Category Archives: The Rites of Eleusis

Six days left to help crowdfund Eleusyve Productions’ The Rite of Mars

Although I’ve previously mentioned this, there are only six days left for Eleusyve Productions’ crowdsourcing effort to bring to stage their rock opera of The Rite of Mars, one of Aleister Crowley’s Rites of Eleusis, and you may wish to help. They’ve got a long way to go to reach their goal, but the campaign is flexible so anything you can contribute will still help them out. Also, they’ve recently made arrangements so that all contributions are tax deductible, which, in addition to the plethora of rewards for supporters, may help your choice to help them even easier.

“We’ve got just six days left in our fundraising drive for The Rite of Mars, and I am writing to you because I believe that art matters.

Art matters to the people involved — Over thirty creative individuals will donate their time and energies to this project, stretch their limits, build, embellish, sing, dance and grow as artists and people through the course of bringing this project to the stage. It will be an experience that they will never forget, and art matters to them.

Art matters to the audience — Some will come out of curiosity, some will come out of love for the materials, but all of them will be exposed to something that goes beyond entertainment, not simply music and dance for their own sake, but something with a depth of symbolic meaning that will unfold through multiple viewing, something crucial to the human condition that will impact and alter the audience. For the audience, it will take on a weight beyond the measure of the moments invest, and the art will matter to them.

Art matters to our culture — So much of the creative focus of our culture has been redirected toward marketing that symbols are regularly appropriated without any understanding, and art with meaning has become rare. This is a work wherein words, sounds, and gestures are all carefully planned in order to inculcate real ideas. Ideas surrounding concepts like freedom that go beyond slogan and drive at the heart of what it is to be free, and responsible for the choices that accompany that liberty.

Real art inspires thought, awakens curiosity, and deepens understanding, and that is what we do.

I writing to ask you to support art, because real art makes a difference.” — via email

Artemisia March

“Artemisia March from The Rite of Mars featuring Sunnie Larsen” from Eleusyve Productions is for their upcoming production of Rite of Mars, from Aleister Crowley’s Rites of Eleusis.

“Artemisia March is one of the instrumental tracks composed for Aleister Crowley’s The Rite of Mars, a rock opera. The composition is structured after The Turkish March by Beethoven, and incorporates themes composed by Melissa Holm for ‘Isis Am I’ in The Rite of Venus, and a viola solo composed by Sunnie Larsen.”

The Invocation of Holy Fire

The Invocation of Holy Fire from The Rite of Mars featuring Kristin Holsather is a video with music and photos from Eleusyve Productions related to Aleister Crowley’s Rites of Eleusis. The music is from the upcoming production of Rite of Mars planned for 2014, which you can help make a reality, with photos from the 2012 live production of Rite of Sol. On the Eleuysve YouTube page, they are posting a new video each week in December 2013 featuring previews of Rite of Mars tracks.

“This is a musical interpretation of The Invocation of Holy Fire composed for The Rite of Mars, scheduled to be staged in 2014 by Eleusyve Productions. The vocal track is performed by Kristin Holsather performing at Aries, the same role she performed on stage in The Rite of Sol.

The photographs were taken in 2012 by Sandra Buskirk and Todd Gardiner during live presentations of The Rite of Sol.

The Invocation of Holy Fire is one of many ritual incorporate directly into The Rites of Eleusis by Aleister Crowley. While this ritual is not one of the rituals of The Golden Dawn that are incorporated elsewhere among The Rites of Eleusis (including The Lesser Banishing Ritual of The Pentagram, which is also featured during The Rite of Mars) this ritual does follow a formulaic structure similar to other Golden Dawn style workings and seems to be a variation on a similar theme.

Aleister Crowley’s invocations throughout these Rites, particularly his understanding of Mars, would have been informed by The Bartzabel Workings that took place in July of 1909 and the Enochian working detailed in The Vision and The Voice that took place later that year.

The Rites of Eleusis were originally stage at Caxton Hall in London during the Autumn of 1910. While some have expressed the opinion that these were intended to be private ceremonies for initiates only, an interesting argument given the presence of magickal rituals within the plays, all surviving documentation from playbills to diaries support the understanding that they were intentionally written and produced with an educated public in mind.”

Aleister Crowley’s The Rite of Sol, a rock opera

Aleister Crowley’s The Rite of Sol, a rock opera is now available on DVD from Eleusyve Productions [also].

