College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

All:

Thou hast no right but to do thy Will.

@Jim Eshelman said

"I've been advised (but haven't verified it myself) that Crowley consulted St. Basil's liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church. (That is, the one used at St. Basil's in Moscow, not one of the many allegedly written by St. Basil.)"

Huh -- that's an interesting variation! What I've seen quoted in various places is a letter from WB Crow to AC, in which he says that Crowley wrote the Gnostic Mass "under the influence of the Liturgy of St. Basil of the Russian Church" -- ie, evidently "one of the many allegedly written by St. Basil". But Crow could easily have very slightly misunderstood something that AC told him ... do you believe that your source has independent and if so more reliable information on this?

I did not, IAC, find the Damned Phrase in any of the "St Basil's liturgies" that I consulted, and this version of the story would partly explain why -- tho' it would still leave my original question open.

Either version of the story would have it that AC was in some sense inspired by a performance of an Orthodox Mass, which he would've had the opportunity to do when he was touring in Russia with the "Ragged Ragtime Girls" -- which was the period when he composed the Anthem for "the Ship" which "seemed to [him] worthy to be introduced as the anthem into the Ritual of the Gnostic Catholic Church which, later in the year, [he] prepared for the use of the OTO, the central ceremony of its public and private celebration, corresponding to the Mass of the Roman Catholic Church" per Chapter 73 of . One of the things that supports this tradition is that the Orthodox Mass has a "Lance," which would have struck AC and is not used in the Roman heresy, altho' this "Lance" is really just a small knife mostly used to cut the Host.

OTOH, it seems that while he may have been inspired by an Orthodox Mass, AC largely based the actual structure and wording of the Gnostic Mass on the Tridentine Mass -- ie, the Roman heresy's pre-Vatican II liturgy. The parallels are very close (much closer than anything I've seen in Orthodox liturgy), in particular the "Minor Elevation" with the 5 Crosses made wth the Host on the Graal. And we do know that AC did study the Canon of the Roman Mass: in Chapter XX of he writes, "With regard to the preparations for such Sacraments, the Catholic Church has maintained well enough the traditions of the true Gnostic Church in whose keeping the secrets are" -- to which he appended the note, "Study, in the Roman Missal, the Canon of the Mass, and the chapter of 'defects.'"

Before studying the Tridentine Mass, I made myself a little crazy trying to figure out how AC could have derived Liber XV from any of the "St Basil's Liturgies" that I'd seen; the idea that he had seen such a Mass but was working from a more readily-available text of the Tridentine Mass seems the most reasonable conclusion.

Love is the law, love under will.

All:

Thou hast no right but to do thy Will.

I've attended and/or been an officer in the Gnostic Mass at various OTO bodies. The first several such bodies -- Victorious City Lodge (where the Lodge Master and Mistress are, I presume, well known to Jim an d other TOT leadership), teh now- defunct (alas) Prometheus and Nepthys Lodges, and a body in the Pacific Northwest -- always banished before performing the Mass, which strikes me as just good magickal common sense, in general and especially at an Eucharistic ritual: the Elements are to be consecrated and then consumed; there are a lot of folks coming into Temple with unknown levels of potentially-disruptive psychological and "astral" crap floating around them; and the Priestess and Priest are about to go into some pretty high states if all goes well, and really oughta have a nice clean space within which to work.

At my present local body, and also at Tahuti Lodge in NY, this is frowned upon for a variety of reasons, none of which I find compelling; one of them is that this isn't "traditional." Well, it ws sure "traditional" at VC and the other bodies in question ...

I'm wondering if Jim (or other folks who had contact with Phylis and/or Jane Wolf) has any info on whether banishings were performed before Mass at the original Agape Lodge in AC's day; whether there is any reason to think that AC had a specific opinion in the matter; and whether it is practiced today within TOT, which as I understand it does celebrate the Mass.

I'm also wondering, peripherally, about the role that Mass plays within TOT.

Thanks!

Love is the law, love under will.

All:

Thou hast no right but to do thy Will.

At the opening of the Star Ruby, the magician cries, "ΑΠΟ ΠΑΝΤΟΣ ΚΑΚΟΔΑΙΜΟΝΟΣ!" : "Away, every evil daimon!" This is often said to be derived from the Greek Orthodox liturgy. I've been unable to find a primary citation/reference for this: everyone making the claim is clearly from within the Thelemic or Crowley-derived community (including eg. heavy metal bands), rather than from within Orthodoxy. It seems to be repeated entirely on a secondary basis, on people dependent on some unknown original inside of our circles.

Can anyone point to an actual usage within the Orthodox liturgy?

Also, a commentary on the Star Ruby by EAOA claims that the grammatical construction of "ΑΠΟ" implies not just "away," but "away and behind:"

@EAOA said

This line * ... parallel to the Biblical one where on the mountaintop Satan tempts Jesus, and the response is "Get thee behind me, Satan." {This is how it's used in Luke 4:8, in response to the Adversary's offer that "If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine"; but interestingly, the earliest use is in Mark 8:33 (and used by Matthew 16:23), where Jesus is speaking to Peter, giving him hell (!) for rejecting Jesus' stated destiny/mission to fulfil the sacrificial formula of that Aeon -F93}. The line itself is a prepositional phrase with an understood verb. The word Apo implies motion behind, and takes the genitive case of that which is to be put behind, i.e. pantoc kakodaimonoc. Literally translated, it means "of every evil daemon". With an implied verb "go" or "get", the line means "Get behind me every evil daemon. ... The meaning of the line is emphasized by the action of sweeping the hand backward ...

Can anyone confirm this? Is this perhaps even the allusion in the (putative) use in the Orthodox liturgy? Yet in Mark, the Greek for "behind me" is in fact "hupago opiso mou" -- just as is used for the Teletarchai in the Ruby .

Thanks to anyone with insight!

Love is the law, love under will.

All:

Thou hast no right but to do thy Will.

I've seen much speculation about the meaning of the Three Points, much of it clearly romantic balderdash; one hears, among other things, that they represent the Supernals, or the Mysteries of Osiris, Isis, and Serapis which Masonry is supposed to encapsulate, or as a lost symbol of the Tetragrammaton (derived from the writing thereof in triangular "disappearing" form). (Of course, any individual or organization using the Points may well have had them in mind in doing so (eg, AC may have thought of the Supernals in using tnem in "A.·.A.·." which (rumor says) refers to the Supernals in one sense (tho' David Allen Hulse claims otherwise); I'm just saying that such connections are unlikely to explain the origins of the convention).

