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Subject: February 1999 e.v. Thelema Lodge Calendar/Newsletter

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Copyright (c) O.T.O. and the Individual Authors, 1999 e.v.

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  Thelema Lodge

  Ordo Templi Orientis

  P.O. Box 2303

  Berkeley, CA  94702  USA

Phone: (510) 652-3171 (for events info and contact to Lodge)

  Production Editor and Circulation:

  OTO-TLC Editor

  P.O.Box 430

  Fairfax, CA  94978



Compuserve: 72105,1351          (Submissions and circulation only)

America on Line: B Heidrick         "    "       "        "

Internet: heidrick@well.com         "    "       "        "



Calendar events in the San Francisco Bay Area for February 1999 e.v., in

brief.  Always call the contact phone number before attending.  Some are

limited in size, change location and may be subject to other adjustments.

When you call, you don't get lost or disappointed.  Initiations are private.

Donations at all OTO events are welcome.



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The viewpoints and opinions expressed herein are the responsibility of the

contributing authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of OTO or its

officers.

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2/3/99    College of Hard NOX 8 PM             (510) 652-3171    Thelema Ldg.

          with Mordecai in the library

2/6/99    Feast of Brigid at Cheth House in    (510) 525-0666

          North Berkeley, 8 PM

2/7/99    Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple     (510) 652-3171    Thelema Ldg.

2/8/99    Astrology with Grace in Berkeley     (510) 843-STAR    Thelema Ldg.

          7 PM

2/11/99   Ouranos Ritual Workshop 8PM Horus Tm (510) 602-9393    Thelema Ldg.

2/14/99   Valentine ritual 6 PM                (510) 652-3171    Thelema Ldg.

2/14/99   Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple     (510) 652-3171    Thelema Ldg.

2/15/99   Section II reading group with        (510) 652-3171    Thelema Ldg.

          Caitlin: Marquis de Sade & Sacher-

          Masoch.  8 PM Libary

2/18/99   Ouranos Ritual Workshop 8PM Horus Tm (510) 602-9393    Thelema Ldg.

2/21/99   Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple     (510) 652-3171    Thelema Ldg.

2/22/99   Astrology with Grace in Berkeley     (510) 843-STAR    Thelema Ldg.

          7 PM

2/24/99   College of Hard NOX 8 PM             (510) 652-3171    Thelema Ldg.

          with Mordecai in the library

2/27/99   Thelema Lodge initiations            (510) 652-3171    Thelema Ldg.

          Call to attend.

2/28/99   Tea 4:18PM in Berkeley               (510) 527-2855    Sirius Oasis

2/28/99   Gnostic Mass 7:30PM Horus Temple     (510) 652-3171    Thelema Ldg.



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Announcements from

Lodge Members and Officers





                             Tremulous Proximity



   Announcing a short but sweet Valentine's Day ritual, inspired by the German

Romantic poet, philosopher, and mystic Novalis (1772-1801), and his musings on

"a philosophy whose germ is a first kiss."  Gather in the temple a couple

hours before the gnostic mass on Valentine's Day to take part in this informal

ritual, which is being organized for us by Lew.  Arrive at 6:00 on Sunday

evening 14 February.



   "We seek the" plan "for the world -- this plan we are ourselves.  What are

we?  Personified" omnipotent "points.  But the execution, as image of the

plan, must also be equal to its freedom of action and its reflexivity "-- and

vice versa.  Life or the nature of spirit thus consists in the engendering,

bearing, and rearing of one's like.  So only to the extent that one human

being engages in a happy marriage with itself, constituting a good family in

itself, is it at all capable of marriage and family.  (The act of self-

embracing.)



                     "Magic is the art of using the world

                          of the senses arbitrarily"

               "(Magie ist = Kunst, die Sinnenwelt willkuhrlich

                               zu gebrauchen.)



                                   NOVALIS



   "The love of self must never be acknowledged to oneself -- the secrecy of

this avowal is the life-principle of the sole truth and eternal love.  The

first kiss in this accord is the principle of philosophy -- the origin of a

new world -- the beginning of the absolute era, the fulfillment of an

infinitely enlarging self-union.

   Who would not be pleased with a philosophy whose germ is a first kiss?

   Love popularizes the personality -- it allows individualities to be

communicable  and to be understandable.  "(Amorous understanding.)"



   "I wish that my readers would read the remark that the origin of philosophy

is a first kiss while they were listening to a deeply felt rendition of

Mozart's composition" "Wenn die Liebe in Deinen blauen Augen" ["when love

looks out of your blue eyes;" the song entitled "An Chloe," K. 524] -- unless

it were in a moment when they themselves stood in tremulous proximity to a

first kiss.

   The world must be romanticized.  In this way we may recover its original

meaning.  Romanticizing is nothing but a qualitative potentiation.  Through

this operation the lower self becomes identified with the better self.  Thus

we ourselves are such a qualitatively potentiating series.  This operation is

still wholly unknown.  Insofar as I give the ordinary an elevated meaning, the

commonplace a mysterious aspect, the familiar the dignity of the unfamiliar,

the finite an illusion of infinity, I romanticize it -- The process is

inverted for what is higher, unknown, mystical, infinite -- it becomes

logarithmized through this linkage -- and assumes a familiar designation.

