Frater 939
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It doesn't break any rules to ask a question. However, you won't get an answer from anyone connected with this site other than the following statement:
Since the death of Aleister Crowley in 1947 there have been no universal Chiefs of the A.'.A.'.. Karl Germer (S.'.H.'. Frater Saturnus, 8=3), was the senior living A.'.A.'. member at Crowley's death, and many turned to him for guidance; but he never took up the mantle of governance of the Order. After Germer's death, no single person emerged visibly as a central guiding figure.
Yet the Order itself has continued, according to its original plan whereby a member of sufficient Grade may admit others to the chain.
Various lineages have survived. Claims are periodically encountered that one individual or another is an authentic link to A.'.A.'.. Some of these claims are quite real; some are honest mistakes; and some are fraudulent. It is not our present purpose to play arbiter to these claims, to upraise one or knock down another. It is a universal truth of Initiation that each student, at each step along the way, gets the teacher he or she "deserves," based on the real maturity and needs of the soul; and that while sometimes spiritual growth is fostered by finding the BEST teacher, at other times it is best fostered by lessons of discrimination taught in the School of Hard Knocks.
In this matter we give but one sage piece of advice: "By their fruits shall ye know them!" The Works of the Adept, the fruits of his or her garden, are the signs of his or her attainment.
This is a new topic on an old thread, so I'm breaking it off into its own.
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If by their web sites shall ye know them then aathelema.org are one to be avoided. Surely in this day and age they must have contact with someone who can design a proper website?
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Firstly I wanted to ask what does the design of a website have to do with the quality of teaching? The AAThelema.org domain has been around since the middling 90s and been unchanged since. It presents all the necessary information required and a contact email. That is all that is necessary. To be even more fair compare it to outercol.org or ordoaa.org and you will see it is just as practical as the rest.
As to the comments on 939 posted... the longer comment was written by a former student who had had a falling out with 939 as the result of a misunderstanding. He had had a falling out with another A.'.A.'. instructor previously when he misunderstood a request for a copy of the table of contents of the Gems from the Equinox. He also had a major falling out with the OTO and Tahuti Lodge and the UR-OTO. His testimony in this matter is just as suspect as the testimony on the cult websites on the Society OTO & Marcelo Motta where the commenter addresses the practice of the magickal diary and ascribes ill motivations to Motta and yet this well known A.'.A.'. member requires the same from his own pupils. Sometimes things need to be taken with a grain of salt and that there are two sides of every story. I like both men addressed and consider both excellent scholars and fine Thelemites, but some things just make me scratch my head.
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Hey Rifraf, my comment on websites wasn't directed at your enquiry but to Nashimiron's post about the websites design.
About 939's admission policies, they followed Therion's practices of "refuse none" and that is a cardinal rule of the A.'.A.'., that anyone can be admitted within reason, of age & good report etc. applies to the A.'.A.'. as well as the OTO. It isn't a case of a "poor man's A.'.A.'." but simply that this branch of the Order has practiced what was mostly practiced by Crowley et. al. in that people were admitted directly to the Probationer status. The emphasis on the student period started around 1980 and Seckler was the only one practicing the Student period. Crowley used the student period with some but it wasn't universally applied even by him.
I've had stories of the A.'.A.'. told to me by people coming up in the 80s and about how hard the order was to join, how nobody would admit to being admitted and that it was forbidden to speak of being in the A.'.A.'. In reviewing the Oaths I found it funny, especially when I presented the oath from Gems and what it said and the way people danced around the oath to justify their stance.