College of Thelema: Thelemic Education

The Great Work course is the B.O.T.A. version of the earlier Hermetic Alchemy that Case wrote for the School of Ageless Wisdom. Content is pretty much identical though Case chose to be a bit more cryptic in the B.O.TA. course because he believed "he gave out the Alchemical instruction too easily" in the earlier course...

Kevin Townley's book is firmly in the Paul Case tradition and uses Case's directions of flow which he made up as far as I can tell as I have never seen them prior to Case's publication. Hulse's book leverages the interest created by Case in the subject but ignores his directions of flow and many other associations completely so cannot be considered as based on Case's Work. Some find Hulse's book an entertaining read and perhaps it is but either I am too dense to appreciate his contribution or it is exactly that, i.e. just an entertaining read with little or no esoteric value...

@Los said

"
@Legis said
"
@Los said
"You say that Secret Chiefs are seen through inspiration, but we know that inspiration happens through natural means and through imagination, which is rooted in the brain. Lots of people -- including people with entirely secular worldviews -- experience inspiration, all the time. Nothing about inspiration requires the existence of Secret Chiefs."

No, I didn't. Perhaps you misunderstood.

I said that the experience of the phenomena of Secret Chiefs is reported by those who have written incredibly beneficial and intelligent things, and I suggested that the quality and intelligence of their work lends credibility to their reports"

Well, then the point you were trying to make was even worse than I thought.

That someone has written "incredibly beneficial and intelligent things" tells us nothing about whether their spooky tales of contact with spacemen are true.

You might as well say that William Blake wrote incredibly poetry and claimed to have visions of Jesus and various dead people all the time, so therefore the incredible nature of his poetry suggests that there really is a Jesus and that spirits really do exist.

It's a non-sequitur. That someone writes well is unconnected to the veracity of claims they make.

"But the more interesting example you don't apparently know comes from Paul Foster Case:

"Shortly after Paul Case fully achieved his spiritual linkage with all
the required levels of this Mystery Training, one day the phone rang, and
much to his surprise the same voice which had been inwardly instructing him
in his researches for many years spoke to him on the phone. It was the
Master R. who had come personally to New York for the purpose of preparing
Paul Case to begin the next incarnation of the Qabalistic Way of Return.
Dr. Case (by then having earned his degree as a Doctor of Theology)
resigned from the Golden Dawn (which was being dissolved by the Masters),
and after three weeks of personal instruction with the Master R., Builders
of the Adytum was formed. Paul Case then retired from a successful and
lucrative career in music to devote his full time to the service of
humanity.

www.arcane-archive.org/tarot/paul-foster-case-1.php
"

"

Wow, I'm clearly in the wrong business. I should be selling swamp land in Florida or a bunch of magic beans because there's obviously no shortage of people who fall all over themselves to believe BS."

Actually there is absolutely nowhere ( private notebooks, letters, lessons, etc. ) I have found that Paul Case claims to have physically met a "Master R." He does claim in a couple of places that he met someone in N.Y. that communicated over a period of 2-3 weeks via "impactation" esoteric teachings that he has spent the rest of his life unfolding but he never alludes to this person being 'Master R.". In fact, the so-called "Advanced Communications" (1947) explicitly state that there has been no communication since the death of Michael Whitty (which occurred before the N.Y. meeting happened). I will reproduce the first communication at bottom of this post for your viewing. It is important to note that Case sincerely believed that a "Master R." was communicating to him, Ann, and Harriet on the Ouja board. Of course one could argue that "Master R." was only referring to the Oujia board communications of Whitty and Case in 1919 but the the rest of the "communication/s" do not allude to any such meeting ever occurring ( nor more importantly, does Case ever do so that I have been able to find ).

There are letters between Whitty and Case speculating who the "communicating entity" on the Ouija board was/is ( around 1919 ) but it is not until Case meets Harriet Case for the first time ( he married her twice ) when she was a secretary for Alice Baily that he begins to believe it is someone specifically. This was during the time Baily wrote 'Initiation: Human and Solar' which lists the 'Master of the Seventh Ray' as Master R. It was right around this time that Case began to associate an "Inner Voice" with the "Master R."