(Romantic philosophy." Lingua romana.  "Elevation and abasement in

alternation.)"



   "The act of leaping out beyond oneself is everywhere the supreme act -- the

primal point --" the genesis of life.  "The flame is nothing other than such

an act.  Philosophy arises whenever the one philosophizing philosophizes

himself -- that is, simultaneously consumes and renews again; necessitates and

liberates at once.  The history of this process is philosophy.  In this way

all living morality arises, in order that on the basis of virtue I act against

virtue; thus begins the life of virtue, a life that perhaps augments itself

into infinity, without ever confronting a limit.  The latter is the condition

of the possibility of losing its" life.



          -- Novalis

                    excerpted from

                "Vermischte" "Fragments" I

                    (Feb.- May 1798)



                             For Brigid -- Arise!



   "Flowers bind us round and grasses catch our feet

   Bird songs allure and blossom scent is sweet:

      we must arise!"



   Brigid is the ancient celebration of the approach of spring and the

lengthening of the days.  At eight o'clock on Saturday evening 6th February we

will be observing the festival of Brigid at the housewarming party of Cheth

House in north Berkeley.  This is also the occasion of a birthday celebration

for two residents, Sister Kat Riendeau and Brother Eric Stanley, of Brother

James Graeb along with them, and also of Ronald Wilson Reagan 666.  For

directions or further information call Cheth House at (510) 525-0666.  The sun

will have passed the midpoint of Aquarius early in the morning of the

preceding Thursday (with the calendar holiday of Candlemas falling back two

days before that), and surely the turn of the year draws 'round.



                             Oyez!  Oyez!  Oyez!



   We celebrate the gnostic mass each week, gathering as Ecclesia Gnostica

Catholica on Sunday evenings, when guests and visitors are welcome whose will

it is to participate with the members of the lodge in affirming our own

divinity, individually and collectively.  Arrive at Horus Temple by 7:30 to be

ready when the deacon calls us in to the ritual.  Newcomers may call ahead for

directions and information, and during the ritual are requested to follow the

example of the other communicants as well as they can.  Our mass is usually an

easy event to enjoy -- however intricate and complex it can sometimes seem --

and most communicants find that they quickly begin to learn the gestures and

responses expected of them in their role as "the People."  After regular

participation for awhile some begin aspiring to the clerical offices in the

mass, and in our temple these roles are open to those willing to study and

understand them.  Begin by learning the deacon's work, and then memorizing the

speeches of the priestess and priest, and continue by practicing with a

private team to familiarize yourselves with the working of the ritual.

Consult along the way with one or more of our gnostic bishops and experienced

clergy for advice and guidance, and when the gnostic mass has become second

nature -- generally after a few months of regular practice -- you will be

ready to request a date on the temple schedule to serve the lodge in this

ritual.  The lodgemaster keeps the calendar, and should be consulted well in

advance by those interested in doing mass here.



   Looking once more at our unique old local custom of cheering each

communicant's affirmation in the mass that "There is no part of me that is not

of the gods!" with a great triple shout of "Oyez!" -- as analyzed in these

pages last month by gnostic bishop T Dionysus -- there is perhaps room for

some further perspective.  As sometimes occurs when we invoke the name of a

long-lost lodge-brother in this newsletter, good old Haggai Hell Howler

actually turned up at our temple, after nearly a decade away, just as last

month's "Oh Yes!" column went to press, and we had an opportunity to ask him

about his role in the establishment of this local variant.  (His generous

spirit and energetic contributions to our community's growth in the early days

were very substantial, and we were proud to show him his own portrait, hanging

amidst many other heroes and pioneers of Thelema, in the lodge kitchen here.)

But, he reported, the credit was not entirely due to him for the introduction

of this particular tradition.  According to his memory, it had been Lola De

Wolfe who first shouted it out as a cheer in the mass.  (No doubt she was

following the example of one of the Order's official rituals, where the

thrice-repeated call is employed in a traditional manner to demand the

attention of an assembled crowd for an important announcement.)  Lola had

apparently shouted it out spontaneously, perhaps amid a chaotic chorus of

cheers and fellowship at the multiple climax of the mass.  Then indeed the

Hell Howler took up the call, setting an example so loudly that before many

masses the whole congregation was shouting it too.  Haggai further recalled

that Grady McMurtry, who as Hymenaeus Alpha was Patriarch of the Gnostic

Catholic Church (and in those days took an active role in celebrating,

directing, and attending the mass) wholeheartedly approved of the cheer.  "If

it's good enough to open sessions of the Supreme Court," he remembered Grady

saying, "it's good enough for our gnostic temple."  As an American patriot,

war hero, and longtime government employee, Grady seemed happy to adopt an

official standard -- even when untraditionally applied -- for the Thelemic

enterprise which he was at last getting successfully established.

   The pronunciation which Haggai recalled from those days was unequivocally

"oh-yez" -- so much so that he wasn't quite sure we had it right when he heard

some of us saying it franco-fashion as "oh-yea."  (Indeed his preferred

pronunciation continues to be used here by some traditionalists.)  "Oyez!

oyez! oyez!" is the ancient call to attention before a proclamation or legal

proceeding, dating back through British "law French" to Anglo-Norman usage.