Sources with some claim to credibility as histirians say that it is a relatively late convention originating with the Grand Orient de France and later adopted by the Scottish Rite and (for a time) by some American Lodges, tho' it's largely fallen out of fashion; if this is so, then the speculation/information that the points represent the three principal initiating officers in French Lodges, or "Liberté - Egalité - Fraternité," may be correct.

"The three dots (or three points) were formerly fashionable in Masonic writing instead of the usual periods after initials. The practice was apparently started in France by the non-recognized Grand Orient of France in 1774 and Masons were sometimes called 'Three Point Brothers'. The usage became popular in the US and is seen today in some Scottish Rite documents. Any significance they had two hundred years ago is now long lost.
[www.masonicinfo.com/explain.htm:2jv5i41e]](http://www.masonicinfo.com/explain.htm:2jv5i41e) "

"Three points in a triangular form (.·.) are placed after letters in a Masonic document to indicate that such letters are the initials of a Masonic title or of a technical word in Freemasonry, as G.·.M.·. for Grand Master, or G.·. L.·. for Grand Lodge. It is not a symbol, but simply a mark of abbreviation. The attempt, therefore, to trace it to the Hebrew three yods, a Cabalistic sign of the Tetragrammaton, or any other ancient symbol, is futile ... [It] is probable that the idea was suggested by the sacred character of the number three as a Masonic number, and these tree dots might refer to the position of the three officers in a French Lodge. Ragon says (Orthodoxie Maçonnique, page 71) that the mark was first used by the Grand Orient of France in a circular issued August 12, 1774, in which we read "G.·.L.·. de France." A common expression of anti-Masonic writers in France when referring to the Brethren of the Craft is Fréres Trois Points, Three Point Brothers, a term cultivated in their mischief survives in honor because reminding the brotherhood of cherished association and symbols. The abbreviation is now constantly used in Freneh documents, and, although not accepted by the English Freemasons, has been very generally adopted in other countries. In the United States, the use of this abbreviation is gradually extending.
-Mackey's Encyclopedia of Masonry"

" The three dots (.·.) ... were originally intended to represent "Masonic Honor Points". In Masonry, a freemason who has received the first three craft degrees of initiation may put these three dots after his name. Organizations made up of Craft initiated Masons traditionally place these same three dots after the letters of abbreviation of their organization names, e.g. Golden Dawn: G.·.D.·. instead of G.D. The practice is not strictly observed anymore in mystical organizations, but is still used in the original way by regular Masons. Now days, the three dots are often used indiscriminately to represent "mystical", "once connected to masonry", "the Christian divine trinity" and almost anything else. Some organizations, like O.T.O., do not use the three dot triangle in abbreviations of their names even though they are derived from Masonry. [Also note the usage, "Salutation on all points of the Triangle," apparently going back to John Yarker, is found in various OTO documents -F93]. The practice is often not followed when an abbreviation consists of exactly three letters, since three dots or periods are already in place."
-[www.billheidrick.com/tlc1993/tlc0693.htm:2jv5i41e]](http://www.billheidrick.com/tlc1993/tlc0693.htm:2jv5i41e) "

Love is the law, love under will.

All:

Thou hast no right but to do thy Will.

@Jim Eshelman said

" The Golden Dawn had provisions the magically aligning the astral coordinates of a temple with East even if the physical temple were not so oriented. The spell for doing this was called the Orienting Prayer ... sometimes called The Oration ... it's at the end of the 0=0 chapter *:

"Creator of the Universe, Lord of the Visible World, who has by Thy Supreme Will set limits to its magnitude and conferred special attributes on its boundaries, we invoke Thee to grant that whatever hidden and mystic virtue doth reside in the radiant East - the Dayspring of Light - the origin of Life - may in answer to this our prayer be this day conferred upon the Throne of the Hierophant of this Temple, who is the emblem of the Dawning of this Golden Light which shall illuminate the Path of the Unknown and shall guide us at length to the attainment of the Quintessence, the Stone of the Wise, True Wisdom, and Perfect Happiness."
"

Jim, thanks so much! If I can indulge your patience as an inveterate buff on the historical details: what's your source on the info that "it persisted in the A&O"? Is this from BOTA tradition, or ...?

And, again, if you or anyone else has any further ideas on magically realigning the orientation of a Temple, I'd be eager to hear of them

Thanks!

Love is the law, love under will.

All:

Thou hast no right but to do thy Will.

@Jim Eshelman said

"The Golden Dawn had provisions the magically aligning the astral coordinates of a temple with East even if the physical temple were not so oriented. The spell for doing this was called the Orienting Prayer. It survives in some contexts in a piece sometimes called The Oration. In the G.D. it was only used if the physical temple wasn't pointed east."

Jim, is this in print anywhere? I can't findit in the index to the LLewellyn edition of The Golden Dawn, and of course there is no proper index to The Complete GD (tho' some of the editions at least had an integrated table of contents). If not, could you possibly reproduce it here, or refer me to an online source if there is one?

I'm especially interested in this right now as I'll be moving in a month or so into a place with a Temple space which would be absolutely perfect, if it weren't for a wall that we're knocking down and the fact that it's oriented North-to-South ...

I want to do a bunch of work using my Stele reproduction, reciting and enacting the various verses that might be interpreted as making it one's "Magical East," but I would like to do more to ritually reorient the space as a whole. An established GD method would be of great interest.

(If you (Jim) or anyone else has any further ideas on the general subject, I'd be interested to hear them, too!).

Thanks!

Love is the law, love under will.

All:

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

@Redd Fezz said

"How does one make a Holy Hexagram in the East, West, North and South for instance, with a Unicursal Hexagram?"

First, irrespective of its use in the Star Sapphire, how do you (Jim) believe that the Unicursal Hexagram in its role as the 'Hexagram of the Beast' should be traced? One usually sees it being drawn from the top point, going clockwise; the "Blue Brick" edition of give this in the main text, but the editorial footnotes (note 336, pp 773-4) say that AC taught a variant in the '40s, starting in the upper-left corner and proceeding clockwise.

Part of my difficulty with this, aside from any 'authoritative' designation, is that I was first introduced to the Unicursal Hexagram in Regardie's [www.amazon.com/gp/product/1904658105/103-5498360-5739858:2smuu93n]](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1904658105/103-5498360-5739858:2smuu93n) (a great book, BTW, IMO), which I'm delighted to see finally back in print), where it appears not as the "Hexagram of the Beast" but as a convenient alternative to planetary hexagrams. As a result, I've alwas found its use as the Hexagram of teh Beast problematic, because any version will trip over these attributions. In Regardie's schema, the first corresponds to Banishing Saturn, which would seem weak even for BABALON and inappropriate for the Beast (as ChAOS/Chokmah); the seconsis Banishing Mars, which is even further off the mark. Any comment on these attributions?

