October 1998 e.v. Thelema Lodge Calendar/Newsletter Mailed free within 100 miles of San Francisco California Printed edition otherwise: $12 per year North America, $12 per year surface overseas, $24 per year air mail overseas. Copyright (c) O.T.O. and the Individual Authors, 1998 e.v. Limited license is hereby granted to reproduce this file without fee, with this message intact. This license expires October 1999 e.v. unless renewed in writing. No charge other than reproduction costs is permitted under this license to the receivers of copies of this file without O.T.O. written permission. This file is not to be altered or incorporated in whole or in part within another electronic or printed publication without written permission from O.T.O. 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 October 1998 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. ************************************************************************* 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. ************************************************************************* 10/2/98 Lesser feast of Jack Parsons 10/4/98 Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple (510) 652-3171 Thelema Ldg. 10/5/98 The Rite of Luna 8PM (510) 527-2855 Sirius Oasis 10/6/98 Enochian Watchtowers class with (510) 652-3171 Thelema Ldg. Frater Majnun 8PM 10/7/98 College of Hard NOX 8 PM (510) 652-3171 Thelema Ldg. with Mordecai in the library 10/11/98 Lodge luncheon meeting 12:30 (510) 652-3171 Thelema Ldg. 10/11/98 Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple (510) 652-3171 Thelema Ldg. 10/12/98 Lesser Feast of Aleister Crowley (510) 527-2855 at Ancient Ways Store in Oakland 7:30 PM 10/13/98 Enochian Watchtowers class with (510) 652-3171 Thelema Ldg. Frater Majnun 8PM 10/15/98 Ritual Study Workshop with Cynthia (510) 658-9393 Thelema Ldg. 8:00 PM 10/17/98 The Rite of Earth at OZ House (510) 654-3580 (call for time) 10/18/98 Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple (510) 652-3171 Thelema Ldg. 10/18/98 The Lesser Feast of Grady McMurtry 10/19/98 Section II reading group with (510) 652-3171 Thelema Ldg. Caitlin: Sidonia the Sorceress by Meinhold. 8PM OZ House 10/22/98 Ritual Study Workshop with Cynthia (510) 658-9393 Thelema Ldg. 8:00 PM 10/25/98 Finnegans Wake reading 4:18 PM (510) 428-0870 10/25/98 Gnostic Mass 8:00PM Horus Temple (510) 652-3171 Thelema Ldg. 10/26/98 Sirius Oasis meeting 8:00 PM (510) 527-2855 Sirius Oasis in Berkeley 10/28/98 College of Hard NOX 8 PM (510) 652-3171 Thelema Ldg. with Mordecai in the library 10/31/98 All Hallows Eve OTO initiations (510) 652-3171 Thelema Ldg. (call to attend) ************************************************************************* Announcements from Lodge Members and Officers Brother Satyr, Scourge Forth "Behold her, Madonna-like, throned and crowned, veiled, silent, awaiting the promise of the future. She is Isis and Mary, Istar and Bhavani, Artemis and Diana." The Rite of Luna concludes Aleister Crowley's cycle of Rites of Eleusis on Monday evening 5th October at Sirius Oasis in Berkeley, beginning at 8:00. This will be the evening of the Harvest Moon, full in Aries. Onlookers are invited to contribute to this ritual by bringing a good supply of some favorite beverage for the libations, of which the traditional nine- fold service is planned; feel free to bring lunar snacks as well. Dress if you please in white and silver or pale shades of blue. "But Artemis is still barren of hope until the spirit of the Infinite All, great Pan, tears asunder the veil and displays the hope of humanity, the Crowned Child of the Future." "The Rite of Earth" is a grounding exercise which has been added by local tradition to many of our cycles of the Rites. This year a newly written Rite of Earth ritual will be offered, as a summation to close out our nineteenth performance of Liber DCCCL, in the back garden at Oz House in Oakland, on Saturday afternoon 17 October. Call Oz at (510) 654-3580 for time and directions, and to contribute to the event. Thelemic Birthday Boys Early in the autumn we observe the lesser feasts of three pioneering Thelemites, each of whose leadership efforts was critical in determining the style and direction of Ordo Templi Orientis, particularly as it came to be established in California in the 1930s e.v. and revived here in the 1970s. Not only was Aleister Crowley born this month in 1875, but Jack Parsons and Grady McMurtry, his two young correspondents who first discussed in 1946 e.v. the establishment of Thelema Lodge in northern California, had also been born under the sign of the scales. As Grady enjoyed pointing out, all three men were poets, and often sent their verses to one another. Our celebrations of their lives will take the form of readings, with all who attend welcome to bring favorite short passages and texts to read. If possible, try to bring a favorite portrait photograph or an artistic representation as well, to show around. For the feast of Jack Parsons on Friday evening 2nd October we have not confirmed a location at press time, but those interested are welcome to call the lodge in the preceding days for information. (That same night there will be a tenth anniversary party at the Ancient Ways store -- for which Thelema Lodge extends warm congratulations -- which is likely to be infused with the spirit of Jack Parsons later on in the evening. No, we don't mean tequila!) Crowleymas will be celebrated there at the Ancient Ways store in Oakland, at the corner of Telegraph Avenue and 41st Street, beginning at 7:30, and sponsored by Sirius Oasis. Bring light food and drinks to share, and your favorite short Crowley texts to read, as well as your favorite portrait of the Beast. The following Sunday afternoon at 6:00, before mass on 18th October, we will gather at Thelema Lodge to read from the poetry and other writings of Grady McMurtry, who founded this lodge on Crowleymas Day 21 years ago. Gnostic Catholic Church The gnostic mass celebrated every Sunday at nightfall at Thelema Lodge is an open ritual, and all whose will it is to participate with us in communion at the climax of this pagan eucharist ceremony are welcome in Horus Temple. Arrive by 8:00 to be ready when the deacon calls us into the sanctuary at the opening of the ritual. Those who have not previously attended lodge events should contact the lodgemaster by telephone for directions and information. To serve the lodge as an officer in the gnostic mass, get together with other communicants to learn and rehearse the ceremony, and discuss your efforts with one of our gnostic bishops, then ask the lodgemaster for a date on the temple calendar. M.'. M.'. M.'. Initiations in Ordo Templi Orientis are next scheduled at Thelema Lodge for Saturday afternoon 31st October, Hallowe'en Day. All who wish to attend are asked to confer ahead of time with one of the lodge officers for information regarding the degrees to be worked and the time to arrive. Initiation rituals usually conclude with a feast for all involved, and those attending as witnesses are welcome to contribute drinks and dessert dishes to this meal. Application for candidacy may be made to the lodge, using the requisite form for each degree, by anyone who is free, of full age, and of good report. Each application must be signed by two active members of the degree being sought. Following submission of the completed application to the lodge, it will be mailed to the U S Initiation Secretary's office for registration and verification. The applicant assumes responsibility for maintaining good contact with the lodge throughout the period of candidacy, which will always exceed one month in duration. When one is not able to attend lodge events during this interim, or otherwise communicate with the officers of the lodge, candidacy will lapse for all practical purposes. No initiation can be performed without full payment of dues (including any past dues still owing), which are forwarded to the O.T.O., and of the initiation fee, which is retained by the lodge. At Thelema Lodge we do not accept any payment prior to the day of the initiation, so all accounts are to be settled at the time the "red book" registration is completed here by the candidate. A N.O.X. Is As Good As A Boost If, as is self-evidently the case, everything causes any particular thing, then if we wish to understand the cause of anything at all we must therefore inquire into everything. That is the purpose of the College of Hard N.O.X., to inquire into everything (though the present Dean blissfully expects to be long dead before we get around to O.J., Princess Di, or the President's moral stature). This month's inquests will take place on the evenings of October the 7th and 28th at eight o'clock in the lodge's commodious yet cozy library. The tuition charged is whatever you wish to give, though you must at least put in your two cents. For the 7th we will take one of our occasional forays into the analysis of a specific text by considering the questions raised in Gilbert Murray's lecture, "The Stoic Philosophy" (given as the Moncure Conway Memorial Lecture at South Place Institute, March 16, 1915; copies of the text, for anyone interested, are now available at the lodge). Murray was an eminent British classicist, regius professor of Greek at Oxford for nearly thirty years, justly famed for his translations of ancient Greek drama, and an outstanding scholar who produced new insights into Homer, and Greek religion and philosophy. In the decade before World War I he acted as a major contributor to the beginning of the still ongoing revival of ancient Greek drama as a living art by personally directing many theatrical productions of plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes The lecture under consideration gives a brief outline of Stoicism, a philosophical movement which began to coalesce in the Athens of the fourth century b.c.e., and eventually became one of the principal ideologies of the educated classes of the Greco-Roman world. Its two most famous exponents were remarkably different individuals. Epictetus, a Phrygian slave brought to Rome in the first century c.e., is reputed to have calmly said to an abusive master who was twisting his arm behind his back, "If you keep on doing that, you'll break my arm.", and when his arm was indeed finally broken he just said, "I told you that would happen." The other well-known Stoic was Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 c.e., who