In the US Supreme Court, as in many other courts and in the British houses of

Parliament, the triple "Oyez!" -- usually pronounced "oh-yea" -- is used

exactly like the more familiar call of "hear ye! hear ye! hear ye!"  In fact

the two are equivalent, as "oyez" is the imperative plural form of the Old

French verb "oir" (to hear).  As a traditional order enjoining silence and

attention, it has long typified the voice of authority, and in consequence has

frequently attracted parody and humorous variation in English.  The original

Norman pronunciation was most likely something like "oye'ts," but in Middle

English it came to be confused with "o ye" (as in "o ye people"), and later --

according to its foreign spelling -- with "oh yes."  (Barham's "Ingoldsby

Legends" (1842) provide a typical example: " . . . when the crier cried 'O

Yes!' the people cried 'O No!'")  Obviously such a cry usually precedes the

announcement to which it directs attention, and thus our use of it as a cheer,

following each communicant's affirmation, seems to partake of the humorous

treatment long accorded the word.  But need the literal meaning be limited to

the word's customary usage?  The parliamentary cheer of "hear! hear!" has long

been traditional as a shout of general agreement and support of a statement

which precedes it, and this is also is a perfectly literal and correct

translation of "oyez."



                                M.'. M.'. M.'.



   Initiations in the Man of Earth triad of Ordo Templi Orientis are offered

upon application to Thelema Lodge, and are scheduled next for Saturday evening

27th February.  As usual here, this will not be a "drop-in" event, and all who

care to be part of it must communicate their interest to the officers of the

lodge ahead of time in order to be included.  O.T.O. initiation is available

to persons "free, of full age, and of good report" who present themselves to

us for candidacy.  This process begins with the submission of the proper

application form, which may be requested from the officers at most lodge

events.  Prospective candidates should discuss their intentions and

expectations regarding the contemplated initiation with active members of the

degree to which they aspire, and then request sponsorship.  Dues and fees are

to be paid on the day of the ceremony, not beforehand, and any questions

should be directed to the officers of the lodge.



                         Look with Grace to the Stars



   A short series introducing the basic concepts of astrology will be offered

on alternate Monday evenings this month and next by Grace in her Astrological

Temple in Berkeley, meeting from 7:00 to 9:00.  The series will open on 8th

February with a presentation of the planetary powers and influences, and

resume on 22nd February to cover the twelve signs of the Zodiac.  The third

session will be held next month on Monday evening 8th March, and will focus on

the twelve astrological houses of the horoscope.  The final meeting on 22nd

March will emphasize planetary aspects and provide an outline of astrological

delineation.  All are welcome, though everyone attending is requested to call

Grace ahead of time at (510) 843-STAR for directions, and to let her know how

many participants to expect.  Intended especially for Thelemites who lack a

thorough grounding in the astrological arts, the four meetings of this course

will provide a foundation of interest for beginners, and Grace will have much

to say to intermediate practitioners as well.  Even the most advanced students

may benefit from her wisdom and experience with human life and character in

the light of astral influences from the macrocosm.



                               Cupid N.O.X. Up



   Thelema Lodge's twice-monthly evenings of wide-ranging intellectual

discourse will take place in February at eight o'clock on the Wednesday

evenings of the 3rd and the 24th.  Like most institutions of higher learning

the College of Hard N.O.X. is in perpetual search of philanthropists to endow

and underwrite its faculty and research. If you wish to support the school in

this special way please communicate your intentions to the Dean, and

appropriate recognition (honorary degree? plaque in the library? a lecture

named after you?) will be arranged.

    The discussion on 3rd February will center on the topic of love,

specifically its multifaceted nature, the many differing emotions, practices,

obsessions, and complexes which we label by that most popular of four letter

words. "Nor let the fools mistake love; for there are love and love. There is

the dove, and there is the serpent. Choose ye well!" Is it Eros or is it

Agape? Or is it something else entirely?

   There are so many ways a person may be loved, as a lover, a mate, a friend,

a parent, a child, a sibling, an idol, etc. Add to that the inanimate objects

of our love, is the love of one's car the same as the love of one's comfort?

Is the love of an idea the same as the love of an activity? Join us for what

promises to be a thoroughly passionate exchange.

    The evening of 24th February will find us discussing a question of great

import in the Qabalistic schema of Aleister Crowley's neighborhood. "All these

old letters of my Book are aright; but "Tzaddi" is not the Star. This also is

secret: my prophet shall reveal it to the wise." Of course Crowley purports to

explain this to us in his commentary on the Book of the Law, and for some that

ends all further debate. Still, others continue to question the Prophet on

several points: how may the switching of all the attributions between two

paths on the Tree of Life be held to be congruent to the mere switching of the

order of two Atus of the Tarot deck? how can "All these old letters" be aright

if Heh is not the Emperor Trump? why does the Class A "Liber Arcanorum" appear

to follow the standard attributions of Heh and Tzaddi? In addition we'll

consider the suggestion of Bro. A Snake that the correct title of the Trump in

question is actually "Not, the Star" (i.e., Nuit).



