207 The Book of the Law: Thelema Beyond Crowley (review)

London, 10^th April 1904ev

First thoughts by way of a review

As one of the speakers, and indeed publisher of two other speakers you can hardly expect an objective opinion from me – maybe just my random interactions with various people who were there.  Anyways it all started a bit too early for me with a reading of the first chapter of the Book of the Law. Eleven is the number of magick and it wasn’t till about then that I was ready for the likes of Nietzsche and Orpheus. Things really started to swing when Ramsey Dukes wove a fine matrix out of a seemingly barren subject like O & 1.

I didn’t make it back into the hall until Nema/Margaret Ingalls was telling us about the Maat network, building into a reading of her revised Liber Pennae Praenumbra. Now I’ve had a number of exchanges on that all week. Frater Tabs wrote

‘I attended the Thelema Conference in London on the 10th April, where Nema was one of the  speakers. I listened to her presentation of the histrionics of the HML (and as an historian I found it interesting). I had listened to all the speakers that day with an open mind and as a Thelemite.

    . . .     As the reading progressed, visual changes took place. Nema began to change. She grew taller, younger and her hair seemed to grow and flash between black and flame red. Her eyelids grew heavy and raven black/blue. Her apparel flashed between gold and the richest blue I have ever seen, the blue that you always want to paint, yet cannot seem to create on your pallet.

     Her words seemed to reach each ear at slightly different times, as in a Doppler effect as if she was moving nearer and farther away at the same time. At this point the words melted away and seemed to become less important than the experience they initiated.

     At several points I moved in my (very hard) seat and rubbed my eyes, thinking it was fatigue or eyestrain, yet these physical (visual?) and audible changes persisted.     I also felt a buzzing throughout my torso, and my legs trembled (continuing even after the 20 min break we had later on, thus negating cramps / spasms in my mind).

    I don't know what happened during that reading, but it is something I will remember for a long time, possibly forever. I had not heard of Nema before, as I have been practicing Thelema / Magick on my own for some years now, in somewhat of a Magickal vacuum / bubble, with only my Wiccan sister as a sounding board. All I know is something profound happened to me that day, something I will have to meditate on, so as to figure out my next step and what it meant.’

     Its funny how at these things people, amongst whom I include myself, can be completely enchanted by the reading of a Liber whilst others are completely turned off. Another friend wondered why she had bothered when both versions were published in books?  

The other night I went to hear The Mission with ex Sisters of Mercy's Wayne Hussey and his fellow musicians (great tour and tightly packed gig BTW) and in the break fell into a conversation about this Liber Pennae Praenumbra – I protested that the function of a Liber was to be read out frequently and how privileged I was that in my magical ‘career’ there had been several new Libers, all by women and perhaps for that reason not as valued? Perhaps that’s why the role of Rose Kelly in the reception of Liber Al is often downplayed – was she not the actual voice of Aiwass?  My friend Tanith (see www.mandrake.uk.net/solstice.htm) taught me that the writing of a Liber was no ordinary thing - a privilege that should never be taken for granted. It’s like an ancient folk tale that is repeated each year even though we all know it backwards - that’s maybe how I see it.

I shared my spot with Mary (History of Fun) Hedger whose sequel ‘Occult High’ was published on the day of the conference (although only had one copy available!!)  After I’d done my bit Mary read from her new one – but not before rocking the audience back in their seats with some uncomfortable revelations about Kenneth Grant. Not that they should have been that uncomfortable – if you read the books – there is this definite tension between Crowley the Magus and Crowley the flawed perhaps failed lover – viewed through a woman’s eyes. Kenneth Grant has been incredibly supportive of Mary’s writing, so I assume that to his credit he wants this territory to be explored honestly. In my own books I’ve written a little about the sahajivan way followed by some Thelemites such as Kenneth Grant. I also mentioned how these strange astral connections often do end badly as the ‘Dharma Mudra’ revolts against the role.

Kenneth Grant has championed the writing of fiction as a more feminine way of magical exposition and many women have willingly accepted the challenge. Perhaps the more Masonic minded has to allow some space in their hearts for this kind of magical creativity. Woman may prefer a more narrative account of how they see things rather than the traditional set piece lecture that men tend to like. And afterall fiction is in itself a form of magick - one that is growing in intensity of late - indeed it was probably the preferred manifestation of the magick for Crowley and indeed Kenneth Grant whom bother begin this thing as poets. 

So well done to the Typhonian folk who did the organising – the conference caused some ripples. So maybe it wasn’t a classic gathering but it was a really good one. Being 100 years since the reception of Liber Al, there certainly was a will amongst the occult community that such a thing should happen so merry meet, merry part, merry meet again.

