= s Party/Ritual, 8pm. 24 Gnostic Mass, 8pm. April 8, 9, & 10 _Feast of the Three Days of the Writing of the Book of the Law._ _Note:_ Unless otherwise specified, all events take place at the IAO Camp temple. Schedule is subject to change without notice, so please call ahead to confirm _________________________________________________________________ The Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda wishes to thank everyone for their support over the last year; whether you contributed material or subscribed, or just thought this rag was worth reading, it's been a great year and we hope the next one will be even better! 93/93! _________________________________________________________________ Disclaimer The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the O.T.O., the M.=B7. M.=B7.M.=B7., the I.O.I., any Camp, Oasis, Lodge, Temple, Gro= ve, Circle, Coven, Chapter, Council, Commandery, Consistory, Web, Pact, Compact, Subcompact or Luxury Sedan, Vortex, Nexus, or Power-Zone, the A.=B7.A.=B7., any person or group purporting to represent the A.=B7.A.= =B7., any person or group purporting to be the A.=B7.A.=B7., any Outer School = or College supporting any group purporting to be the A.=B7.A.=B7., any Oute= r Order attached to any Outer School or College supporting any group purporting to be the A.=B7.A.=B7., any pseud-O.T.O., O.T.O. rip-offs, O.T.O. imitators, O.T.O. rejects, O.T.O. parodies, O.T.O. wannabees, or any group whose name coincidentally resembles that of O.T.O. (including but certainly not limited to O.T.A., O.T.B., O.T.D., O.T.S., O.T.O.A., S.O.T.O., C.U.O.T.O., T.O.T.O., T.O.T., T.O.T.G.D. or the other T.O.T.), the United Grand Lodge of England or his Devoted Wife Sasha, any Masonic or Co-Masonic or Sort-of Masonic Grand Anything (regular, irregular, or totally constipated), any group that has anything to do with Atlantis or Space-Aliens or Rosicrucians, any or all of the 333 One True Orders of the Golden Dawn (TM, ® + ©, etc.), the R.R. et A.C. (TM, ® + ©, etc.), the Great White Brotherhood (pat. pending), the A.O., the S.M., the G.S., the SWBiF into light BD, MTV, T.O.P.Y., A.M.O.R.C., the G.=B7.B.=B7.G.=B7., = the Heebie-Geebies or the Bee-Gees, Aleister Crowley, any and all people who think they're the reincarnation of Aleister Crowley, Matilda Jane Rayle, anybody named MacGregor, Samuel Weiser, le Comte de Saint-Germain or his evil twin Skippy, Sir Roger Bloxam, Pope Pius IX, Mr. Frank Parker, Hymenaeus Beta, Hudson Tuttle, Bill Heidrick@well.com, the individual authors, or anybody at all. In fact, let us clearly state that nobody holds ANY of these opinions. Furthermore, everything is purely fictional and any alleged resemblance to anyone living, dead, undead, unborn, ascended, or descended, or indeed to anything at all is entirely due to your own paranoia, you pantophobic little twit! _________________________________________________________________ _Love is the Law, love under will._ EOF
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