                          Valentine Whips and Chains



   If you've had just about enough of hearts and flowers by this time, join

the Section Two reading group at the lodge for some literary whips and chains

on Monday evening 15th February at 8:00.  In observance of "the morning after"

the Feast of Saint Valentine, Caitlin will be leading us in a look this month

at the two most notorious novelists of sexual perversion, recommended by

Crowley (in the Liber Artemis Iota bibliography) among the "various classics .

. . helpful to assimilate the romantic and enthusiastic atmosphere proper to

the practice of the Art."

   The writings of Donatien-Alphonse-Francois, the Marquis de Sade, (1740-

1814) were produced during his 27 years of incarceration (enforced by each of

the various regimes before, during, and after the French Revolution), and they

tend to be overly expansive due to this excess of leisure.  Crowley especially

mentions Sade's best-known novel, "Justine, or, The Misfortunes of Virtue,"

composed in 1787, anonymously published in 1791, and then expanded and re-

written to be published again six years later.  Also recommended is the sequel

to this work, concerning the sinister sister of Justine, entitled "Juliette,

or, The Prosperities of Vice," written directly afterwards and first appearing

in 1797.  Like Crowley himself, Sade was a hard-working and prolific author

who wrote at great speed, using a variety of conventional literary forms with

remarkable facility, while at the same time constructing an elaborate myth of

his own life in relation to his works which occasionally eclipses the reader's

commitment to the books themselves.  Both men may have been profoundly

affected in adolescence by their miserable relationships with hard-hearted,

self-righteous, and empty-headed mothers, and in their disdain for the

limitations of empty convention both freed themselves to explore the erotic

universe with completely self-determined moral philosophies.  Both have

continued to be incorrectly termed "satanists" due to their absolute rejection

of the whole (positive and negative) structure of Christianity, with its

vulgar ethos of guilt and expiation.  In Thelema, however, the Great Beast

Crowley worked out a new ethos of shared respect and mutual freedom, while

Sade's animalistic philosophy encompassed only arrogant aristocracy and a pure

anarchistic selfishness which got him repeatedly arrested for cutting up

whores.

   On the other end of the "S/M" scale is the rather refined German novella

"Venus in Furs," first published in 1869 by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836-

1895).  It was the Viennese psychiatric neurologist Krafft-Ebing who first

linked the names of Sade and Masoch as examples of "Psychopathia Sexualis," in

his classic 1876 study of erotic perversions (which is also included on the

Artemis Iota reading list).  Masoch's literary achievement is considerably

less impressive -- and his life more ordinary and obscure -- than Sade's, but

in nineteenth century middle-Europe Masoch was moderately known for his late-

romantic novels and stories.  Unlike Sade he was not a pornographer, and the

morality of his tale of Wanda the whip-woman is surprisingly conventional,

despite the exotic enthusiasms it chronicles.  There is, however, not simply a

personal commitment but also a fair degree of emotional realism behind Venus

in Furs, which gives it an interest beyond its literary value; if Masoch's

story is far less extreme than Sade's it is also apparently far more true to

his personal experiences.



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                               Crowley Classics



   First released in a limited edition in 1903, Crowley's sonnet sequence

"Alice: An Adultery" is available in the second volume of his collected

"Works" as published in 1906 by The Society for the Propagation of Religious

Truth.  This publication enterprise was run out of Crowley's own home,

Boleskine House, near Foyers, in Scotland.  Like the Victorian poet Robert

Browning, whose influence he acknowledged quite a number of times, Crowley

used the technique of establishing a fictional narrative "persona" in many of

his early poems, with which he explored extreme pathological motivations not

often encountered in a confessional mode.  Both for Crowley and for Browning,

it was frequently a fascination with deviant sex and violence which these

"dramatis personae" reveal in their poems.  But while Browning usually

confined the method to a pure lyric technique, Crowley -- in the manner long

established by writers of prose fiction -- liked to extend the invention into

an ostensibly "editorial" frame, giving the reader a fantastical account of

the provenance of the text being presented.  He was even willing to compromise

his verses in establishing the verisimilitude of such a scheme, and in the

original printing of the "Alice" sonnets some of the poems were presented as

unfinished, with omissions "intended to aid the illusion of this

introduction."  For the 1906 publication these artificial cruxes were mended

in the text, but the fictitious "Introduction" remained.  We offer it here as

a tale on its own.



                              "Introduction" to

                              Alice: An Adultery



                             by Aleister Crowley



                                                        Yokohama, April, 1901.



   It has often been pointed out how strange are the prophecies made from time

to time by writers of what purports to be merely fiction.

   Of all the remarkable tales with which Mr. R. Kipling has delighted the

world, none is more striking than that of McIntosh Jellaludin<> and his mysterious manuscript.  And now, only a few

years after reading that incredible tale, I myself, at Yokohama, come across a

series of circumstances wonderfully analogous.  But I will truthfully set down

this history just as it all happened.

