Category Archives: Ordo Templi Orientis

ARARITA’s First Gnostic Mass Temple

You may be interested in this crowdfunding effort to help build a mass temple for ARARITA, a local body of Ordo Templi Orientis in the Valley of San Diego.

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law!

The officers of ARARITA Encampment are proud to announce that, after one year of operating as a chartered body of O.T.O., we are nearing completion of our Mass temple. Our first Mass has been scheduled for September 21, 2014 and will be the first official Mass in San Diego in well over a decade.

Despite this exciting news, there is still some work to be done to get our temple ready for its grand opening. To this end, we are asking our Brothers and Sisters, guests, and friends for assistance in raising the funds necessary to obtain the rest of the necessary Mass equipment.

We need another $500 to obtain a Stele, enough chairs for our guests, and to put the finishing touches on the rest of our equipment.

Donate today to help us make this historic event a reality!

Love is the law, love under will.”

The Book of Lies

Hermetic Library fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Book of Lies by Aleister Crowley, from Samuel Weiser.

Its author wrote that The Book of Lies, Which Is Also Falsely Called Breaks should serve as the text-book for a Babe of the Abyss, i.e. an aspirant to Perfection who has irrevocably committed himself to “interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with his soul,” but who has not yet attained to Mastery on that basis. He assigned it the number 333, which is the number of Choronzon, the “mighty devil” who assails the Babe of the Abyss with the carrot of ego-attachment and the stick of cosmic fear. At the same time, he recommends the book even to beginners as containing useful wisdom regarding “many matters on all planes of the very highest importance.”

It is a short book, made up of many short chapters. Nearly all posthumous editions include the author’s later commentary to the original text, chapter by chapter. While these commentaries often contain useful instruction in their own right, they also frequently serve to misdirect the reader regarding the central message coded into a given chapter. And indeed, it is a highly cryptic book—sometimes whimsical, and often baffling.

There are certain conflicts of fact between the two stories that Aleister Crowley wrote regarding this book’s relationship to his status in O.T.O. (one in his Confessions, reproduced in the foreword to most of the later editions of The Book of Lies, and the other in Magick Without Tears chapter 25). It seems fitting that a volume called Lies should produce two irreconcilable stories from the author about its significance. Leaving aside Crowley’s hardly credible protestations of innocence, it has long been my surmise that The Book of Lies served as Crowley’s de facto “application” for the office of Grand Master General of the English O.T.O., since the book tidily synthesizes such topics as sex, metaphysics, qabalah, yoga, esoteric freemasonry, and original magical ritual. The facts that O.T.O. is never mentioned in the text itself, and that Lies includes several official rituals of Crowley’s own A∴A∴ initiatory system, actually serve to support this contention. At the time, O.T.O. Frater Superior Theodor Reuss, the Order’s international Head, was in the habit of recruiting as Grand Masters individuals who a) shared his propensity for esoteric synthesis, and b) had a proven track record as organizers of other initiatory societies. (A sterling but hardly isolated example would be Gerard “Papus” Encausse, whose Martinist Order was eventually listed among the bodies contributing their wisdom to O.T.O. in the latter’s Manifesto.)

In his accounts of his induction to the Ninth Degree, Crowley seems to tease the reader by claiming that the chief secret of O.T.O. is written in plain language in one of the chapters of The Book of Lies. Be that as it may, not only one, but most of the chapters contain doctrines relevant to O.T.O. mysteries. And considering that he equated the fully instructed and proficient O.T.O. initiate to an Adeptus Major, two full grades shy of the Babe of the Abyss in the A.∴A∴ system, one must infer that the best readers can get rewards from The Book of Lies that surpass the innermost Truths of O.T.O. [via]

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Two New Grand Lodges Established

There was some recent news from Ordo Templi Orientis on May 17th posted to the IHQ website that may be of interest, first simply because it is new news, but also because of a particular technical milestone that has been reached. I include this announcement in total here for reference:

May 17, 2014 e.v.