Mogg
PS there are two rather nice commoratory editions of Liber Al still
available - including a weiser special hardback at 15 pounds

212 Queen of the night

Crowley's disciple Walter Duranty has been in the news following calls for his Pulitzer prize to be rescind. Apparently his reports from Stalin's Russia were all lies (Sunday Times Magzine 7/12/3). And Leon Kennedy's 1818 portrait of The Master Therion, has been acquired and displayed by the National Portrail Gallery. Also of interest is the British Museum's anniversary acquisition of an image, wellknown to magicians of the LHP, the Queen of the Night. See it in the old British Library reading room:

Old Babylonian, 1800-1750 BC From southern Iraq

A major acquisition for the British Museum's 250th anniversary This large plaque is made of baked straw-tempered clay, modelled in high relief. The figure of the curvaceous naked woman was originally painted red. She wears the horned headdress characteristic of a Mesopotamian deity and holds a rod and ring of justice, symbols of her divinity. Her long multi-coloured wings hang downwards, indicating that she is a goddess of the Underworld. Her legs end in the talons of a bird of prey, similar to those of the two owls that flank her. The background was originally painted black, suggesting that she was associated with the night. She stands on the backs of two lions, and a scale pattern indicates mountains.

The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Mesopotamian goddess of sexual love and war, or Ishtar's sister and rival, the goddess Ereshkigal who ruled over the Underworld, or the demoness Lilitu, known in the Bible as Lilith. The plaque probably stood in a shrine.

The same goddess appears on small, crude, mould-made plaques from Babylonia from about 1850 to 1750 BC. Thermoluminescence tests confirm that the 'Queen of the Night' relief was made between 1800 and 1750 BC.

The relief may have come to England as early as 1924, and was brought to the British Museum in 1933 for scientific testing. It has been known since its publication in 1936 in the Illustrated London News as the Burney Relief, after its owner at that time. Until 2003 it has been in private hands. The Director and Trustees of the British Museum decided to make this spectacular terracotta plaque the principal acquisition for the British Museum's 250th anniversary.

Height: 49.5 cm Width: 37 cm Thickness: 4.8 cm (max.)

211 Featured Website

Les Visible/The Dark Splendor

isbn 1869928-695, £ 9.99

‘Billy Joe thought of himself as beyond the restrictions of the common herd. He was free to do his own will as no other was, above limits and laws, past apprehension, un-reachable, untouchable, an entity unto himself alone. This is what he thought. But this is not what he was. Everything he did served the will and the interests of a force far older and deeper than he would ever reach. In comparison, he was like a child playing with blocks. He served a master who was loyal to no one, just as he was loyal to no one . There were many men like Billy Joe in the world, less accomplished in their evil, but moving deliberately down that ancient staircase into the Dark Splendor.’

One part crime novel and one part occult thriller, The Dark Splendor takes us behind the veil of appearances into a world where nothing is what it seems. Set against the backdrop of the island of Maui, the pacing grips us from the first page and sends us at a gallop on a white-knuckled ride featuring serial killers, drug dealers, horrific murder, martial artists, reincarnation, ceremonial magic, a black magician and an immortal Tibetan Master. For pure enjoyment and surprise this book is guaranteed to remain in your thoughts long after you have finished reading.

Les Visible is a writer and recording artist. He has had a lifelong love affair with the Hermetic Sciences and the Martial Arts. He is a seasoned traveler in psychedelic realms and prefers the Devic Kingdom over the suffocating confinements of the Sub-Matrix. Along the way he has matriculated from the military to prisons and the maximum security wards for the criminally insane. A collection of his works in various media can be found at www.lesvisible.com. He lives somewhere in Europe with his wife Susanne and his memories.

209: The Unknown God (Review)

Starr, Martin. P. (2004). THE UNKNOWN GOD: W. T. SMITH AND THE THELEMITES, Teitan Press, Inc. ISBN 0-933429-07-X $49.95 hardback. 432 pages, over 44 photographs and illustrations

That's got to be one of the most interesting books on magical history I've read in a long while, perhaps ever. Martin Starr debut book is a documentary study of the North American followers of the English mystic Aleister Crowley told through the life of their defacto leader, Wilfred Talbot Smith (1885-1957). The author is fairly well known as one of the owners of Teitan Press, who for many years have produced fine, authoritative editions of the master's more obscure works: books like the beautiful facsimile of Konx Om Pax; the pornographic classic, Snowdrops from a Curate's garden (of which I'm told there are many) and Crowley pastiche of Sufi sexual mysticism The Scented Garden of Abdullah the Satirist of Shiraz.

