~ July 1st - 11th 2009 ~
Saturday July 11th 2009 – 4:40pm It seems a bigger quake hit last night as the Bapho Workings went a tad bit 'chaotic' as Choronzon danced smiling in the shadows. I am told, it was not pretty. Playing with magick is a serious thing ... they obviously got ‘burned’ and now they can either throw their hands up, play the blame game and say, “Never again” or they can learn from it.
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9:15am A small earthquake hit Berkeley this morning at 7:38am ... just a burp, a 1.2 magnitude. No biggie. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8:50am No word yet from Luna as to how the Bapho Working went but last night at exactly 8:00pm; when she scheduled the thing to begin in Hayward, we here, to synchronize our two places; lit the red candle but I had extreme difficulty in starting it; the damn thing just wouldn’t light. :? Everyone joked, offered advice. I finally got it going but only after I moved the candle off the altar area to another location. ... Then at exactly 9:00pm Jerri shivered noticeably enough to stop the lecture and for us to ask what’s up? She replied how she ‘feels’ it’s beginning or ‘now.’ Something ‘happened.’ ... And here is part of my final entry that I typed in my diary last night just before going to bed - "12:01pm I starred at the flame, closed my eyes and blew it out : did an I-Ching throw at the exact same time. I obtained 29 Khan, First line – 'Gorge within gorge, then cavern-do not go!' This is not good." .... The throw tells me it did not go well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7:05am Last night's OPEN HOUSE here at my apartment was one of the largest crowds to date. My apartment is one room, very small and we've tried over the years to keep tabs on who is coming as not to go over the limit of comfortability. It was cosey last night. We squeezed fifteen people in ... but it was a good time, the lecture went off without a hitch, great comments, fantastic stories by everyone and all in all it made for a rather entertaining time. Thanks all who attended! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7:00am For the history buffs: On this date in 1861 the Royal Navy ship, the Bacchante, was rounding the tip of Africa when it was confronted with the sight of The Flying Dutchman. This ship, whose real name has remained unknown, supposedly sank off the coast in 1641. It is probably the most famous ghost ship known; doomed to sail around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa forever. The legend has it that when the ship was sinking a Dutchman named Captain Cornelius vander Decken screamed out a curse: “I WILL round this Cape even if I have to keep sailing until doomsday!” What makes this sighting in 1861 so unique is that one of the people reporting the sighting was the midshipman, who at this time was only a prince, but he would inevitably become King George V of England. The lookout man who had first seen the Flying Dutchman is recorded in the ship’s records as saying; “A strange red light as of a phantom ship all aglow, in the midst of which light the mast, spars and sails of a brig 200 yards distant stood out in strong relief.” Unfortunately, an ironic twist to the story is that he was so distraught that a few days later he accidentally fell from a mast and died. …......… and on July 11, 1948 that the author Lon Milo DuQuette was born in Long Beach, California. On November 15, 1975 he took Minerval Initiation into Aleister Crowley’s OTO in Dublin, California. He later established the Heru-Ra-Ha Chapter of this Order in southern California. He has authored over ten books on magick and the occult; releasing such titles as Aleister Crowley’s Illustrated Goetia (1992); often referred to as the Goetic coloring book. He also wrote the classic magickal volume titled The Magick of Thelema (1993) as well as Angels, Demons & Gods of the New Millennium (1997). He released My Life in Spirits: A Magical Autobiography in 1999. Some reviewers have called this a “remarkable book.” Others have stated that it is “worthy of a permanent and honored place in the library of American spiritual literature.” Still another reviewer commented that “The book reads like someone who really did partake of the spirits [wink wink] and forgot to tell what really happened between him and Grady Louis McMurtry.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday July 10th 2009 – 6:25am Luna writes - "93! Cappy, Cappy, Cappy! I cannot express enough, how much your support of da Lam Players means to me and Leigh...and to everyone else!" ... Reply: Cappyfucious once said - "The greatest support a friend can give is smiles and sincere love." :)-
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6:20am For the history buffs: Austin Osman Spare joined the AA. assuming the magical motto Frater YIHOVEAUM, or ‘I AM-Aum’ as a Probationer on this date in 1910. Crowley toward the end of his life believed Spare to have become a Black Brother because of his cultivation of self-love through pleasure.” ……...... and it was on this date in 1925 that Meher Baba began his period of silence. A few days earlier one of his disciples asked, “But if you keep silent, how will you teach us?” To which he simply answered, “I have come not to teach, but to awaken.” He did not speak again for the remainder of his physical lifetime and his Silence remained unbroken for 44 years right until he dropped his physical body on January 31, 1969. ……..… and finally, on July 10, 1996 Belinda Kaiser, of Miami Florida, awoke to find that her 1994 Lexus had deep fang marks, an inch and a half deep, on the fender. Scratch marks also covered the hood and ‘something’ had ripped off and chewed up a plastic guard. A neighbor named Orlando Barriga told her that he saw a strange black creature sprinting across his lawn earlier that night. Another neighbor found giant cat-like prints in the sand of her children’s play pen area.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday July 9th 2009 – 2:45pm In regards to today's History Heap, posted at 5:55am, Sally Eaton writes - "Jerry, it might have been a typo on your part, but it was Herman Slater (not Simon) who “wrote” the Formulary. Oils were not Simon’s thing, despite his unctuous personality. Reason I know is, Clinton Stephens, a Wiccan teacher of mine, entered most of those formulas in the original MC index file – he brought them from his native New Orleans. There is even one of mine in there (“Aunt Sally’s Just Returns Oil”). Clinton felt terribly ripped-off and I don’t blame him. The Book of Pagan Rituals isn’t Herman’s either. Most of it was written by his lover Ed Buczynski. The Voodoo Bible I don’t know about, but it’s not Simon’s type of thing, either. Last book of his I saw was Papal Magic, an interesting study including a very decent translation of the Grand Grimoire. Prior to that it was some weird stuff about the gum’ment. But Simon absolutely wrote the Necronomicon. Jim Wasserman designed and produced it, and Herman promoted the shit out of it. (They were business partners.) Herman used to get very pissed off when I’d tell the fifteen year old boys who wandered into the store that Necro was a fake. You can imagine."
Reply: Thanks for sharing the info; I corrected the listing. Slater truly was a character; met him quite a few times, he's a man hard to forget with those eyes ... to some people's regret. ... I have old pictures somewhere of Wasserman and his wife Willita doing the Gnostic Mass in the back room of his store, The Warlock Shop. Ah, the old days! And in her email Sally replies to some previous comments about The Golden Dawn, writing - "In Victorian times all this had to be “couched” so very “sub rosa”. The Golden Dawn was shocking in that it admitted “couennes”. (And eavesdroppers, too.) We are so fortunate today not to have to hide behind all that pseudo-Xtian bullshit, at least like they did. Hurrah for the Baphomet Working!" Reply: ... and who is one of the stars in this working? None other than our old friend The Mad Duck who lives out here in the area! Did you know that his late wife Bonnie actually made my custom signet ring in silver for me back in the late 1970s? I still have it. I also have a great old photo of me, Allan, Bonnie and Rob out at my house in Connecticut long ago, during better times ... I should post it. Ah, memories! p.s. about Annie Sprinkle; neat kinda person ...
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9:20am After weeks and weeks of preparation, tomorrow is the first experimental/performance art piece aka dramatic ritual play of the Divine Androgyne known to some as The Baphomet Working by da Lam Players out in Hayward. There will be a huge six-foot plus transsexual playing Baphomet, lots of cross-dressing by others, ritual piercing, blood, role playing, masks, painted faces, dancing, music etc & etc and who knows what else will 'possess' people but it sounds like just good old fun! Damn, and I'm going to miss it. Can't wait to see the film. Anyway, I thought some of you might like to know that July 10th is the 191st day of the year.Now consider this verse from Liber AL vel Legis III:47 – “This book shall be translated into all tongues: but always with the original in the writing of the Beast; for in the chance shape of the letters and their position to one another: in these are mysteries that no Beast shall divine. Let him not seek to try: but one cometh after him, whence I say not, who shall discover the Key of it all. Then this line drawn is a key: then this circle squared in its failure is a key also. And Abrahadabra. It shall be his child & that strangely. Let him not seek after this; for thereby alone can he fall from it.”The phrase “Key of it all” has a Qabalistic number value of 191. Now go look at the original handwritten manuscript of Liber AL for this verse where Crowley adds a grid around - ‘circle squared’ or Mark of the Beast ... curious, no? I wonder what will really be coming down through these players?Other words and phrases that add to 191 using English Qabalah are: 'Golgotha' [Place of Skulls] and 'Colchis' which according to Greek mythology was were the sacred grove of the war god Ares existed and wear King Aeetes hung the Golden Fleece until it was seized by Jason and the Argonauts. Equally important, Colchis was also the land where the mythological Prometheus was punished by being chained to a mountain while an eagle ate at his liver for revealing to humanity the secret of fire. ... Amazons also were said to be of Scythian origin from Colchis. No telling what the Lam Players will be evoking! It could take weeks to sort it out. My advice; be sure to keep a diary of dreams, feelings and thoughts!Anyway, at our OPEN HOUSE here in Berkeley tomorrow night we're lighting a 'Ritual Red Candle' at a specific time to synchronize the beginning of the The Baphomet Working with our apartment. So, even if you are not in Hayward and you're attending the lecture at my apartment, the astral residue from across the state will find you! Beware ye who attend! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:00am I received this email yesterday from Jerri in Sacramento on the magickal formula of 'Chastity', she writes:Hi Jerry, 93