TWO NEW GRAND LODGES ESTABLISHED

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

The International Headquarters of Ordo Templi Orientis is pleased to announce the formation of two new Grand Lodges on May 17, 2014 e.v.

The Grand Lodge of Croatia has been chartered under the leadership of the National Grand Master General Frater Abrasax X°.

The Grand Lodge of Italy has been chartered under the leadership of the National Grand Master General Frater Phanes X°.

We would like to applaud the hard work and dedication of all our Croatian and Italian brothers and sisters which made this possible.

Along with the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, the total number of Grand Lodges now stands at five. Beyond the accomplishments of these countries individually, this represents a significant milestone in the development of the Order overall. According to the International Bylaws of Ordo Templi Orientis:

Once the Acting O.H.O. has established five (5) independent Grand Lodges under the governance of appointed National Grand Masters General, the National Grand Masters General shall have the power to convene an election of a de jure O.H.O., by simple majority. If this meeting is not held within a year and a day after the appointment of the fifth National Grand Master General, then the acting O.H.O. shall have the power to call it.

Fulfillment of this provision will complete the transitional phase of the Order’s constitutional re-establishment as initiated by the previous Caliph Hymenaeus Alpha.

Love is the law, love under will.

Frater S.L.Q.
For the Supreme Council
Ordo Templi Orientis

NOTOCON X in Austin, TX on Aug 14-16th, 2015

The tenth biennial National Ordo Templi Conference (NOTOCON X) of US Grand Lodge, with the theme “Fire of Motion”, will be held in the Valley of Austin, TX on August 14 to 16th, 2015. The logo was done by Hermetic Library anthology artist Mustafa al-Laylah, and I’m also proud to say the library’s Hermetic Hosting is supporting this event with donated hosting for their conference event site.

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

Our dynamic regional community reflects the cultural diversity of Texas. The O.T.O. bodies in our area include people from all demographics and reflect the society around us.

When practicing magick in a conservative part of the country, we become each others’ support and confirmation of our chosen path. Practicing the radical philosophy of Thelema is a challenge that we share in as we raise our children, fight for freedom, and build our community.

Our theme expresses the heat of a southwestern summer, but more significantly how we achieve our Will while working, parenting, creating, and evolving as individuals, as well as in the Thelemic community and the red states we live in. New Mexico, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas are part of our region.

So given our daily environment and all of its challenges, how do our Magical practices lead to personal change, meeting goals, and furthering our progress on a daily basis? How, specifically, has Thelema led to changes in people’s work places, families, and communities? How do we manifest the Law in our everyday lives, whether at work, play, or home? How do Thelemites handle the problems encountered in a predominantly Christian environment, especially in the work place and other areas where our philosophy of freedom conflicts with expectations of conformity?

Despite all the pitfalls, we thrive together, and our light can shine brightest in the darkness. We are families, we are lovers, we are seekers, we are teachers. We are husbands, sisters, children and crones. Above all, we are Magicians. We are the fire of Will as it manifests in the Love we share as we grow and change together. We are Fire in Motion.

We hope you will come on down to Texas and celebrate with us, but be forewarned: it’s gonna get hot in here!

Love is the law, love under will.”

Occult Conference in Glastonbury, UK on Mar 22nd, 2014

Occult Conference 2014 will be held in Glastonbury, UK on March 22nd, 2014, with tickets available online through March 16th. This event will have vendors, workshops, lectures, a Gnostic Mass ritual, keynote, an evening ball, and more.

“The new and re-imagined Occult Conference will be investigating five Initiatory Traditions within British Occultism:
· Alexandrian Wicca
· Dion Fortune Western Mystery Schools
· Illuminates of Thanateros
· Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids
· Ordo Templi Orientis

We have brought together fantastic representatives of these Traditions, and will be offering lectures and workshops to allow attendees a glimpse behind the curtains, and to gain hands-on experience of the praxis within.

After a packed day, we will be converting the venue into a Temple for a very special celebration of Liber XV: The Gnostic Mass by Ordained Officers of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, under the auspices of O.T.O. All will be welcome to celebrate the Divine in Humanity, and the Generative and Creative forces of Nature.