was perhaps the most conscientious, hard-working, and civic-minded of all the men who held that office (though his utter failure as a father left Rome saddled with the sixteen year reign of his paranoid, athletics-worshipping, and megalomaniacal son Commodus). His collection of Meditations was apparently written merely as informal and fragmentary notes to himself, but it is now generally considered to be Stoicism's greatest classic. On October 28th the College will take up in detail the thorny issue of the relationship between Thelema and Satanism, specifically the questions, "Is Thelema a form of Satanism?", "Is Satanism Thelemic?", and "Was Aleister Crowley himself a Satanist?". Sidonia the Sorceress Join Caitlin at Oz House on Monday evening 19th October at 8:00 for a reading from "Sidonia the Sorceress," the obscure German Romantic historical novel which became a late-Victorian occult best-seller. Crowley himself most likely read the combined edition of Wilhelm Meinhold's two great witch novels, published in two volumes by the Reeves and Turner company of London in 1894. Very possibly it took the place of his assigned texts in chemistry and history and philosophy for several evenings as a Cambridge undergraduate. (It seems that a good deal of what later would become the Section Two reading list for Probationers of the A.'. A.'. formed Crowley's personal undergraduate curriculum of alternate and occult education, pursued in the freedom of college scholarship at the University of Cambridge in the mid-1890s.) The two works, "Sidonia the Sorceress" and "The Amber Witch," are recommended together on the reading list, with only the bald comment that "These two tales are highly informative." As the text of "Sidonia" is quite long and now extremely rare, we will share a xerox copy and discuss the romance of witchcraft and the descriptions of occult practices in this story, with readings of a few selected passages. Johannes Wilhelm Meinhold (1797-1851) was raised on the remote Baltic island of Usedom, where his father was a Lutheran pastor; he was educated and took orders in the Lutheran church, qualifying as a Doctor of Theology. After receiving an isolated parsonage he began an obscure literary career in his spare time. He took his subjects from local Pomeranian history, and produced an early tragedy and a quantity of lyric verse. A collection of his poetry was circulated in 1824, and was commended by Goethe. In a historical magazine Meinhold published a chronicle of the Thirty Years War, claiming to have transcribed it from a seventeenth century source, though in fact he had fabricated the entire text. When Frederick William IV, King of Prussia, took enthusiastic notice of the forged document and wanted to have it republished, Meinhold was forced to admit his fraud, but the king nevertheless praised the work, and financed an edition of it which appeared in 1841-2 as "Die Bernsteinhexe" (The Amber Witch). It fed in to a current historical controversy regarding the role of the Roman church in local German witch prosecutions before the Reformation, and hence attracted attention at first, though this turned to resentment as Meinhold's forgery of the document became known. Some critics refused to believe him, and he even showed his notebooks and rough drafts to reviewers as evidence of composition. After the controversy died down he was punished for fooling the literary establishment by being ignored completely for the rest of his life. A few years later he published a second, and even longer, work based upon another Pomeranian witch prosecution, originally entitled (after the defendant in the case) "Sidonia von Bork." It appeared as volumes 5, 6 and 7 of a collected edition of Meinhold's works published near the close of his life (in 1946-8), attracting no attention whatsoever. Meinhold remained obscure in Germany, where his works are still ignored, and he does not rate mention in the standard reference works. There was however a vogue for his tales among English readers several decades after his death, and both of the Pomeranian witch-trial accounts appeared in English translation. "Sidonia the Sorceress" was translated by Lady Jane Francesca Elgee, wife of the great ocular surgeon Dr William Wilde, who in her youth at mid-century had been a fashionable celebrity in Ireland, publishing romantic poetry in the newspapers under the name of "Speranza." Six feet tall, flamboyant and beautiful, "a very odd and original lady," she was a learned woman, particularly accomplished as a linguist, and a committed patriot who looked to future European involvement for Ireland as an alternative to British domination there. She published thirteen books, "Sidonia" being by far the most successful and going through many editions. Her son Oscar Wilde, whom she supported and encouraged throughout his life, became one of the greatest literary critics, comic dramatists, and tragic victims of the 1890s, and always admired her greatly." (From her son who admired her greatly.) Enochian Structures As an orientation to Thelema Lodge's anniversary reading of Liber CDXVIII, "The Vision and the Voice," beginning in November, Michael Sanborn, an Enochian magician of many years' experience, will conduct a