@Jim Eshelman said

""The Unicursal Hexagram, or 'Hexagram of the Beast,' is not used in this ritual ... Even a simple inspection of the nature of the ritual shows that at each quarter two principles – two elements – are so combined that their alchemical glyphs form the classic two-triangle Earth hexagram. In the East these are Father and Mother, Fire and Water; in the South, Mother and Son, Water and Air; and so forth." In other words, the Earth hexagram is formed in the East by the intersection of the Fire and Water hexagrams, in the South by the intersection of the Water and Air hexagrams, in the West by the joining of the Air and Earth hexagrams, and in the North by the joining of the Earth and Fire hexagrams - in each close looking exactly like the others indistinguishably."

You've lost me, here: I agree that the elements should be as you list them based on the Formula of Tetragrammaton, and I take it that by "their alchemical glyphs" you mean these -- yes? In that case, simply overlapping them does form a classic "Star of David"-type hexagram, which is the same geometric figure as the GD Earth Hexagram, but it still seems problematic to "reduce" these specific syzygies to the same one used for Elemental Earth -- esp as these, unlike Regardie's self-created (AFAIK) planetary attributions to the Unicursal Hexagram, have the imprimatur of the GD and (almost) the Key of Solomon. Do you trace then the same way as the GD Earth Hexagram? Doesn't that seem problematic to you?

@Jim Eshelman said

"With this is a footnote: "An A.'.A.'. Adept in our acquaintance ... indicated that, in principle and in theory, he entirely concurs with this statement ... Nonetheless, when he performed it as part of his Adeptus Minor work, the hexagrams (after a few weeks) transformed themselves unbidden into golden Unicursal Hexagrams with five-petalled roses at their centers.""

Intuitively, I really like the idea of using the Universal Hexagram for these, precisely because of the "Unus Deus" aspect of a single, unicursal figure, rather than the tracing of 2 separate Hexagrams (which latter does however accord nicely with its symbolism within the OTO context). I would just want a way to use it that wouldn't trip up on either the Beast or the Planetary attributions -- which is, of course, impossible. Do you (Jim) have any suggestions, or are you adamantly against tracing the Unicursals here? Can you explain your reasoning beyond what you've already done in your self-quotation? (And: anyone else with any solutions or insights?)

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@Redd Fezz said
"It being related to the LHR (from what I hear)"

Precisely. At least in form."

Yet you don't use the LHR Hexagrams ... which is what I've been doing, tho' this is also problematic because the Elements as given don't jibe with the Divine Parents invoked.

@Her said

"Was/is Crowley's use of [the Unicursal] hexagram consistent with the Golden Dawn's, i.e. the four elements combined with the Sun and Moon? "

What did you mean by the clause following "ie.", Heru?

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@Redd Fezz said
"And then there's the issue of banishing/invoking directions."

Nope. The Star Sapphire is only an invoking ritual, just as the Star Ruby is only a banishing ritual."

Very firmly agree. The symbolism of these Rituals only make sense in these contexts.

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@Redd Fezz said
"Also, what is the deal the the signs of LVX and NOX?"
The first thing to note (which gives us an "easy out" at the moment) is that [the use of the NOX signs] is optional. I recommend the L.V.X. signs unless something significant directs one otherwise."

Hm. While I don't have time just now for the essay involved, I also think that the Star Sapphire really makes much more sense with the NOX signs, esp if its performance follows on the heels of the Star Ruby. Symbolically, I read that one is prefiguring (for most of us lowly aspirants ) the passage across the Abyss in Ruby, "banishing" the Ego, which is the purpose of the NOX signs there, and then first affirming that point at the opening of Sapphire, and then (having reneweed the cycle of Creation as the Magus) by communicating the Sacrament "a star is cast forth in the Heavens to enlighten the Earth, so that he may possess a vehicle wherein he may communicate with mankind" ([www.thelema.org/aa/documents/one_star_in_sight/one_star_in_sight_3.html:2smuu93n]](http://www.thelema.org/aa/documents/one_star_in_sight/one_star_in_sight_3.html:2smuu93n)) -- thus the Signs given with the central ARARITAs and the final LVX signs. What's your reaction to this brief sketch?

@Jim Eshelman said

"N.O.X. * encoded in ... the superposition of a circle and cross … since each of the letters N, O, and X can be traced on this figure as well."

I knew this, but hadn't connected it with the use of the NOX sigil as the "Rosy Cross" in Sapphire (I'd been using the GD Rose Cross):

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@Star Sapphire said
"Let him then return to the Centre, and so to The Centre of All (making the Rosy Cross as he may know how) saying Ararita Ararita Ararita."

while facing East, you now trace in the air before you The Mark of the Beast (the symbol of N.O.X.)"

BRILLIANT. Thank you! The use of the NOX sigil for the Rosy Cross enhances all of this symbolism.

One thing, though: I would normally take the NOX sigil to be distinct, at least superficially, from the Mark of the Beast. The former I take to be the sign that TOT members wear as a pendant (a circle with an equal-armed cross tilted 45 degrees from the vertical -- ie, an "X" in an "O," with the "N" formed by the sections of the circumference between the 2 "X" bars on the left and right sides of the circle, and the central diagonal formed by the descending (left-to-right) arm of the "X" (jeez, I wish I could find one online!!), as seems to be indicated in The Vision and the Voice, Sixth Aethyr: "And there is writing in Greek above that. The word "nox" written in Greek, and a circle with a cross in the centre of it, a St. Andrew's cross". This is also given as the Sigil of Nox in a Blue Brick note on pg 782, from an unpublished AC note on the NOX signs. This is the figure you mention above.

The latter I take to be "Sun and Moon conjoined" symbol used most prominently in Liber OZ. Apparently, this is explicitly identified as such in Yorke’s TS of AC's notes on the “Preliminary Invocation” to the Goetia (ie, the "Bornless" ritual); moreover, according to the notes to Liber V in the Blue Brick (p. 575 -- said (in note 335, p. 773) to be transcribed from AC's own copy of Magick and also from one of the TS copies of the book), where Reguli says "Let him raise the Wand, trace the Mark f the Beast, and cry AIWAZ," AC indicated that "The Mark of the Beast is [this same figure], where Sol is Hadit, Luna is Nuit, and the Testes 666 and 156." The note on p 773 adds that AC also said this in a letter to Achad: "It consists of two circles, touching internally, with the centre of the smaller of the two marked as a point. This gives the Greek letters ST, a third form of 31. It gives teh Sun and Moon conjoined, and is also a foreshortened phallus."