Starr tells the story of Wilfred Smith's and I suppose what one might call the second generation of Thelemites who set about to promulgate the Crowleyan teachings in 1930s Hollywood. Perhaps the following quotation from the books terminus ad quem, might give some idea of the ups and down of the Thelemic movement:

'With Germer expired the last chance for Thelema to take root in the United States, and the propects internationally were no more bright. Or so one might have thought. Germer had successfully accused Mellinger of being an FBI agent and kicked him out of the house, expelled Grant for blasphemy, dismissed McMurtry as a slave to his wife and ceased corresponding with Metzger over differences in the Crowley translations in German the latter had published. Motta had fled the United States for his native Brazil after having been arrested in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in February 1961 on suspicion of drug trafficking; while in jail he confessed that the source of the drugs found in his compartment was none other than his OTO Brother, Louis T. Culling. In the following year Germer refrained from giving Motta a charter to open the OTO in Brazil, mindful of the fact that Motta, in his experience only "switched temporarily back into sanity." Yet on his deathbed what faith Germer had in a future for Thelema he chose to vest in Motta, telling Sasha to inform Frater Adjuvo that he was "The Follower." What this may have meant was the subject of speculation that was never satisfactorily resolved. The issue of Germer's heir to the headship of the OTO remained an open question to the few who knew or cared about it.' (Starr 2004: 343)

For those perhaps less familiar with some of the above names let me tell you that were talking about all the main players in the subsequent history of Thelema - here laid low by the mind games of Crowley and his successor Germer. And that's not counting the ones that had already expired in scene two - i.e. Crowley's co-superior in the OTO Frater Achad, Jack Parsons and the books hero Wilfred Smith. It reminded me of the first act of the Mahabharata when Vatsyanana tells the audience that the character who represents the ancestor of all humanity is at that point rendered permanently barren - what can possibly happen next??

Well that's would take another book, but its seems to me that the modern stop go progress of Thelema is in part made more comprehensible by reading this fascinating history of its first days. In a way it really is act two of the same play. When Crowley had trouble with his frater superior Theodor Reuss he upped and gave him the sack proclaiming himself head of the order (Starr 2004: 112.) It was a tradition he was to recommend to others with the words of John Bunyan: 'my sword to him that can take it'. And indeed, according to this book, if Crowley could have proved his right to the OTO crown he might also have succeeded in imposed his control over the Theosophical Society and AMORC - and then how differently the magical world of the 80s might have looked. I could go on but hopefully that's more than enough to wet your appetite for this highly recommended masterpiece. - MMM

[Ps this is quite an expensive book at $49 - so why not ask your local library to get one in?? PPS: Martin is speaking at upcoming Liber AL centenary on 10th April]

Thelemic Handbook: A practical guide to the works of Aleister Crowley

By Melusine Draco
Ignotus Press, 2003) (£9.99)

Be seeing you! Vlad Kiosk. (Vlad Kiosk is an independent occult scholar with no axe to grind but his own)

206. The Gnostic Philosophy By Tobias Churton

A review by Paul Newman

Readers may remember Tobias Churton’s 80’s Channel 4 series The Gnostics, which I certainly enjoyed, and his follow up book The Gnostics (Wiedenfield & Nicholson, 1987; US Barnes & Noble, 1997). It was thus with some pleasure I embarked on a review of this book, a pleasure which soon evaporated on being faced with a book where the meaning of the phrase Gnostic Philosophy is barely discernable.

What do we mean by Gnostic? Historically the word has described an elite group of Christians, who believed themselves possessed of a knowledge (gnosis) and which made its adherents believe themselves above the restricted understanding and petty morality of their peers and especially other Christians. In its day, Gnosticism was a vibrant philosophy, fully able to engage with its peers. Its practitioners were able to argue their case cogently not only from an intellectual standpoint but also from a perspective imbued with a spiritual experience which led them to find themselves possessed of an insight denied other men. It is this experience, rather than the intellectual position, which defines the Gnosis.  It is true that the word Gnostic now refers to a wider spectrum of groups than simply Christian Gnostics, but I had been hoping that it was continuity of spiritual practice that was to be examined in the book, and which might have justified the title Gnostic Philosophy.  Instead, Tobias Churton seems to take the view that any underground, counter establishment group, which allows its participants to believe they have a secret or forbidden knowledge is to be called Gnostic. This allows almost any esoteric group to be included and this book is a potted history of most of them: Templars, Cathars, Freemasons, Rosicrucians, and more - all the usual suspects are there.