   I went one memorable Wednesday night to No. 29.<>  For my advent in this most reputable quarter

of the city, which is, after all, Yama,<> and equally handy for the consul, the chaplain, and the doctor,

readers of Rossetti will expect no excuse; for their sakes I may frankly admit

that I was actuated by other motives than interest and solicitude for my

companion, a youth still blindly groping for Romance beneath the skirts of

tawdry and painted Vice.  Perhaps I may have hoped to save him from what men

call the graver and angels the lesser consequences of his folly.  This for the

others.

   As to the character of the mansion at which we arrived, after a journey no

less dubious than winding, I will say that, despite its outward seeming, it

was, in reality, a most respectable place; the main occupation of its

inhabitants seemed to be the sale of as much "champagne" as possible; in which

inspiring preface my friend was soon deeply immersed . . . .

   Golden-haired, a profound linguist, swearing in five Western and three

Oriental languages, and comparable rather to the accomplished courtesans of

old-time Athens than to the Imperial Peripatetics of the "Daily Telegraph" and

Mr. Raven-Hill,<> her

looks of fire turned my friend's silky and insipid moustache into a veritable

Burning Bush.  But puppy endearments are of little interest to one who has

just done his duty by No. 9 <>

in distant Yoshiwara; so turned to the conversation of our dirty old Irish

hostess, who, being drunk, grew more so, and exceedingly entertaining.

   Of the central forces which sway mankind, her knowledge was more

comprehensive than conventional.  For thirty years she had earned her bread in

the capacity of a Japanese Mrs. Warren;<>  but having played with fire in many lands, the

knowledge she had of her own subject, based on indefatigable personal

research, was as accurate in detail as it was cosmopolitan in character.  Yet

she had not lost her ideals; she was a devout Catholic, and her opinion of the

human understanding, despite her virginal innocence of Greek, was identical

with that of Mr. Locke.<>

   On occasions I am as sensitive to inexplicable interruption as Mr.

Shandy,<>  and

from behind the hideous yellow partition came sounds as of the constant

babbling of a human voice.  Repeated glances in this direction drew from my

entertainer the information that it was "only her husband," indicating the

yellow-haired girl with the stem of her short clay pipe.  She added that he

was dying.

   Curiosity, Compassion's Siamese twin, prompted a desire to see the

sufferer.

   The old lady rose, not without difficulty, lifted the curtain, and let it

fall behind me as I entered the gloom which lay beyond.  On a bed, in that

half-fathomed twilight, big with the scent of joss-sticks smouldering in a

saucer before a little bronze Buddha-rupa,<> lay a

man, still young, the traces of rare beauty in his face, though worn with

suffering and horrid with a week's growth of beard.

   He was murmuring over to himself some words which I could not catch, but my

entrance, though he did not notice me, seemed to rouse him a little.

   I distinctly heard --



   "These are the spells by which to re-assume

   And empire o'er the disentangled doom"



He paused, sighing, then continued --



   "To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite;

   To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;

        To defy power which seems omnipotent;

   To love, and bear; to hope till hope creates

   From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;

        Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent:

   This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be

   Good, great, and joyous, beautiful, and free:

   This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory."<>



   The last phrase pealed trumpet-wise: he sank back into thought.  "Yes," he

said slowly, "neither to change, nor falter, nor repent."  I moved forward,

and he saw me.

   "Who are you?" he asked.

   "I am travelling in the East," I said.  "I love Man also; I have come to

see you.  Who are you?"

   He laughed pleasantly.  "I am the child of many prayers."

   There was a pause.

   I stood still, thinking.

   Here was surely the very strangest outcast of Society.  What uncouth

bypaths of human experience, across what mapless tracks beyond the social

pale, must have led hither -- hither to death in this Anglo-Saxon-blasted

corner of Japan, here, at the very outpost of the East.  He spoke my thought.

   "Here I lie," he said, "east of all things.  All my life I have been

travelling eastward, and now there is now no further east to go."

   "There is America," I said.  I had to say something.

   "Where the disappearance of man has followed that of manners: the exit of

God has not wished to lag behind that of grammar.  I have no use for American

men, and only one use for American women."

   "Of a truth," I said, "the continent is accursed -- a very limbo."

   "It is the counterfoil of evolution," said the man wearily.  There was

silence.

   "What can I do for you?"  I asked.  "Are you indeed ill?"

   "Four days more," he answered, thrilling with excitement, "and all my

dreams will come true -- until I wake.  But you can serve me, if indeed -- Did

you hear me spouting poetry?"

   I nodded, and lit my pipe.  He watched me narrowly while the match

illuminated my face.

   "What poetry?"

   I told him Shelley.

   "Do you read Ibsen?" he queried, keening visibly.  After a moment's pause:

"He is the Sophocles of manners," I said, rewarded royally for months of weary

waiting.  My strange companion sat up transfigured.  "The Hour," he murmured,

"and the Man! . . . What of Tennyson?"

   "Which Tennyson?" I asked.

   The answer seemed to please him.

   "In Memoriam?" he replied.

   "He is a neurasthenic counter-jumper."

   "And of the Idylls?"