I’ve been musing over the cause of sorrow…which really are just those pangs of division that we agonize over when the Microcosm and the Macrocosm don’t match up in the manner our Ego’s believe that it should. When life throws us a ‘curveball,’ when we lose our jobs, families, money, health etc.. our Egos experience the pain associated with loss or an ending—Death. This is the “sorrow.” But, this sorrow is transitory, as are our attachments, and it is only reflective of a narrowed perception of our Godhood. I enjoyed the way that Ricardo described this the other day. He described a pantheon of oftentimes warring Gods that exist within us as a reflection of that division that exists below the Abyss, especially as shadows under the Sun, and he described an exercise in Chastity whereby one simply sits with these feelings, allowing all of their conflicting directives to just exist within us, accepting them all and denying none of them their existence. I also appreciated the pendulum aspect which he pointed out- as we do have this pantheon of “individual” Gods within-all with their individual mythos running through our minds. These forces don't always get along with each other. In fact, often times they are working at cross-purposes. This is the divided Will. As we attempt to balance these forces, unifying our consciousness, we may climb to a plateau where we get comfortable for a moment, but then...there they go again...some of them getting loud and obnoxious, trying to get all of the attention...disturbing our equilibrium, until we right ourselves again. Why would sitting with or accepting all of our thoughts and feelings be so important and how does this relate to Chastity?? From the perspective of Malkuth/Yesod-it is when we don't accept everything that we are--everything that we feel and think, etc. regardless of how ugly it is or how bad it makes us feel that we are then doomed to be controlled by what is left in the shadows… If I am Hadit and Nuit, there simply is no part of me that is not of the Gods. How could it be anything but so? Above the Abyss all is united. I am a God, made out of God, creating God, talking to God, eating God, fucking God, and bleeding God. The only “problem” is my perception of my Godhood. I am simply God wearing a “Jerri” suit who seeks to remember her divinity. My devotion to remembering and consciously experiencing my divinity is Chastity. When we refuse to embrace everything that we are (because again—all is God) the result is further division, further illusion. This is the sin as restriction—this is mystery as the enemy of truth. According to Crowley In Little Essays Toward Truth: “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.” Simply put, we seek to transmute our constricted perception of separation or division into Light and unity thereby merging the Microcosm with the Macrocosm. One small example of this process in action, as we try to shift our consideration to the internal world within, could be described through the veil of events that we encounter in our lives on Malkuth. If we spent a little less time worrying about these events themselves—and what is happening to us as pawns to the fates, as much as the understanding and reflecting upon our reactions to those events, which is more our internal participation to these external encounters, we begin to climb up the Mountain of Abeignus. Let’s discuss this process of transmutation a bit as I have failed to mention the power that drives this energy. It is our Libido, our Daemon--the Kundalini. This subject of Chastity is a tricky one and those Christians have yet again totally fucked up our thinking on this subject. No, I don't believe the purpose is to restrict our desires or our experiences in the traditional sense, whatsoever. The point really is to fan the flames of our Libido, embracing it and igniting it with our whole heart, fully experiencing and exciting this energy however that happens to turn us on as individual stars…but, always unto Her! We learned in The Gun Barrel--Mighty and erect is this Will of mine, this Pyramid of fire whose summit is lost in Heaven…and once we can climb past the shadows of the lower planes, through our erect Wills, by knowing ourselves, through our dedication to Her, that summit of fire in Chokmah or gnosis can begin to descend… It is when we place all the focus upon our children, our jobs, money, sex, sadness, fear (whatever is the Kundry), we have lost sight of Chastity---it is not that these things are “evil” and should be avoided, ignored or denied. I can and should have my cake and eat it too! Chastity is about the transmutation of energy...lower, into higher through a variety of methods which we have discussed throughout the series on The Book of Lies. Taking grosser, denser forms of the energy that we experience down here on the lower planes as division and shadow, sublimating it by clarifying our vessel-our body, and consciousness thus unifying our divided Will so that we receive more light or Wisdom from Above. This is why the Eucharist in the Mass can be related to VII degree mysteries. We seek to transmute our ‘inert’ consciousness, peeling away the layers of illusion, so that we experience the God that we already are. There is an element of sacrifice in the process, as we must give our Egos (which encompass our wants…) over to the divine Will (which we only perceive to be different from ourselves) to achieve the union of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm and Knowledge and Conversation. Ok...I’ve rambled on enough for now. This is a very intense subject...Chastity...very subtle and complex but, I will write more later! Hope you are doing well, Jer. I look forward to seeing you on Friday!!! 93 93/93 Jerri Reply: I wonder if you realize just how far along you've come over this last year or so at understanding and thinking like a magician? Damn girl, you've gotten good. I am always amazed when I get stuff written by my students which makes me think, which shows me my students are listening, thinking and in many ways, taking things beyond even me so that I learn new things. Bravo. I'm doing good ... see ya Friday! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5:55am For the history buffs: Nikola Tesla was born on this date in 1856, at the stroke of midnight, in Smiljan, Croatia. He was an Austrian-educated electrical engineer who immigrated to New York in 1884. At first Telsa worked with Thomas Edison but soon parted ways due to Edison’s desire to work with direct current, while Tesla favored alternating current. Many of Tesla’s eccentricities and visionary prophecies were humorously winked at without scorn but some found his ‘terrestrial stationary waves’ abit too much. With these he believed could make the Earth a huge conductor that would be as responsive as a tuning fork to electrical vibrations of a certain frequency. It was his dream to link the entire world together through telephones, telegraph systems, by transmitting pictures and even text from one end of the globe to the other within minutes, and delivering mail between specially set-up terminals, using electronic messaging. As brilliant as these early Internet visions were, he received caustic criticism for his ideas about communication with other planets, or his assertions that he could split the Earth like an apple, and his claim of having invented a death ray capable of destroying 10,000 airplanes at a distance of 250 miles. Toward the end Tesla was a complete recluse, living in a series of seedy New York hotel rooms with only his pet pigeons for company. After his death in a seedly New York hotel room on January 7, 1943 he slowly became regarded as an underappreciated prolific inventive genius, poet, a humanitarian visionary and mad scientist. Earlier, a Federal Judge had even ruled that he was the true inventor of the radio even after his strange view of openly proclaiming to everyone that its crystals were actual ‘living beings.’ ….....….. and on July 9, 1910 D. H. Lawrence wrote in a letter to Miss Crawford a brief reply, “If Ambergris smells like ‘Crowley,’ it is pretty bad. Civet cats and sperm wales - ugh!” …...….. and the classic movie titled Freaks opened in theaters on this date in 1932. It is a story about a carnival barker who displays a sideshow freak called the Feathered Hen and how she became such. It begins with Cleopatra, a trapeze artist with the carnival, who is adored by a midget named Hans. Frieda, Hans’ fiancée (also a midget), warns Hans that Cleopatra is only interested in her money. Cleopatra also has an affair with Hercules, the strong man, and when Frieda lets it slip that Hans is to come into an inheritance, Cleopatra and Hercules plan to get the money be having Cleopatra marry Hans. During the wedding reception, Cleopatra, although openly romantic with Hercules, is accepted by the freaks, but is revolted and mocks them. The freaks decide that they no longer need Hercules in their carnival and have a new career for Cleopatra all lined up, and make sure she doesn’t ‘chicken’ out. ……..… and on the same day and year as the movie opened, on July 9, 1932, Arden Schaeffer was born. He was a member of Starhawk's original Compost Coven which lasted from 1975 to 1977; studied and practised ritual Magick; in the early 1980s he was ordained a priest in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica by Hymenaeus Alpha 777. And he is mentioned in a lengthy article in the OTO Newsletter Vol.I No.1 May 1977. …....…... and to continue, on July 9, 1992 Herman Slater, aka ‘Horrible Herman’ and ‘Lord Govannon’, died of AIDS in New York City. He was very controversial witch. He owned the Magickal Childe occult shop at West 19th Street in Brooklyn Heights. He was also a notorious prankster who ‘published’ the infamous manuscript known as the ‘Necronomicon’ of Lovecraftian infamy, after a ‘mysterious monk’ (wink-wink) named Simon “delivered” the manuscript to his store, which was then called The Warlock Shop. Sadly, many people to this day still believe that this book is real. Slater also wrote The Hoodoo Bible, The Witch’s Formulary and Spellbook and A Book of Pagan Ritual.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday July 8th 2009 – 5:24pm p.s. for the record; outside of the last posting, the name 'Miguel Walters' wasn't even mentioned today on the blog. Can anyone say "Dah!" ... In fact, the last mention which he could say was 'negative', which outsiders could attribute to him, was at 8:25am yesterday morning! The vast majority of my postings since his expulsion have been about magickal theory, Qabalah, astrology, history & etc ... so I don't even understand what Miguel is really talking about as being 'endlessly attacked' ... ???