Now of course, ultimately a Cross within a Circle is at one level interpreble as the equivalent of the Sun and Moon conjoined, but the two items would seem to be distinct symbols and I would think them best used thus. Do you agree, Jim, and if not would you share your reasoning?

@Jim Eshelman said

"and vibrate the formula veiled by the notariqon Ararita."

Hm. Do you actually mean that one should attempt to vibrate "Achad Rosh" etc? If so, I'd run out of breath . I've never heard of this reading; is this what you intend, & if so, why? The notariqon itself has an 'authoritative' history of use in talismanic magick and AFAIK was what was used in the GD -- and AC seemb here to be instructing the use of the single word.

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@Star Sapphire said
"(In this the Signs shall be those of Set Triumphant and of Baphomet. Also shall Set appear in the Circle. Let him drink of the Sacrament and let him communicate the same.)"

Then, still standing in the center of the circle, give the Sign of Set Triumphant, which is identical with the Sign of Apophis ... Third, assume the Sign of Baphomet, which is the same as the Sign of Mulier ... rendering yourself Spirit-Receptive. That is, having invoked the force by the previous gesture, you now position yourself to be its true receptacle."

Hm again! The Blue Brick footnotes suggest (note 351, pp 781-2):

@Blue Brick Footnotes said

"The sign Set Triumphant may be attributed to Mater Triumphans ... Set or Satrn is attrributed to Binah, to which Sephira Crowley attributes Mater Triumphans. See also "Liber 370," v. 7 Mater Triumphans]. Crowley's commentary to Liber Reguli discusses Set-Isis as the "Father-Mother," ... [and] stresses Horus as the incestuous child of Set and Isis; thus a pictorial representation of Horus suckled by his mother Isus may reasonably be described as Set Triumphant as well as Mater Triumphans [and also makes a great deal of symbolic sense in terms of both the OTO symbolism and my own mystical interpretation given above -Forever93].

... the Sign of Baphomet is somewhat less problematic, as Crowley clearly identifies Mulier as teh "attitude of Baphomet" in Liber V ["attitude" here in the original sense of "stance" or "posture" rather than its more metaphorical usual meaning today -Forever93]. Crowley identifies Mulier with Babalon in the last of the three descriptions of the signs quoted below
@Unpublished Paper said

"]
Signs of the Grades
Of the A.·.A.·.
1
2
3 As Asi with Babe
Babe of the AbyssAs Venus Pudica -- as Baphomet."
] ... The remaining problem is the attribution of this sign to the Babe of teh Abyss. Crowley's attribution ... clearly refers to two distinct signs, Puella and Mulier, both of which are attributed to this Grade ... Crowley was still working out the attributions in [the above-quoted] draft (even reversing their order at first). ... In a letter to [Achad] dated ... 1916 EV ..., almost certainly written after the descriptions given above, Crowley changed the attribution of the X, describing the signs as follows: NOX signs ... Babalon sign (Mulier) arms and legs spread" ... [AC] further identifies Babalon with Baphomet in The Book of Thoth, p. 67, remarking that Baphomet's "pictorial correspondence is most easily seen in the figures of Zeus Arrhenothelus and Babalon," a doctrine corroborated in the teachings of the OTO."

That looks pretty authoritative to me, I must say, and again fits with my own reading of both the OTO and the mystical symbolism of the ritual. Do you agree, or would you share your reasoning to stick with your existing schema?

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@Star Sapphire said
"Let him then repeat the signs of L.V.X. but not the signs of N.O.X.: for it is not he that shall arise in the Sign of Isis Rejoicing."

Standing in the center of the circle or place of working, perform the Analysis of the Key Word I.N.R.I., including the L.V.X. signs, exactly as taught in the Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram."
Heh. I've been tinkering with these for some time in an effort to "purge" the LVX signs of their Osirian Aeon symbolism in favor of a more universal one that also brings out the symbolism of the Ritual as I read it a bit better ... but that's a whole 'nother big 'ol post ...

Thanks for your insights, Jim (and anyone else!).

Love is the law, love under will.

All:

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

You may long since have gotten all of these sources on your own, but ...

@sasha said

"Does anyone have suggestions on the primary sources to read to understand the Thelemic "pantheon", including Nuit, Hadit, Ra Hoor Khuit, the beast, Babalon, and Pan."

You might try Thelemapedia, whose article summaries tend to be good and which often gives a lot of references back to primary sources, which you can follow up; the entry for BABALON is an especially good example of this, tho' it links but does not discuss Liber Cheth.

I would also recommend a detailed study of The Book of Revelations -- not just the section quoted in Thelemapedia -- especially a comparison between the Whore of Babylon and the Woman Clothed with the Son, and the Lamb and the Beast.

The entry for XAOS is weaker, but many of the primary refs for this deity within a Thelemic context are the same as for BABALON.

@sasha said

"I've obviously already read the Book of the Law. But besides that. I haven't yet started The Vision and the Voice, but I understand it provides info on Babalon and the Beast. True?"

Yes -- esp especially Aethyrs 15, 12, and 4-2. In the Synopsis and Comment on the Nature of the Aethyrs, it is said re: the 24th Aethyr that "Now appears his mate, the heavenly Venus, the Scarlet Woman, who by men is thought of as Babalon as he is thought of as Chaos."

The relationship between BABALON and the Scarlet Woman, and the Beast and XAOS and the Demon Crowley, are tricky points.

Love is the law, love under will.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@bethata418 said
"over the past month or 2-3 i have been focusing on the serpents in me! i will 1st give about 5 mins to began to "MEDITATING", or being in a meditative state, tehn i will focus on my muladhara chakra and then on the serpent(s) coiling up my spine. ... I have been getting some progress, or at least i believe i have been, in that i can feel what i think is the kundalini serpent coiling up & down my pine from muladhara to about my solar plexus. sometimes it feels as if there are 2 serpents like on the cadaeus coiling on my spine. so far they have not reached above my heart, though on some occasions i have felt the energy flow thru all 7 stations/chakras

basically i am asking for help? how can i advance? also the experiences i have had do they sound like the kundalini serpent movement??? also any suggestions on improving this??? "

For most people in most situations, we recommend not actively trying to do this, and also usually recommend no direct meditation on the chakras. The reasons for this are that (1) the same results can be obtained differently and (2) this direct "raising" attempt can be seriously harmful, at least in some cases."