   "Sir Thomas<>

did no wrong; can impotence excuse his posthumous emasculation?"<>

   He sank back contented.  "I have prayed to my God for many days," he said,

"and by one of the least of my life's miracles you are here; worthy to receive

my trust.  For when I knew that I was to die, I destroyed all the papers which

held the story of my life -- all save one.  That I saved; the only noble

passage, perhaps -- among the many notable.  Men will say that it is stained;

you, I think, should be wiser.  It is the story of how the Israelites crossed

the Red Sea.  They were not drowned, you know (he seemed to lapse into a day-

dream), and they came out on the Land of Promise side.  But they had to

descend therein."

   "They all died in the wilderness," I said, feeling as if I understood this

mystical talk, which, indeed, I did not.  But I felt inspired.

   "Ay me, they died -- as I am dying now."

   He turned to the wall and sought a bundle of old writing on a shelf.  "Take

this," he said.  "Edit it as if it were your own: let the world know how

wonderful it was."  I took the manuscript from the frail, white hand.

   He seemed to forget me altogether.

   "Namo tassa Bhagavato arahato sammasambuddhasa,"<> he murmured, turning to his little black

Buddha-rupa.

   There was a calm like unto -- might I say, an afterwards?



   "There is an end of joy and sorrow,

   Peace all day long, all night, all morrow,"



he began drowsily.

   A shrill voice rose in a great curse.  The hoarse anger of drunken harlotry

snarled back.  "Not a drop more," shouted my friend, adding many things.  It

was time for my return.

   "I will let them know," I whispered.  "Good-bye."



   "'There is not one thing with another;

   But Evil saith to Good: "My brother --'"<>



he went on unheeding.

   I left him to his peace.

   My re-appearance restored harmony.  The fulvous and fulgurous lady grew

comparatively tranquil; the pair withdrew.  The old woman lay sprawled along

the divan sunk in a drunken torpor.

   I unrolled the manuscript and read.

   Brutal truth-telling humour, at times perhaps too Rabelaisian; lyrics, some

of enchanting beauty, others painfully imitative; sonnets of exceedingly

unequal power, a perfectly heartless introduction (some fools would call it

pathetic),<> and, as a

synthesis of the whole, an impression of profound sadness and, perhaps, still

deeper joy, were my reward.  Together with a feeling that the writer must have

been a philosopher of the widest and deepest learning and penetration, and a

regret that he showed no more of it in his poetry.  First and last, I stood

amazed, stupefied: so stand I still.

   Dramatic propriety forbade me seeing him again; he was alone when he

started.

   Let us not too bitterly lament!  He would hate him who would "upon the rack

of this tough world stretch him out longer."

   To the best of my poor ability I have executed his wishes, omitting,

however, his name and all references sufficiently precise to give pain to any

person still living.<>

His handwriting was abominably difficult, some words quite indecipherable.  I

have spent long and laborious hours in conjecture, and have, I hope, restored

his meaning in almost every case.  But in the sonnets of the 12th, 18th, 23rd,

24th, 29th, 35th, 41st, 43rd, and 48th days, also in "At Last," "Love and

Fear," and "Lethe," one or more whole lines have been almost impossible to

read.  The literary student will be able readily to detect my patchwork

emendations.  These I have dared to make because his whole pattern (may I use

the word?) is so elaborate and perfect that I fear to annoy the reader by

leaving any blanks, feeling that my own poverty of diction will be less

noticeable than any actual hiatus in the sense or rhythm.  I attempt neither

eulogy nor criticism here.  Indeed, it seems to me entirely uncalled for.  His

words were: "Let the world know how wonderful it was," that is, his love and

hers; not "how wonderful it is," that is, his poem.

   The poem is simple, understandable, direct, not verbose.  More I demand

not, seeing it is written (almost literally so) in blood; for I am sure that

he was dying of that love for Alice, whose marvellous beauty it was his

mission (who may doubt it?) to reveal.  For the burning torch of truth may

smoke, but it is our one sure light in passion and distress.  "The jewelled

silence of the stars" is, indeed, the light of a serener art; but love is

human, and I give nothing for the tawdry gems of style when the breast they

would adorn is that of a breathing, living beauty of man's love, the heart of

all the world.  Nor let us taint one sympathy with even a shadow of regret.

Let us leave him where



"Sight nor sound shall war against him more,

For whom all winds are quiet as the sun,

      All waters as the shore."<>



NOTE. -- The sudden and tragic death of the Editor has necessitated the

completion of his task by another hand.  The introduction was, however, in

practically its present form.



                                    finis



*************************************************************************



                           from the Grady Project:



                              To Dream of Snails



    How long does it take a snail to die?

    Slowly, slowly, hot and holy

    Scrushed in its juices

    Excruciatingly

    Steaming and screaming

    Surreptitiously

    Exploding in red pain fevered

    Agony

    Mangling and strangling

    Silently

    Almost as long as some men

    To die

    With a gurgling

    Ay-y-y-y-lug.