The Jupiterian Ball will round off the evening with aplomb: Dance and enjoy cocktails to music from Swing to Rockabilly, decked out in your finest evening-wear or vintage dress. Separate tickets for partners or friends will be available for this section.

We will also be hosting Peter J. Carroll and Matt Kabryn as they launch EPOCH: The Esotericon and Portals of Chaos! Make sure to attend for an exclusive chance to buy signed first editions, and discuss this work with the authors themselves.”

Thelemic Seasonal Holy Day Wall Calendar

Thelemic Seasonal Holy Day Wall Calendar is a crowdfunding effort from Knights Templar, a local body of O.T.O. in the Valley of Salem, MA, which may be of interest.

The campaign will “raise the money needed to print and sell a full-size ‘Thelemic Seasonal Holy Day Wall Calendar’ showcasing Thelemic artists; filled with the Holy Days, the Feast Days for the Gnostic Saints, etc., as well as the Moon Signs and Phases.” The calendar itself is designed to run from March 2014 – March 2015 so it is particularly timely right now. The art is by a number of artists you may recognize including frequent Hermetic Library visual pool contributor Marjan Ŝetar as well as Kat Lunoe and the late John “Snakedaddy” Hanley, to mention only a few.

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

For three years now I have wanted to create a professionally printed, full-size, ultimate “Thelemic Seasonal Holy Day Wall Calendar”, filled with the specifically listed Liber AL Holy Days, the Solstices and Equinoxes, the Cross-quarter days, the Feast Days for the Gnostic Saints, etc., as well as providing the always useful Moon Sign and Phase information.

Furthermore, my goal has been to showcase Thelemic artists (preferably Sisters and Brothers of the O.T.O.) by complementing each of the 13 months (from March to March, Aries to Aries) with beautiful Thelemic art appropriate to its Holy Days.

It is my belief and hope that this publishing project can and will be a significant contribution to Thelemic culture. Everyone who has looked at it seems to agree.

I have thus far received approval from all of the artists whose work I selected for the calendar, including:

· Sister Cathryn Orchard (now Crane) of Ouarda Arts in the UK

· Brother Nathan Hopkins and Brother Mitchell Nolte of the Collective 777 Art Guild in Australia

· Marjan Ŝetar in Slovenia

· Kat Lunoe, John “Snakedaddy” Hanley, Michele Witchipoo, Nick “The Barbarian” Kelley, and others here in the US

They have all given permission, and each one indicated their excitement and enthusiasm for the potential of this project.

Apart from a little final editing, the design phase of the project is complete, it can be ready to go to the printers in a week or less. What we need now is the funds to make it happen! Our goal of $500 will ensure a 50-print run, so we can begin getting this out into the Thelemic community.

I am now very optimistic that, with your assistance, we can have this project completed and made available to the larger O.T.O. and Thelemic community in time for the Equinox!

My true goal here personally is to get this calendar out to as much of the larger O.T.O. and Thelemic community as possible, and then to turn around and focus on doing a bigger and better job at producing the next year’s calendar. But whatever money we make over and above production costs will go into the Knights Templar Oasis treasury, where it is desperately needed!

So check out the Gallery above, and give what you can! $25 gets you your own copy of the Calendar! Thank you all SO much for your support!

Love is the law, love under will.

— Frater A Ka Dua”

Weiser Antiquarian Books Catalogue #117 Aleister Crowley and Circle. A Miscellany of Used and Rare Books and Ephemera

You may be interested in Weiser Antiquarian Books Catalogue #117 Aleister Crowley and Circle. A Miscellany of Used and Rare Books and Ephemera.