Aleister Crowley's Rite of Sol from Eleusyve Productions

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

Eleusyve Productions is proud to announce the release of the fourth in its series of feature length musical adaptations of The Rites of Eleusis written by Aleister Crowley, the most important figure in the Western Occult Revival over the last 100 years. Eleusyve Productions is a theater group of actors, dancers and musicians based in Seattle, Washington, whose primary current purpose is the presentation of the seven plays comprising Aleister Crowley’s Rites of Eleusis (originally presented as a series in London in 1910) as modern musical theater pieces, using music, light, dance and drama to enhance the poetry and symmetry of the original works.

Aleister Crowley drew upon his deep knowledge of classical Greek arts and culture to produce these seven works (each centered upon one of the seven planets of antiquity) and intended them as a vehicle to entertain, instruct and to generate interest in the A∴A∴, his magickal teaching order. More than a century later, interest in Crowley’s occult knowledge and methods continues to grow, and the renewal of the Rites of Eleusis; their reworking in a modern rock opera format, staging and release on DVD and soundtrack CDs; has successfully brought these entertaining occult works into the 21st century.

Story synopsis: The Rite of Sol: a scene of post-conflict bliss is emerging following The Rite of Mars; a proud but precarious Utopia. Like a shadow cast by the brilliance of the Sun, however, something unseen moves beneath the glittering façade, haunting the devotees of the silent, ever-shining God.

Once again, the Rite of Sol features an outstanding cast of Seattle performers and musicians, including featured solos by Sunnie Larsen, with music composed by Jon Sewell and Melissa Holm. More information about all the completed Rites of Eleusis, with audio and video samples and purchase information available at the Eleusyve Productions website. We are very excited to present The Rite of Sol, a culmination of several years work, and the latest in an outstanding series.

Love is the law, love under will.

Jon Sewell
Eleusyve Productions

 

The Spirit of Tragedy

 

“The Spirit of Tragedy” from Aleister Crowley’s The Rite of Sol, a rock opera by Eleuyve Productions

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

This video is an artistic edit of “The Spirit of Tragedy” containing additional clips from Aleister Crowley’s The Rite of Sol, a rock opera as it was performed during November of 2012 in Seattle, WA at The Richard Hugo House.

The feature length DVD will be available from Eleusyve Production on March 8th, 2013.

For more information on this and other presentations, sound track recordings and full length DVDs visit us at eleusyve,com

Love is the law, love under will.” [via]

 

Excerpt from Aleister Crowley‘s The Rite of Sol:

Mortals never learn from stories
How catastrophé becomes;
How above the victor’s glories
In the trumpets and the drums
And the cry of millions “Master!”
Looms the shadow of disaster.
Every hour a man hath said:
“That at least is scotched and dead.”
Some one circumstance; “At last
That, and it effects, are past.”
Some one terror—subtle foe!
“I have laid that spectre low.”
They know not, learn not, cannot calculate
How subtly Fate
Weaves its fine mesh, perceiving how to wait;
Or how accumulate
The trifles that shall make it master yet
Of the strong soul that bade itself forget. [via]

Liber Resh vel Helios (Dawn) from Aleister Crowley's The Rite of Sol, a rock opera

 

From Eleusyve Productions‘ The Rite of Sol, words from Liber Resh vel Helios set to music just in time for Solstice.

 

“Hail unto Thee who art Ra in Thy rising,
even unto Thee who art Ra in Thy strength,
who travellest over the Heavens
in Thy bark at the Uprising of the Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow,
and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Night!

Above, the gemmed azure is
The naked splendour of Nuit;
She bends in ecstasy to kiss
The secret ardours of Hadit.
The winged globe, the starry blue,
Are mine, O Ankh-af-na-khonsu!

I am the Lord of Thebes, and I
The inspired forth-speaker of Mentu;
For me unveils the veiled sky,
The self-slain Ankh-af-na-khonsu
Whose words are truth. I invoke, I greet
Thy presence, O Ra-Hoor-Khuit!

Unity uttermost showed!
I adore the might of Thy breath,
Supreme and terrible God,
Who makest the gods and death
To tremble before Thee: —
I, I adore thee!

Appear on the throne of Ra!
Open the ways of the Khu!
Lighten the ways of the Ka!
The ways of the Khabs run through
To stir me or still me!
Aum! let it fill me!

The light is mine; its rays consume
Me: I have made a secret door
Into the House of Ra and Tum,
Of Khephra and of Ahathoor.
I am thy Theban, O Mentu,
The prophet Ankh-af-na-khonsu!

By Bes-na-Maut my breast I beat;
By wise Ta-Nech I weave my spell.
Show thy star-splendour, O Nuit!
Bid me within thine House to dwell,
O winged snake of light, Hadit!
Abide with me, Ra-Hoor-Khuit!”