                        ---- Grady L. McMurtry

                                   (5-14-57)



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                            From the Library Shelf



                             The Island Dialogues

              by Llee Heflin (San Francisco: Level Press, 1973)



                              a critical review

                               by Nathan Bjorge



   The Thelemic movement of the 1970s e.v. produced a number of interestingly

representative literary works.  Kenneth Grant's enthusiastic first few books,

Bill Heidrick's subtle and original Qabalistic writings, and Robert Anton

Wilson's witty and weird "Cosmic Trigger", are all worthy documents which

should be present on the shelves of any Thelemite with a historical

consciousness.  The same cannot precisely be said of the nevertheless

interesting period piece "The Island Dialogues," by Llee Heflin.

   Llee Heflin was the founder of the Level Press, a Thelemic publishing house

that operated out of San Francisco during the 1970s.  At one point associated

with Grady McMurtry, he collaborated with the late Caliph on a number of

publishing projects.  Heflin and Grady eventually broke with one another

shortly before Heflin started up his publishing house, which put out "The

Island Dialogues" in 1973 e.v.

   The book is divided into four parts, with vivid, almost cartoonlike

illustrations before each section.  Part One is a brief autobiography, which

reprises the spiritual activities of the author prior to the Fall of '71, when

he found himself the sole inhabitant of an island in Washington State.

   The author's descriptions of his religious experiences throughout the book

are varied and involve various substances used liberally.  The results are

often spectacular, intense, and totally useless.  A good example is on page

126, where the author narrates his conversation with a rock.

   The central experience, however, is a transcription, in Part Two, of a

series of Heflin's conversations with what he believed to be his Holy Guardian

Angel.  Indeed, who are we to dispute?  The extremely uneven literary quality

of the book improves somewhat in these sections, and while that is no proof of

anything, it is nevertheless quite clear that it was a profound experience for

the author.

   The angel's message is pretty much standard New Age fare -- up to a point.

When Heflin's angel begins to give its sex magick teachings then things start

to get really controversial.  Dialogue 1 is a very good invocation of his

angel by Heflin:

   ""My God My God

   Fill me flood me

   I am all open I am all womb I am you-shaped and expectant a living cup to

drink your holy light come.  Fill me my God with your sun cock your moon cock

your sky cock rock cock lion cock eagle cock angel cock man cock.  Fuck me my

God until I am a mountain fountain of atomic energy dancing to the music of

the star fire choir.  When you come I am the heavenly night full of shooting

stars I am the rainbow arc of shattered light I am your Shakti you are my

God.""

   The second dialogue is mostly fluff, but with a few good turns of phrase.

For example: ""It is not for me to teach you of ecstasy and happiness.  Rather

it is for you to express these things to me.  If you say 'Lord is this

ecstasy?' I will always reply 'Is it?'  But when you say 'Lord, this is

ecstasy!'  I will reply 'So be it!'""  Dialogue 3 is mush and dialogue 4 is

unintelligible mush.  The fifth dialogue has some good advice.  Dialogue 6 is

a well put attack against the dualism of the Osirian paradigm.  Dialogue 7

starts out okay, but turns into mush when God starts to lecture on something

about "duality".  Or something.  It involves a teacup, but I'm afraid that God

is too incoherent for me to make out what he's trying to say.  Maybe he's on

LSD?  As below so above.  Then, in the 8th and final dialogue the Angel

suddenly veers into an amazingly contentious exposition on gender issues in

Magick.  Heflin's God begins by stating that humans must overcome the duality

of gender within their psyches, and become androgenous.  So far so good,

though Heflin sees this as not merely a spiritual state or metaphor.  Now

comes the tricky bit: to achieve this everyone who is not already in a male

body must reincarnate into one and become a homosexual.  Why, we might just

perhaps ask?  Because the female body doesn't have a Phallus, and it essential

that the enlightened androgene both be able to sexually penetrate and be

penetrated.

   This stunningly ignorant, textbook Phallocentric assertion pretty much

downs "The Island Dialogues" as a useful spiritual text at this point.  French

philosophy virtually exists to deconstruct second order sexist texts like this

one.  I need merely direct the interested reader to the works of Luce Ingeray

as a good start.  I could go on for a few pages more in this vein, but in the

interest of space I will allow my educated readers the pleasure of

articulating their own critique.

   Part Three of "The Island Dialogues" is a commentary on Part Two, and is a

bit of a mess.  Heflin rambles badly, and the ideas are vaporous, confused and

badly expressed.  I got nothing out of this section.

   Part Four is cast as a "letter to an XI{th degree} brother" and is the most

interesting part of the book.  Heflin here advances a number of fascinatingly

unorthodox opinions concerning the sexual theurgy of the OTO.  Among the

theories presented are the idea of the X{th degree} as a sex magick degree, a

scheme for mapping the progression of VII{th degree} -- XI{th degree} to the

aeonic procession, and the ideal of scattered eleventh degree communities

acting as power centers for the promulgation of the gnosis.  This latter idea

was of great influence on the ideas of the late Frater Meithras.  In my

opinion, this important influence alone makes "The Island Dialogues" worthy of

study.

