~ June 1st - 12th 2009 ~
Friday June 12th 2008 – 10:30am I just finished adding a full page of new items into my For Sale catalogue. Some juicy stuff.
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5:30am Not much to report today for the history buffs: On this date in 1920 the silent film actress, Jane Wolfe, left New York destined for Cefalu to join Aleister Crowley’s commune known as the Abbey of Thelema.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday June 11th 2009 – 9:30am Added more stuff onto my FOR SALE catalog; more to come ...
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6:03am I received this gem this morning - "I, like everyone else has been very much enjoying the 333 disscusion and yes I have learnt much in the process..and you're correct, many Epiphanies have led the way...some in dreams, some in contemplation and as usual, most in the morning upon waking; but what "Struck" me the most were those that came while I was writing...not so used to that, as I usually have a pretty set idea on what I am going to write long before I put pen to paper, but in the case of the last couple of Epistles in particular, Ideas were forming as I was writing them which took my thoughts in whole new directions and I just went with them (hopefully not to far off the beaten path). Reading back on my own writings over the last 6 mos or so since we started all this 7th degree stuff is proving quite insighful.. I now see just how shallow my original thoughts really were and it is no wonder you were getting frustrated with us. I now wonder if the day will come where I look back at these readings and think they are shallow?? Some of the earlier stuff I cant even recognize as my own, I keep thinking who the Hell wrote that??" Reply: It is a process which never ends. I too am still being amazed by my own writings. Understanding Crowley is often difficult at times but if you realize what he's saying you'll grasp the process of how the Ruach obtains Gnosis and if you're receiving and not simply writing from a Malkuthian point-of-view, you tap into your Higher Self (i.e. spawned genius). Obviously you got it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:00am For the history buffs: Issberner Haldane was born on this date in 1886. He was Lodge Master of the German Ordo Novi Templi (Order of the New Temple), or ONT. This Order had been founded by Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels, believed by many to be the first person to use the swastika in Germany, which later became the symbol of the Nazi party. Lanz, devoted himself and his writings entirely to the rebirth of paganism and the worship of Wotan, the ‘War God’ of the ancient German people. …...…. And Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki was born on this date in St. Helier, the Channel Isles in 1929. She is one of the most respected and experienced esoteric practitioners currently at work in the British Isles. She heads a correspondence school known as the Servants of the Light School of Occult Science. She has also published about eighteen books on occult and spiritual subjects; most notable being The Ritual Magic Workbook (1986), Highways of the Mind: The Art and History of Patchworking (1987), First Steps in Ritual (1990), The Tree of Ecstasy (1991), Daughters of Eve: The Magical Mysteries of Womanhood (1993), The Shinning Paths: An Experiential Journey Through the Tree of Life (1997) and The Tree of Ecstasy: An Advanced Manual of Sexual Magic (1999). …......…. And it was on this date in 1936 that the writer Robert E. Howard, a life-long victim of very severe and chronic depression, shot himself in the head while sitting in his car and died eight hours later at the age of thirty. He is most famous for introducing his most enduring character, Conan the Cimmerian in 1932. The first Conan the Barbarian story was titled The Phoenix on the Sword and was published in the December 1932 issue of the pulp magazine Weird Tales. ….......…. And for the Thelemites; Jane Wolfe was admitted as an A.•. A.•. Probationer on this date in 1921, during her residence at the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalu. Her admitting Superior was Aleister Crowley. As is customary in the A.•. A.•., two copies of the Probationer oath were prepared, one to be retained by the Probationer, and one to be retained by the Order. The original of the copy Crowley retained is presently in the major university library collection at the Warburg. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wendesday June 10th 2009 – 6:30pm Come on folks, we've spent weeks talking about seven specific chapters from The Book of Lies that are required for a Seventh Degree Initiate of OTO to study. These chapters inform us of the inner physilological basis of the Oversoul rooted in the phallus which is required to understand in every Seventh Degree's quest for 'Chastity' ... therefore; all thoughts on this subject should reflect the lessons learned over the previous weeks. Otherwise, why did we study them?
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6:20pm The following chapter is written by Aleister Crowley and is from Liber Aleph:DE CASTITATE
(On Chastity)
My son, be fervent! Be firm! Be stable! Be quick to make Impurity, how one Course of Ideas seeketh to infringe upon another, to quell the Virtue thereof. Gold is pure, but to drink molten Gold were Impurity to thy Body, and its Destruction. Law is a Code of the Customs of a People; if it intrude thereon to alter them, it is an Impurity of Oppression. So also Diet is to be in Accord with Digestion; Ethics were an Impurity therein. Love is an Expression of the Will of the Body, yea, and more also, of That which created he Body; and its Operation is commonly between One and One, so that the Interference of a Third Person is Impurity, and not to be endured. Nay, even the thought of Third Person hath but ordinary not Part in Love; so that, as thou seest constantly in thy Life, Love being strong, taketh no heed of others, and some after Interference bringeth Misfortune. Now hen shell we therefore cast out Love, or accept Impurity herein? God forbid. And for this Cause see thou well to it hat in thy Kingdom there be no Interference there with, nor Hindrance from any. For it is perfect in itself.
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6:10pm The following paragraph and footnote on 'Chastity' is written by Aleister Crowley and is from Magick In Theory & Practice, Chapter XX - OF THE EUCHARIST AND OF THE ART OF ALCHEMYChastity is a condition; fasting for some hours previous is a condition; an earnest and continual aspiration is a condition. Without these antecedents even the Eucharist of the One and Seven is partially --- though such is its intrinsic virtue that it can never be wholly --- baulked of its effect. ** The Word Chastity is used by initiates to signify a certain state of soul and of mind determinant of a certain habit of body which is nowise identical with what is commonly understood. Chastity in the true magical sense of the word is inconceivable to those whoare not wholly emancipated from the obsession of sex. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:00pm The following chapter on 'Chastity' is written by Aleister Crowley and is from Little Essays Toward TruthCHASTITY
Those Works of Ancient and Mediaeval Literature which more particularly concern the Seeker after Truth, concur on one point. The most worthless Grimoires of Black Magic, no less than the highest philosophical flights of the Brotherhood which we name no, insist upon the virtue of Chastity as cardinal to the Gate of Wisdom.Let first be noted this word Virtue, the quality of Manhood, integral with Virility. The Chastity of the Adept of the Rose and Cross, or of the Graal-Knights of Monsalvat, is not other than very opposite to that of which the poet can write:......Chastity that slavering satesHis lust without the walls, mews, and is gone,Preening himself that his lewd lips relent.Or to that emasculate frigor of Alfred Tennyson and the Academic Schools.
The Chastity whose Magical Energy both protects and urges the aspirant to the Sacred Mysteries is quite contrary in its deepest nature to all vulgar ideas of it; for it is, in the first place, a positive passion; in the second, connected only by obscure magical links with the sexual function; and, in the third, the deadliest enemy of every form of bourgeois morality and sentiment.It may assist us to create in our minds a clear concept of this noblest and rarest --- yet most necessary --- of the Virtues, if we draw the distinction between it and one of its ingredients, Purity.Purity is a passive or at least static quality; it connotes the absence of all alien admixture from any given idea; as, pure gallium, pure mathematics, pure race. It is a secondary and derive use of the word which we find in such expressions as "pure milk," which imply freedom from contamination.Chastity, per contra, as the etymology (castus, possibly connected with castrum, a fortified camp *) suggests, may be supposed to assert the moral attitude of readiness to resist any assault upon an existing state of Purity."So dear to heaven is saintly chastityThat when a soul is found sincerely soA thousand liveried angels lackey it,sang Milton, with the true poet's veil-piercing sword-vision; for service is but waste unless action demands it.
The Sphinx is not to be mastered by holding aloof; and the brutish innocence of Paradise is always at the mercy of the Serpent. it is his Wisdom that should guard our Ways; we need his swiftness, subtlety, and his royal prerogative of dealing death.The Innocence of the Adept? We are at once reminded of the strong Innocence of Harpocrates, and of His Energy of Silence. A chaste man is thus not merely one who avoids the contagion of impure thoughts and their results, but whose virility is competent to restore Perfection to the world about him. Thus the Parsifal who flees from Kundry and her attendant flower-witches loses his way and must wander long years in the Desert; he is not truly chaste until he is able to redeem her, an act which he performs by the reunion of the Lance and the Sangraal.Chastity may thus be defined as the strict observance of the Magical Oath; that is, in the Light of the Law of Thelema, absolute and perfected devotion to the Holy Guardian Angel and exclusive pursuit of the Way of the True Will.It is entirely incompatible with the cowardice of moral attitude, the emasculation of soul and stagnation of action, which commonly denote the man called chaste by the vulgar."Beware of abstinence from action!" is it not written in Our lection? For the nature of the Universe being Creative Energy, aught else blasphemes the Goddess, and seeks to introduce the elements of a real death within the pulses of Life.The chaste man, the true Knight-Errant of the Stars, imposes continually his essential virility upon the throbbing Womb of the King's Daughter; with every stroke of his Spear he penetrates the heart of Holiness, and bids spring forth the Fountain of the Sacred Blood, splashing its scarlet dew throughout Space and Time. His Innocence melts with its white-hot Energy the felon fetters of that Restriction which is Sin, and his Integrity with its fury of Righteousness establishes that Justice which alone can satisfy the yearning lust of Womanhood whose name is Opportunity. As the function of the castrum or castellum is not merely to resist a siege, but to compel to Obedience of Law and Order every pagan within range of its riders, so also it is the Way of Chastity to do more than defend its purity against assault. For he is not wholly pure who is imperfect; and perfect is no man in himself without his fulfillment in all possibility. Thus then must he be instant to seek all proper adventure and achieve it, seeing well to it that by no means should such distract him or divert his purpose, polluting his true Nature and hamstringing his true Will.Woe, woe therefore to him the unchaste who shirks scornful the seeming-trivial, or flees fearful the desperate, adventure. And woe, thrice woe, and four times woe be to him who is allured by the adventure, slacking his Will and demitted from his Way: for as the laggard and the dastard are lost, so is the toy of circumstance dragged down to nethermost Hell.Sir Knight, be vigilant: watch by your arms and renew your Oath; for that day is of sinister augury and deadly charged with danger which ye fill not to overflowing with gay deeds and bold of masterful, of manful Chastity! *The root cas means house; and an house is Beth, the letter of Mercury, the Magus of the Tarot. He is not still, in a place of repose, but the quintessence of all Motion. He is the Logos; and He is phallic. This doctrine is of the utmost Qabalistic importance.Note: Little Essay's Toward Truth: OTO, Privately printed, High Holborn, London HB, December 22, 1938------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1:55pm The note author Andrew Drylie wrote a nice email, part of which he writes - "I have been enjoying the Book of Lies discussion on your blog. I thought it was all plain as day until I saw how complicated it all is. I must be a ditch dwelling Man of mud."