I was (like, I expect, a lot of folks) surprised to read this! Aside from the fact that kundalini arousal is so widely practiced and advocated in Magick and even "New Age" circles, I have a copy of a great essay you wrote on the arousal of the cakkras by the OTO initiations, as well as one instructional article that was given to me with my Minerval package "informally," by one of your/Meral's A.·.A.·. students (who was also Master of the local Lodge) which I think may have your fingerprints on it, which instructs one on how to adapt certain existing, published Thelemic magical practices to enhance/consolidate this effect.

Jim, has your view on this changed (perhaps related to our previous discussion about weaknesses in the OTO system , or do you regard work on rousing kundalini as distinct from activation of the cakkras, or do you view it as dangerous outside of a structure like the OTO initiation series (or the rousal that you note usually happens during the A.·.A.·. Grade work/initiations), or ...?

@Jim Eshelman said

"
Actually, the major exception is "middle pillar ritual" sorts of practices where a balanced set of centers - not always corresponding to the chakras themselves and, as we teach them in Temple of Thelema, intentionally differentiated from the actual chakras but, in any case, where a coordinated pattern is used)."

On a somewhat tangential note: I first learned a color series for the Middle Pillar exercise with which I have become dissatisfied: it does not seem to have any internal coherence. The original instructions from Felkin, such as we have them via Regardie, don't specify a color scheme, and looking into it recently I have found a wide range of recommendations, most of them using the King and/or Queen scale for the Sephiroth in question. Do you have a preference or recommendation on this point?

Thanks!

Love is the law, love under will.

All:

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@Forever93 said
"
Jim said that the often-dysfunctional, fratricidal politics (my words, not his!) of OTO"

Whew, thanks for clarifying that these weren't my words! For the record, I neither said nor meant nothing of the kind."

Sure, and I definitely did not want to put words in your mouth. If this wasn't totally clear to all, let me rephrase. In the New York lecture, you (Jim) advanced the idea that the chief justification for secrecy in such orders was to separate off the specialized symbol systems which they employ, which helps to create a common system of magical working which would allow the initiates to better build a "group mind." This is a very interesting idea, on which you kinddly expanded here. But it struck me with irony at the time, because the history of many of the most important magickal Orders -- and OTO and the Golden Dawn spring immediately to mind, but one might equally cite the Theosophical Society, the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, or many others -- is rife with "often-dysfunctional, fratricidal politics" (again, my thought). So there is a seeming paradox here.

Now, you (Jim) have already given some insight on some of the problems inherent in the Golden Dawn system -- the details of which I've wanted to follow up but haven't yet found the time. I think that it's fair comment that OTO has also had similar problems, especially amongst the various claimants to being the true OTO, but also in different ways even within the "Caliphate."

Now, when I asked about this, I understood you to be saying that it "could largely be chalked up to the fact that it doesn't properly train its initiates in fundamental techniques of Magick." If that wasn't what you meant, then I do apologise for mis-summarizing; but let me put it this way. You note that

@Jim Eshelman said

"any system that (1) has efficacious rituals that activate energy centers in the subtle body and (2) does not require its members to perform a regimen of ongoing work will produce certain phenomena. Those phenomena look like the out-of-control aspect of adolescence breaking out, where there are similar strong effusions of similar energies into the psyche and soma, often without any sense of organization or direction about it. ... [A] test of this would be to see if an organization of this sort actually produced a particularly high percentage of people passing through it who displayed the traits of out-of-control adolescence."

Now, let me stipulatively assert that (1) and (2) above are, IMO, rather clearly attributable to the OTO system as it stands, and that in my reading of the history of the Order (of which I am fundamenally a loyal son) and observations of recent happenings within it, too often the expected outcome of the test that you propose seems to be, accordingly, fulfilled in at least some individuals and bodies within OTO.

Now, you (Jim) rightly

@Jim Eshelman said

"suggest you {Forever93} consider the difference between a spiritual order and a fraternal order. Their goals, purposes, and methods are different. Crowley, in writing about the O.T.O., was quite explicit that "spiritual stature" was not at all a criteria for advancing - that someone of a very early degree might be way "beyond" everyone in the higher degrees."

Right: that is one half of import of my quotes from the letter from Crowley to Germer explaining the difference between the A.·.A.·. and OTO, quoted in "Culture vs. Cult" by Hymenaeus Beta in Equinox III.10 and from MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS, Chapter LXXI: Morality (2): what I'm suggesting is that this fact is closely related to (the product of) you (2) above.

@Jim Eshelman said

"I would agree ... that giving higher numbers and fancier titles without the person concurrently undergoing some ongoing personal healing process ... can lead to greater and easier ego inflation. "

I wasn't actually making that point, although I certainly agree that it would compound the problem!

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@Forever93 said
"Second, and subsequently, you'd have people receiving initiations from folks who, having not themselves integrated the processes initiated by the Degree initiation, are hardly in a position to pass it on in an effective and balanced way (the inherent virtus of the ritual itself notwithstanding)."

There are two types of degrees in magical, spiritual, quasi-magical, or quasi-spiritual orders. I call these "opening forward" and "opening backward" degrees."

Good terminology: initiations as things that actually initiate new psychospiritual processes in the initiate vs. those that are a seal on existing attainment.

@Jim Eshelman said

"Now, magical ... organizations that exist foremost for fraternal purposes have another differentiation from this. They are, at root, "opening forward" systems. Taking a degree unlocks a potential for something about that degree to develop in you. But they take it one step further: They don't actually (usually) require that anyone ever develop the seed. The pack of seeds is a gift, but you have to decide what to do with them yourself."

Again, agreed -- and that has its strengths within OTO as I've said, but I submit that it also creates the "one-two punch" that you carefully outlined, in the abstract, above. Now here you say,

@Jim Eshelman said

" One of the side-effects of this is that you don't have the problem you cited above of having people unqualified to give the degrees because of lack of personal development. In such systems, the degrees aren't conveyed by impaction or darshan. They have other means to seal them that don't require anything from an initiator besides the ability to deliver the scripted words and actions."

Hm. I agree that they aren't delivered by darshan (I'm not sure how you're using "impaction" here, though), but I do think that they are delivered by a combination of the inherent power of the design of the ritual on the human mind ("setting" in the Learyan sense), the state of the Candidate on entering ("set,") and the magickal power that is invested in them by the initiators ("dose," though also a key aspect of "setting").

ISTM that the latter aspect is quite important: I can definitely attest that both theatrical and magickal abilities of initiators delivering the same OTO initiation rituals can have quite a difference in their effects on the Candidate and even on spectators or fellow Officers. I would be surprised to learn that you really disagreed with this. And indeed, even if one were to believe (based on the quotes from AC given above) that AC never intended this to be a factor, I suggest that the belief and magical intent of both initiate and initiator will tend to cause it to be so, as magickal energy is invested -- well or poorly, in a clean or muddled way, with great or little force -- into doing just that.