   While I cannot recommend this book as more than a curiosity on its own

merits, its causal relationship to other important movements make it more than

worth a peek.  It is also useful in graphically presenting one of the most

difficult issues in the Thelemic religion: that of Authority.  It is quite

clear that Heflin acknowledges no outside authority or exterior standard in

his religious practice.  As a result, his illumination is of dubious value to

anyone other than himself.  It is a great paradox of philosophy that the

exterior standard of a religious system or structure of initiation is

essential, on some level, to the coherence and success of an individual's

spiritual practice.  Nevertheless, it is necessary that the power of

illumination ultimately be in the hands of that individual.  There must be a

balance.

   Let us all note that for our own practice, and draw our own conclusions.

The Great Work continues.

                                    finis



*************************************************************************



                          An Introduction to Qabalah



                    Part XLV -- Merkabah, Mars and Magick.



         Derived from a lecture series in 1977 e.v. by Bill Heidrick

                         Copyright (c) Bill Heidrick



   There are types of Qabalistic magic(k) that don't relate to the Tree of

Life directly.  Merkabah, the Way of the Chariot, often does use the Tree.

Merkabah can involve ascending the Tree of Life to produce a growth in

awareness, to experience visions, and to acquire powers.  Much of the magic(k)

of Western Europe contains fragments of the Merkabah tradition.  Nearly all of

the angels and spirits of the planets and the signs of the Zodiac and many of

the classic talismans with Hebrew written around them are either directly or

indirectly outgrowths of Merkabah Qabalah.  They derive from things once used

to help anchor the mind and adjust personality in a very complex array of

meditations.  In the Merkabah system one explores the lower seven Sephirot,

changes the balance there and repeats the exploration until success is reached

by finally breaking through to awareness across the Abyss.  Each of those

lower Sephriot have planetary correspondences.  There is a distinct procedure

of entering doors to infernal and celestial palaces, conjuring angels and

keeping off devils, at each Sephira.  There is a deep examination of

conscience, compounded between the lower seven Sephirot.  Talismans and names

of angels are an integral part of this operation.

   Fragments of Merkabah have migrated into other applications, e.g. a ritual

working related to Geburah that uses angelic names, talismans to control the

powers and the hazards of Mars and evokes Bartzabel, one of the gate

guardians.  A Spirit and an Intelligence of Mars guard the entrance to the

palace or hell associated with Geburah.  With the obscurity of time's passing,

it's difficult to prove direct derivation from the Merkabah for many of these

things, but the meanings of names of the Spirits and Intelligences of the

planets change in quality from gentle to severe as one ascends the Tree

correspondences found in "Liber 777".  These names fit the pattern of descent

into the infernal regions in Merkabah tradition.  Later in this series, we

will pursue this further.  For now, it is important to note it and to see

where this traditional magick originates.  The Spirit Bartzabel has for some

centuries been used to work independent magick, yet this Spirit apparently

originated in the Merkabah work as a small part of a working to advance the

soul.  The diversion of such a fragment is in some ways an abuse, a using in

lesser magic.  In this, dangers and injuries arise not unlike those occasioned

by misuse of any tool.  Bartzabel and the other spirits of the pantheon are

like an ancient bit of armor put to another purpose than that for which it was

intended.  Peasants once found a fine sculptured Roman plate, made of precious

metal and intact.  They broke it up into pieces to share the wealth, reducing

its value ten fold.  This is like that, bits of lesser value broken out of the

Merkabah system and used for fleeting purposes, the full wonder of the thing

diminishing in the process.  It's a magnificent working.  To use it only for

practical magical purposes is a great abuse.  It's intended for the attainment

of the Great Work.

   Earlier, I remarked that the process of reasoning about the Tree of Life

comes from Hod.  Merkabah comes from Geburah and uses great forces for

advancement, rather than rational explanations to simply examine what is

already present.  Merkabah is much involved in morality.  There is a lot of

power in strongly felt moral conviction.  That's a particular quality of

Geburah, the creation and management of a strong blend of reason and emotion.

It would be excessive to say that pieces of the Merkabah are always abused

when they are used in lesser magick; but within the realm of Merkabah studies,

such a rigid view is a way of sticking to the higher goals.  Injunctions are

made to protect against such abuse.  All this is of the left hand side, of the

Pillar of Severity; and one should attempt it without serious commitment.

It's perfectly possible to continue life and do great and good things without

this.  Still, those who pursue Magick and the Great Work in earnest make that

more arduous choice.

   To recapitulate, the Merkabah uses very organized approaches to the

planetary spirits and other spirits as well.  These became the raw material

for much of Western magick.  In one step of the Merkabah practices, you can

get through the gate and into the Palace of Mars by summoning Bartzabel and

properly explaining and demonstrating your right by signs and answers to be

there.  Once that is accomplished, you gain the power of the planet Mars and

acquire those things that are martial.  The magick of Mars joins to your

personal attributes.  It's said that each planet rides a chariot, and that

chariot is its motion across the sky.  The chariot of Ezechial is beyond the

chariots of the planets -- that's the one you are trying to reach as THE

Merkabah -- but in each Sephirot of the lower seven you ride in the chariot

corresponding to one planet.  This is the magick of the thing; riding in the

chariot of a planet gives the powers of that planet.



                    Next: More of the planets and Merkabah



*************************************************************************



  February 1999 e.v. Thelema Lodge Calendar



  Mailed free within 100 miles of San Francisco California



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