“The catalogue is divided into three sections, the first of which is devoted to the magnificent Frieda Lady Harris / Aleister Crowley Thoth Tarot Calendar that was published for the year 1987. The calendars are huge (16.5″ x 10.5″) and each has 12 full-colour large size reproductions of different Thoth tarot designs. Serendipitously the alignment of days / dates in 2015 will be exactly the same as it was in 1987, so those who want to actually use the calendar will be able to do so next year! We have only a very small number of original new copies — recently discovered in England — and originals are rare, as many owners disassembled them and framed each of the images individually (we have one such set on the walls at Weiser Antiquarian).

The second section is devoted to books and ephemera by Aleister Crowley. It includes a good selection of First Editions of Crowley’s works, including the first separate British and US editions of The Book of the Law (1938 & 1942 respectively), a good selection of First Editions of the first series of The Equinox, including one of the rare white buckram issues of which there were only 50 copies, and a handsomely bound copy of The Equinox, Vol. III, No. 1. (‘The Blue Equinox‘ — 1919) from the library of Ray G. Burlingame (1893–1965) ‘Frater Aquarius,’ a IX degree member of the Agape Lodge of the O.T.O., with his stylised ownership inscription. Other First Editions include a superb set of the first issue of Magick In Theory and Practice (1929) in four parts, with the rare, 4 page prospectus and the single-sheet Subscription Form; The Sword of Song. Called by Christians The Book of the Beast (1904), two different variants of The Tale of Archais. A Romance in Verse (1898), a handsomely rebound copy of Oracles: The Biography of an Art (1905) and first separate editions of The City of God (1943) and The Fun of the Fair (1942), including a copy of the latter with the two additional poems that were left out of most copies because of wartime censorship regulations. Posthumous editions include a highly unusual Thelema publications re-issue of The Vision and The Voice (1952 / 1980), the sought-after John Symonds and Kenneth Grant edited Magical and Philosophical Commentaries on the Book of the Law (1974) and a lovely copy of the Karl Germer edition of Liber Aleph (1962) with the extremely unusual original single-sided prospectus loosely inserted. There is also some fascinating ephemera, including a proof copy of Liber LXXVII. [Liber Oz] with holograph notes by Crowley on the verso; an autograph letter, signed, from Crowley to his physician urgently requesting a replacement prescription for heroin, and a holograph draft of a letter from Crowley to Frieda Lady Harris, along with a typed letter signed to Crowley from his lawyers, who had evidently vetted the contents of the letter on Crowley’s behalf!

The third and final section of the catalogue comprises works which in one way or another relate to Aleister Crowley. These include a copy of the rare first edition of Betty May’s Tiger-Woman (1929) — which famously includes a chapter on her stay at Cefalu, and a delightful early edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1926), a book which Crowley greatly admired, but which was banned in the UK at the time and comes with a home-made “modesty shield” so that it can sit undetected on the shelves. Both books are from the library of Edward Noel Fitzgerald (1908-1958), Frater Agape, a IX degree member of the O.T.O., long-time friend of Aleister Crowley’s, and briefly Karl Germer’s representative in the U.K., with his posthumous bookplate. Other curiosities include Liber Vel Oviz 93 Sub Figura LXXVI as Delivered By Oviz to Przoval 8 = 3 (1981) an unusual privately printed work that appears to present itself as a ‘sequel’ to or extension of “The Book of the Law,” S. Ivor Stephen’s, Neutrality: the Crucifixion of Public Opinion From the American Point of View (1916), a well-reasoned argument for keeping the USA out of the First World War, which includes a number of references to the views on the subject of the “great English writer and poet” Crowley and his circle; and a typed letter, signed, from Dennis Wheatley to Crowley, discussing publication possibilities for Crowley’s memoirs (1934)

Inside Solar Lodge, Outside the Law

Hermetic Library fellow T Polyphilus reviews Inside Solar Lodge, Outside the Law: True Tales of Initiation and High Adventure by Frater Shiva. There has since 2012 been a new and expanded edition released, available at extortionate prices or a reasonable price.

This book is an invaluable addition to the history of Thelema, providing a previously-unavailable level of detail on the principal group in the US that believed itself to be perpetuating a magical catena from Aleister Crowley during the late 1960s. It is quite readable, and mostly credible. Still, practicing 21st-century Thelemites with no particular interest in history may find it somewhat shallow and uninteresting.