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5:00pm Miguel Walters surfaces after being expelled. He writes - "93, In that I have never said or posted anything negative to or about any of you. In that I have not personally made any attack against the Grady McMurtry lineage of A.'. A.'.. In that, for the most part, I have stayed to myself during my association with this branch of the A.'.A.'. and still found my character endlessly attacked with very slanderous remarks in a public forum I am making the simple and formal request that Mr. Cornelius and his associates leave me and anything associated with me (mottoes, names, suggestive references, etc.) alone and off the public forum of Cornelius' blog in my so called "Pit of Because" as had been previously suggested by Mr. Cornelius on April 27th 2009 . ... I have not once responded to the remarks made about me in the above noted public forum or associated with the web address of Cornelius93.com until now. I am certain given my own experience that there are regular and more demanding and assaulting influences than I to attack and hold up as an example. Please, just let me be. You truly won't hear from me again. Sincerly and Thank You, Miguel P. Walters."Reply: If I were to publicly relate everything that you've done over the last year that prompted us to finally say enough is enough, I think my readers would agree that you may not be openly slandering us but you sure as Hell cause great consternation behind the scenes where 'fraternally' it really mattered. Furthermore, we take affront by your comment that your character is endlessly being attacked slanderously in a public forum. There is NOTHING that has been said on this blog which is not true. The bottom line is that you failed miserably as an A.'.A.'. student and, if you had learned anything, you'd know that our students learn from examples. I guess it was ok when you and I sat and endlessly talked about others in our A.'.A.'. whose antics we posted on our blog as examples of folly or greatest in our Order. At the time you saw no problem in learning by example but now, when the shoe is on the other foot ... I'm suppose to keep quiet. For the records, I have no intention of continually bringing you up and nothing would suit me better to simply let you slip into the background. I was hoping to do just that until you sent the above email. Now I'm forced to publish it as an example of hypocrisy ... the bottom line, of which you SHOULD be proud, is that at least your folly will be a classic warning to others of what not to do in a vertical school like the A.’.A.’. and at least in your parting you'll do some good.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2:42pm Forget Michael Jackson, a greater legend has died. Oscar G. Mayer, the man who transformed his family business into one of the world's largest meat processors, died Monday in Wisconsin. He was 95. Anyway, we'll all still be eating his hotdogs years from now while Mr. Jackson's records are little more than a dusty collectable. ... The next time you see the Oscar Mayer 'Weenie' mobile drive by ... well, in respect, you know what to do. Salute!------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1:50pm Just in case our students think that assuming a motto is simply something that you pick which sounds cool. One particular student took the motto of "Know Thyself" in Greek or gnōthi seauton. However, when signing his man of Earth document as a magickal affirmation he unconsciously spelt the word 'know' wrong ... and he has forever since been plagued by his inability to 'know' anything about himself. Be careful what you decided upon - magick works.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1:45pm Ben, here is the quote that you wanted which we discussed earlier at the Med regarding how our branch of the Order consolidated both the Probationer & Neophyte degrees into the man of Earth. Anyway, Aleister Crowley wrote - “I believe then, and believe now, that the probationer of A.'.A.'. is nearly always offered the opportunity to betray the Order, just as the neophyte is nearly always tempted by a woman.” (Confessions pg.659). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1:25pm Just got back from the Cafe Med where I sat with Ben of Leaping Laughter Clerk House discussing magick, Qabalah, the Laws of the Universe, along with what a cute tight ass the young chick has who just walked in the door, kinda topics - yes, very mystical and deep. Anyway, Jay replied to my last posting - "93! Thanks Jerry. It's funny, because even as I was writing it I was conscious both of the fact that nobody outside of our A.'.A.'. would follow my thoughts and that I had many floating ideas at once. In fact, I left out a handful of things because I realized they were mini-epiphanies in a more personal general sense than anything pertinent to the conversation (monologue). But you're right, I need to zoom in and hammer out one thing at a time. In the future, if I think you might post something on the blog would you prefer that I slow it down and explain the recondite things more clearly? I don't mind, it will just take a little more time. Love, Jay 93 93/93." ....... Reply: Very good grasshopper!------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10:50am I should point out, due to two incoming emails, that what Jay is describing is clearly understood in our A.’.A.’. branch due to our discussing Crowley’s magickal formula so often but I agree, it is almost impossible for outsiders to follow what he is saying. Jay, is a young pup and hasn’t learned the Laws of the ‘sounding board’ ... or rather, he lacks someone to talk to first, who can say, “What the Hell are you talking about?” which would, hopefully, make him explain himself a little clearer. We love Jay.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10:25am I just receive a great email from Jay. He writes - "93 Jerry, I was going back over The Sabbath Goat and was starting to see the correlation between the formula of ON and the process of the Word from Chokmah entering into Binah and birthing Gnosis. I think this can be seen in NOX: O! seems to refer to the path of Ayin, the Devil. In connection to Hod it implies the phallus below the Abyss. N is nun or the path of Death, thus the formula of ON. Crowley says that X is the phallus, so it seems to me that this is the Phallus above the Abyss in Chokmah. In fact, if you draw it on the Tree the two processes mirror each other; from Hod to Netzach to Tipareth, up the path of Gimel in the microcosm, and from Chokmah to Binah to Daath, down the path of Gimel in the macrocosm. Can gnosis ascend from the formula of ON? It seem to me that what you would get is blatherings from the ego. But if you can take that energy from Tipareth up above the Abyss it can die and eventually rebirth as the Word in Chokmah. This is Death. When the Word moves from Chokmah to Binah, it can Birth Gnosis. This is Birth. Thus, "Life and Death are two names of A," A being Kether in Chokmah or the path of The Fool. And naturally above the Abyss Truth is in the unity of opposites. It's interesting to consider Binah here; she is the all-absorbing Chalice, the great negative; to enter Her is to die. She is also the Great Mother, the Womb and from Her births gnosis. She is the wombtomb... I think that's about all I've got for now... Love, Jay 93 93/93." ........ Reply: Very good. I think you're beginning to get the hang of how Crowley webbed the Formulas on the Tree of Life. But you're still thinking too much. Alot is going on in your email. Pick one section at a time, learn it carefully and thoroughly before trying to understand the whole of the Tree; therein will only lie folly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10:15am In regards to yesterday's 2:40pm posting Mike wants to know where I'd place the asteroid belt on the Tree of Life. Well, for starters, we know that the asteroids are an anomaly. They exist between Mars and Jupiter. Some astronomers believe that this belt was either a planet which was destroyed, or one that was simply ill-formed. Interestingly, Johann Elert Bode in 1768 predicted that there should be a planet found exactly where we now see the asteroid belt and on January 1st 1801 Giuseppe Piazzi, following Bode's mathematical formula, discovered the largest of all the asteroids which he named Ceres after the Roman Goddess; the great mother of unconditional love and fertility. It is the only official ‘dwarf planet’ in the asteroid belt and it is so large that it contains over a third of the entire belt’s mass. The general consensus is that this particular asteroid describes the development of feminine influences both externally and internally in both men and women. One is reminded of the myths of Ceres; the daughter of Saturn and sister to Jupiter. It was her daughter Persephone who represents the cyclic rhythms of nature and the deeper mysteries of birth, life, death and resurrection. She was abducted by the God Pluto the Lord of the Underworld and Ceres, refusing to give up her daughter, made a deal where half of the year her daughter would spent above the Earth which brought fertility to the land, the other half she would spend in the netherworld which brought winter. Astrologers are quick to point out that the placement of Ceres in one’s birth chart is clearly a harbinger of loss although it always holds out the promise of return, or recovery. ... Anyway, the asteroid belt is a mystery on the Tree of Life. Qabalistically, if the Law is correct or ‘As Above, So Below’ and that God used the same blueprint to create everything from the most exalted to the infinitesimal and to study any part on one Tree will reveal, simply by analogy, an identical principle on the other Tree ... then where is the asteroid belt on the glyph of the microcosmic Tree of Life? Naturally it should lie somewhere between Geburah-5 (Mars) and Chesed-4 (Jupiter) but nothing is there and unlike the other mystery of Chiron which is a mere comet, Ceres is an actual dwarf planet and as such you'd think that it should being given a Sephiroth, no? Or maybe the Tree of Life should at least show the asteroid belt in general, no? ... I will not be so presumptuous to know the answer to these questions, I am simply perplexed as are others.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7:10am For the history buffs: On this date in 1637 Robert Fludd the alchemist and author of the all-encompassing History of the Macrocosm and Microcosm (Utriusque Cosmi Maioris scilicet et Minoris Metaphysica, Physica atque Technica Historia ) in which he attempted to include all the known knowledge of his time, died in London at the age of 63. …...…. And Madame Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical Society and considered by many to be the most remarkable woman who has ever made an impact on the thought of the Western world, became an American citizen on this date in 1878. …....…. And I should mention that it was on July 8, 1913 that a St. Louis housewife, with very little education, named Pearl Curran communicated with an entity through an Ouija board who began by spelling out, “Many months ago I lived. Again I come. Patience Worth (is) my name.” Over the next five years she obtained twenty-nine bound volumes of material from short stories, plays and full-length novels to simple epigrams and poems. Many were acclaimed as literary masterpieces. There is little doubt of the remarkable relationship fostered between Pearl and an entity calling itself Patience. However, with fame came pressure and criticism. To remain amongst her newly found literary friends Pearl began to deny that an Ouija board was responsible for producing the stories. She began claiming authorship herself. Those close to her knew otherwise. Some even pointed out that she was actually too stupid to perpetrate such a fraud. Even philologists who studied her works have stated that with Curran’s limited education and child-like intelligence there was no way she could have produced novels where the majority of the words were of Anglo-Saxon derivation of a medieval nature. More perplexing to the scholars was that her novels did not contain even one word that had entered the English language after the seventeenth century. If she was a fraud, she was a damn good one. …...….. and finally, it was on July 8, 1916 that Aleister Crowley & Hilarion (Jane Foster) attempted to create a ‘Magical Child’ as heir to his magical current. The child would inevitably take on the form of Charles Stansfeld Jones, Frater Achad.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday July 7th 2009 – 7:02pm Sally replied to my 2:40pm posting – “Hi, Jerry 93 – super nice explanation on origins of the Tarot and Tree of Life! Thank you - You really know your stuff! You liked “Annie Sprinkle”, huh? I’ve been waiting to use that one for awhile… (Maybe she dated Mr. Woodman?)" ..... Reply: Yes, it was a good one! Made me smile. But many people may not know of old Annie but she's a real pisser, one of my favorite female Leo's; and did you know she's born in Pennsylvania?