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1:50pm Ricky writes – “ 93 Jerry, Some thoughts on what it means that the K&C of the HGA is attained in crossing the Abyss in Binah and Chastity in general. Seeing that Chastity is an action in which Purity is maintained by constantly never loosing sight of the Goal of the Great Work and devoting every action there to thus invoking little by little that Union of us and our Angel. In this way every action of the Adept becomes a Sacrament unto ones Angel. But here below the Abyss where can we look for reassurance that this is a correct method? Liber AL vel Legis. Nuit continually tells us, beacons us to Her. Through out the first chapter of our Most Holly Book Nuit Beacons us 13 times to devote all to Her. Coincidence? I think NOT. Now this brings up an interesting thought. Since Binah or Babalon is more of a lower manifestation of the Goddess of infinite space and this is the seat of the HGA, does that make in essence the HGA synonymous with Babalon? Is it our Angels Cup that we must fill in the K&C of our attainment? 93 93/93 Ricky.”Reply: ... lets keep the HGA out of the discussion because it can be very confusing as to which your are referring; the objective Angel above the Abyss or subjective Angel on Malkuth. Thus, most of your email can be taken wrong or be misleading by others who do not understand the distinction. Everything must be spelt out very clearly on this blog. If we have to 'decifer' anything ... it lacks the scientific approach. On that note; I can add that Chastity is a ‘focus’ of thoughts; like Samadhi. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1:45pm Jerri from Sacramento writes - "Hi Jerry, 93 Ah, the magick sentence… I just read the VII degree paper, Liber De Natura Deorum…"Mountains are female when they are hollow; most especially, when they are inhabited: for example, Abiegnus, the ‘Mountain of the Caverns.’" I have been utterly struck by this idea that Mount Abiegnus could be referred to as a feminine mountain--one that is hollow and inhabited, no less. I am laughing and laughing…this never occurred to me before, yet it is the most obvious thing in the world!!! I suppose all aha’s! are like that… It is with that Understanding that I can relate my Universe, my Body, my Kteis (or my hollow phallus), to the Sun… My reply: Like all things below the Abyss, a mountain is bathed in duality. Whatever you think it to be, automatically implies that there must be an opposite somewhere and if you see a phallic male mountain then there must be another with a cave to represent the female. Jerri - "As well, I’m beginning to understand the importance of not killing the seed and how and why women do tend to do so---in my quest to know thyself, and my exploration of Chastity, I’ve noticed this thing that I do. It would be unfair to say this happens in all women, but I think it fairly common. I define it as the feminine, constrictive aspect and of course I can only comment on the manner in which I personally experience it as a shadow beneath my Sun. I tend to reject many new or foreign thoughts, ideas, emotions, and tasks that I encounter as my first response, but will eventually work through them later as time goes on, but only sometimes, and sometimes only just so far. This is the sin of restriction. Restriction kills the seed! The seed is Life and all potential... I bring this aspect up to make the following point regarding my personal journey up the mountain: A female Pisces with no Earth struggles to bring forth her ideas in a tangible, concrete manner upon Malkuth. But this is exactly what I must focus upon!! Sound backwards? Maybe, but it’s not. What I am suggesting is not to focus upon Malkuth/Yesod, it is rather to focus upon the Sun-to recognize the Sun within and to pluck ideas and emotions from my subconscious and bring them into the light that shines upon Malkuth. If it’s made of Light…well…it’s Light. If it’s a shadow…then it must die. By nature, rejection is a phantom which automatically makes it “false,” and thereby only an abstract representation of the Divine Light, but not the Light itself." My reply: Ah, Chastity; as an example: in Qabalah we are taught that in order to fully understand the subject we must bring the Tree of Life alive. To achieve this we’re taught the practice of seeing its symbols in everything that we do in our daily lives. If we see a yellow sign, think Tiphereth; if we see a specific number try to relate it to the Tree, etc and etc. The idea that everything in the Universe is part of this symbol must become so ingrained in our psyche that the macrocosm and microcosm merges. In other words; the topic can no longer just be a practice in study but the ‘Above and Below’ must come together as a hexagram. That is what makes a magician different than others who are just book read. When learning 'sex magick' this practice of focus is likewise important; we must see the divine play in everything ... Jerri, don't ever believe for a moment that you have trouble making inner things tangible; you are by far one of the most articulate of our female student. You words inspire, very good ..."When one is unchaste, one fails to recognize the difference between the shadows and the Sun. Therefore, Chastity then is a constant focus upon the Sun and our diligent quest of becoming it-that which we already are. What does Crowley mean when he states: "Chastity in the true magical sense of the word is inconceivable to those who are not wholly emancipated from the obsession of sex?" In my estimation, this statement has little to do with sex whatsoever. He could have used any example—video games, relationships, fruit-loops, or the color blue because sex isn’t the point at all!!!! The statement seems to be more of a blind to those who are not emancipated from their obsession or focus upon Malkuth and Yesod…"My reply: You are quite correct; if 'obsession with sex' were a sin, I think Crowley could be deemed guilt. But Crowley uses this analogy because the quest to understand our bodies, its sexual nature and labido is not only the Way toward Universal Freedom according to most Tantras but its also the very thing which leads us to Hell, or being earthed-out. We must learn to control it rather than becoming obsessed or controlled by it."The concept of Chastity seems simple but, it’s not as simple as it sounds. It is always a double edged sword below the Abyss. What is down here isn’t “real,” it is “false.” But, we are here to experience, in whatever manner we Will...it is when we grow too attached to these shadows and our lower egos cling on to these false notions of ‘self’ that we become stuck here in the muck with the slaves. One can fall in love with or become obsessed by the shadows that exist here on this plane. Sex is great…fruit-loops aren’t bad either… but there is love and there is Love. Choose ye well!"My reply: Very well said but I never liked fruit-loops. I'm a Special-K kinda guy. And Jeri ends it - "93 93/93 Jerri ...more on Chastity later!!!"My reply: Looking forward to it ...------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12:50pm In regards to alot of the blog postings on June 5th; as well as a few private correspondence regarding childhood sexual dramas, I emailed Luna - "93 You wrote the other day – “I don't know if there is a direct connection to that rite you did and now...but I am curious now as to what you kids did next....what theatrical performance did you do after that cush chair one.” I only have four rites mentioned, or that I can find mentioned in my diaries but there were about seven total if my memory suits me well. Sadly, and inevitably, summer ended, school began and we all found ourselves scattered around New Haven, a few of the really aggressive girls also ended up going off to College. Being one of the oldest guys (nineteen), the girls left by the following year were too young for me to play with anymore. I guess we can say life simply changes but the memories left behind of adolescent play during that brief period still brings smiles.Abit of history from my autobiography – “... we discussed many things and I can tell you this about the Prometheus Society, they are a strange lot. Part of their teachings centered on a rather large Ouija board-like object. The group claimed that even though the more popular design originated in the United States around 1890 they and others had been using similar devices back in France for ages.” ... and then consider this from my autobiography – “I personally witnessed many of the board rituals that this group held within a huge ceremonial circle... I don’t remember many of the actual questions that were asked. I just have this memory in the back of my mind that they always bored me. The questions seemed to center around inquiring about inside information in regards to more mundane affairs in the lives of members. In truth, most members boasted that their worldly success was directly related to this guidance. In youth this all sounds like bla bla bla. Where did I fit into this picture? Basically, my presence was requested because children, or young adults, always worked the board in the Prometheus Society. As I said earlier, they believed that the older one gets the harder it becomes to use the board effectively. Age seemingly builds up this hardened shell around your psyche. I was informed that younger people make better receivers.” As baneful as it might seem, using adolescent kids around the age of puberty, when their ‘sexuality’ is at a peak, seemed to work the board better than with adults and although modern society might disapprove of spawning sexual frivolity with children, I had no problem with it. Still, on an average day we’d just sit around talking about our bodies, about sex and listening to the adults as they’d discuss methods whereby we, especially the girls, could channeling our ‘energy’ which, if we understood how, it would inevitably get us to working the boards. It was the young girls in our group which loved taking things to the next stage. Many times, as we all sat around when no adults were present, the topic would be commandeered by them and directed humorously toward their proclivities or ‘boys.’ In hindsight, and with age, I’ve come to realize that you cannot talk about sex with young kids and expect their curiosity not to act upon it. It was no secret that the girls wanted to see our ‘penises’ and we, in turn, wanted to see them naked too. As perverse as all this might sound you got to keep it in perspective; it's not like today where nudity and sex is flaunted everywhere; back in the late sixties and early seventies things were still sort of kept under wraps. After the Summer of Love in 1967 open sexuality was in its infancy with becoming a 'new' frontier but the rules imposed by society were still heavily being pushed upon us and our libidos suppressed at every turn ... all this would change within another ten years or so. But for now, things were still being learned and done 'behind closed doors.'Anyway, I’m not sure I’d ever call what we did real theater as much as youthful curiosity acting out and it was in this light, and I don’t remember all the exact details as to when or how but we all wanted to take things to its next levels. The adults didn’t seem to mind as long as we abided by their parameters; no sex. It would destroy the Ouija workings for which they were training us. ... Now, since most of us had no problem taking about our bodies simply because of how the adults portrayed sex to us, things just naturally got us to playing doctor with a twist. If we couldn’t actually have ‘sex’ ... should we simply drop our pants and expose ourselves to each other or could we have some fun about it? ... If guys were in charge, I think we would have simply dropped our pants and wagged our penises to the wind but the majority of all the conversations and planning was dominated back then by the girls. They liked to play. Time and age has taught me that this is a distinct difference between men and women. Men just ‘dot it’ bathed in intellectual curiosity while women want to bathe in ‘love, fantasy and emotions.’ Personally, I like how the girls thought.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10:45am I just got back from the doctor’s, he reassures me that I’ll live but doesn’t guarantee for how long. I feel like I'm waiting for the 'big' earthquake to hit out here in California; it could be today, it could be tomorrow, or it could be fifty years from now. In the mean time, according to my doctor, it's not my failing heart but the stress that is killing me. ??? Stress!!! I've got failing health, my money is running out, I'll be homeless by January and an earthquake could hit any day now and destroy Berkeley and I'm not suppose to worry about things? Life is amusing. If I can just make it until 2012 ... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday June 9th 2009 – 4:07pm For the history buffs: Wilfred T. Smith was born illegitimately in Tonbridge, Kent, England on this date in 1885. He moved to Canada in January of 1907 where he worked at numerous jobs before landing a position at the British Columbia Electric Railway. It was here, around 1912 that a co-worker named Charles Stansfeld Jones (1886-1950) turned him on to Crowleyanity and where he inevitably joined the OTO. Smith later joined Aleister Crowley’s AA as a Probationer in March of 1916; taking the magickal motto of Nubem Eripiam (I will snatch away the cloud). In June of 1921 he swore the AA Oath of the Abyss and assumed the magickal motto of Frater Velle Omnia Velle Nihil 132 (To will all, to will nothing). In early April of 1922 Smith moved to southern California where he began working for the Department of the southern California Gas Company in Los Angles. Here he establishment Agape Lodge No.2. Smith was also the person whom Aleister Crowley stated; he “is not a man at all; he is the Incarnation of some God.” Wilfred T. Smith died in Southern California on April 27, 1957 from cancer of the Prostate. …....….. and it was on June 9, 1949 that Agape Lodge of the O.T.O. moved into its new location at 1003 South Orange Grove Avenue in Pasadena. A procession led the way into the house; Jane Wolfe carrying a picture of Aleister Crowley followed by Wilfred Smith with Liber Al vel Legis. Behind him was Regina Kahl with The Stele and last was Jack Parsons with the Holy Ark.
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4:00pm Two things; first I typed in a bunch of entries earlier today and I forgot to up-load them! They say the mind is the first thing to go. They'll be uploaded with the posting of this entry. Sorry. ... Second; I checked the News: it seem that last night at 6:31pm a 1.7 magnitude quake hit Berkeley. Luckily, me, Ben & Dave were in the bar. I don't think we felt it. ??? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1:57pm Jerri from Sacramento writes - "“Hi Jerry, 93 Yeah...the Piscean brain...I figured your lack of blog posts were more of a subtle suggestion that we needed to get our asses moving and send you something TO post!! Regardless, I am working on it and will send something to you this evening or tomorrow morning. Hope you are well...me? Coo coo!!!! The wheel is spinning, but the hamster is dead...but, what else is new??? Ha. Love to you! 93 93/93 Jerri.” .......... Reply: Poor hamspter, sniffle sniffle. ... Love ya too. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1:41pm Ed wormuth writes – “93 Jerry, Glad to see you are posting again; and with the best of excuses for your lapse. After all, what are friends for, anyway, if not to help you stop and smell the roses [or in your case, the hops.] / I think I had mentioned to you that I was reading a copy of "Inside the Occult" by Henry Olcott, which is a memory of HP Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society. I had not really explored that arena before and was enjoying a taste of a very different experience from my past reading and definitely something different from western magical tradition....or so I thought. Anyway, your blog's quotes from F. King's "Secret rituals had led me to dig out that book and after looking at the chapters you referred to, I decided that after 30 years it might be time to read it from the beginning. Barely 25 pages into it I find that one of the founders of the Berlin Grand Lodge of Memphis and Misraim along with T. Reuss was a gentleman named "dirty Franz" who before this was a majot player in the Theosophical Society and a defender of HPB herself during there fracture. * although she wasn't so sure about him. Amazing to me how my varied readings can lead me back to the same place. Just thought I'd share one of those hhhmmmmm! moments. 93 93/93, Ed.” Reply: Yes, thanks for sharing the thoughts.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1:30pm Earlier I ran into Jay Lehman while on the avenue. Just now he sent me an email where he writes – “93 Jerry, When I ran into you earlier you said a couple of things that have helped me formulate some of my thoughts on Chastity. I feel like I'm grokking it more and more, but when I think about putting it into words there's something missing... But you had said that the Man of Earth needs to put Malkuth AND Yesod under control, also that most people don't realize they can have their cake and eat it too. It seems to me that it has everything to do with intent. This is where Yesod enters in: the thoughts we hold, the object towards which we direct our energy is where it's at. We can have all the mad sex we want, but what is that energy being directed towards? On the mundane level we direct it towards our own sexual gratification or maybe the person from which we're receiving it; on a spiritual level, we might direct it towards Knowledge and Conversation with our HGA or the realization of a particular god. Concentration is very important and, I think, where the subtleties enter in. We must arrange our consciousness to be ever vigilant of that with which we are trying to direct our energy. I can't help but feeling, though, that men especially would do well to withhold orgasm as much as possible in order to raise the kundalini and make that concentration more effective. Then if and when orgasm is achieved the burst of energy is also more effective. The emancipation from the obsession of sex is important because the "magick" can become an excuse for sexual gratification or the sexual energy/tension can be utilized to magickal purposes. I also want to say that the yoni at the top of the Tree comes in here; this is where the kunalini rises to Kether at the back of the head establishing the connection between that which is in the body and that which lies without as the crown chakra resides above the head as well as intersecting it. / I wish I had a copy of The Law is for All with me because I seem to recall a wonderfully poetic rant from Uncle Al about the knight who lays his lance out ever in service to Our Lady of Stars... Love, Jay 93 93/93.” Reply: Nice.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11:35am Why I haven't posted: A herd of buffalo can move only as fast as the slowest buffalo, and when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular culling of the weakest members. In much the same way the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, we all know, kills off brain cells, but naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, or so I firmly believe, regular consumption of beer will eliminate my weaker brain cells, constantly making my brain a faster and more efficient machine .... and I'm still working on this theory. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11:30am Jay just sent an email - “93 Jerry, Just sending the obligatory email of concern to join the countless others as you haven't updated the blog in two days. I did get you message about drinking with Ben and Dave so I take you're alive and well enough to be out drinking. I guess you're flanked by doctors and lawyers? I hope your days aren't going too terribly. Love, Jay 93 93/93.” ........ Reply: Last night, after I got home from the bar, I sent Luna an email apologizing for not answering her previous emails. In that email I wrote - "... after pitcher upon multi pitchers of beer ... burp .... did I mention its all David & Ben's fault. They made me drink!" ... Luna laughingly replied - "93! Ain't it GREAT to have David here? Next week when he is back in Florida, I can blame everything on him here.....Leigh will ask where are my scissors?....I can reply, oh, David used them and didn't put them back....etc etc etc....just like in the old old days when a roomate would move out and everyone in the house could get away with at least a good month of excuses of blame on them! Drink one for US! 93s )O( and IO.” ....... Reply: Ya, I'm with ya on that and one of the reasons that I haven't posted stuff on the blog is because Dave was over here and now I can't find my keyboard! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday June 8th 2009 –
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Sunday June 7th 2009 – 11:15am To address a question:
... to get out of the man of Earth grade I look to see if a student is unconsciously living the Seventh Degree secrets; because this practice is an easy example of something which we can compare them to. Once in the next grade their Clerk House becomes a living representative of the secrets behind the Lover Grade ... which could take them years to realize; or until they reach Tiphereth where they have put their 'outer' personality under control; and remember; our personality is not just the mask we wear but our libido which fuels it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10:55am Regarding my 5:20am posting about the recent earthquake my friend Cranny sent an email - "THE BIG ONE IS COMING!" ...... To which I replied "... were you looking in my window again with the binoculars?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9:00am To address a question: "Chastity in the true magical sense of the word is inconceivable to those who are not wholly emancipated from the obsession of sex." - Aleister CrowleyAnd this is why a man of earth, both men and women, must learn to 'Know Thyself' and understand the Mysteries of their libido (Yesod) and body (Malkuth) ... they must not become a pawn to the lower bodily powers which can become obsessive phantoms dragging them down to Malkuth. Too often when either a man or a women 'represses' their sexuality and avoids discussing or talking about their bodies, or that of their mates, they become like dirty little school children. People, time and time again, who are driven by the urge for sex will sell their Soul for a piece of ass and end up in a daily life on Malkuth only to fall by the wayside. Remember, the very thing that can lead us to Heaven is the same thing that can lead us to Hell. Ah, grasshoppers, take a hint from Crowley's own life; orgies, sexual debauchery and frivolity are not the problem ... it's getting so wrapped up into sex that you lose sight of the greater picture and you walk off the cliff. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8:40am Maria writes - "I think what you are writing about is webbed enough and offers us OTO initiates a place where we might understand our mysteries. Keep up the good work ... don't reveal too much." .... Reply: thanks for the kind words. I will never reveal too much, or anything more not already discussed in books. I am simply making connections between the obvious. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7:30am A few emails have come in wondering if I am going to reveal the final secrets to the OTO Mysteries. The answer - Absolutely not. In the VIIth Degree Grade Paper De Natura Deorum, Section III De Natura Dei Soli it clearly informs us to “make no attempt to disclose this inner Truth to the profane” ... adding - “For all attempts to initiate even the worthy before they initiate themselves are folly and fatality. The Secret of the Wise, although known of them, are not to be expressed in the language of common men.” (Secret Rituals of the OTO, edited by Francis King, NY: S. Weisers 1973, pg.175) And I agree but like Crowley did in his writings, and even Grady did to me by offering ideas and references, I too am offering carrots in my writings which will hopefully inspire a few donkeys to have epiphanies. But from majority of the previous emails that have come in regarding The Book of Lies only a few individuals clearly get IT. Most of you have been holding up a different carrot as proof that you get it, silly rabbits, you're simply intellectually vomiting Malkuthian ideas proving that you can hold pearls before the swine. Still, seeds have been planted and someday when you're least expecting it, you'll be reading a book or meditating and "Wham!" It'll all make sense. I only wish I could be there to watch you smile.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5:55am A clue is found in LIBER DE LEGE LIBELLVM (Liber CL-150), also called A Sandal. Regarding this liber Crowley writes - "A further explanation of the Book of the Law, with special reference to the Powers and Privileges conferred by its acceptance." ... It is also known as L-L-L-L-L or The Law, Liberty, Love, Life and Light. Within OTO the qualities of 'Liberty, of Love, of Life, of Light' are assigned to the Degree between Minerval to Fourth in the man of Earth.Minerval/First Light (Air) NuitSecond Life (Earth) HaditThird Love (Water) ManFourth Liberty (Fire) WomanIn the seventh Degree grade paper Liber De Natura Deorum, Sub Figvra CCXXVIII (228) – Of the Nature of the Gods it states regarding initiates of this degree - "And also of His own nature is He Liberty and Love." (Secret Rituals of the OTO, edited by Francis King, NY: S. Weisers 1973, pg.172) So, if Third Degree works out of the Qabalistic sphere of Hod and Fourth out of Netzach what is the role of the phallic path of The Tower which unites them? Equally important; if (according to Liber Aleph) Hod is the pivotal sphere in the Formula of ON for the man and Netzach pivotal in the formula for the Woman; what is a Seventh Degree initiate being prepared for? You don't need to know the secrets of IXth Degree to figure this out but the intent behind the degree would be helpful ...On a side note: When I took seventh Degree back in March of 1979 under Grady McMurtry it took awhile to understand all the 'references' that he simply told me to study but when at last I got 'IT', I was so blown away that I painted my Tower card to reflect the secret. On the back of the canvas, scribbled in pencil, was one word - "Chastity.' ... Needles-to-say, Grady was not quite amused but I believed that if a person wasn't ready to understand Seventh then you could flaunt the secrets right before their eyes. Grady agreed and, as all who knew him will attest, on his private altar at the time of his death there was a small photo of this card that I had sent him years earlier.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5:30am It has often been asked as to why Aleister Crowley made certain chapters from The Book of Lies required study for a Seventh Degree initiate of Ordo Templi Orientis. Wasn't this book written for Babes in the Abyss in A.'.A.'.? ... Well dear students, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to realize that the initiatory system set up by Aleister Crowley for both A.'.A.'. and OTO has them both centered within the Qabalistic sphere of Chesed (4) on the Tree of Life facing the ordeal of the Abyss. Minerval ChockmahFirst Degree BinahSecond Degree Chesed/Geburah/TipherethThird Degree HodFourth Degree NetzachFifth Degree TipherethSixth Degree GeburahSeventh Degree Chesed-----------ABYSS-------------Eighth Degree BinahNinth Degree ChockmahWe know that the two organizations function differently. The A.'.A.'. works within the microcosm which is from the Greek mikros kosmos or ‘little world’ which is a reference to the Tree of Life symbolically found in each one of us. Its purpose is to assist the spiritual growth of each individual in order to prepare them to assume the role of helping humanity move forward spiritually. It is primarily a vertical school or working within an individual. The OTO works on the macrocosm which is from the Greek phrase makros kosmos or ‘greater world’, which refers to the Tree of Life symbolizing our Universe, the Heavens above, the Angels and the entirety of God’s Kingdom but, in this case, the Order works primarily on the planet Earth. Its purpose is to assist fratenally the growth of an 'idea' across the Earth; it is a horizontal or a mundane school. It is not necessarily the goal of OTO to foster spirituality as much as establishing behavior, this behavior being Thelema. It is believed that both Trees are identical or mirror images of each other because God used the same blueprint to create everything from the most exalted to the infinitesimal and Qabalists believe that to study any part thereof on one Tree will reveal, simply by analogy, an identical fundamental principle on the other Tree. In other words, what is found on one Tree must be found on the other and to know one Tree is to know both. Thus the fundamental principle of all magick - As Above, So Below. Hence, if there is an Abyss that initiates of A.'.A.'. must face in the microcosm then there must be an Abyss on the macrocosmic Tree. The question is, what is its purpose on the lower Tree and how did Crowley prepare the Seventh Degree initiate for its ordeal? Why specific chapters from The Book of Lies?------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5:20am Yesterday at 3:30pm, in the little town of El Cerrito, California which is Berkeley's next door neighbor in walking distance, we had a really good jolt; a 3.2 magnitude earthquake hit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5:10am For the history heap: Karl Kellner died on this date in 1905 of a mysterious illness, which no doctor was ever able to diagnose. He was born on September 1, 1851 in Vienna, Austria. He was a wealthy Austrian paper chemist and a student of Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism and Eastern mysticism, who had traveled extensively throughout Europe, America and Asia Minor. During his travels, he claimed to have made contact with three Adepts (a Sufi, Soliman ben Aifa, and two Hindu Tantrics, Bhima Sena Pratapa of Lahore and Sri Mahatma Agamya Paramahamsa) who supposedly taught him his ‘sexual secrets.’ In 1895, he began to discuss the idea of creating an ‘Academia Masonica’ with his associate Theodor Reuss which became known as the “Oriental Templar Order.” …....….. another person to have died on this date was Henry Miller, who passed quietly in his sleep on this date in 1978. He was born on December 26, 1891in Manhattan, New York. He was the author of such famous works as Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn and The Rosy Crucifixion, to name just a few. Like many individuals he had a brief encounter with Aleister Crowley. It is believed that Henry met the Great Beast through the French astrologer Conrad Moricand in 1933. His friend, Anais Nin, has stated in a chapter simply titled “November 2, 1934” from her book Incest, that “Henry has fallen under the spell of a remarkable old man {Aleister Crowley} who is fantastic and psychic, a painter gone mad in Zurich.” In a letter to his childhood friend Emil Schnellock written in October of 1935, Henry Miller included a short but interesting story describing an event which took place between him and Crowley. Obviously the Beast scared him. He writes that after he heard Aleister Crowley boast one day of the ease with which he could read men’s minds, he made it a point of keeping quiet in his presence. He then told Anais Nin, “I said nothing about my worries at all” in front of Aleister Crowley-or in other words he kept trying to blank out his mind. Why? Miller further explains, “I wouldn’t want that guy tampering with me. No sir!” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday June 6th 2009 – 8:00am To answer an email - Yes, Frank, yesterday's sexual postings were rather amusing. I only posted about a third of the incoming/outgoing thoughts, yours included and admittedly what you read on line does not tell the whole picture about others.
Our man of Earth grade focuses primarily upon understanding Malkuth and Yesod. Often when magician's start practicing they come up with lofty rituals or teaching dealing with the external world or with internal practices which don't really reflect the needs of these two spheres. It seems everyone wants to play with Enochian or do the Goetia but few ever achieve anything outside of phantoms simply because they forgot the First Law; being the principle of 'Know Thyself', which implies on the lowest level - our bodies and our libido; the very foundation stones of what we picked as a vehicle for our incarnation. The higher spiritual and ritualistic practices will come with time but first we must learn to 'clean' our Temple and to make our body a suitable vehicle for our Star. Our libidos, as Carl Jung clearly points out, is our Kundalini. We must learn how it functions within our body through the Muladhara chakra; the seat of our sexuality. Repression of sexual desires often leads to an unhealthy focus upon this Chakra when, on the lowest mundane level, you become aroused ... and instead of bringing our Kundalini upward into loftier highs, we often keep it within Yesod to function out of Malkuth. Now I'm not advocating that to overcome 'sexual repression' you must go out and have sex, sex, sex because that would mean that I know the needs of your True Will. The nature of any 'restriction' must be determined by yourself. But first, in the most simple terms - "You must learn to be comfortable in your skin." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:40am Today is the 65th Anniversary of D-Day. Grady McMurtry was actually there. In honor of this event, here are a few of the paragraphs from IN THE NAME OF THE BEAST, A biography of Grady Louis McMurtry, disciple of Aleister Edward Crowley, Volume One - 1918-1962. Chapter Seven
DEATH
Dread Virgin, Mother, Harlot, Crone
Thy dusky beauty sears my dreams
Direct my quest to Thee Alone
Dissolve this world in all it seems
KALI ! Mother of Horror.