The book starts promisingly enough with a review of Zoroastrian cosmological theory, and especially the nature of time. It then reviews rapidly Jewish speculative theology in the late Hellenistic period before embarking on a review of Gnostic thinking as it emerges in the early Christian period. There is an awful lot of interesting material to be covered in this subject but the book attempts to cover so much ground that most of the material is covered only superficially, and a great deal follows the authors’ personal prejudices. Why this should be so, I cannot imagine. The list of advisors to the book reads like a Who’s Who of contemporary Gnostic research (and the transcripts of interviews with them are an attractive feature of the book). The main points of Gnostic thinking (as we think we understand them) are given but surely they deserve more than bullet point treatment. We are given the almost obligatory quotations from the Nag Hammadi corpus but, now the enormous theological implications of these texts has sunk in, it must be time to seriously question the extent to which they represent uniquely Gnostic thinking. Whilst striking in the foreignness of their theology from contemporary Christian teaching, there is actually little which seems to be purely Gnostic in outlook, some is even pagan. Are these then documents representative of Gnostic teaching or of a Christianity once normative (called by Gnostics psychic) but now lost to us?   Also, material from ancient authors is given, but so much is missed out.  For example, there is a lot of extant material covering the radically different interpretations Gnostics put on the Pauline Epistles. Absence of any discussion of this material is surprising, not the least for being the subject of a whole book on the subject by Elaine Pagels (for whom the author shows only the highest regard), but which is not even referenced. This would have allowed readers to assess Gnostic thinking in terms of passages with which they may be presumed to be familiar.

My reservations notwithstanding, this section is, in my opinion, the most successful of the book. The material given is generally accurate and a coherent account is maintained providing a wide, if personal, account of Gnostic thinking up to Late Antiquity.

The book then skips merrily through the centuries with reviews of Sufis, Qabalistic Magic, the Troubadors, the Knights Templar, Jacob Boehme, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, and a final part on 20^th Century magical thinking. Can so much be encompassed in 379 pages of text? Sadly, in my opinion, the answer is no. Each chapter attempts a pen sketch of its subject, but really, too little information is given to make any chapter wholly satisfactory. Reviewing this, I asked myself: for whom is the book intended? You might think it addressed to intelligent laypersons interested seeking an overview of the material, but no single chapter adequately covers its subject matter. This struck me most in the chapter on the Troubadors, about which I know the least. I found after reading it, I did not really understand the Troubadors any better. Indeed, the impression I got was more of an essay designed to impress a university examiner than an introduction to the subject. In other words, if you already know the subject matter these essays may, perhaps, give an interesting slant on known material.

Aleister Crowley merits a whole (long) chapter and the author gives a very positive account of his life and philosophy. He is at pains to point out: Aleister Crowley has something important to say to all of us. I feel sure Mandrake readers will echo this sentiment, but, will they enjoy the attempt to write a life history of the Beast in 47 pages? I leave it to readers to come to their own conclusion. The rather fulsome tribute paid to A.C. may explain the rather perfunctory sketch of Jung’s life and thoughts, perhaps an attempt to keep a long book to reasonable lengths. A strange omission, though, given Jung’s vastly more influential work and his interest and important insights offered into Gnostic thinking.

If I have dwelt thus far on what I believe are the less desirable aspects of this book, it is not without merit. More positively, some of the topics discussed in the book have been the subject of a considerable number of recent speculative books. This book is actually free of such speculation, indeed it is quite sober in its approach, and the material presented is generally trustworthy. It represents a genuine antidote to the unfettered speculation so rampant nowadays.

I wish I could say the same about Chapter 9: Gnosis and the New Physics. A lot has been written about supposed parallels between some aspects of modern physics and mystical experience, a great deal of it drivel. Unfortunately this book manages to reproduce most of the same material found in countless New Age books on Spirituality and the New Physics. For example, early on in the chapter Churton states that in 1904 “Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity”. He didn’t, it was the Special Theory published then. The General Theory came later in 1916. He goes on “he proved mathematically that space and time were relative, not absolute conditions of the universe. Relative, that is, to the speed at which the observer or observing apparatus was traveling”. This really misses the point. It is true that Relativity theory shows that as components spatial and temporal coordinates vary, but Einstein was properly pleased to discover that the space-time interval (now properly recognized as the fundamental scenario of physical reality) is invariant under transformation, i.e. an Absolute of the theory! Einstein had wanted to call his theory The Theory of Absolutes but was dissuaded from doing so by his friend Minkowski. Think how different history would have been if Einstein had gone with his original intention. The facts of the situation are widely available and, considering the book purports to be an intelligent and articulate presentation of deep questions, I find the fact that the author reproduces such half baked ideas repugnant. The next paragraph is really excruciating and the rest of the chapter doesn’t do much better. It would be impossible to identify any more misconceptions for this review, there are so many. Frankly, given the poor grasp of the subject shown by the author, the book would be much better for the omission of this chapter.

In conclusion, I would say that, with such a large selection of material, it would be surprising if a reader did not learn something new. The main influences on the book are scholarly, and I welcome this as a genuine alternative to much speculative writing currently published. However, since the book fails as a first introduction to the subject and is inadequate for use as a reference text, I would recommend borrowing it, rather than buying.