Unfortunately, Ann Davies and Harriet Case were a bit more drawn to the glamour side of things ( I often refer to Ann Davies' 'DSP' course as "Ann's miracle tales" ) than Paul Case and perpetuated some ideas that simply cannot be true. For example, there are copies of Atkinson's 'The Kabalion' published in 1907 with only Atkinson's name on it. It is not until 1911 or so that it appears with the authorship credited to 'The Three Initiates'. Ann and Harriet told multiple persons verbally that Michael Whitty was one of the Three Initiates that wrote this ( Case and Atkinson being the others ). This is impossible because Case actually describes when he first met Whitty and this date is around 1917 or 1918 which is almost a decade after this book was written ( Case actually worked as an editor for Atkinson around the time the book was originally authored and it is more likely Atkinson later decided to give Case unanimous credit for (extensively) editing the book. I have no idea who the 3rd Initiate might be but it could even be 'Hermes' as Case did not associate his "inner voice" with "Master R." until almost a decade after 'The Three Initiates' began to appear as the authorship ).

Unfortunately these and similar stories about the "Inner Voice" calling on a physical phone and the physical meeting in a N.Y. hotel with "Master R." cannot be trusted from these two sources. So if anyone finds a source where Case explicitly states he met "Master R." in person I would love to see it.

For the record, I do not believe (nor disbelieve) these communications were from "Master R." There only importance is to note that Paul Case sincerely believed it to be so. ( I personally find Case's lesson material to be far more inspirational and in general much more valuable than any of these "advanced communications"). Note that Gnoscente et Serviente was Whitty's motto in the A.O.

----------------------------------------------------- FIRST COMMUNICATION ---------------------------------------
Sunday, February 16, 1947
11:50 P.M.

In the Name of ADONAI shall all the nations be blessed!

We have waited long, Frater, for another to take up the work interrupted by the advancement to the Third Order of our Very Honored Frater G. et S. (Gnoscente et Serviente). You should have recognized [the initials].

(P.F.C. answered that he did.)

His passing into a higher field of action deprived us for a time, as you reckon time, of a balancing force for yours, Frater Perseverantia.

(Question: Is Ann the balancing force? Answer: Yes.)

It was for this that we began this communication with a phrase that should echo in your recollection.

Not a moment has passed since he sailed for California that we have not kept in mind the unfinished work, begun in the weekly communications of twenty-five years ago. The interval has seemed long to you, and has been packed with incident, but all this, from our point-of-view, has been just a brief interlude. Even then,
this new instrument was in incarnation, and had been brought within range of your auric emanation.

The Second Order work had a more important consequence than you then realized, or have even yet understood. It is tremendously potent in opening a channel for the outpouring of the astral light, and, from then on, you served as the communicating link between us and Ann. This accounts for the sense of familiarity you both felt
at your first meeting. In effect, you have been in communication all this time, although neither of you had any conscious knowledge of the other's identity.

By bodily inheritance Ann is in a direct line of Knowers of the Mysteries of the Reception. You have the same basic knowledge, but you do not enjoy the advantage of the unbroken physical chain.

G. et S., like yourself, had brought over former knowledge, but this instrument, though without conscious [memory? knowledge?] - apart from what she has learned from you - has really been under our instruction, and this has been projected into her finer vehicles through you.

(The hour was very late, and P. and A. were tired, so we stopped at this point.)

@Los said

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@Uni_Verse said
"There are "Secret Chiefs," various personages of wealth and power, pulling the strings of government -
Is it so far fetched to propose there are exceptionally spiritual beings effecting the evolution of mankind?"

Yes. As Kasper pointed out, the claim that there are some people with more pull than others in the government isn't in the same ballpark as the claim that there are spirits who flitter around unseen, sending "messages" to random weirdos.

"The idea of Secret Chiefs and Hidden Masters has been the foundation of various Orders [and traditions] going back thousands of years."

There have long been ideas of invisible magic men running the universe -- usually called "gods" -- but as far as I'm aware, the specific term "Secret Chiefs," especially as heads of so-called "magical orders," dates back to the eighteenth century.

If you have evidence of the term being used before then, I'd be interested to hear it."

The term Unknown Superior ( aka Secret Chief ) was certainly in use in the 1700s but you can find this idea much further back than that. This term referred to certain leaders of an Esoteric Order and did not carry the same meaning most people in the West attach to it post 1875 ( not post Crowley's birth but post Blavatsky's introduction of the revised concept into the Western Esoteric Tradition ).