two-part intensive workshop exploring the structures of the Enochian Watchtowers within the Thelemic tradition, on Tuesday evenings 6th and 13th October, beginning at 8:00. Part I will provide an introduction to the basic angelic hierarchy of the Elemental Tablets, while Part II will touch upon a few of the many coordinate systems used to express the richness of the magical dimensions uncovered by the Elizabethan magus John Dee and his scryer, Edward Kelly. Finnegan at the Frederick On the theory that the next best thing to doing it must be sitting around with a Guinness all afternoon punning about it, a growing group of Re-Joyce- ing reiteraters have been assembling monthly for a complete pronunciation through "Finnegans Wake," a Thelema Lodge "work in progress." We hold our readings in Eric's penthouse in the Frederick Apartments, usually on the third Sunday afternoon of the month; this time it's on 25th October at 4:18 (due to the lesser feast of 777 at the lodge the week before). Call Eric ahead at (510) 428-0870 for directions, or to find our place in the book in order to look ahead at the pages we'll face. ************************************************************************* Crowley Classics The Beast Takes a Ticket Part Two: Aleister Crowley at the Theater The tradition of lurid melodrama at the Theatre du Grand Guignol, an infamous salon in late nineteenth century Paris, became synonymous with the dramatic presentation of violence, gore, torture, and perversion. In the tradition of Edgar Allan Poe, short plays and tableaux were presented to depict famous murders and outrages, with trick staging and a suggestive prurience intended to shock and thrill the jaded Parisian bourgeoisie. The extreme stylized violence and the casual immorality came from a vulgar French tradition after which this theatrical style was named, the Guignol "theatre" of hand-puppets, which was popular in provincial France, and was the direct precursor to the animated cartoons of our own century. This piece was published at the end of a volume of Crowley's comic poetry, "In Residence: the Don's Guide to Cambridge" (Cambridge, Elijah Johnson, 1904). Au Theatre du Grand Guignol Le System du Docteur Goudron et du Professeur Plume<> What this system really implies. Poe! Poe by the gift of the Lord! Poe in his tragedy, Black melodrama, Horrid, overwhelming, Nerve-shattering maniacal effort Dictated by morphia, Poe The American poet Translated by Baudelaire, Stephen Mallarme And other people Of singular and perhaps Unique talent (Now joined by Andre de Lordes) Is a splendid success At the quaint little theatre Of Montmartre. Speed! -- I mean Poe! "(Unhappily our contributor returned alive from watching the start of the Paris-Madrid race. He had provided himself with a copy of Mr Henley's "Imperishable Poem," and the meter, in which there is but one rule, viz. "anything scans," seems to have run away with him. Would the motor had done as the meter! He will be printed as prose." -- [1904] Ed.) Filled with anticipations of the most blood-curdling order, we sought the breezy heights of Montmartre. The Sacre Coeur, looking more than ever like a compromise between an Indian mosque and a Buzsard cake, towered above us in the frosty twilight. It is, however, invisible from the theatre itself, so that we were able to give our undivided attention to the system of Doctor Goudron and Professor Plume, and it is our interpretation alone which has any real value. It will be necessary first to call the attention of the reader to our own system, without some account of which he may find himself embarrassed, even bewildered. Mr George Macdoanld in his masterpiece of Haggardized Rabbinical tradition, "Lilith" (Off, Lilith!),<> has broken the wind of the poor phrase to this effect: "To grow and not to grow; to grow larger and to grow smaller at one and the same time; yea, even to grow by the simple process of not growing." In these unpretending and innocent words lies hid (for the eye of the wise to discover) the germ of the most stupendous and far-reaching system of philosophy that has ever been presented to the astounded consciousness of mortal men. Quickly overrunning the civilized world, it has penetrated (auspice Teucro) into the very remotest steppes of Central Asia, the wildest savannahs of the American prairie, where dog and oyster burble in plethoric harmony among the verdant shoots of cactus and coyote, where the giant Appomattox rolls in sulky majesty to the red bays of the Pacific. The Society formed to exploit this unheard-of invention is, naturally, of a most secret nature: perhaps I am revealing too much when I say that members are permitted to inscribe after their names the letters L.A.L. By the "New Method," therefore, let us continue our interesting studies of the system of Doctor Goudron and Professor Plume. "Laure," the first of three curtain (and hair) raisers, is a charming little drama. An ingenue comes by accident into possession of a letter compromising her mother. Discovered by her father, she saves her mother by accusing herself. The mother, secure once more, bullies and ill-treats the heroic child, so that the curtain falls on her despairing shriek of "Miserable!" Here then is truth! Not in a