The account is certainly worth the read by students and researchers of the phenomena of New Religious Movements, as it offers an insider’s view of the full developmental arc of a ceremonial magic cult from inception to drug-addled senescence. [via]

Weiser Antiquarian new arrivals, including a Book of the Law from 1938

Weiser Antiquarian Books has posted a number of new arrivals, including a Book of the Law privately issued by O.T.O. in London from 1938, as well as other items of interest such as A E Koetting’s The Book of Azazel, Alexander Winfield Dray’s Nox Infernus and Liber Obsidian Obscura, Sabbatica compiled by Edgar Kerval, Liber Nigri Solis edited by Victor Voronov, Michael Cecchetelli’s Crossed Keys, Nigel Pennick’s The Toadman, and a number of Aleister Crowley, Israel Regardie, Jack Parsons, Kenneth Grant, Austin Osman Spare, and Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn related works as well as others of probable interest.

Heinrich Tränker als Theosoph, Rosenkreuzer und Pansoph

Heinrich Tränker als Theosoph, Rosenkreuzer und Pansoph: (unter Berücksichtigung seiner Stellung im O.T.O und seines okkulten Umfeldes) [Henry Tränker as Theosophist, Rosicrucian and Pansophist (taking into account his position in the O.T.O. and Occultism)] by Volker Lechler and Wolfgang Kistemann [HT William Thirteen], is a 2013 work, in standard and limited numbered editions, about one of the figures in the original pre-Crowley Ordo Templi Orientis, and may be of interest.

“Wer war der Theosoph, Rosenkreuzer, Okkultist und Pansoph Heinrich Tränker? Dieses Buch geht den Spuren nach, die er in der ersten Hälfte des 20zigsten Jahrhunderts in den okkulten Kreisen Deutschlands hinterlassen hat. Welche Rolle spielte Tränker als Landesoberhaupt des Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) in Deutschland? Warum kam es zur Auseinandersetzung mit Aleister Crowley auf der sogenannten Weida-Konferenz? Und wieso wendete sich ein Teil der Pansophen von Tränker ab und gründete daraufhin die Fraternitas Saturni?

Auf Grund der Auswertung zahlreicher, bisher unbekannter Quellen, entsteht ein neues Bild von Heinrich Tränker und seinen „okkulten“ Weggefährten (dazu gehörten u.a.: Franz Hartmann, Otto Gebhardi, Martha Küntzel, Hans Fändrich, Theodor Reuss, A. Krumm-Heller, Albin Grau, Eugen Grosche (Gregor A. Gregorius), O. W. Barth, Aleister Crowley, Hugo Vollrath, Harvey Spencer Lewis, Walter Studinski (Waltharius) u.v.m.). Viele in der gedruckten Literatur und im Internet verbreitete angebliche Tatsachen entpuppen sich auf einmal als Mythen, Verdrehungen und Unwahrheiten.”

“Who was the theosophist, Rosicrucian, occultist and pansophist Heinrich Tränker? This book traces the marks he left in occult circles in Germany during the first half of the 20th century. Which role did Tränker play as head of Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) in Germany? What lead to the dispute with Aleister Crowley at the so-called ‘Weida Conference’? And why did some pansophists turn away from Tränker and founded the Fraternitas Saturni?

The analysis of numerous, hitherto unknown sources has changed the picture of Heinrich Tränker and his ‘occult’ companions (among others Franz Hartmann, Otto Gebhardi, Martha Küntzel, Hans Fändrich, Theodor Reuss, A. Krumm-Heller, Albin Grau, Eugen Grosche, O. W. Barth, Aleister Crowley, Hugo Vollrath, Harvey Spencer Lewis, Walter Studinski and many more). The analysis of historical sources shows the reader, that many alleged facts circulating in printed literature and the internet are merely myths, misrepresentations and untruths.” [via]

The Hermetic Library Blog

Faint gibbering heard from somewhere near the restricted stacks