For instance, it is public knowledge that the OTO Man of Earth Degrees are intended to open up or activate the major Cakkras. There are particular moments in these initiations which seem to many of us to be especially important in accomplishing this goal. A well-disciplined, spiritually-developed, and experienced initiator -- particularly one in whom the Cakkra in question is already open, charged up, and flowing freely -- will ISTM do a better job of accomplishing this in the Candidate than one who is not. Of course, it is then up to the Candidate to consolidate the initiation and tend to the implanted seed by the Sunlight of Will, the Waters of insight, the Air of hir intellect, and the Soil of labor via spiritual disciplines -- but that original delivery of momentum must not, IMO, be dismissed.

@Jim Eshelman said

"The approach of a given organization varies with that organizations style but also with its inherent purposes."

Right -- and this is where ISTM that we run into a structural problem. Even if we accept the narrow sociopolitical vision of OTO, ISTM that the "one-two" punch you describe above does happen within the Order, just as it would if similar rituals were put to use even in eg. a for-profit corporation or a charitable organization -- let alone if you believe that the Order either is de facto or ought to be an "opening forward" initiatory Order in the strong sense of the GD.

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@Forever93 said
"But it does run into a rather profound structural problem with OTO itself,"

Does it? Or does it only run into a problem with your view of what OTO is or should be?"

Both, ISTM, for the reasons given above.

@Jim Eshelman said

"I spent a lot of years trying to turn the O.T.O. into what I thought it was always intended to be. Along the way I think I did a great deal of good for the organization,"

FWIW and from my very limited viewpoint (having really never heart your name IIRC until a year or so ago), looking at the materials that I have that I did not know then but know now are your creations, and a very few secondhand anecdotes, you did a lot of good in the Order based on that vision.

@Jim Eshelman said

"at the end of the day I finally got that I had been building my own projection of what O.T.O. should be, and that this projection didn't match either the collective view of the membership taken as a whole, nor the view of the membership."

I think that today most members take the OTO to be an "opening forward" initiatory Order. this is not from a formal poll but from interactions with members in a fair number of quite different Bodies within and without USGL jurisdiction; see also this blog entry and comments on OTO as "Our Teaching Order". But again, I think that a good case could be made that the problem that I outline is not just in member expectations, but in the inherent effects of having these rituals in the Order, based on the idea that it is a case of the "one, two punch" that you outline above. And if so, then it would be a cause of the adolescent tantruming that you would predict from such a situation, and that I will put forward has been observed in OTO, even if the membership did not hold this view of the Order -- though the fact that they do, to the extent that they have any magickal talent at all, may tend to exacerbate both the positive and negative potentials in the Rituals.

@Jim Eshelman said

"It seems to me that you are either trying to warm your food in a refrigerator and cool it in an oven preheated to 180° C. - I'm not sure which - and then complaining about the stove or refrigerator."

I am wondering if perhaps I have an insulated box that is being put to both purposes, leading to significant food spoilage . I think that it can be made to work as a refrigerator with the right work put into it -- and I'm asking my friend the heating/cooling engineer (you) for some guidance on further developing the unit.

Breakig with the analogy, I am exploring the idea that OTO would work better both as a sociopolitical/Kinship Order, and as a spiritual one, if its Degree structure were better developed as a (strong-sense) "opening" initiatory process.

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@Forever93 said
"Fundamentally, then, OTO was never intended to be "a teaching Order" in the magical and mystical disciplines"

BTW, I don't agree with that. It isn't consistent with general plans by Reuss or for particular statements by Crowley in Blue Equinox source papers. I think it was part of the design, but a part that never got developed. "

So, what would your ideas be about developing that part? I'm not just trying to be a pest here . Despite my whining here, I love the Order in many ways; I want it to work better.

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@Forever93 said
"{OTO} was intended to be a social and pseudo-political Order: a sort of society-within-a-society within which the structures of the "aristocratic communism" that AC envisioned as the ideal sociological manifestation of Thelema could develop."

Yes, Crowley said as much quite plainly in many places. That's the vision, people's projections notwithstanding."

I am in part exploring the possibility that people's projections can either become magickal manifestations or lower, Yetziratic shells.

@Jim Eshelman said

"You lay out a keen certainty of what O.T.O., then complain that it isn't something else."

Not quite, I don't think: I lay out what I understand AC's original vision of OTO to have been, and suggest that there both was originally, and is now, more to it; then I explore the possibility that this has created an internal contradiction that does have to be resolved in some way for the good of the Order and its membership (again, both as a sociopolitical and as an initiatory Order), and want some ideas on how this might best be resolved.

@heophiles said

"
@Forever93 said
"
I would, however, like to hear Jim's (and perhaps others') reflections on all of this, and in particular how OTO could be reformed to (a) resolve these inner (seeming) contradictions, (b) transform it into a "truer" initiatory Order --"

(a) Why does OTO need to be reformed just to resolve what you see as contradictions? Perhaps the contradictions will resolve themselves within you, as you meditate on them further.
(b) Why does OTO need to be reformed when it will always be up to you to transform yourself? You are the only initiator."

In the final sense, of course, I have to agree; however, in practical terms, if taken to its logical conclusion "on the ground," I'm afraid that this would leave us exactly nowhere on this particular subject, and eliminate the whole raison d'être of initiatory Orders generally. Sure, I must ultimately agree that samsara is nirvana if you look at it right -- but we aren't there yet and the work of spiritual discipline is necessary. If we were all Buddhas, we'd all be Buddhas ... but we aren't, in practice.

We come to these initiatory institutions for ... well ... initiation . Of course, the lightbulb has to want to be screwed in -- but the psychiatrist has a ladder for a reason ...

Love is the law, love under Will.

All:

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

In his lecture on the Mystery religions and modern initiatory Orders in New York, Jim advanced the idea that the chief justification for secrecy in such orders was to separate off the specialized symbol systems which they employ, which -- although arbitrary in themselves -- help to create a common system of magical working which would allow the initiates to better build a "group mind," building up their ability to move magical and initiatory force.

This comment struck me with irony, because just a little time before, Jim had given an (apparent) example of petty politics in a major initiatory Order. I asked Jim about the seeming paradox: magical Orders should create powerful unity of purpose in their members for the purposes of their magical/initiatory activity (and not more broadly: we are not creating "the Borg," I hope!), which should let magicians work together in harmony for the high purposes of the Order, and yet the record seems to show that petty politics have, if anything, been even more disruptive in magical Orders than in organizations clearly founded on simple self-interest.