well, as lewd fellows have impotently pretended: but here, here in the stage of the Grand Guignol. It was just what happens every time, when anyone is fool enough to sacrifice themselves. It was magnificent; it was war! Curtain-lifter No. 2 was a still wittier scene, yet the element of improbability<> damped, not indeed the enthusiasm of the mob, but our own more sober and judicious pleasure. You ask therefore in vain for detail. "La Mineure" (No. 3) was, on the other hand, even more life-like than No. 1. A witness retained by justice to identify a criminal discovers him by chance in the person of the President of the Court himself. She is hauled to the deepest dungeons of Saint Lazare, and everything thus ends happily. For one moment the nerves of the spectator are braced up to meet the sword of Damocles -- and then, with a single blow, the Juge d'Instruction subtly and delicately strikes in, and we can breathe again. The Docteur Goudron was now to appear, and it was a spectacle saddening to the serious philosopher to observe everybody pretending, often most elaborately, that they had read Poe's story on which the play was based. Alas! that we should have been among them! Yet so it was. Many years have elapsed since our feet trod civilized MacAdam; many years since we spent hour after happy hour poring over our Poes. Surprising? Ay, but true. Yet some dimmest recollection of Dr Tarr and Professor Feather does hurtle heavenward to us across the mist-kissed abyss of memory: so much, no more. The actor who represented Doctor Goudron -- his name is worthy to be graven on tablets of iron: it is consequently not to be printed here. His self- restraint, his command of expression, his elocution were alike wonderful. Booth, Irving, could not have done it better: it could have barely been equaled even by Wilson Barrett in his prime. Horror holds one from the outset: but when from words we go to deeds, the formulation of the Logos in the plastic, alas! the element of music-hall supervenes -- O Catulle Mendes! didst thou say, forced like Galileo to thy knees by an iniquitous tribunal; Personne ne croit a ces cadavres!"? Yet we do so. The director's murder is done magnificently; better then Macbeth, better VLADIMIR SVAREFF, P.L.A.L. Our other item is an early dramatic sketch by Crowley, unpublished until it circulated during the 1970s in the early journals of Thelemic studies from "a typescript attributed to Aleister Crowley in the University of Texas collection." This comically sinister stage piece is found on five sheets of secretarial typescript among the J. F. C. Fuller papers in the Humanities Research Center at Austin. The attribution to "Aleister Crowley" has been penciled in, possibly by the author himself. The piece is a sort of theatrical pantomime; a dumb-show or silent dramatic skit, with the succession of emotional responses to be displayed by the leading lady blatantly indicated in each scene by the typist's underscoring (here rendered in italic type). Reminiscent of an early silent film scenario, the directions seem to indicate that it was conceived instead for a small stage, perhaps very much on the order of the Grand Guignol. It might almost be the outline for a cheap Roger Corman horror film from the 1950s, or a sleazy Wes Craven shocker from the 1980s. The editors thank Frater H. B. at O.T.O. International for assistance with this text from the archives of the Order. The Opium Dream by Aleister Crowley Never mind the excuses for the presentation. The Story A girl is dragged on to the stage, "half unwillingly," by a page. We understand that she is the captive in one set of circumstances or another, of a Chinese Bonze. "She expresses abandonment." than the Cenci; better than the Mother's Tragedy.<> No! this praise is too fulsome, too indiscriminate; but any way, better than the other two. He groans like laureled Martial in Burns's poem; yet his assassin does not tickle the ears of the groundlings with a coarse "Creve, non de D---- !" but in supreme self-mastery, the iron control of a lunatic whose sanity is at stake, enters stern and silent, his eyes glittering with fiendish joy -- Baviere, thy poster is superb! -- and develops with calm and scientific precision his system to the raving crowd of madmen and madwomen. Per Gynt! ay! but Peer Gynt with a tang! Peer Gynt vital, real, terrible. What is the system? That is fine; but remember, my friends, that our own system comes first! Charity begins at home and ends in the workhouse: so the new method must absorb our space -- ay! and infinite space! -- to the exclusion of our unworthy imitators, Doctor Goudron and Professor Plume. To Montmartre then, reader! to the Grand Guignol! To the Madhouse, ha, ha, ha! Shudder, shiver, shake, shriek, do everything that begins with sh, except hush -- and that is Irish, after all. Of one thing only do I warn you: from start to finish there is not a word or a gesture that could shock the most innocent maiden, or bring a gleam to the eye of the least hardened roue, or the most expert member of the Vigilance Society. This, in a French theatre, is as rare as it is delightful;<> and though it is conditioned, like all phenomena, by space, time, and causality, it is none the less refreshing.<