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5:00pm Paul Hohlt writes - "93 Jerry, I'm sorry to hear that Miguel had to be expelled. Great Cabalah entry! I hope you are doing good my friend. love P. 93 93/93." ...... Reply: Yes, you reap what you sow ... I'm doing Greaaaaaaaat! No complaints.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3:10pm I received the latest issue of 'Another Mirror' (newsletter) Volume Two, Issue Two, Summer 2009 today. Wow! This is turning out to be by far one of the best newsletters being produced. This issue has a lengthy historical article on the magical world of Charles Stanseld Jones titled 'Keeping up with the Jones'. Loved it. I also enjoyed the article on Brion Gysin's Dream Machine by Frater Robert titled 'Dreammachine: The Alchemy of Light' ... and being from California, with a big smile here, I enjoyed the article 'Charlie, Charlie, Charlie! Who in the Hell's Charlie?' which is about our State's favorite mass murder Charlie Manson. Another Mirror is published by Gammon House Publishing out of West Virginia. If you want to know more about them, write: friends_of_gammon_house@yahoo.com. Again, job well done, great issue! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2:40pm Sally Eaton, an old Gradyite from out here in Berkeley, late seventies/early eighties, writes a great long email. Of interest she notes - "I like your approach to A.’. A.’. Three Grades rather than the Tree of Life system. How very Grady – he always preferred the profound to the complex. I also like your willingness to look at what people have done with their lives, rather than treat everyone who applies as a rank beginner. Some people do well with the rote/verbatim organized-religion approach; for others it’s just anathema. ... And why did Crowley need to borrow so much from the Golden Dawn rather than start from scratch? Just to impress potential paying customers and/or disgruntled former G.’. D.’. personnel? Alas, so much that we take for granted today was risky or simply unavailable then. The New Aeon has really come on fast, hasn’t it?"Reply: Thanks for the kind thoughts. Yes, the New Aeon is moving along pretty fast. Sadly, Crowley established an Order based on what he knew (i.e. Golden Dawn) thinking that he could simply make the structure work Thelemically. It is really clear that he did not look to Liber AL vel Legis for guidance. This is the flaw which Grady always talked about but since he never had many A.'.A.'. students he left it as is rather than changing it. We took Grady's talks and made them real. We only hope, where ever he might be, that he's pleased with our efforts. Sally then adds - "Personally I was never attracted to the Tree and Paths scheme. To me it seems unbalanced. I had learned Astrology and Tarot pretty thoroughly before I was exposed to it, and didn’t want to unlearn them in favor of something that made no sense to me. Didn’t Mathers expand those lopsided Tarot correlations from Levi and/or Encausse? Or was it received intacta at the hand of Fraulein Annie Sprinkle? My Moon in Libra demands symmetry; I still use the Waite Tarot and it works just fine for me." Reply: Symmetry! I agree ... I love studying this system and I want everything to fit nicely like a great big puzzle but admittedly, it doesn't. If the Law is correct or ‘As Above, So Below’ and that God used the same blueprint to create everything from the most exalted to the infinitesimal and to study any part on one Tree will reveal, simply by analogy, the other ... then where is the Asteroid Belt or Ceres on the Tree of Life and I can't find Chiron! If the Law is correct regarding ‘As Above, So Below’ then obviously a new, more correct map is needed as the exploration of our consciousness continues into the higher branches of the Tree of Life. It is no secret that the Tree of Life has been evolving and it is something not carved in stone.Many people mistakenly think that the image of the Tree that is found in most Qabalistic books is an ancient Jewish glyph - it is not. Although the Tree’s theoretical origins are webbed deep in Judaic lore, its design was actually conceived in the mind of a Christian, a German Jesuit known as Athanasius Kircher who was born in 1601. Kircher attended the Jesuit College in Rome where he devoted most of his life to collecting information from many different religions, observing the Universe, analyzing, synthesizing, making numerous graphs and publishing what he believed to be other people’s religious Truths. His books are filled with a multitude of beautiful illustrations designed to make his points clearer. In one such book titled Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1652) he drew a glyph of the “Sephirothic System” on a Tree of Life as he has ascertained it to be from the Hebrews. His drawing clearly shows three pillars comprising of ten spheres, which he then connected by using twenty-two paths of his own devising while attributing these paths to the Hebrew letters. Later Hebrew Qabalists so embraced Kircher’s design as being an accurate portrayal of God’s Will that over a period of time it has become an acceptable part of Judaic Mysticism. But most historians agree, it is Kircher’s design that is the earliest rendition of the Tree of Life most readily used today. Prior to Kircher there were numerous designs of the Tree of Life showing a diverse number of paths and spheres; Kircher was responsible for developing the 22 Path system based on the 22 Hebrew Letters. It was during the occult revival in the late 1700s that a most important foundation of Tarot was being established. It began with such men as Antoine Court de Gébelin (?-1784). He published nine volumes between 1773 and 1782. He saw the earlier Tarot de Marseille, which was simply being used as a card game, as holding what he believed to be an initiated interpretation of some arcane repository of timeless esoteric wisdom. In his eighth volume titled Monde primitif, analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne (The Primitive World, Analyzed and Compared to the Modern World 1781) he carefully laid out his Tarot theories. In this book he also published an article written by comte de Mellet who makes the first recorded connection between the cards and the Hebrew letters and the Qabalah. He often used the terms The Book of Thoth when referring to the Tarot; claiming, like Gébelin, that the Tarot cards have a secret origin going back into initiation chambers in ancient Egypt.The next major historical change to the Tree of Life occurred due to a Frenchman named Jean Baptiste Alliette (1738-1791), more commonly known by the pseudonym Etteilla. Some claim that he is the man directly responsible for making the Tarot and the Qabalah household words. He adopted the reverse spelling of his real name, Alliette, because it sounded more ‘mysterious.’ In 1788 Etteilla published the first Tarot Deck designed specifically for esoteric reasons, which were made up of 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana. He also founded the ‘Society of Interpreters of the Book of Thoth’ in 1788, which was the very first organization known to be devoted exclusively to the study of Tarot. Etteilla’s legacy is a mixed one, many of the symbols he used between Tarot, astrology and elements on the cards have become unpopular in occult teachings and have been abandoned. Still, Etteilla was the first person to publish a book with a methodology for Tarot, titled Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nomées Tarots (1785) and later Cour thèorique et pratique du Livre du Thot (1790) which sparked the popularization and the further study of the Tarot by other occultists. In the end, whether you agree with his teachings or not, he was still truly a pioneer in occult teachings and practices and one of his the major claims to fame is that he was the first to assign the zodiacal signs and Four Elements to selected cards. After Etteilla came Eliphas Levi (1810-1875); he further popularized the connections between the Tarot and the Kabbalah by connecting the cards with the Hebrew Alphabet and although there are many other authors emerging during this period, it was his work that cemented the association of the Tarot in occult study which has become the main model for the development and interpretation of the Tarot. Inevitably, considering that Kircher’s Tree of Life had 22 paths which correlated to the 22 Hebrew letters, it was only a matter of time before the 22 major Arcanum of the Tarot, which now had Hebrew letters assigned to them, would become associated to each path on the Tree of Life. And as for Mather's ... he used all of the above! And Fraulein Annie Sprinkle (I like that), or Spengel, she never existed. She's a myth. Personally, I kind of like the Tree of Life and The Book of Thoth but I see it only as a convenient filing system for all things. p.s. I use the Waite deck too!
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9:15am I was asked - "What is the overall problem as you see it with some initiates?" ... For starters: the worldwide Thelemic community within the OTO has become very argumentative over the years. Many who do not like the Order's policies think its their undisputed 'Thelemic Rights' to speak out, trash and badmouth without justification. It is my belief that if there are things that are definitely wrong, speak out for Universal Freedom, but if the Order is doing something that you simply don't want to do, then drop out. No one is forcing you to stay in. Unfortunately our biggest thorn in our A.'.A.'. has been accepting ex-OTO initiates who are seemingly trained at bad behavior. They want to join our Order and bring their "do what thou wants' kind of conduct with them. We try hard to weed these individuals out before they ever join but every now and then one slips through the cracks. Thank you OTO for making so many delightful Thelomites. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9:03am. I received this email - "Jerry, My toaster's been acting up all morning. You know, I think I feel a Jacko manifestation coming... Perhaps on that new range of Warburton's half white, half whole meal and full of nuts bread... ;) Yours, RTC." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8:50am Regarding my 5:06am posting; thanks Frank for the really kind offer to buy the item off Ebay so that we can put it next to our Holy Toast with Crowley's image on it but I don't think anything Michael Jacksonish would fit with the decor in my apartment.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8:43am I was asked "Why do you air your dirty laundry' on your blog?" First of all and most important, within the A.'.A.'. we learn by example. There are no secrets - "Mystery is the enemy of Truth" ... and second, it is not to be expected that everyone who enters our Order will succeed and if someone tragically falls by the wayside, what is wrong in telling his story if it can help others? We do this all the time on the most lowest levels; we tell children to wear helmets when riding bicycles, grownup to buckle up in their car, we tell everyone of numerous safety hazards which can cause death but why is it, if we do the same within a spiritual fraternity, that this is considered a sin to discuss why & how failure can occur? Again, we learn by example. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8:25am To answer a question: It should be noted that we do not hate Miguel, nor do we want him cast out of our lives; he’s been a friend for years and we believe that simply because he is incapable of doing the simplest of fraternal tasks that it does not, or hopefully it should not, negate our friendship. In some ways it’s a sad day, we all like Miguel a lot but he's continually putting us in a bad position and we're tired of jousting with him ... he doesn’t want to ‘get with the program’ he wants the ‘program’ to get with his beliefs. Obviously he is not ready for the A.’.A.’. and like all failures, it's easier to blame the system rather than examine one's own phantoms.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5:35am Of Note:
THE EXPULSION OF MIGUEL WALTERS
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - AL I:40
It is with deep sadness that the Inner Core of our A.’.A.’.; Hermits and three head of local Clerk Houses met last night to discuss the recent affairs of Miguel Walters of Sacramento, California. After a lengthy discussion it was unanimously decided to expel him from our Noble Order. Thus, it is official, as of this morning Tuesday July 7th 2009, Sun in Cancer, Full Moon in Capricorn, at 2:21am, Miguel Walters is no longer a member of A.’.A.’..Miguel Walters is a person who has never even fulfilled the simplest of tasks as a Student in order to begin working on the sphere of Malkuth ... and we have been trying for almost a year to teach him proper fraternal behavior toward his superiors and the Order but unfortunately he continually slanders with utter disrespect anyone who may not agree with his ‘supposed’ superior intellect. He also totally disagrees with the student-teacher relationship, he demands a warped sense of one on one equality which makes A.’.A.’. training all but impossible. We fear that he will never understand a vertical fraternity and that he will forever be stuck on the horizontal plane which places me-ism above all else. His ego is his greatest enemy. His recent badmouthing of his superiors to an outsider was the final straw. His actions then prompted this individual, on Miguel’s behalf, to send a most vile, perverse and contemptible email attacking Grady McMurtry’s A.’.A.’. about basic student-teacher policies which all lineages hold sacred and in common, clearly implies not only what Miguel is talking about behind our backs, while claiming to be a friend to our face ... but more important, it also shows us that he neither understands nor takes seriously Fraternal and Magickal Oaths. He is a failure on the lowest of planes and from this date forth let it be known that his Word and actions are never to be trusted. All A.’A.’. Students, especially those in the Sacramento area, are requested to no longer discuss our Order’s teachings with him from this date on; failure to comply with this simple request could have serious ramifications on one’s own future in the Order. Love is the law, love under will. – AL I:57
93 93/93 Frater Ached Osher 583------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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5:00am For the history buffs: Florence Farr was born on this date in Bromley, Kent in 1860. She attended Queen’s College, the first woman’s college in England. She was initiated into the Isis-Urania Temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in July of 1890, just past her 30th Birthday. She was the Order’s 88th member. Her motto was Sapientia Sapienti Dono Data, or Wisdom is a gift given to the Wise. She quickly progressed through the grades, and on the Winter Solstice of 1891 was the second member to be initiated through the 5=6 Ritual. The following year, she was elevated to Praemonstratrix of the Order. The Golden Dawn then went through difficult times. On April 1, 1897, after MacGregor Mathers and his wife had moved to Paris, Florence Farr assumed the head of the Isis-Urania Temple of the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn in London. However, in March of 1900, MacGregor Mathers dismisses her from her position as his London representative. Finally, in January of 1902, she severed all her ties to what was left of the Order. In 1912, she moved to Ceylon. She died of cancer on April 29th 1917, all alone in a Colombo hospital. As was the Hindu custom, she was cremated and her ashes scattered in a sacred river. It has been written that she was “... not a nymphomaniac, nor was she really interested in sex, but she was almost incapable of saying no to any man who asked her to sleep with him.” Aleister Crowley was rumored to be one such gentleman. …...…… and the writer Robert Anson Heinlein was born on this date into a family of seven children in the little town of Butler, Missouri in 1907. Two of his books which are most memorable are Starship Troopers (1960) and Stranger in a Strange Land (1962). …..…… and it was on July 7, 1930 that the creator of the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, died in Crowborough, Sussex, England at age 71. He was an avid spiritualist and strongly believed in the possibility of communicating with the dead, a subject that he lectured on extensively in his travels throughout the world. After his own death the London ‘Times’ reported: “All sincere British mediums are now sitting in the darkness, waiting for a spirit message from Sir Arthur.” A week later his wife held a ‘public’ séance at Albert Hall in London where she claimed to have spoken with her deceased husband but when newsmen badgered her to reveal his message, she simply smiled and replied, “Oh, it is beautiful and sweet - but private.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday July 6th 2009 – 11:15am We just had a tiny little earthquake hit around 10:32am here in Berkeley; just a 1.0 magnitude. No biggie.