Before Blavatsky brought in the concept of Ascended Masters guiding occult organizations, this term was used to refer to "Master Craftsman" that kept their identities secret even from many members of their own organization. A Master was a skilled Teacher of an esoteric craft. They were not viewed as "Ascended Masters' in the Eastern sense where everyone's guru is an Ascended Master of course but rather as human beings that have attained Mastery of the Tradition / System they are practicing. Their identities were only revealed to very Senior members of the Order and to the rest of the members they were Unknown Superiors.

We can see a continuation of this idea in the formation of the Golden Dawn where the identities of the Chiefs were kept secret from the Outer Order. Many modern groups must not be aware of this Tradition thus we see people signing their names publicly with their Chief roles they have given themselves, etc. So basically the identities of the Chiefs/Superiors of an Order were kept secret from lower grade members and the public hence the term 'Secret Chiefs'.

But these Orders always sought to connect to the Divine and have reported many examples of Spiritual Experience. But we all tend to interpret experience from a limited and culturally biased view. So a Christian may believe they were visited by the "Virgin Mary" or Christ; a Muslim, by the Archangel Gabriel; a scientist, an Alien from outer space, etc. The human mind tends to anthropomorphize Spiritual Experience effectively creating God in his or her own limited point of view. Crowley attempted to circumvent this as much as possible by calling the Experience "The Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel" but that has not seemed to stop many Thelemites from doing so

So that doesn't mean the Divine does not exist just because the modern notion of "Secret Chiefs" being Ascended Masters guiding humanity from the Inner planes may or may not be true. Bottom line is that the Divine can be Experienced, there are methods and practices designed to awaken such.

But there is an Abyss between Supernal and Human Consciousness and it makes little sense for Human Consciousness to attempt to rationalize or understand such intellectually, i.e. across the Abyss, we find only NEMO. All the reasoning in the world will never 'prove' Spiritual Experience. That doesn't mean we should not develop and insist upon reasoning where reasoning can add value and is a necessity; it simply means that the finite is incapable of grasping the infinite. And yes, just because someone believes they have been visited by Ra-Hoor-Kuit does not make it so nor is it necessarily Spiritual Experience. On the other hand, nor is it necessary to convince anyone else of your Spiritual Experience (and if you have such a desire it is better to explore your personality's motivation for doing so ).

Check out their five volume ( I believe now in 3 paperbacks ) Magical Philosophy - it is excellent. The "guide to" books I have seen do appear to be sort of flakey..

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Thanks. I always thought of Liber V as being a perfect example of what not to do in ritual And for a certain type of temperament this would release a great deal of energy by performing it...

Also interesting that Crowley continued to use the Pentagram ritual throughout his life even after creating Liber V.

Does anyone have any evidence of Crowley actually ever performing this ritual on a regular basis?
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Yes, in regards to elements of their teaching but Butler did not pass on the Group Ritual work to the S.O.L. , it is a correspondence course with a personal supervisor...

And as Dion Fortune wrote her own rituals I would not consider the S.I.L. ritual work Lineage to come from Mathers either but obviously much of the teaching does.

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I do believe lineage to be very important. The S.O.L still uses the lessons Butler wrote. I do agree that the people that make up an Order at the present time, particularly the leaders and the local group you associate with is very important in regards to the frequency you mention. But without lineage and the oral teaching and training that comes with it is a study group not an Order. I would note that every major contributor to the Western Mystery Tradition had Lineage...

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Sorry I should have asked why didn't Crowley assign it as a practice in the A .'. A .'.?

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Los do you find it interesting that Liber V is not assigned anywhere in the A.'. A .'. curriculum?

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@Freya said

"Thank you Tony for your thorough answer, it is very much appreciated. What I am struggling to understand is the different systems of initiations, as they all seem to be based on the Tree of Life, how can they be so radically different? Do you know where I can find out more about this?
Thanks"

Basically you have three levels and the Source of such, i.e. the Physical, the Astral, the Spiritual, and the Source of such, or if you wish, Assiah, Yetzirah, and Briah ( the Source of such which is Atziluth ). Spiritual Evolution progresses through each of these in turn. The Tree of Life is an additional model superimposed upon these so to speak so the Qabalists speak of a Tree of Life in each of the Qabalistic Worlds. But these are just models, either useful or not, depending on the specific application of such.