On June 6th 1944, the second front finally arrived: D-Day. The landing at Normandy, the Allied invasion of the continent against Hitler’s Nazi Germany, had begun. This marked the start of the largest single military operation of World War II. The invasion plan called for landings at five beach locations on the Cotentin Peninsula of France. The invasion was directed by General Eisenhower and was called Operation Overlord. Grady wrote that he didn’t know that the invasion was to be at Normandy until it happened, and that “fortunately, neither did Hitler. He thought we were coming into Calais. This is why he withheld the armored units from Rommel until it was too late. By the time we were established on the beach-head there was no way he could stop us.” Grady’s command was not one of the first off-loaded on the crucial day of June 6. Instead, his company went ashore on D+10, or ten hours later. However, during that night his troopship went aground on the sands directly offshore. Rather than remain a sitting target for the German artillery, at 2 a.m. Grady’s company was off-loaded onto ‘Blue Beach.’ Grady remembered that night vividly: “the British anti-aircraft rockets on our left being fired in silver streaks going up right to left & sparkling like silver fireflies against the German bombers we could hear revving their engines upstairs ... the great purple square mouth of the ship behind us with starlight sprinkling the dark tides rolling in ... we turned right. St. Mere Eglise was just over the rise but we wouldn’t see the bullet-riddled parachutes of 101 ABN or the broken and twisted gliders until the sun rose. Right now we had to negotiate the beach.” Grady recalled that he gave very specific orders to his command vehicle driver to “Follow the truck in front of you.” The idea was to not break convoy discipline by going off to either side, which could mean drifting into uncleared mine fields on the right, or running into oncoming traffic being off-loaded from other ships on the left.Grady claimed that he was “almost killed on two separate occasions during the D-Day Operations.” The first time was shortly after landing on the beach at Normandy, where his 3/4 ton command vehicle was almost crushed by a huge, incoming landing craft when his vehicle drifted into the wrong section of the beach. Grady said this huge landing craft came out of nowhere in the dark and missed him by less than two feet as it came ashore. It would have smashed his command vehicle “like a tin can.” It happened so fast, it was scary - Grady’s only comment was to scream, “Holy Horus!” This near miss was not Grady’s fault, but rather that of the young, scared driver of his command vehicle. The kid was worried about the mine field and drifted too far left. Luckily Grady survived. There are two pages of typed poetry by such individuals as Ruppert Brooke, Charles Baudelaire and Swinburne, which survives in the Grady archives. Briefly on the reverse of one page, in Grady’s handwriting is written, “When I went into Normandy this was in my left rear pocket.” In the poem Heaven by Ruppert Brooke there are lines underlined by Grady ... “Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond, But is there anything Beyond? This life cannot be All, they swear - For how unpleasant, if it were!” In some ways it is fitting thoughts for a young man who was coming a shore onto the Normandy beachhead knowing he’s facing possible death.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:20am Well, I was starting to think that no one was going to send in any thoughts on The Sabbath Goat. I was worried that the last chapter to be discussed would be found in 'silence' ... but Frater Orpheus came through for us; he writes this gem: Jerry, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Considering the “The Sabbath of the Goat“… In the very first line of this chapter Crowley informs us that the “0” and the “!” are in the heart of N.O.X. That’s Nuit, Hadit & Ra-Hoor-Khuit all in one place. Maybe we should look at it like this N. (O!). X… But how?…We are told that N.O.X. is the Night of PAN, which we know is above the Abyss and that PAN is that duality beneath the Abyss.That’s….
N. = Death P = Duality O. = N.H.R.& A = EnergyX. = Phallus N = DeathOne begins with DEATH and the other ends in it; Sound like a cycle? The O and A are interrelated as extensions of the divine Spirit and this Death is but a Gateway in and out of the duality which extends from Daath or Knowledge downward, like so…N.O.X.SupernalsDEATHDaathPANEgoYou could also see this as P.A.N. and the (N)ight (A/O)f (P)an, the same letters and formula, but in reverse…but maybe that’s the Grass of the Arabs speaking.Consider this… the reason the heart of N.O.X., which we associate with Aleph, can in truth represent the trinity “O!”; is precisely because it is above the Abyss. In other words if Aleph did not include its contrary notions then it would be divided and would therefore below the Abyss by definition… but here in the Night of Pan… ALL is NOT… Aleph is total antithesis synthesized in a Mysterious triform Energy. Confused?Remember we merely conceptualize the Supernal Trinity so that we may make “heads or tails” out of that which is ineffable. But it just isn’t so! All knowledge including Cabala is of this plane and therefore bathed in duality and limited in its ability to explain the ineffable. The best we can do is pontificate images utilizing an iconic language of symbolism while understanding that which is written upon the Emerald tablet… As above so below. Armed with this one ‘truth’ the Magician is able to perceive certain truths veiled in the mask of Creation that would otherwise remain ineffable; but, our language is limited and can therefore only represent partial Truths, our Libidos are not! In this sense it is both easy and difficult to conceptualize the fact that above the Abyss contradiction is Unity; while below it is division.This being understood I have, as a matter of meditation, assigned the letters of N.O.X. to the paths within the Supernal Triad. So I imagine the Spirit Energy of Aleph is “O“, the path of Venus or The Empress as “N”, and the Procreative powers of the Magician as X. You could also conceptualize them as the Spheres themselves; N/Binah, O!/Kether & X/Chockmah… Yet in another manner we may simply Understand N as Death or that stage between PAN and NOX. All of this is True and False and only now serves me in reflecting upon the ineffable. As J.C. pointed out, “it‘s not the kill that matters but the hunt” (G.M.) Yet by this process we may discern certain personal ‘Truths“.Now lets look more closely at PAN…Crowley writes that Peh is Duality. As the Tower Path it unites O to N and also the Pillars of 418 and 156 and in this sense we can easily see how this path unites opposites. The value for Peh is 80 as in the ”… eight, eighty, four hundred & eighteen.“ of Al I:46. As we have already discussed, Peh or Mars represents the “sexual energies” within the Ruach. (But where did they come from?)80 is not only the value of Peh which joins O to N but, it is also the value of Y & O and L & N. In other words all the planets of the Ruach are united thru the Sun in this number 80. Coincidence? In the most straight forward sense PAN is a tri-fold formula which represents the conditions of everything beneath the Abyss; which of course is bathed in duality here represented by this letter “P“. Nun represents the eternal cycle of birth and death of which we are all part of. And, Aleph which mediates between these two is the Spirit and by its shape denotes the Pentagram. N.O.X. is simply outside ALL of this in what is called the “Night Of Pan“.As already pointed out by JC this chapter, “The Sabbath of the Goat”, is attributed to the Path of the FOOL and Aleph. He represents that True Spirit of which we are but the vehicle. In his commentary to this chapter Crowley calls this “A” the ultimate Letter of two names or phases, Life and Death and refers to this path as “energy”, which is the Will here, undetermined and un-manifested. It is said that this FOOL represents the Creative Energy of the Spirit. That “Life Breath” which permeates ALL(PAN). It is the four fold elemental energy, or the Prana, in everything. This “energy” from within, animates the Ruach. Which Case calls “the primary aspect of Universal consciousness” (Tarot, pg.35). Aleph is Mercury, the first Mother Letter, and especially associated with AIR in its most exalted sense. In Sefer Yetsirah it states that “God produces Air from the Spirit and turns it into 22 sounds“ …Water and Fire were also formed from this AIR by Him. This “A” is also “V” in a certain manner which is said to be directly associated with the Father of all Letters, YOD; because it is found at its center (Y-V-D). Simply put “Air is considered as the father of all manifested existence.” (Sefer Yetsirah) Crowley calls this Air, Spirit and Akasha. (B.O.T. pg. 65)If you spend any amount of time studying the Myths and symbolism of the FOOL card you will learn that this Path contains qualities of the Father, Mother and Son in combination. It represents Air and Spring but also Silence and the “O”! The Supernal Triad is such that all ideas flow one into the other; All is Not here. Consider that Hadit/Prana and Nuit/Akasha come thru the Sun bound together as One to manifest your STAR, bringing Light to your Universe… (its triads on all planes)
Crowley’s original concept for this Trump was to be a bearded ancient in profile, laughing. His bag full of illusions and his staff 463 lines long which represents the Middle Pillar and the mediator Mercury.So once again we are charged with the task of understanding this Spirit which when above the abyss is beyond contradiction; yet the Spirit is bathed in the Duality of Soul and Ego once manifested thru the Sun. In a nut shell “Aleph” represents that pure dissent of Spirit, the “Pure Will unassuaged of purpose”, which we aim to manifest below thru our own STAR; Crowley wrote, “This Fool is an aspect of Pan Shewn in his fullest development by ATU XV” (BOT pg.60) J.C. once asked me and I’m paraphrasing, “What is the source of this energy we are trying to tap into?” I was tongue tied and said nothing… and he then added, “It’s called Liber Aleph for a reason you know”… I must admit this blew my mind… Now go read Liber Aleph chapter 207 “On Wisdom and Folly”.Now consider this, “ These are fools that men adore; both their Gods & their men are fools.” AL I:11, to this Crowley comments…”A verse with so sacred a number as 11 is likely to mean very deep things. Probably much concerning the function of The Fool is concealed in it.”…”I prefer to suggest that these “fools” are “Silent selves”, impotent babes unborn” Here Crowley suggests that our “Silent selves” are to be found in Aleph, related to the sacred number 11 and may reveal mysteries concerning the function of the Fool. In AL I:48 we read this “ My prophet is a fool with is one, one, one; are not they the Ox and none by the Book?” Aleph is 111, the Ox and also the None; since He is also the unity. The Book is the Word and the Prophet may be seen as the Magus in Chockmah who is indeed an extension of Aleph. Chockmah is connected to three paths: A= The Fool, V = The Hierophant and D = The Empress. This Triad may be seen as the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. But it starts with Aleph so these three paths may be said to represent certain functions of Aleph or the True Spirit. This Spirit is pulled from Sahasrara or Kether above thru the Path of The FOOL and down into Chockmah/Ajna where the Seed may now move over into the Womb of Binah atop the 418 Pillar via the Path of The Empress. Or it may appear in the heavens of Jupiter below via The Path of the Hierophant. Now consider AL 2:16 which states, “I am the Empress & the Hierophant. Thus eleven as my bride is eleven.” These Letters V.A.D. = 11.As for this chapter title, “The Sabbath of the Goat“… This may be seen as the Witches' Sabbath where worship of the Generative Powers is celebrated, here represented by the Goat. I see this Goat as the He Goat OZ of Strength whose numeration is 77; the same as the sacred river Ghihon which flows from the Waters found in the Garden of Eden. We may even see its source as a ΚΕΦΑΛΗ atop Mount Meru which leads from Kether down into Jupiter below…and in this way Liber OZ may represent the “True Word” descended below as The Rights of Man. This River Ghihon is found in Genesis II. 13, and whose source is identified as MZL(A/78) or the influence from Kether. This River is one of the four Rivers of Paradise found in the Garden of Eden where Man, like a Child, possessed all the innocence of the FOOL; this then is my only advice to you, the reader… be like a Child in the face of God.The very first thing that Grady covered in the “Magickal Link” in his now historic series, “From the Caliph“ (Volume I No.10 & 11), are these four Rivers of Eden which he called “The Map of Atlantis” and ‘The ships code book“. Love is the law, love under will