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10:35am For those who might be interested, the surviving parts of the world's oldest Holy Bible were put online today, generating excitement among scholars striving to unlock its mysteries. The Codex Sinaiticus was hand-written by four scribes in Greek on animal hide, known as vellum, in the mid-fourth century around the time of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great who embraced Christianity. Click HERE if you'd like to view the actual manuscript. Yes, it's true, there are no versions of the New Testament older than this one. ... Sadly, not all of the manuscript has withstood the ravages of time, but those pages that have survived include the whole New Testament and the earliest surviving copy of the Gospels written at different times after Christ's death by the four Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Bible's remaining 800 pages and fragments -- it was originally some 1,400 pages long -- also contain half of a copy of the Old Testament. The other half has been lost. "The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's greatest written treasures," said Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library. "This 1,600-year-old manuscript offers a window into the development of early Christianity and first-hand evidence of how the text of the Bible was transmitted from generation to generation," he said. The texts include numerous revisions, additions and corrections made during its evolution down through the ages.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10:00am & Jay writes - "... and in the end was the flesh and the flesh was made Word." ... "93 Jerry, You are the Word! We are each a manifestation of the Universal Will, the Word of god. It seems then that the practice of Chastity is the realization of this fact; Chastity is putting oneself in line with the Word on the Microcosm. The Magus, having crossed the Abyss and entered into the sphere of Chokmah, realizes the Word on the Macrocosm. One of the symbols of Chokmah is the phallus from which the Word is emitted. We are each manifested by the flesh of god: "There is no part of me that is not of the gods." The path of vav, to which Caviar refers, unites Chesed to Chokmah indicating a uniting of the Word in the Microcosm to the Word in the Macrocosm, a realizationg of one's True Will in context of the Universal Will. Crowley said that to do your Will is to have the force of the Universe behind you; to practice Chastity is to become a medium for the Universe.... I know I'm missing something here... always many pieces, but where do they fit? Love, Jay 93 93/93." ........ Reply: What you write is a good start ... keep thinking! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:42am In regards to yesterday's 9:33am posting; I'm still here, no Alien Sex Goddesses rescued me ... then again, I'm not an ordained SubGenius ministers, so I guess I was left behind. :(------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:30am For the history buffs: On this date in 1187 Salah ad-Din Al-Ayyubi, more commonly known as Saladin the revered hero of Islam who united Arab forces and recaptured the holy city of Jerusalem from Christian Crusaders, marched the captive Knights Templars before him to give all them the choice of conversion to his faith or death ... all decide upon death and were killed to the last man. Some place the figure at 666 killed. …..….. and on July 6, 1935 the 14th Dalai Lama, Lhama Thondup, was born in a peasant family in northeastern Tibet in the city of Taktsir. In Tibetan Buddhism the Dalai Lama is believed to be an incarnation of Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of Compassion and when the Dalai Lama dies his soul is believed to pass into the body of an infant. When Lhama Dhondrub was recognition as the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama he was renamed Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, and became known as Yeshe Norbu, the Wishfulfilling Gem or Kundun. As a teenager the Dalai Lama became the head of the Tibetan government in its fight against the occupying forces of the People’s Republic of China but in 1959 he was forced to flee his country into exile. His travels in the cause of peace and for a free Tibet have made him an international celebrity, and in 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Price------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday July 5th 2009 – 8:25pm Sorry for not answering all your emails but Ben Hance, MM, Charles and a few imaginary friends to be named later, forced me, since around four o'clock today to now, to drink massive quanties of beer at the local bar. I didn't want to do it, I fought hard, killed three but in the end I lost ... I drank too much ... good-night.
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11:25am To answer a quick question: the phrase 'Saturn Return' is often thrown around in astrology and magick. Most, out of convenience, will simply tell you that it occurs around the age of 30 and 50 ... but, in truth, the planet Saturn comes around our Sun full swing every 29.46 years. This means that our first Saturn Return occurs somewhere around this age while the second return actually occurs closer to the age of 60. Still, we cannot negate that psychologically the age of 50 is one of the most crucial in our emotional growth. For this reason many magician/astrologers consider 50 to be the beginning of our second Saturn Return or when we begin feeling the 'pull' toward 'being' old. This age is similar to 20 where we sense that we're 'getting' old by becoming a young adult being drawn toward 30 ... It seems the 'pull' of the impending Saturn Return always starts affecting us about ten years before it actually hits. Yes, both sexes can be hit hard by the first return as they realize they must begin acting 'mature' and that they can no longer act irresponsible like a child ... but both sexes can really, really flip out years before the second; often buying fancy cars and looking for young trophies of the opposite sexes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10:30am Mike asks - "What do you think of Daniel Gunther's new book Initiation in the Aeon of the Child? I'm going to his lecture later this month in New York and I was curious as to what your views are." ...... Reply: Parts of his book I find interesting but it would take a lengthy discourse to list all the obvious errors which a basic knowledge of astrology and Qabalah 101 should have caught. Sadly, with such obvious foundational flaws the entire premise of his book is slightly off kilter. Anyway, I advise my students, who ask if they should read it to learn more about A.'.A.'., to go ahead if they want ... but read it with caution. I also tell them that if they want to learn more about traditional A.'.A.'. teachings then they should really be reading Jim Eshelman's The Mystical & Magical System of the A.'.A.'. [2009]. ...... and while we are discussing book; have you ever read Allen H. Greenfield's book Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts? [IllumiNet Press 1994]. I just finished it [again] the other day. As twisted as it may seem, it's fun reading. The back cover reads - "For decades, rumors have circulated that the UFO phenomenon is somehow directly linked to Occultism. Now, veteran UFOlogist Allen Greenfield provides startling proof of this connection! Going beyond speculation, Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts takes us to the heart of the UFO mystery with the discovery of a hidden Secret Cipher used by UFOnauts, Contactees, Occult Adepts and their Secret Chiefs. This volume places a tool in your hands, giving you the ability to reproduce the solution yourself and trace the UFO mystery directly to its startling Source!" ... and then he reveals the truth behind what Aleister Crowley REALLY received on those April days in 1904! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9:33am The world according to The Church of the SubGenius is suppose to end today ... "Since its inception in 1953, Church founder J.R. 'Bob' Dobbs has predicted that a fleet of flying saucers will arrive at the beginning of July to destroy the worldwide Conspiracy against the Church of the SubGenius, while all ordained SubGenius ministers will be rescued by escape vessels piloted by the Alien Sex Goddesses, also known as the Xists." ... yes, it's true, click HEREfor further details. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8:30am To address an anonymous email. ... I’m sorry if you are confused and upset by me not spelling everything out clearly but this blog is not for everyone, it is used as a learning tool for our A.'.A.'. students. If you don't get how we work, you never will. ... I already know these Mysteries; the blog is not a place where I should be flaunting how smart I am. Many of the blog entries are for my students whom I look forward to their replies to see if they can grasp the carrots. How many great books and articles have you read over the years only to have the information forgotten down the road? It's the 'Wows' that you remember; the epiphanies which trigger a response as if you have personally discovered something. These are true magickal foundational stones that you’ll remember and which really matter. And I will not taint these 'Stones' by spelling them out too clearly ... I can only lead my students to the water ... they must drink. But they must also remember the lessons of Plato in the Xth Chapter of The Republic; if greedy, if too thirsty, you’ll forget everything down the road. Therefore, I will NOT spell everything out here in this blog.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7:45am Ok, since Saturday July 4th's 7:45am posting by Frater Orpheus I was waiting to see if anyone made the connection; you have not. Most of the incoming emails are not being posted simply because they are missing the point and rather than offer things that will sidetrack our students, it's best to handle these in private. Anyway, let me offer you all a place of study but first, re-read the posting that I just mentioned; then consider this from The Book of Lies; it's Chapter 6 which details The Hierophant and the Hebrew Letter Vau:CAVIARThe Word was uttered: the One exploded into onethousand million worlds.Each world contained a thousand million spheres.Each sphere contained a thousand million planes.Each plane contained a thousand million stars.Each star contained a many thousand million things.Of these the reasoner took six, and, preening, said:This is the One and the All.These six the Adept harmonised, and said: This is theHeart of the One and the All.These six were destroyed by the Master of theTemple; and he spake not.The Ash thereof was burnt up by the Magus intoThe Word.Of all this did the Ipsissimus know Nothing.Aleister Crowley's Commentary : "This chapter is presumably called Caviar because that substance is composed of many spheres.The account given of Creation is the same as that familiar to students of the Christian tradition, the Logos transforming the unity into the many. We then see what different classes of people do with the many.