The difficulty I believe you are experiencing is that much of these ends up really being theoretical, i.e. I have met 2=9 G.D. persons that were functioning higher than some 2=9 A.'. A.'. persons I have met even though the A.'. A.'. system is obviously more rigorous in approach.

Another example is that sometimes people will compare the 3rd Degree of Blue Lodge Freemasonry with the 5=6 of G.D. and in the hands of a full trained Hierophant and team, the 5=6 will almost always be at a higher level than a group of Masons raising a brother to the third degree. But not always! A group of dedicated and capable Esoteric Freemasons can rock ( pun intended ) your world more than most groups calling themselves the Golden Dawn are capable of doing. This is further complicated that often in the same Order, various Temples and Lodges function at dramatically different levels.

So the quality of the your experience in any Order you join will depend more upon the people you are directly working with than if they call themselves G.D., S.I.L., or whatever system of attainment they are based upon. The A.'. A.'. is a bit different in this respect because it is not Group Work but the quality of your Superior is very important in this regard otherwise you might as well just grab a copy of the Equinox and Jim's M&MAA ( the defacto "users guide" to such ) and knock yourself out.

A grade only has merit within the Order that grants such. What really matters is what level you are functioning at and this seldom reflects the grade you hold in any Order. A solid Order with the right people can help you get there but at the end of the day you have to do it yourself.

If you are drawn to the S.O.L., their course is quite good. I just wouldn't worry too much theoretically how their 3rd degree compares with a 5=6 G.D. or 2=9 A.'. A.'. or whatever...

@Freya said

"Thank you! Now I found something online regarding this on their website

"Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, author, lecturer, and instructor, is a modern hierophant of the Western mystery tradition. As director of studies for the Servants of the Light (SOL), she heads a fraternity whose roots are firmly planted in the tradition of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (by way of Dion Fortune's group, the Society of the Inner Light)"

Wasn't Crowley part of the GD?

So the three degrees offered by SOL are more similar to GD initiations than the three offered by the Aurum Solis, correct?"

Crowley was a 5=6 in the G.D.

Regarding S.O.L., it is a little more complicated than that. First of all the rituals of Fortune's S.I.L. bear very little resemblance to the G.D. rituals ( she wrote her own rituals using 3 rituals rather than 7 and they have different "themes", etc. ). She was a member of both the A.O. and S.M. ( at different times ) and therefore the S.I.L. is "rooted" in the G.D. ( the S.I.L. was originally formed as an "outer court" for the A.O. until Mina Mathers kicked her out "because the appropriate symbols did not appear in her aura ) .

The S.O.L. enlisted David Goddard whom I don't believe has any lineage or connection to the G.D. whatsoever that I know about to create ritual groups. So now they have ritual groups but interesting enough you can join them without even being a member of the S.O.L.

I have the S.O.L. course and it is quite good ( Goddard published some of the core aspects of it in his 'Tower of Alchemy' if you would like to check it out ) but the relatively recent added ritual work they do has no connection to the Golden Dawn.

I suppose a 3rd degree S.O.L. could be considered equivalent to a 5=6 G.D. but they really are two completely different systems...

The Ibis Fraternity. Never saw their rituals but I suspect they were likely closer to Dion Fortune's 'Society of the Inner Light' than any of the above. Fortune has three degrees, the 3rd being relatively equivalent to G.D. 5=6.

The rituals themselves bear very little similarity to the G.D. rituals...

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I don't believe a comparison of the G.D. and A.'. A.'. that directly aligns grades is meaningful beyond very broad terms.

This is further complicated by the fact that the G.D. and A.'. A.'. use two different composite models of the Tree of Life. The A.'. A.'. uses the middle sepheria as "gates" to each Qabalistic World and the G.D. uses a composite model with Assiah as Mulkuth, Yesod through Chesed as Yetzieah, Binah and Chokmah as Briah, and Kether as Atzilith. So by design, a 5=6 (within) A.'. A.'. would be comparable to a 7=4 Major ( Da'ath ) or 8=3 in the G.D. system. I hate to suggest 8=3 in the G.D. system as I don't believe Mathers or Westcott would have considered Order grades of 8=3 or above. There are various Traditions that consider Da'ath ( of such a Composite model of the ToL ) for all practical purposes as the Kether of Microprosopus. Even the 8=3 grade of the S.M. was more akin to a Chief installation ritual than an initiation ritual and were not considered to be functional at that level.