Frater Orpheus
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6:05am For the history buffs: Jeremy Bentham died on this date in London in 1832. He left behind a large estate, which he willed to be used to finance the newly established University College in London. However, as a stipulation of getting his money, he also willed that his cadaver, per his instructions, was to be dissected, embalmed, dressed, and placed in a chair in a cabinet in a corridor of the main building of University College, where to this day it still resides. ......….. and I should point out that on June 6, 1926 Alex Sanders the Self-proclaimed “King of the Witches” who rose to fame in the 1960’s by establishing the Alexandrian tradition was born. He is noted for making the unfulfilled promise to “make Aleister Crowley look like a Boy Scout.” He died on April 30, 1988 after a long battle with lung cancer. His funeral became a mass media event, with Witches and Pagans from all over the country attending to pay their last respects. During the course of the funeral a pre-recorded tape was played in which Alex Sanders declared that his son “Victor” should succeed him as “King of the Witches.”------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday June 5th 2009 – 5:37pm Wow, so many of my regular A.'.A.'. students have been quiet this week both on my blog and in private and while thoughts on Sabbath of the Goat started out strong last Sunday ... it has since fizzled ... ???
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12:30pm Frank sent a brief email. He writes - Hey Jer 93 It sounds like you guys have fun at your Clerk House. Do you have a room I can rent?” 93 93/93 Frank.” ...... I replied – “Frank 93 Ha! Sorry, no room to rent but in truth, what I was describing took place in my adolescent childhood and is not part of my present practices. Furthermore, men and women as adults past about twenty-five, have a pile of hang-ups and often trying to get them to regain paradise lost or the innocence of exploration about their bodies is all but impossible. In my magickal youth, when me and some girl would get together and say, “Lets get naked and talk about sex” ... before we actually heard “talk about sex” we were both getting undressed. Today, if I have a girl over and told her the same thing, she’s either get offended or think, oh boy, I’m getting laid! Even more tragically is that sitting around naked as an adult often winds up as being little more than a seen that, done that, kinda thing with the opposite sex and where in my youth arousal was used as a tool to get our 'focus' off Malkuth; as an adult we tend to want to get laid if we get sexually aroused which earth's out everything. The frivolity of play dies with our youth. 93 93/93 Jerry.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11:50am Kath replied with a long tome about her views on Crowley’s sexual practice. Some of it way off. I replied, “Yes, I am convinced that this is what Crowley tried to achieve with his unbridled sex, orgies and anything goes sexual mentality. He wanted his students to explore their sexual Self but more often than not all he produced were dirty little school children. The OTO is a classic example of this kind of behavior amongst Crowleyites today; especially if you’ve ever attended a Gnostic Mass. Still, I was not at Cefalu, or at least I don’t remember and so in truth I really don’t know what the talks between Crowley and his students were regarding sexuality ... the bottom line is that there can be no single correct approach because we are all individual Stars with different sets of sexual proclivities and needs. Where one person might need to be bent over table and simply fucked, another may require walking more slowly with, at first, no sex. To create a blanket program for all disregards each individual's needs. Still, the over-all goal remains the same for each despite what a teacher believes is the correct method – we all begin on Malkuth where we explored the bodies that we chose for our incarnation until we feel 100% comfortable and in control and moving up the Tree to Yesod we then explored our sexuality and Moon-like inner libido-driven fantasies. ... We will never make it into the deeper reaches of the Tree of Life unless we create a good Foundation in the man of Earth and this is the first step on the path of ‘Knowing Thyself.’ I disagree where you state that “Nudist colonies seem to be more in tune with accepting their sexuality than the rest of society.” ... To me, nudist colonies desensitize us to the flesh. Walking around naked is no big thing and as a magician I want to get aroused; I want the to get a hard-on in order to raise my libido out of Yesod but I don’t want to become as an ‘animal’ ... and drag it back down to Malkuth. As for your thoughts about the 'ps' on my 10:30 posting where you write that ".... it seems you would have a lot of naked horny kids in comfy chairs if you can't have a sexual release." ... I never said we were not aloud a sexual release, I simply said we could not touch, fondle or have sex with each other; masturbation was considered OK because this dealt with Self exploration. The idea was to explore our bodies and our sexuality without being afraid to show it or talk about what we did or what we saw the other do. You asked " ... and so what do you think the biggest problem was with the practice of the 'comfy chairs' ?" ..... I like that name ... the "Comfy Chair Practice" ... it brought a smile. Anyway, the biggest problem that I remember was that of a spectator's sport. In time we began forbidding some kids from simply watching from the sidelines because it annoyed, distracted and inhibited the performers. Again, take this for what's worth; but the girls on the sidelines never seemed to be the problem. It was always the boys. If they got the slightest bit excited their focus immediately shifted away from the drama; onto themselves and their need to get laid. It became like 'little dramas' all over the place, very distracting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10:30am Kathy sent a brief email regarding my 9:00am posting in which she writes - “Jerry 93 I was fascinated by what you wrote “Many of my adult friends find anything too sexually different a perversity rather than an exploration of self." What do you mean? 93s Kath.” Reply: "Every sign of the Zodiac has a unique libido which quests differently than others but society wants us all to conform to the same type of sexual experience. Society is the great slayer of the real. But as magicians we must learn to explore not only our bodies but our sexuality; these are the very Foundation stones which defines us both outwardly and inwardly. Everyone's Tree of Life (body on up) is different and our ability to use it is defined by our unique sexuality which is rooted in our Kundalini in Yesod and Malkuth. This is part of the experience that we incarnated for ... but the problem has always been finding someone who’ll not take advantage of you while you are questing to discover Self. Remember, first and foremost, understanding your sexually is not about others. To involve others is to quest for the opposite externally - rather than within. Oddly, when I watch male students in the A.’.A.’. approach their sexuality, especially when writing about it, they are more apt to seek or refer to an external vehicle more so than a woman. Men are visual creatures, women emotional. Men function in reality, woman within their mind. We have to ride the men in our A.’.A.’. far more than the women simply because women seemingly ‘get it’ when talking about their sexuality, while men ‘seek it.’ Trying to get the man to stop crossing the planes and go within is always an ordeal!Anyway, you need to be comfortable with the vehicle that you picked to incarnate into. You need to be honest with Self as to what excites and stimulates the flesh in order to control it (10=1 ... One you control, while the other controls you - Malkuth and Kether). But too often, when a person tries to talk about the sexual proclivities which find a purpose in their imagination, others think them sick or perverse. Society brain washes us with the need to be accepted by others and sadly, this keeps most individuals quiet about their fantasies and if they are not going to explore ... well, why bother picking a body to incarnate?"As a p.s., which I didn't include in my reply email to Kath, I should have pointed out that using an actual physical person (like a man in her case) as a projected 'opposite' and the means of Self exploration is 100% condonable but for a beginner, I wouldn't recommend it. The nature-oriented group that I grew up with as an adolescent had a practice that was simple: it was a great psychological stimulant. A boy and a girl would simply sit opposite each other nude in big comfy chairs and talk openly about their curiosity about each other's bodies while also talking about our own sexuality; our fantasies and desires; it was a kind of show and tell without fear of being groped or fondled ... but too often, while sitting opposite each other, the boy would try to take control in order to try to get laid rather than simply allowing each other to explore what they were feeling to their projected opposite. It was fascinating to watch this behavior; it taught me alot. However, one of the rules imposed by the adults was that we were forbidden to have sex. The practice was not about getting laid but some of the boys always tried anyways. Me, on the other hand, I conformed easily to the practice and where some of the boys were told simply not to come around, I was always allowed. I think it had to do with the fact that I was always an exhibitionist at heart and I think some of the boys missed out on a great experience. You can learn alot by the curiosity of the opposite sex; it's reflective of our own inward Self. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9:00am Here are some amusing thoughts that I wrote in an email yesterday that I'd like to share with you all. We were discussing childhood rites of passage and sexual experiences. I wrote: "My own experience has taught me that sexual curiosity is found in both sexes if given half a chance. It’s the societal ‘consequences’ which often keep kids from playing doctor. Remove the ‘stigma’ and children will become children. Also, a lot of my guy friends ‘think’ with their penises and if they get a hard on all they want to do is get laid and ‘playfulness’ is usually not in their vocabulary. Me, on the other hand, I don’t know what makes me different but I have always found it amusing to let the girls take control but I don’t consider myself a passive player or submissive as much as a curiosity seeker to see what the opposite sex wants. Still, what I once wrote about my Zodiac sign is more revealing than I care to admit; I wrote how Cancers are ruled by the Moon “and more than any other sign it will embrace the Light of its partner’s Sun in order to become Full and happy; which means that it often mimics their partner’s proclivities before their own.” ... Knowing this, it explains my childhood and why I so often volunteered my services. Sadly, the older I get I find the sexual curiosity of innocence gone and often I find myself in a relationship where all the woman wants to talk about is getting laid and the importance of her fucking orgasm. To me, anyone can get laid, that’s why they make vibrators ... but not everyone can push the envelop to have erotic fun. The mind is the true pleasure organ! As children we knew that but with age so many forget it. ... Many of my adult friends find anything too sexually different a perversity rather than an exploration of self."------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:35am For the history buffs: On this date, as asserted by some authorities, the lost continent of Atlantis sank beneath The Atlantic ocean. As to how historians figured this date out is a mystery. …...…. And finally, John Ballou Newbrough was born on this date on a Springfield, Ohio farm in 1828. He went to California during the Gold Rush of 1849, but returned to New York and practiced dentistry. He became involved in spiritualism and probably had his first psychic experience in the 1850s. He was a trustee of the First Society of Spiritualists of New York City. As a self proclaimed clairvoyant, he practiced automatic writing. His greatest achievement began on the morning of January 1, 1881. This automatic writing session, using a typewriter, began at 4am. As Newbrough would later tell a friend: “To my amazement as I sat in the chair, my hands went up and started to pound at the keys. It seemed to me that I was half asleep, but I saw everything I was doing. I saw no spirits, but I knew they were using my body and thought. I looked at my hands and fingers; they were going like mad. Then it occurred to me that it was fantastic.” He continued with these sessions every single morning until December 15, 1881. The final result was a manuscript that was over nine hundred pages long which some have hailed as the new Bible. It is called Oasphe. It was first published in 1885. Newbrough died in 1891------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday June 4th 2009 – 10:00am This is to remind everyone that there is an OPEN HOUSE tomorrow night at 6:30pm at my apartment ... but it looks like there will not be one on Friday June 12th; it's my son's last day of school. He graduates from the seventh Grade! I might be busy, might not be but I don't know what my schedule looks like yet and its best just to cancel this day. Hope to see some of ya tomorrow night ... our dear friend Dave Solina from Florida, who posts alot on this blog, he's in town and he'll be stopping by.
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7:45am Sadly, the headlines of the NEWS today reads - "'Kill Bill' Star David Carradine Dies." ... the article reads - "Kung fu movie legend David Carradine, who recently revamped his career in Quentin Tarantino's 'Kill Bill' movies, has died at the age of 72. Carradine was found dead in his hotel room in Bangkok, where he was set to shoot a new movie titled 'Stretch.' The Nation newspaper, citing Thai police sources, is reporting that Carradine was found hanged in his hotel closet and that it may have been a suicide. There's been no other confirmation of that report so far, and Carradine's agent told KABC that he believed the actor died of natural causes. Carradine's career is a vast one, with over 200 movies and TV shows to his credit, including the hit '70s show 'Kung Fu' and years later, more than 80 episodes of 'Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.' Younger fans will likely know him as title character 'Bill' in Tarantino's recent 'Kill Bill' movies. Carradine also dabbled in production and directing, and had roles in many television commercials." ... Very sad. Goodby Kwai Chang Caine, the grasshopper is no more. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5:50am For the history buffs: It was on this date in 1604 that the magician John Dee petitioned the King to have himself tried for sorcery, hoping to clear his name. ……..... And Aleister Crowley began writing The Diary of a Drug Fiend on this date in 1922. …....... and it was on June 4, 1982 that the movie Poltergeist opened in theaters and is a film about a haunted suburban tract home in a development built over a grave-yard. It contains all the childlike fears of monsters under the bed, in the closet, along with other things that go bump in the night. At first, some of the odd happenings in the house are simply amusing, but they gradually become creepier until the film climaxes in a terrifying special-effects extravaganza when 5-year-old Carole Anne is kidnapped by ghosts and held hostage in another dimension. …...…. Finally, on June 4, 1996, late in the evening in Cornwall, England, a woman saw what she first thought to be a sack floating “at twice rooftop height.” On closer examination she realized that it was a five-foot tall man dressed in dark ‘Victorian’ clothing which was flapping in the wind. A dog followed the mysterious figure briefly before it vanished from sight. What she actually saw, compared to what she reported to the police, is anyone’s guess. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday June 3rd 2009 – 6:05pm Ricky sent me this email earlier today with some interesting thoughts on The Sabbath of The Goat; he writes - "93 Jerry, Some thoughts on the Sabbath of the Goat. First I find it extremely interesting that the word Kephale is a grammatical play on the union of the Ketis and the Phallus and the Greek number that follow is the Seed of that union.
This brings up an interesting thought, one in which every number is a seed to its correspondences and breeds an entire world of its own based on its laws. The 93 chapters of the book then seem to be seeds of thought each taking on a life and thus universe of their own.
But then if we look at numbers in general as just relative expressions and extended factors of 0 then it seems to shed light a bit on Kephale A. O! The heart of N.O.X. What does this mean in regards to 0? 'O' has numerous meanings but they all seem to point in one direction. It is the All of which PAN is but the reflection and it is NOT. We see this plainly in the equation 0=2. The 2 in this represents PAN, the manifested course of existence. Pan is further explained as Duality, Energy and Death. This on the initiates path might be translated into: 'I' and 'Not I', Striving toward 'Not I', and the Consummation or Death of 'I'.
Now what does it mean that 'O' is the heart of NOX? To get past the obvious interpretation to this we must look at the word NOX and what it means. Nox is a Latin word for night, here AC uses this word to signify the Night of Pan or the destruction of the 2 back into 0. Or the Death that consummates the marriage of 'I' and 'Not I'. In this way, Death begets the supporters of 'O' or the Magister Templi. This is all I have for now, hopefully more to follow.93 93/93Ricky ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5:50pm For the history buffs: Phyllis Seckler took the AA degree of Probationer 0=0 under Jane Wolfe (Soror Estai) on this date in 1940, assuming the magical motto Tenax Propositi, she later took the name Meral. She rose up into the degrees whereby she attain the knowledge and conversation of her Angel. Karl Germer acknowledged the attainment of her HGA in a letter to her dated July of 1952. He wrote, Phyllis you have “risen to or above Tiphereth where the voice of the Secret Chiefs is gradually taking over and begins to speak to your soul.” ….....…. And I should point out that R. Swinburne Clymer died on this date in 1966. He had founded the Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis (FRC) in Quakertown, PA in 1912, which he claimed was a movement originally started by Pascal Beverly Randolph in 1856. Clymer devoted quite a bit of effort and work to attack Dr. H. S. Lewis of AMORC, whom he evidently regarded as an enemy and fraud. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday June 2nd 2009 – 3:40pm I went to my P. O. Box this morning and found a package waiting for me from Ricardo Flores [see photo of him top right; wearing all white; with beard and black hat]. He sent me a copy of his book Teachings of a Toltec Survivor. I took it with me when I went to get my son after school; it offered me something to read while I was waiting for him. Wow, it started off good, got my attention and before I knew it I was about thirty plus pages in before my son walked up and said, "Hi dad." ... It's not often that I find a book that is just plain 'honest' and that is a term that I rarely give out to magician-authors. Anyway, I found his book a journey within my mind that was well worth traveling ... if interested in learning more then you should check out his website The Tequihua Foundation; or email Ricardo to see how you can get a copy of his book. Enough for now ... back to reading!
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10:15am Joe sent an interesting and thoughtful email, which I'll reproduce exactly as he formated it ... he writes:93- Jerry- A quick reflection on the Sabbath of the Goat
The "O" brings to mind the hole which is aVagina, or the Excrementary hole, the Mouth, the Nostrils ( both) the ears- All the senses require holes- the "0" also a "0" ( Zero) which bring to mind the fool- The Fool which contains all the other thoth tarot cards in IT
Also an EGG
and OVUM
of course, womb
a CELL
a SEED
a LAMEN
THAT which has no beginning and no END
The Mother
The Devil
Looking at the Devil Card
We see cell division
Both Testicles could be seen as two "O" letters- or double zero's
One contains the female and one contains the Male ( and the depiction of ALPHA male behavior- see what the Devil is doing)
There is a suggestion, with the mention of Death the "N" and the Need To Die Daily
Clever Crowley !