I gave the particular examples, drawn out of the hat, of the Golden Dawn and the OTO (although I could have cited others). Jim said that the TOT had thus far been blessed with little such troubles, and gave brief sketches of what he thought were the fatal flaws in the particular Orders he cited. I would like to hear a more detailed explications of these ideas.

Jim said that the often-dysfunctional, fratricidal politics (my words, not his!) of OTO could largely be chalked up to the fact that it doesn't properly train its initiates in fundamental techniques of Magick. If I understand the thought correctly (which I have sometimes had myself in slightly different contexts), there would be a couple of major problems with this.

First, you wind up with people "all dressed up with nowhere to go:" given high-level initiations when they really haven't reached a level of development where they're ready to receive the new current of energy, because they haven't done the work to integrate the previous initiations, or just aren't sufficiently spiritually developed generally.

Second, and subsequently, you'd have people receiving initiations from folks who, having not themselves integrated the processes initiated by the Degree initiation, are hardly in a position to pass it on in an effective and balanced way (the inherent virtus of the ritual itself notwithstanding).

As I say, I have a lot of gut-level sympathy for this view. Part of me -- and a few years ago, it was all of me -- says that a person's state of spiritual development is, after all, entirely hir own affair: outside of "the world would be so much better if we had a few more Buddhas," it really is no one's business but one's own where one is spiritually, and whether one's inward life is a heaven or a hell is a quite separate issue from what one is doing in the outward world. But the issue of these folks being initiators, or administering the Sacraments in the Mass, complicates this matter a great deal -- as does the fallout in petty politics, which may indeed (it would seem) be exacerbated by badly-integrated magical energies. It would seem that (as you (Jim) say) to properly initiate or be initiate requires people to be doing the work of Magick and Yoga!

But it does run into a rather profound structural problem with OTO itself, and in particular with the OTO of today as opposed to in AC's day: that OTO was explicitly set up by Reuss, and passed on by AC, as an Order that would not be "initiatory" in the broad sense. The OTO's teachings and initiation rituals were designed entirely to gradually reveal to/elicit from a person the theological and magical secrets peculiar to OTO, not to develop people spiritually in the way that is eg A.·.A.·.'s remit. Jim, I'm sure you've seen all of the below, but let me quote them here. First is a letter from Crowley to Germer explaining the difference between the A.·.A.·. and OTO, quoted in "Culture vs. Cult" by Hymenaeus Beta in Equinox III.10:

The difference between the A.·.A.·. and the OTO is very clear and simple. The A.·.A.·. is a sempiternal institution, and entirely secret ... The Order is run on purely spiritual lines. The objective of membership is also entirely simple. The first objective is the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. The next objective ... is the crossing of the Abyss ... The OTO has nothing to do with this, except that The Book of the Law and the Word of the Aeon are essential principles of membership. In all other respects, it stands by itself as a body similar to Freemasonry, but involving acceptance of a social and economic system which is intended to put the world on its feet. There is also, of course, the secret of the IX* -- which is to say, the weapon which they may use to further these purposes.

More explicitly, in MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS, Chapter LXXI: Morality (2):

The OTO is a training of the Masonic type; there is no "astral" work in it at all, nor any Yoga. There is a certain amount of Qabalah, and that of great doctrinal value. But the really vital matter is the gradual progress towards disclosure of the Secret of the Ninth Degree. To use that secret to advantage involves mastery both of Yoga and of Magick; but neither is taught in the Order. Now it comes to be mentioned, this is really very strange. However, I didn't invent the system; I must suppose that those who did knew what they were about.

And when Sr. Meral came to visit us in Victorious City Lodge back in '93, she agreed with this assessment, taking it as another rationale for her work in COT/TOT: the need for an Outer Order for the preliminary work of A.·.A.·., or of A.·.A.·. on a lower octave (as it were).

Fundamentally, then, OTO was never intended to be "a teaching Order" in the magickal and mystical disciplines (as vs. eg. the A.·.A.·.) or as a way to bring people toward spiritual attainment. It was intended to be a social and pseudo-political Order: a sort of society-within-a-society within which the structures of the "artistocratic communism" that AC envisioned as the ideal sociological manifestation of Thelema could develop.

Further complicating this is the fact that, whatever its founders' vision or intent might have been, most of today's OTO initiates join it with the belief that it is exactly a magickal/initiatory Order. Almost all members, I think I can say without fear of contradiction, are in it with the belief that it will further their spiritual development, through taking the initiations, receiving the Sacraments in the Gnostic Mass, and the informal mystical and magical training that happens in the style of a jazz musician's club. Few are interested in the old sociopolitical vision AC held for OTO -- the so-called "Blue Equinox OTO" mourned by Keith418 and other critics of today's Order.

Moreover, the initiatory rituals certainly seem, to many people (myself included), to be themselves initiatory in the broader sense, designed to resonate with the inner world of the initiate and elicit the next stage in hir spiritual development in the candidate, and not "only" a way of gradually revealing the Secrets of OTO. Indeed, when he was a high-ranking OTO officer, Jim wrote various pieces on the esoteric interpretation of the rituals, focused largely on just these aspects. I also assume (Jim, feel free to correct me that I'm wrong) that he had a hand in writing the Study Guides that were circulated out of Baphomet Lodge (which he used to Master), which are pretty clearly designed in large part to consolidate and complete the spiritual processes that one might see in the rituals, and also to guide hir to at least experiment with some of the core techniques of Magick and Yoga.

As a further complication, I think that many people choose to join OTO and not A.·.A.·. precisely because they want to have a less structured spiritual path. A formal set of requirements to pass from Degree to Degree, as in A.·.A.·., might well make OTO an unacceptable vehicle for such folks, as would the requirement for some sort of Guru figure as an instructor and ultimate examiner. And one of the wonderful things that this lack of a formal curriculum does engender in the more serious folks within OTO is a wonderful and genuine eclecticism: not just making a hodge-podge of superficialities from multiple traditions, but of serious, practicing Tibetan Buddhist Thelemites, etc, who are not doing the LBRP because they are working so hard on their Ngakpa refuge/shielding disciplines.

Where am I going with all of this? I'm actually not quite sure . I would, however, like to hear Jim's (and perhaps others') reflections on all of this, and in particular how OTO could be reformed to (a) resolve these inner (seeming) contradictions, (b) transform it into a "truer" initiatory Order -- and if he thinks this is even possible or appropriate at this time.

Thanks!