The Rationalist takes the six Sephiroth of Microprosopus in a crude state, and declares them to be the universe. This folly is due to the pride of reason.The Adept concentrates the Microcosm in Tiphareth, recognising an Unity, even in the microcosm, but, qua Adept, he can go no further.The Master of the Temple destroys all these illusions, but remains silent. See the description of his functions in the Equinox, Liber 418 and elsewhere.In the next grade, the Word is re-formulated, for the Magus in Chokmah, the Dyad, the Logos.The Ipsissimus, in the highest grade of the A.'.A.'., is totally unconscious of this process, or, it might be better to say, he recognises it as Nothing, in that positive sense of the word, which is only intelligible in Samasamadhi."J. Edward's comment - “There is no part of me that is not of the Gods”Any thoughts?------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:42am For the history buffs: Phineas Taylor Barnum was born on this date in 1810 in Bethel, Connecticut, the first child of Philo Barnum and his second wife, Irena Taylor. While it is true, P. T. Barnum was the founding force behind one of America’s most famous circuses, the Barnum & Bailey Circus, or the ‘Greatest Show on Earth,’ he is mostly associated with the circus sideshow and the display of freaks. He is often quoted as saying, “There’s a sucker born every minute” but in truth he never said this. It was something one of his competitors said about the caliber of people who frequented P. T. Barnum’s sideshows. …….....… and G. I. Gurdjieff has been described “... as an insane driver who would not last two minutes on a modern road.” Fritz Peters tells that Gurdjieff frequently drove too fast on the wrong side of the road, often he would miss his turn and refusing not to retrace his steps he would look for a new route on his map. One such route brought him head on into a tree outside Paris on July 5, 1924 which was almost near fatal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday July 4th 2009 – 8:15am I received this enjoyable email yesterday from Sally Eaton; an old OTO Initiate from out here in the Bay Area who now lives in western Pennsylvania. She writes:
Hi, Gerry –Do What Thou Wilt Shall be the Whole of the LawJust discovered your site after all these years. My name is Sally Eaton. You might or might not remember me from Grand Lodge in Berkeley, though I moved away long ago, in 1983. Bill Heidrick and Lon Du Quette will remember me, of course, and you might too, though it’s been a very long time. I knew Grady and Shirin very well, saw her a year or so ago. Enjoyed your bio of him very much. I spent many an evening listening to Grady’s War Stories, along with his ancient Wagner LPs. To this day I cannot hear the Tannhauser Prelude (with or without the Venusberg) without thinking of Grady.I would enjoy exchanging some email with you, reminiscences of those days of yore. Please give my regards to the Café Med. Is Julia Vinograd still around?Love is the Law, Love under Will –Best Wishes, Sally EatonReply: Yes, I clearly remember your name being mentioned but we never met; you moved away from the area long before I moved out here in late 1989. Anyway, I am glad that you are enjoying the website and have appreciated Grady's bio. It was a labour of love to write. If you have any old Grady stories that you'd like to share with our readers please feel free to send them along. He was a hoot.Yes 'Julia' (aka the bubble lady) still wabbles around out here trying to sell her poetry books; she's a fixture on the avenue. People joke how they're going to have her stuffed when she dies and sit her in a corner at the Cafe Med with a pile of her poetry books. I live right on Durant near Campus, a half block off Telegraph. It's never dull here.Anyway, great to hear from you ... keep in touch and feel free to comment on anything you read on our blog!------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7:45am I received this gem from Frater Orpheus this morning. He's been paying attention! Enjoy ...“There is no part of me that is not of the Gods”
“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”
A little background on this line…
It is taken from Liber XV, the Gnostic Mass and recited by the Priest as he faces the congregation, just after consuming the Host. This line was originally adopted from a line in the Egyptian book of the Dead and was included by the Golden Dawn in their Adeptus Minor ritual and where Crowley, most likely, first gained his familiarity. (Note: both the Adeptus Minor and Priest approach the “Veil” to partake of the “ Mysteries” beyond; One representing Life and the other Death) The original passage from the Book of the Dead actually lists out 22 parts of the body and attributes them to different Egyptian Deities and then states… “There is no member of mine devoid of a god, and Thoth is the protection of all my flesh.” Thoth who represents writing or the Word. He is called “the heart and tongue” of Ra and judges the dead.
Ideally the Priest would be a fully trained and properly prepared VII° when uttering these words. But what has this phrase to do with the VII° mysteries and our discussion on “Chastity”?… Let us consider Liber XV, the Gnostic Mass. A Eucharistic ceremony whose purpose it is, as is with similar Masses, “to transform crude matter directly into Godhead.” (AC MWT pg 81)
The VII section of Liber XV is entitled “OF THE OFFICE OF THE ANTHEM” which Crowley states “may be set to music, which may be as elaborate as art can devise.” It starts…
“Thou who art I, beyond all I am, Who hast no nature and no name, Who art, when all but thou art gone, Thou centre and secret of the Sun, Thou hidden spring of all things known And unknown, Thou aloof, alone…This is true and poetic identification with the Godhead. An affirmation of and identification of the Priests Will with that of the Universal Will. By definition Anthems are songs of praise, sacred “vocal” music, often in celebration of the Word. During this vocal Anthem the Priest literally invokes The “centre and secret of the Sun” of which he is but the vehicle. This Anthem spells out the position of the VII° very clearly. This section then leads to section VIII “OF THE MYSTIC MARRIAGE AND CONSUMMATION OF THE ELEMENTS” and it is this section which culminates with the line “there is no part of me that is not of the Gods”. This section describes an Eight stage process which begins with the “Lord most secret”, works through the Ruach and manifested in Malkuth…
“Lord most secret, bless this spiritual food unto our bodies, bestowingupon us HEALTH and WEALTH and STRENGTH and JOY andPEACE and that fulfillment of WILL and of LOVE UNDER WILL that is perpetual happiness.”This may be seen as the measurement between Heaven and Earth. The process within the Alchemic furnace that leads to the fulfillment of our True Wills which is Perfect and “perpetual happiness”.
It is the Priest from the Supernals above who turns to the people below and states, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”… to which the congregation responds “Love is the law, love under will.” This mirrors the Deacons first actions when proclaiming the Law in the name of IAO. In a nut shell the Priest is channeling that which is above thru him and down to that which is below in order to properly charge the particula of the Host. To achieve this result the Priest must be properly versed in both the Theory and Practice of “Chastity”. Those who would reduce Chastity down to a mere focusing of thoughts or to the negation of certain acts has missed the boat entirely and as JC points out, “simply knowing 'why' you're doing certain things along with the symbology behind the implements, movements and words does not make you a true Bishop.” In order to pull that one off you must have truly prepared the body to receive the Word having given yourself over to the Universal Will so that Gnosis may descend unhampered thru the lens of the Ruach. Gnosis being knowledge that is not outwardly gained but instead inwardly Understood. Simply put, Gnosis is Knowledge received…
So how does one prepare himself to become a vessel for this gnosis??? Already throughout these Epistles we have in great detail discussed the theories behind the VII° mysteries. We discussed the quintessence of the Spirit which lies within the Dew of immortality; that one must “conquer” Maya to properly direct the Kundalini forces which lie coiled in the Muladhara and that Consciousness is the disease of this force which originates with Aleph.
The lower three Spheres all demand that you put your faith in the hands of the Gods or above the Abyss; giving yourself over in service to humanity and the Universal Will, that you may be a proper vehicle for your Word. Some of Jesus last words were…“My Will which is Thine be done“… Jesus who represented the “perfected” Man, giving himself over to the Will of God. Yet isn’t the Body simply a Temple of the Holy Spirit and does not the Kingdom of Heaven lie within?… “There is no part of me that is not of the Gods“! On one level this is an identification of my Will with that of the Universal Will and on another, a recognition that “I” am but It’s Vehicle. The proper preparation of this Vehicle includes controlling the squares from 1 = 10 thru 7 = 4; Remember that although it is the ego which animates the Adeptus, one must learn to bring it under control otherwise it will corrupt all that lies below it on the Tree of Life. The central sphere within this Ruach is Tiphereth, Our Star and the Heart Chakra.
It is clear enough that the Bishop or a VII° sits at Chesed the sphere of the Adeptus Exemptus who has freed himself from the Law of Opposites and possess the ability to “grasp” or Understand his conditions. So that He may take a dropping from the Host of Heaven above and places it in the Cup of his fashion below. This in accordance with his True Will and guided from within.
We are all already divinely connected in all ways to “God” because we are “God” and only consciousness and the image we call “Self“ separate us from the True Spirit… only intellect and ego may distort this view. It is your chosen and appointed path to realize the full potential behind the Willed intent of your life… to understand the purpose behind the incarnation; DO-WHAT-THOU-WILT… just those four words… shall be the whole of the Law.