When one is doing ones True Will it "is' not the "I" who is doing IT
Every time one erects something one creates a shadow !
The chapter suggests that there is need to always remember that Death creates Life and Life creates Death on all planes - this circle, once realized removes hopefully things like fear of "The Devil"
Okay back to work the BOSS is looking over me shoulder
Agape
JOE from Beverly
93 93/93
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7:35am A friend once asked me a question about how I felt about selling off all my stuff ; I replied - "Yes, it is a tragedy that I’m having to sell off so much of my accumulated life and treasures collected and given to me over a lifetime but I fear, at my age, and with my health, they’ve become a lead weight which will not allow me to move around more comfortably. Financially, maybe there has been a reason I’ve collected so much? Actually, the money is helping me to live day by day and not to be homeless [so far]. Besides, I cannot take any of it with me when I die and if others can appreciate the stuff now, so be it ... sell it off." What makes adding stuff into my 'For Sale' catalogue slow going is that I'm duplicating everything into a ‘Library Listing’ because they say you learn a lot about a man by his Library …. and around 2003 I began cataloguing mine. Prior to this I had reduced my library by almost a third and sadly, there is no record of those books which may or may not have influenced me. Now, everything that I am discarding I’m adding to this list as a record of my insanity. However, many of my average scientific, history volumes and philosophy books I have not added, only those of this nature which I consider have shaped my thinking. Right now my Library Listing of those items that I've discarded in the last five plus years is a whopping 322 pages long. Ouch! Sooner or later I want to catalogue my remaining [must keep] library into this listing otherwise no one will ever have any idea of my favorite books! Yes, I'm not selling off everything! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:45am I've been adding a lot of new stuff into my FOR SALE catalogue. Check it out. I hope to have about a hundred more books and etcs added by the weekend!!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:30am For the history buffs, lots to report: No one knows the exact date of her birth, or death of Ursula Sontheil. She lived some 500 years ago in the times of King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth and was known as a famous seer and has become the patron saint of women working in laundries. People celebrated her on this date. She was born in 1488 in a riverside cave, near the river Nid, at Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, England. At the time of her birth a summer storm raged outside the cave which was a few feet from the ancient ‘Petrifying Well’ which, according to legend, had the power to turn objects into stone as if by magic. At the age of twenty-four she married Toby Shipton, a carpenter and this is how she became known as ‘Mother Shipton,’ although she never had any children. She inevitably became England’s most famous Prophetess. She foretold the invasion and defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588; and Samuel Pepys’ diary grimly records that Mother Shipton gave forewarning of the Great Fire of London in 1666. Today her prophecies still prove uncannily accurate. She died in 1561. …....…. And how can we forget the Marquis de Sade? He was born on this date in 1740 as Donatien Alphonse François comte de Sade, into privileged French nobility in Paris, France. He was an extremely spoiled child who grew up on various country estates. This included an ancient castle with its dank and torturous dungeon; a playground which no doubt played a factor in his developing psyche. In adulthood he became one of the most controversial figures in world literature. His name has been cursed, while his genius praised. His imaginative works, which are very sexually extreme in nature, are meant for adults. About his perversions he once wrote, “I have imagined everything conceivable in this sort of thing, but I have certainly not done, and certainly never will, all that I have imagined.” He wrote such infamous works as Philosophy in the Bedroom, 120 Days of Sodom, Justine and Juliette. He died on December 2, 1814. …......… and it was on June 2, 1743 that Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, or Joseph Balsamo, said to be one of the greatest figures in occult, was born in Palermo Sicily. In 1789 he was arrested while in Rome after his own wife had publicly denounced him to the Inquisition as a vile heretic, a magician, a conjuror and, even worse, a Freemason. He was sentenced to death, but this was later commuted to life imprisonment in the fortress of San Leo in the Apennines, where he died August 26, 1795 under mysterious circumstances. According to one rumor, his body was discovered in a cell ‘strangled’ to death. …....…. And to continue on with the ‘flavor’ of birthdays; it was on June 2, 1939 that Dr. Tony Agpaoa, ‘The Psychic Surgeon of the Philippines’ was born. Many believed him to be a ‘quack’ who drove around in a gold-plated Mercedes while seemingly performing surgical services by plunging his hands into the body in order to remove cysts and to drain infected areas, all done by sleight-of-hand. In 1968 when Agpaoa visited Detroit to perform ‘surgery’ he was arrested and charged with medical fraud. Choosing not to prove his ability, he skipped his $25,000 bail and fled back to the Philippines. He died on January 23, 1982 and was interred in a glass coffin. …….... And finally, I’d like to mention that it was on June 2, 1973 that four men rowed out into Loch Ness; two of them were F. W. Holiday the future author of The Dragon and the Disc (1973), another was the Reverend Donald Omand who wanted to perform an exorcism on ‘Nessie’ … but some are quick to point out that the monster has been seen since, so the ritual obviously didn’t work. However, the ritual was never meant to stop the creature from appearing. It was performed because the Reverend had somehow become convinced that Nessie had ‘attracted an evil force unto itself.’ Hummmm, was Nessie possessed? Did someone witness her head spinning and her spitting green pea soup and doing foul things with a cross? Poor Nessie, no respect.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday June 1st 2009 – 6:00am For the history buffs: Today is a really, really strange kind of day. For starters, the Witchcraft Act, which was signed in March of 1563, took effect on this date in England. …...…. And then Brigham Young was born the ninth of eleven children on this date in Whitingham, Vermont, into a poor Vermont farming family in 1801. When the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith was murdered by an anti-Mormon mob in 1844 Young was on the East Coast. On his return, he played a critical role in keeping the savagely persecuted church together by organizing the exodus that would inevitably take the Mormons westward, first to their Winter Quarters, Nebraska, in 1846, and finally on to Utah’s Salt Lake Valley, in 1847. It was here that Young’s leadership was confirmed and he was named president and prophet of the church, inheriting the authority of Joseph Smith. Brigham Young died on August 29, 1877. …...…. And speaking of birthdays, Norma Jeane Mortenson, more commonly known as the actress Marilyn Monroe, was born on this date in Los Angeles, California in 1926. She was described by Anton LaVey, the founder of the First Church of Satan, as a “willing, but not very imaginative sex partner.” However, history has shown that Anton LaVey and Marilyn Monroe, although they might have known each other, were never lovers and that his comment was merely ‘wishful thinking’. However, about relationships, Marilyn Monroe once candidly commented, “Before marriage, a girl has to make love to a man to hold him. After marriage, she has to hold him to make love to him.” No words of wisdom were ever spoken more true. Tragically Marilyn Monroe died on August 5, 1962 of an overdose of sleeping pills at the tender age of 35. …...…. And it was on June 1, 1927 that Lizzie Andrew Borden died after a long illness, at the age of 66. She had been born in Fall River, Massachusetts, the youngest daughter of the prominent Andrew Jackson Borden and Sarah ‘Abby’ Morse. In August of 1892 her father’s body was discovered in the sitting room, lying on his back on the sofa, both legs hanging over the front. He had suffered over forty whacks of an axe and his face was unrecognizable. Abby’s body was discovered upstairs in her sewing room; she, like Andrew, had been beaten to death with an axe. On August 12 Lizzie Borden was arrested for the murders of her parents but at trial she was found not guilty. Although, to this day, she is still the prime suspect. …...…. And David ‘The Son of Sam’ Berkowitz was illegitimately born on this date in 1953 as David Falco, in Brooklyn, New York. He went on a vicious murder spree staring in the summer of 1976 in New York. In January of 1977 he sent a letter to the chief detective Capt. Joseph Borelli stating, “I am the Monster - Beelzebub - the chubby behemouth [sic]. I love to hunt. Prowling the streets looking for fair game - tasty meat. The women of Queens are prettyist of all.” …...…. And I’d like to point our also that Luisa Casati died on this date in 1957 at the age of seventy-six. Following a requiem mass which was held at Brompton Oratory, she was interred in Brompton Cemetery. One of her cherished taxidermed Pekinese dogs was placed resting at her feet. Her tomb was inscribed with a fitting quote from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. - “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.” Her house was often the setting for some of the most shocking and scandalous parties. It is said that she had nude servants gilded in gold leaf to attend to her needs, and that wax mannequins sat in chairs as guests at her dining table. She dressed outrageously, wearing live snakes as jewelry, and was infamous for her nocturnal strolls through Venice’s Piazza San Marco, naked beneath her furs, while parading cheetahs on diamond-studded leashes. She once even accessorized an evening costume with chicken blood. She also traveled throughout Europe letting numerous artists paint and sculpt her. She influenced playwrights and film makers, poets praised her strange beauty, and fashion designers fought for her patronage. All of this is just the tip of the iceberg of her behavior. Like Aleister Crowley whom she knew, Casati was also into the occult. It was said that Crowley and Casati had two of the biggest egos in Europe and that neither of them ever got along. In fact, once at a cocktail party, Crowley upon seeing Casati, said in a rather loud voice – “YOU!” – and then walked away. …...…. And finally, it was on June 1, 1967 that The Beatles released one of the most influential albums of all time - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The album cover featured colorful depictions of life-sized cardboard models of famous people on the front of the album cover whom the Beatles idolized in one way or the other and one of the people was none other than the notorious black magician Aleister Crowley.
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