Love is the law, love under Will.

All:

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

In Jim Eshelman's talk on the Mystery religions and modern initiatory Orders, he spoke about how the specialized symbol systems which they employ -- although arbitrary in themselves -- help to create a common system of magickal working which would allow the initiates to better build a "group mind," building up their ability to move magickal and initiatory force.

This comment struck me with irony, because just a little time before, Jim had given an (apparent) example of petty politics in a major initiatory Order. I asked Jim about the seeming paradox: Magickal Orders should create powerful unity of purpose in their members for the purposes of their magickal/initiatory activity (and not more broadly: we are not creating "the Borg," I hope!), which should let magicians work together in harmony for the high purposes of the Order, and yet the record seems to show that petty politics have, if anything, been even more disruptive in magickal Orders than in organizations clearly founded on simple self-interest.

I gave the particular examples, drawn out of the hat, of the Golden Dawn and the OTO (although I could have cited others). Jim said that the TOT had thus far been blessed with little such troubles, and gave brief sketches of what he thought were the fatal flaws in the particular Orders he cited. I would like to hear a more detailed explications of these ideas.

I will split this into two threads, then, so that issues related to GD can be discussed seperately from those related to OTO. Here, let me ask about the GD. GD magick is at the heart of most modern High Magickal practice, including the core rituals commonly used by Thelemic magicians and (per its webpages) the TOT initiatory rites:

The old grade ceremonies of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn have been recrafted to conform to Thelemic symbols and principles, but remain true to the original patterns called the "Cipher Manuscript Formulae." Nomenclature has, in places, been changed so as not to cause confusion with certain other terminology. A tremendous amount of residual sexism some overt, some exceedingly subtle, has been weeded out of the system.
helema.org/temple_of_thelema/index.html

Jim suggested that there were structural flaws in the GD that would tend to bring out petty elements in the membership. He also suggested that there was a danger when undeveloped people were expected, as in GD Temple work, to assume high God-forms: a person might well just take on, astrally, the lower Yetziratic shells of Egyptian Gods (a pantheon whose mythos -- when taken at face value rather than as allegories of magickal formulae -- portray some of the "worst family sqabbles in world religion" (as Jim amusingly put it)) instead of the high symbols of deep initiatory processes that they are.

I was especially struck by this because I had just recently been reviewing the GD material on the Vibratory Formulae. The documents are careful to caution about a problem very similar to the one Jim outlined:

In vibrating the Divine Names, the Operator should first of all rise as high as possible towards the idea of the Divine White Brilliance in KETHER - keeping the mind raised to the plane of the loftiest aspiration. Unless this is done, it is dangerous to vibrate only with the astral forces, because the vibration attracts a certain force to the operator, and the nature of the force attracted rests largely on the condition of mind in which the operator is.

• Flying Roll XII, "Telesmatic Images & Adonai", by By GH Fr. D.D.C.F. (Macgregor Mathers)

I know that a lot of people who have learned to Vibrate either from early, stripped-down books on High Magick, or Donald Michael Kraig's widely-used (and, I hasten to add, otherwise-excellent) basic self-training manual Modern Magick (which explicitly denies the need to go through the whole process involved in Vibration, reducing it to a purely vocal technique), or even (unfortunately) Liber O (which carefully outlines most of how to properly Vibrate, but (a) omits the idea of drawing the force in specifically from Kether, and (b) separates this off in a way that leads a lot of people to just not do it except as an isolated technique (ie, a lot of people have learned how to Vibrate, and have also learned eg. the LBRP, without understanding that they should use the technique of Vibration for the Divine Names in the LBRP!)).

So my questions to Jim are:

1. How can people working the GD system -- or any system involving techniques essentially identical with the assumption of God-forms -- avoid the problem that he outlines in assuming God-forms, either via prior training or via specific technical aspects of assuming them?

2. What structural flaws do you see in the original GD system as a whole, and how can people working with it avoid them?

3. Without violating the Temple's important veil of secrecy, how has the TOT avoided these problems in its use of a reformed GD system?

Thanks!

Love is the law, love under Will.

All:

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

In Jim Eshelman's talk on the Mystery religions and modern initiatory Orders, he discussed the reasons for secrecy. (In what follows, I should say in advance that I fully support the importance of secrecy in initiatory Orders, but for reasons other than the one outlined in the talk; I'm interested to more fully understand this particular insight). The main reason he gave was that this would create a specialized system of symbols, which -- although arbitrary in themselves -- would create a common system of magickal working which would allow the initiates to better build a "group mind," building up their ability to move magickal and initiatory force.

My question is, how does this support a need, or even a preference, for secrecy about those symbols? Would magicians not be able to form this same group mind with non-secret symbols? I'm thinking about the examples of the Golden Dawn system and of science. The GD system is now readily and openly available, and I don't see that this would limit the ability of post-Regardie magicians to work with those symbols either as individuals or in GD-based Temples to build up a "group mind" in working therewith. (I do not, again, say that it has not weakened the GD system of initiation in any way: I think that it's clear that part of the effect of an initiation is clearly weakened if one already knows what is coming (particularly if there are ordeals or challenges in the ritual), but this does not relate to this specific argument for secrecy).

By analogy with science: scientists of course need to develop a specialized vocabulary which is difficult for "non-initiates" to understand, because it would be too cumbersome to constantly have to say (eg) "the organelle in the cell that contains the genetic material" when one could just say "the nucleus," or for mathemeticians to spell out the operations that they want to use to manipulate numbers instead of using a series of (arbitrary, complex, and inherently meaningless) symbols. But certainly, scientists have no reason to keep these symbols secret in order to accomplish their aims of precise communication with their colleagues, leading to an expansion of knowledge.

Jim, can you further spell out your thinking here?

Love is the law, love under Will.

All (but mostly Jim Eshelman):

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Jim, in your excellent lecture on the Mysteries put on by the Aiwass Study Group, you gave an analysis of the symbolism of the "Winding Staircases" leading to the Middle Chamber of King Solomon's Temple in the Fellowcraft degree, where Masons are said to receive their "wages" (initiatiatory Light). I was jotting down notes furiously and unfortunately am not as good as I used to be about keeping my pen writing while my brain still takes in new info, so I did not catch exactly how you made the 3, 5, and 7 steps of teh Staircases correspond to the initiate's ascent of the Tree.

Would you mind going through this again? Indeed, if you have the tiem, perhaps you might consider summarizing again the entire symbolic interpretation (the Pillars, materials used to make same, the Wages' stated forms, etc), which I found quite enlightening.

Thank you for your insight!

Love is the law, love under Will.

-Michael