Emphasis on by design as I would not suggest any of the 8=3 A.'. A.'.'s we see running around today are as equipped as Westcott and Mathers ( both 7=4s of the G.D. system ) were and capable of creating such a beautiful Spiritual System.

The Aurum Solis is even more difficult to compare to either the G.D. or A.'. A.'. but what they call an Adeptus Plentus appears to correspond fairly well to the A.'. A.'. 5=6 (within) and a G.D. system 7=4 Major. I would suggest a detailed corresponding of Aurum Solis grades to not be meaningful beyond this particular association.

The Servants of Light was set up as a correspondence course by Butler ( Butler had another Order he reserved for ritual Work ) and therefore has the least amount of similarity to the other three systems discussed.

The term "Holy Guardian Angel' can be found in Abramelin but interesting enough you won't find the term "Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel" anywhere in such...

The term "Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel" was created by Crowley ( and popularized by Case, Regardie, and Fortune ) so that no one would attempt to intellectualize or equate existing concepts such as Kundalini or Samadhi to the landmark Spiritual Experience he associated with the Adeptus Minor (Within)...

The only thing I know that came from the S.R.I.A. are the names of the grades ( which came from the earlier German 'Golden Rosicrucians' Order ) and the Admission Badges ( which incidentially account for the "form" of much of the Elemental Rituals ). But the Rituals in the S.R.I.A. were much more simplistic and were basically circling around the floor and stopping in front of the various Officers to listen to various speeches, etc.

The Scepters of the G.D. came from the 4th 'Royal Arch' degree in Europe where the Eastern Officer held a very similiar "Crown-headed scepter" and the Southern Officer held something that looked very similiar to the "Mitre-headed" scepter ). The Western Officer did not hold a sword though, instead an "all seeing eye" was at the top of the corresponding scepter.

@Jim Eshelman said

"
@Modes said
"Is it the Stella Matutina rituals or original GD?"

SM but not much difference (and, personally, I find the SM rituals rely on more vibrant language and imagery).

Original GD rituals were published in the Falcon Press edition (popularly called the Doorstop Edition) - Mostly I don't like that book nearly as much as the original.

I have a full set of the original GD rituals in my files, and the differences are few. Mostly only a scholar would care much, and then probably only for academic reasons."

Actually that is what Regardie claimed ( that Falcon Press were orignal G.D. ) but you can tell most of them are S.M. that have been altered to look like they were original ( for example, in the 0=0 he parses the Officer speeches like they did in the original G.D. and continued in the A.O. ). I believe he did this to get around the Llewellyn copyrights. I also like his original presentation much better than the Falcon Press edition but there are a number of diagrams missing from both...

You can verify that the Falcon Press Rituals are not the original by a careful comparison to the orignal G.D. Rituals and by the overtly Christian overtones that the S.M. brought into the First Order that was not present in the orignal G.D.

For a published copy of the original G.D. Rituals, see Torrens...

For the very best presentation of the S.M Rituals and Diagrams with Commentaries see:
www.amazon.com/dp/0982352123?tag=rosiordeofthe-20&cam

I bought Skinner's book when it came out and I would agree that it is an outstanding reference as well.

But the value of 776 1/2 is in the organization of the tables as well as the guidelines to assist in the magical creation of ceremonial ritual, not with the typical cookbook fashion of do a then b then c, but rather utilizing a proven spiritual process.

I believe the second half represents one of the best structured approaches to the creation of ceremonial ritual that I have seen publicly printed to date...Tony DeLuce
Silver Member

Absolutely stunning.

@Jim Eshelman said

"
PS - Don't confuse the generic Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram with the Earth ritual just because it uses Earth pentagrams. It isn't invoking/banishing Earth per se unless you do other stuff (primarily intention, but also use of color etc.)."

This why I believe it was probably o.k. where the G.D. placed it...