Love is the law, love under will
Frater Orpheus
Reply: Damn you're good and as I already noted; you've been paying attention. I have read the above over and over trying to think of stuff to correct and I am simply at a loss. Well done. ... Although I should point out that your mentioning of the Anthem and how it "spells out the position of the VII° very clearly" is very true, more so than our average reader may realize. I would recommend our readers review An Epistle on OTO Mysteries where we published notes from a lengthy lecture given by Grady Louis McMurtry at Brocken Mountain Lodge OTO. The majority of the data from this Epistle was taken directly from a chart which Grady drew on a blackboard correlating the Chakra system, OTO initiations & theories, The Gnostic Mass and Aleister Crowley's Atlantis, The Lost Continent to the Qabalistic Tree of Life. Our readers should note that Section VII of the Gnostic Mass portrays the Mysteries of VIIth Degree OTO in a dramatic religious form. And, like any religious ceremony, if done correctly, it will unconsciously effectuate changes in the audience's psyche which will draw them into the fold (i.e. OTO) wanting initiation. This is why Grady use to joke about how the Mass was the OTO's "greatest recruitment tool." Crowley also concealed the VIIth Degree in ATLANTIS Chapter VII: OF MARRIAGE AND OTHER CURIOUS CUSTOMS OF THE ATLANTEANS: AND OF SACRIFICES TO THE GODS. Very telling, especially the last few paragraphs! The only other thing that I would highly recommend studying is the fact that Seventh Degree OTO et Bishops not only work out of Chesed but they function within The Hierophant path which also unites to Chockmah; wherein the Minerval was initiated. It is no coincidence that both these degrees use the Word - ON' ... But which is has the dominant 'O' and which is the dominant 'N' ? ... I'd note the fact that Paul Foster Case writes how the Pillars in The Hierophant card "represent the Law of Polarity, or the interplay of opposites." ... Anyway, The Hebrew letter attributed to this path is Vau, or 6, which means a ‘nail’; a nail being something which unites one thing to another. In Hebrew Vau is used as a conjunction representing ‘and’ which unites thoughts and sentences. Also, and most important, The Hierophant card deals with 'Inner Hearing' in relationship to receiving the Word of the Gods (i.e. Chastity) ... Students should reflect on these things.Again, well done Frater Orpheus------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5:30am For the history buffs: On this date in 1971, a contemporary and friend of H. P. Lovecraft, August William Derleth, died in Sauk City, Wisconsin. He is considered Wisconsin’s most prolific author with 150 books already in print and forty manuscripts still to be published. He was the founder of Arkham House. ……........ And on this date in 1974, in the early morning hours just outside Oakland Nebraska, Emery Wickstrom and his two sons Nick & Tom saw a bizarre creature. They said that it was only about the size of a medium dog but it had a flat, monkey-like face, a curved tail and it ran upright and it also leaped as it ran across the road at a fast speed. ….....…. And it was on July 4, 1982 that Hugh Lynn Cayce, the son of the ‘Sleeping Prophet’ Edgar Cayce, died of cancer at the age of 75. ….....…. And finally, on July 4, 1996 near Fayetteville, Arkansas, a couple of guys reported that they had just finished firing off the last of their fireworks in a pasture and then walked away toward a patch of woods to enjoy the warm night for a few minutes. In the woods they noticed a light about hundred yards away. Thinking that it was somebody shooting off more fireworks, they walked towards it. As they approached, they saw in a clearing, three triangular shaped objects hovering just above the ground. They were UFOs. Lights were pointing down off each point of the triangles. Three strange beings were also noticed standing nearby, speaking among themselves in gruff voices. The beings were described as tall and covered with very thick hair that covered their bodies completely. After a few moments the beings seem to sniff the air and glanced immediately in the guys direction. Realizing they had been seen, the beings quickly ran into their ships, which shot then away into the sky emitting a bright burst of light, knocking the witnesses to the ground. The craft seem to elongate as they accelerated.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday July 3rd 2009 – 11:36am Ah .... A POSTCARD FROM HELL ... click here for details : www.quicksilver.uk.com/RTC/PFH.htm
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11:30am This morning I sat with an A.’.A.’. Initiate within the Lover grade at the Café Med discussing some of our students. It was entertaining; lessons to learn for All.We talked about one student in particular who seems driven by an obsession to know about sex magick more than anyone else. In truth, I’ve him for twenty plus years and this is clearly the number one reason why he joined our lineage and this is no secret. I’ve been told that he has more books on this subject than all of us together but still he can’t get it. He’s become an ‘intellect’, bogged down in Malkuth but he thinks he knows it all regarding this subject. And, if I, as a father figure, don’t agree with his ‘brilliance’ he complains to his Teacher about me criticizing his postings on my blog. He’s the only student we have who, instead of reflecting on my comments and trying to learn, complains about them. Just this week he sent me a long email regarding his views on ‘Chastity’, parts of which are very good but there are a few points I wanted to make in order to steer him correctly but I sat one morning thinking about how to ‘word’ my reply as not to get him whining and stamping his feet like a baby. Then I sat back and said to myself, why am I doing this? I am just not comfortable responding or posting his emails anymore. When this happens, a student-teacher relationship has clearly broken down. In fact, this is the number one reason why I had recently moved him out of my Clerk House into another in the first place. Now, two months later, I find that the ‘move’ was simply on paper, he's not working with his 'new' teacher and he’s back in my life as if it were business as usual. Nothing has changed. How did this happen? Anyway, I am no longer going to respond nor post anything from him that is either good or bad. I know his heart is in the right place, maybe his intentions are even good but his attitude toward learning is clearly rooted in a horizontal, almost confrontational school of ‘me-ism’ ... and I don’t think he’ll ever understand a vertical school and its direction toward humanity, not self. Even if he stays within the A.’.A.’., I doubt seriously that he’ll ever get out of the man of Earth grade ... C'est la vie. So, to all my A.'.A.'. students, if I don't post your emails ... take the hint.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9:30am This week I have added lots more stuff into my online FOR SALE Catalogue ... with lots more to come! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9:18am I knew I'd open a can of worms with my 8:30am posting. For those who asked; I too have a child. He’s my everything. There is nothing, I repeat, nothing that I would not do for him ... and I believe, prior to his incarnation, he picked me as his father for just that reason. Other children might have picked an idiot, an abusive, even a neglectful or absent parent for other reasons, or experiences. I’m not going to second guess their True Will or the foundational lessons they required for their incarnation. The bottom line; it’s ok for you to experience ‘everything’ on this plane, it’s your playground, you picked your life to gain a certain experience as if being tempered in an Alchemical furnace. However, no matter how much sex, booze or daily playing you do with children, friends or job, nothing should deter you from the Path. In the end, as everything dies and fades away, the only thing you’ll take out of this incarnation is your Word ... and until then, don't forget to stop along the way and smell all the pretty flowers.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8:30am To address a question - "What makes a person able to leave your man of Earth grade and move into the Lovers?" ... Reply : Many things but primarily the criteria is to find those individuals who have stopped seeking to learn ‘horizontal’ for the sake of ‘themselves’ and who have shifted their purpose upwards on the Path toward ‘vertical’ thinking and learning for the sake of humanity. If so, they'd become, as Grady often called it, a ‘building block’ in the Aeon. You might claim otherwise, but when push comes to shove, would you sell your soul to play on Malkuth while 'temporarily' promising yourself that you'll return to the path tomorrow? It's a fine line between embracing the full 'experience' for which you incarnated without denying it at the same time. What if your 'experience' is truly that of A.'.A.'. and you deny it by going off to play in the world? As Crowley would scream; it is better 'not' to take a Magickal Oath if you're not 100% committed to its Intent. And as Crowley would probably also scream ... you can have your cake and eat it too; there is no Law beyond do what thou wilt, have fun but don't confuse apples with oranges. Keep the Will and the Want in their proper places ...------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7:15am One student wondered if "all of us" (i.e. meaning our A.’.A.’. students) are getting it regarding all the sex magick talks on the blog; adding - “I find it just too obtuse for me to understand.” And “Is it just me?” .... Reply: No, most people don’t ever get it. You can put the secrets right in front of someone’s nose and if they’re not ready or thinking of sex too much from a Malkuthian point of view, they’ll always be seeking that ‘shred of paper’ or ‘missing piece’ to the puzzle for the rest of their life. If the Truth were so easy to understand, everyone would be practicing the Art. Grady once chastised me for a comment I made, which I though was brilliant but he told me at the time that you can clearly tell by a person’s writings on the subject if they ‘get’ IT ... at the time I didn’t fully understand, age has taught me that he's right; there is a difference between being an intellect and an intellect as opposite as fire is to water. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:18am Just a reminder, there is an OPEN HOUSE tonight at my apartment starting at 6:30pm; email me for details if you'd like to attend.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:15am For the history buffs: Franz Kafka was a Czech writer born on this date in Prague to German-speaking Jewish parents in 1883. His uniquely imaginative works combine a realistic, sometimes grotesquely exact description of details with an overall atmosphere of fantasies, dreams, and nightmares. He portrays a world in which people are deprived of spiritual security, and tortured by anxiety and loneliness wherein all objects and events are described with a precision while bathing them without a purpose or meaning. Kafka wrote three novels and many short stories. In his novel The Trial (1925) a man is arrested, he is convicted in a mysterious court and all his attempts to learn the nature of his guilt are futile as he dies in ignorance and is executed. Another novel, The Castle (1926), presents the futile struggle of a newcomer to win acceptance in a village and gain entry to a castle of an unknown supreme authority. Amerika (1927) is an extremely comic novel about the adventures of an adolescent European immigrant in America. Kafka’s best-known short stories include The Judgment, The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and A Hunger Artist. He died in a sanatorium in Kierling of tuberculosis on June 3, 1924. …....….. and it was on July 3, 1886 that the Rosicrucian Adept and member of the S.R.I.A., Kenneth Mackenzie died. …….... And Pearl Driver was born on this date in 1899. On August 9, 1933 she met Crowley who would proclaim her as his ‘new’ Scarlet Woman later that year. ………. And Raoul Loveday was born on this date in 1900. Years later this ..23-year-old Oxford undergraduate, along with his wife Betty May, would join Aleister Crowley at the Abbey of Thelema of Cefalu. Here he became known as Frater AUD or Adonis. Then tragedy struck. On February 16, 1923 Raoul died at the Abbey of gastro-enteritis after drinking impure water, not at the abbey as most historians claim, but somewhere from a stream along a thirteen mile route between the abbey and a monastery that he and Betty May had visited. Rumors still persist that this is a lie and that Raoul’s death actually occurred due to drinking cat’s blood during a Satanic ritual. Regardles how Raoul died, three days before Crowley recorded in his Magical Record that he felt a current of magical force, “heavy black and silent” threatening the Abbey. …...….. and it on on July 3, 1915 that a small boat rowed up to the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. In the prow of the boat was Aleister Crowley, claiming to be an Irishman, along with Leila Waddell, whose mother was an Irish refugee of the last generation and who believes herself an Irish patriot. She was a violinist and she played Irish songs to accompany the moment. Also in the boat was J. Dorr, an Irish editor who has published papers in both Ireland and England, and Patrick Gilroy, an Irish agitator. Everyone in the boat called themselves members of the secret Revolutionary Committee of Public Safety of the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic, and their early morning mission was to declare the independence of the Irish Republic, which included a declaration of war against England. Crowley, in an act of utter defiance, tore up his British Passport and unfolded as Irish flag, proclaiming loudly; “I unfurl the Irish flag. I proclaim the Irish Republic. Erin go Bragh. God save Ireland.” Afterwards the newspapers reported, “The party left the launch and went to Jack’s restaurant for breakfast.” ……....… and I should point out that Carroll ‘Poke’ Runyon (Magister Thabion) was born on this date in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1935. He earned a Masters Degree in cultural anthropology from California State University, is an initiate of an ancient Tibetan tantric order, and has served as an officer in three active Golden Dawn temples. He is also a 32nd Degree Freemason and a former soldier in the U.S. Army’s Special Forces. He is the founder of America’s oldest continually practicing Lodge of ritual magick, the Order of the Temple of Astarte in Southern California. Runyon is best known in the occult field for his discovery and development of the facial reflection technique for summoning spirits to visible appearance. He has been practicing and teaching Western ceremonial magick for 32 years and is the writer/narrator of the very successful VHS video The Magick of Solomon and The Book of Solomon’s Magick.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday July 2nd 2009 – 9:30am Ed Wormuth writes - "93 Jerry, Hope this email finds you well. I am still reading your blog as close to daily as I can. Sorry, I have not contributed anything to the discussen lately. It is my busy time and the questions are becoming more and more profound. ... I hope to have thoughts and epiphanies to share soon, but my time to poder and to wtrite are limited for a while. [I am still reading "Inside the Occult" and it has motivated me to aquire a copy of "Isis Unveiled" to further my curiosity along this line, but it's all just bits and pieces for now. 93 93/93, Ed." ....... Reply: It is sometimes nice just to get a hello. Thanks!
