Category Archives: The Beast Bay

Each generation of feminism has had its bogey-woman, scape goat, “other” one. The message the movement has been trying to send out, wave after wave, is “We are not as bad as you think.” In the ’70s-early ’80s the delineating line was that Lesbianism was not a feminist issue. We all use examples of what we are not to define and illustrate what we are, and in this case, mainstream feminism wanted to be accepted by the middle class. Lesbianism was too “out there” of an issue to talk about without intimidating those who held dear the status quo. … Lesbian needs are still fighting for a place at the feminist table.

LaSara W FireFox, “Outrageous Roots and a Bright Future; Sex and Feminism”

Hermetic quote FireFox Outrageous Roots and a Bright Future Sex and Feminism each generation bogeywoman scapegoat other message movement lesbianism feminist issue middle class status quo

Ordo Adeptorum Invisiblum

“Ordo Adeptorum Invisiblum” is a post over at the Occult Chicago blog (which is a blog by Hermetic Library visual pool contributor Rik Garrett), and the name of a specifically feminist Thelemic order founded in England in 1979 with headquarters for the US in Chicago in 1981. According to the article “Western Esoteric Family III: Magick” in Melton’s Encyclopedia of American Religions, the OAI was inspired by the “proclamation of the magical Aeon of Ma (or Maat) [made] in 1948 by Frater Achad (Charles Stansfeld Jones)” [via, also]. Occult Chicago also discusses how the OAI was influenced by the works of Aleister Crowley, Jack Parsons [also] and Nema, author of Maat Magick: A Guide to Self-Initiation and co-founder of Horus Maat Lodge. If you were a member of or know more about that order, you may consider getting in contact with the Occult Chicago blog and sharing your story. [HT Sarah Veale]

“The OAI also adopts feminist principles and practices—not the anti-male separatist variety—but in its non-sexist androgynous philosophy. Women are not the vehicle of a male seed, a male High Priest. They are magickal people in their own right. The history of female magickal energy is far older than that of the male, but it has been overshadowed by the masculine principle. The OAI seeks to rectify this by balancing the imbalance through women seeking to rediscover and reassert themselves, while male members minimize as far as possible their aggressiveness and dominance. In turn, this will lead to a more directly visible equality and non-hierarchical structure within the group and in rituals.” [via]

As an aside, Nema’s Liber Pennae Praenumbra, and a number of other works by Horus Maat Lodge members appear in the Received Wisdom section of the library and in the archives of Beast Bay.

The Book of the Horned One: A Gate of Pan Magick

The Book of the Horned One: A Gate of Pan Magick by Aion 131, with illustrations by Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule, is a book you may be interested in checking out. Aion 131 has several items in the collection of the library, such as “Commentary of The Book of Gate Called Pan” and “The War Engine of Liber AL” (which last, by the way, has been getting a lot of attention from the Anonymous #EtherSec people recently). This book is being published by Concrescent Press, the publishing house started by Hermetic Library fellow Sam Webster.

“For me the most fundamental path, the most primal path, is that of the beginning, the Nameless (before speech), the Infinite (before time), The One who is All and None. There is no name for this, no label for the wild stirrings that fill and inform my mind, heart and body—so I call it Pan. In this way it has a presence, a body, a focus, a BEING, and so in this way I have been able to converse with, play with, make love with, consume and be consumed by the primal wilderness archetype that fills me, one that is truer than all other illusions. Through a mask the unnamable is approachable, and Pan is the ultimate mask of endless contradictions united, of seeing the divine in One, in All and in None—all at once.

This book and its extremely loose and flexible system of magick (Called here ‘Pan Magick’ for want of a better name) is an intensely personal project. Let there be no doubt that it is an original system that draws from many wells, birthed from my interface with ‘Pan’. At the peak moments of this dance, like when The Book of Gate came to me, ‘I’ was quite absent. Still, here ‘I’ am and It seems a whole crew of ‘mes’ is penning this book and all are, of course, mere illusions and refractions. The act of somehow piecing together notes and rites and somewhat inchoate scribblings from 30 years worth of practice has me wondering what I’m doing. But The Great Pan has laughed and beckons me on and urges me to get it together and get it out there, so away we go.—From the Introduction” [via]

7×10 in., Hardcover, 340 pp.
Lavishly Illustrated
ISBN: 978-0-9843729-5-9
$39.95

The Beast Bay

The Beast Bay is the newest section at the Hermetic Library.

While I was working on the guest site for David Richard Jones, I ran into a few documents Jones had posted to The Beast Bay back in the day, so started trying to track down who had run the site. I managed to get in touch with Michael Sanborn, aka Xnoubis, and get permission to recover an authorized and official archive of the old site.

Take a gander at the site, and you will see postings by quite a few names you may recognize, several guests at the Hermetic Library among them, to name only a couple: David Richard Jones and T Polyphilus.

There are still a couple posts missing, and a few things left to fix in the presentation, but most of the material is there. I’ll keep working at it, and if you notice anything amiss do let me know. But, enjoy taking a trip back in time to this historically interesting online forum!