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6:05am Frank wants to know where everyone is, as the blog seems to be quiet of late. I replied, "Every year around late June to early August I get less emails. I think it's a summer thing. No biggie. It gives me breathing room." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:00am For the history buffs: Nostradamus died on this date in 1568. He was buried standing upright in one of the walls of the Church of the Cordeliers at Salon, with a marble plaque attached to the wall in his memory. However, rumors began to circulate almost immediately that there was a secret document in his coffin that would decode all his prophecies. After almost hundred and thirty years of fearing looters, his body was finally removed for safekeeping and no document was found; just an amulet. The greatest story regarding his body occurred one night in 1791 during the French Revolution. This is when soldiers from Marseilles broke into the church and ransacked tombs in search of loot. The very next morning they were ambushed by Royalists. Ironically, the soldier who had used Nostradamus’ skull as a wine glass the night before, died by a sniper’s bullet. ……....… and it was on July 2, 1881 that President Garfield was shot by an ex-Oneida Community member Charles Guiteau. After having invisible sexual intercourse with a Spirit called ‘Lordy’ Guiteau was commanded to kill the President. At his interrogation he told the police, “Get acquainted with the science of Spiritology” and you’ll understand why I did it. ……....… and it was during a severe thunderstorm on this date in 1947 that a UFO crashed on a rancher’s property in Roswell, New Mexico. Later, on July 8, the USAAF issued a press release stating, “USAAF Recovers a Flying Disk,” but the very next day the US Government changed their story and said it was merely a weather balloon. ……....… and on July 2, 1947 in Lake Okanagan in British Columbia a number of boaters saw the monster known as ‘Ogopogo’ simultaneously. One of the witnesses, a Mr. Kray, described the animal as having “a long sinuous body, 30 feet in length, consisting of about five undulations, apparently separated from each other by about a two-foot space, in which that part of the undulations would have been underwater...There appeared to be a forked tail, of which only one-half came above the water. From time to time the whole thing submerged and came up again.” ……....… And finally, on July 2, 1961, like his father who had committed suicide some thirty years earlier, Ernest Hemingway died at age 61 in his home in Ketchum, Idaho of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had rose early, as he had done most of his entire adult life, he selected a shotgun from a closet in the basement and went upstairs to a spot near the entrance-way of the house and shot himself in the head. If he had waited a little more than two weeks he could have celebrated 62nd birthday. Of all his novels, it is not what Hemingway published that brings him notoriety amongst Crowleyites as much as what was deleted from his 1926 classic The Sun Also Rises. It originally contained a short story based on an incident where Ford Madox Ford snubbed Hilaire Belloc only for Hemingway to later realize that Ford had mistaken the identity of the individual whom he had snubbed. It was not Hilaire Belloc at all, but rather the Great Beast himself, Aleister Crowley. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday July 1st 2009 – 3:10pm Every two weeks my Spam folder pops up on-line and reminds me to review all its contents and delete. It never fails, there are always one or two emails which AOL decides are 'spams' but which really are not . Here is one my dear friend Ricardo sent on June 28th!!!!
Dear Jerry, 93!
Just the night before I got your serendipitous email I was doing the second Telling of a new series I started. The topic of this series is "On Death" and that night I spoke of the states of suffering in the human dimension after (or right before, depending on which way you are going) the abyss of forgetfulness (or after rebirth). One line of the Telling had me saying "there is nothing but god under this hat" (a Toltec tribute to El Salahi). In a brush stroke of this Telling, we went through the encounter with suffering through self division and identification with parts of our experience in the human dimension. After that, the unending stream or karma starts by the struggle of the mind to achieve, obtain, secure, and, in short, to make the external world conform to our ideas of "what should be." In other words, the pain of division is increased by the drive of a divided mind to make its maps (what I want) stand for reality. One part of our divided self wants something (to hold on to a girlfriend, to feel safe, to be rich, to be respected, etc.), and it projects a map (an idealized but self-centered universe) unto the unknown territory of our experience as eternal beings. Eventually, this map collides with reality and we suffer. The suffering leads to more searching, more doing, more grasping for external satisfaction (which is never coming because the root of the suffering is not the external circumstances, but our own division, wants, and continuation with this unending karmic stream). To add to this madness, we not only have one divided personality but a whole assembly of entities inside, each one trying to satisfy their own wants without regard for the others--much less for the magical interests of the unified being.In this second Telling I'm summarizing, we saw how the striving for external satisfaction of wants continues and increases as karma is accumulated, until the time when learn to move inside and seek not to attain and become, but simply learn to sit with the pain, the suffering, the loneliness, the violence, or whatever internal condition we find in our human incarnation. We sit with it, the horror of our internal situation, without trying to alleviate it by external means, but simply know it, feel it, and allow the reality of our inner state to flower inside as we work to balance the totality of our experience (inner and outer). As we approach a state of balance, the inner condition we all try to alleviate (by incurring more karmic debt), can more easily and elegantly remain within us. The objective here is to hold this pain of division and know it as a reflection of our own consciousness, a projection of our state of manyhood bellow the Abyss. By holding it through our activities (internal and external, ordinary and magical) we begin to unify all these opposites. In fact, when we manage to stop directing all our attention, consciousness, and energies towards Yesod and Malkuth and learn to harmonize these currents internally, we create a harmonized vehicle that can contain the essence of our internal suffering. This internal suffering then can grow and flower into its true and intended outcome: the Soul of a complete Being. A Star at the center of its Universe.This is, of course, a balancing act. As with every balancing act, the balancing is attempted, the currents redirected, the dross burned, then the balance begins to falter and we start all over again. Process is repeated over and over until the process of balancing and inner directiveness itself is internalized and made into a habit. Then, we have a chance to see our universe as the harmonious interaction of the inner forces that inhabit us, the gods. These gods, of course, are the tyrants that direct our activities and proclivities when there is no harmonizing force directing the gods themselves. Each god wants to be king of the hill and seeks to work through our malkuthian vehicle to establish his and her own rule. Other pars of us then plot and fight for this rule. It is by bringing into play our Star, that Will that becomes the center of gravity around which all our planets (gods) revolve. Then, and only then, we have created a true system within us; a harmonious universe where the gods act in their proper orbit under the guiding light and gravitational pull of the Star. At that moment, I can say that "there is nothing but gods under my hat."A great hug and loving kiss to you, my friend!Ricardo93 93/93------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3:05pm Luna writes - "I watched that trailer that Jen sent you for Robot Geisha...and the blood coming out of the buildings just cracked me up!!!"------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:35am Under the Subject Title - "By the director of Tokyo Gore Police", Jeniffer sent me an email, writing - "Hey Jerry, I just found this and thought it was right along something you would enjoy, it is quite hilarious. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo-gGes6qig - RoboGeisha. Looks promisingly terrible and great! Enjoy Jen." ....... Reply: yes, RoboGeisha, looks like a movie I'd enjoy! :) Thanks!------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6:30am For the history buffs: The infamous Vampire of Dusseldorf, ‘The Lover of Blood’ was executed in prison on this date in 1881 for his crimes, and as Peter Kurten moved toward the guillotine his final recorded statement was, “... after my head has been chopped off, will I still be able to hear at least for a moment, the sound of my own blood gushing from the stump of my neck?” smiling he added, “That would be a pleasure to end all pleasures.” ….....… and Elisabeth Klarer was born on this date in South Africa in 1910. She was this country’s first and most famous UFO contactee. She claimed that she and her sister first saw a UFO back in 1927. Then, in 1957, in the Drakensberg Mountains of Natal, she was contacted by Akon, a scientist from the planet Meton, one of seven supposed planets nearest us which are inhabited. Her first book of these experiences was published in 1980, titled Beyond the Light Barrier. She died in February 1994 at the age of 83. ….....… And it was on July 1, 1942 that Aleister Crowley’s tarot cards, which were painted by Frieda Harris, were shown in the Berkley Galleries to the public. ….....… And on July 1, 1951 the most famous case of spontaneous human combustion occurred in St. Petersburg, Florida to Mary Hardy Reeser, a 67-year-old widow. The next morning, her next door neighbor came by to visit but discovered the doorknob too hot to touch and she immediately went for help. The Police, upon entering the apartment, discover Mary’s body sitting in her easy chair, surrounded by a blackened circle on the floor, four feet in diameter. Her 175-pound body, or what was left of it, was reduced to a pile of ashes, leaving only a section of her backbone, a shrunken skull the size of a baseball, and one foot completely undamaged encased in a black satin slipper which stretched just beyond the four-foot circle. The police report states, since no chemical accelerants was ever found, that the cause of death of Mrs. Reeser occurred when her highly flammable rayon-acetate nightgown caught fire, perhaps because of a dropped cigarette. However, one medical examiner stated that the 3,000-degree heat required to destroy the body should have destroyed the apartment as well and, in fact, damage was unbelievable minimal and confined only to the four foot circle. Even stranger was the fact that the ceiling and upper walls were not even covered with soot. ….....… And I must point out that it was on July 1, 1952 that Phyllis Seckler attained to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, that attainment, or consequence, which marks the Adeptus Minor Grade, 5=6, of the AA, the full initiate of the Sephirah Tiphereth. She shared her results with Karl Germer. Many letters survive of their subsequent correspondence of the subject. ….....… And to round off today in history; it was on July 1, 1996 near Fayetteville, Georgia that a woman reported that she awoke, froze and was unable to speak, as she watched a small five foot tall grayish humanoid with thin limbs, large dark slanted eyes, and a teardrop shaped face sitting on her bed. It then moved quickly across to her husband’s side of the bed toward the foot in a sort of sitting, scampering kind of motion. It jumped off and continued on across the room where it joined at least three other similar creatures, all of whom wore dark cloak like garments and dark hats, similar to a Panama. They all huddled next to the wall on her husband’s side, talking quietly in an unknown language. All of a sudden the woman later reported that she felt unbelievably tired and she fell back to sleep. Shortly after awakening in the morning she frantically related the ‘experience’ to her husband who, besides recalling nothing unusual during the night, thought she was crazy. However, neither of them could explain the odd orange-brown stains on the carpet at the foot of the bed or the similar stain on the sheet, which had been clean when they went to sleep the night before.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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