Message from discussion
Thoth's Devil & Sex (was: The Devil)
From: "J. Karlin" <r3win...@texas.net>
Subject: Re: Thoth's Devil & Sex (was: The Devil)
Date: 1998/02/23
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Bill Heidrick wrote:
> 93 Jess,
>
> "J. Karlin" <r3win...@texas.net> wrote:
>
> >Bill Heidrick wrote:
>
> >> No. Knowledge of those OTO degrees can help with an understanding of
> >> one or two points of view on the Atu
>
> >The doctrine of the degrees is intimately woven into the
> >symbolism of Thoth. You've told me that yourself several
> >times.
>
> Somewhat, but the main theme aside from Golden Dawn usage in the Thoth
> deck is Thelema and Liber AL.
So, if your comment here is to be taken seriously, we
should not expect to find much mention of Thelema and Liber
AL with respect to the rituals and teachings of OTO.
Of course, in order to do that one needs necessarily
to ignore comments such as the following:
"But remember this clearly, that the Law cometh from the A...A...,
not from the O.T.O. This Order is but the first of the great religious
bodies to accept this Law officially, and its whole Ritual has
been revised and reconstituted in accordance with this decision."
Echoing this, we can read at the OTO US Grand Lodge website,
(http://www.otohq.org/oto/otohq.html):
"O.T.O. is the first of the great Old Ĉon orders to accept
The Book of the Law, received by Aleister Crowley in 1904
EV. This book proclaims a New Ĉon in human thought, culture
and religion. The Ĉon arises from a single supreme injunction:
the Law of Thelema, which is Do what thou wilt."
and later...
"...many worthy aspirants to the Great Work of
Thelema have a genuine need for information, guidance,
fellowship, or the opportunity to assist their fellow aspirants
and serve humanity. Such aspirants will find welcome in O.T.O."
I simply find it curious that the Grand Poohbah General of
the OTO would find it necessary to suggest that, by inclusion
of Thelemic ideas in 'Book of Thoth', Aleister Crowley had
little interest in communicating ideas which would ALSO
be of specific 'ritual' interest and concern to members
of OTO.
> OTO aspects do come in to some extent,
How could they avoid doing so?
> but more on the Charioteer and Lust than the Devil Atu.
Actually, specific OTO degrees (I believe three of them,
Vth, IXth, and XIth) are mentioned with respect to several
cards in the deck. There's little reason for Crowley to
offer this information except to suggest that the real
secrets of the symbolism reside in the keys revealed
in OTO initiations. Indeed, the fact he sees fit to make
mention of these things at all, considering that they ARE
supposed to be secrets, indicates that AC both desired
to promote the Order through the deck (again, connecting the
ideas of the deck to those taught in OTO), and to suggest
that it was ONLY through the Order that most people were
going to have any chance of realizing the truth of what
he was trying to say.
> At that, OTO
> aspects are greatly subbordinated to Thelema aspects,
It is truer to say that this was done long before Book
of Thoth was created and that the deck merely reflects
this reality in the use of Thelemic ideas which have
expression ALSO in OTO.
> being only an
> also-ran for the latter.
Or for A.'.A.'.
> Recall that for G.'.D.'., Levi and others,
> the 19th century and early 20th century Tarot innovations frequently
> echoed initiatory systems of those times.
They didn't just echo them. That degrades and mocks the true
importance of tarot in the systems of these innovators.
The point was that tarot, according to these occultists,
WAS the symbolic bible of all humanity---and consequently,
it had to show, or be made to show, the very elements
from which the occultist was claiming to draw both his
ideas and his authority. No one could admit, for example,
that all he was doing was layering an often pretentious
pile of bullshit onto a symbolic medium that was
operating perfectly happily BEFORE the occultist
appropriated it. NO, it's always the case that the
occultist is rescuing the 'livre primitif' from
its mundane bonds, and is engaged in 'rectification',
or, as Crowley put it, in maintaining 'the Eternal' by
revolutionizing tarot for the New Aeon.
Tarot is at the very center of things for these occultists
(and for the modern ones as well)---and it really boils
down to the same thing it always has---if you can mystify
the ancient book, claim it's unreadable without the 'secret
key' or decoder ring (which your brand of secret order
just happens to possess in exclusion to all other brands)
you stand to convince some parts of the prospective audience
that your line of shit stinks better than everyone else's.
Nothing very mysterious OR spiritual. It's just marketing,
plain and simple. That the Americans (maybe a Canadian in there
too), who've assumed management of OTO, would tend to be better at
it than other people is not very surprising.
Their tendency to leave out certain details in the promotional
literature is---SOP (or SOS) for marketing interests.
> >Bill, I've seen copies of Crowley's drafts for the OTO
> >degree rituals and instructions, and these include
> >diagrams of the Atu, just like in Golden Dawn, and just
> >like in Golden Dawn, the symbolism of the cards is
> >related to the doctrines taught in specific
> >degrees.
>
> Exactly so. More a case of modeling the sets and sayings of the
> rituals on Tarot than Tarot on the rituals.
And the difference would be?
> >However, you're just being
> >misleading to suggest that the cards don't give explicit
> >and direct indications of ideas connected to specific
> >levels of initiation in OTO.
>
> On that, if a picture is worth a 1,000 words, which of those is the
> word of the degree? :-)
Thelema.
Everything follows from that, right? But, if you don't
bother to tell people the details of how and why, you
also don't have to get into some of the logical problems
associated with the assumptions of the 'word'.
Example: how many people are REALLY going to be comfortable
belonging to a group that promotes the following:
"5. All children and young people, although they may not be able to
understand the more exalted heavens of our horoscope, may always be
taught to rule their lives in accordance with the Law. No efforts
should be spared to bring them to this emancipation. The misery caused
to children by the operation of the law of the slave-gods
[note: i.e., Judeo-Christian gods] was, one may say, the primum
mobile of Our first aspiration to overthrow the Old Law [note:
that of Judeo-Christianity]."
I'm not sure what is meant by 'No efforts should be spared to
bring them to this emancipation,' but I'm pretty sure few people
I know are wise enough to intelligently interpret it (especially
for other people's 'children and young people').
Right after this we read (again, in support of the obvious
linkage of OTO to Thelema):
"6. By all manner of means shall all strive constantly to increase the
power and freedom of the Headquarters of the O.T.O.; for thereby will
come efficiency in the promulgation of the Law."
> Some secrecy is necessarily a part of
> initiations, else they are just plays.
But that's not really your concern, is it? Some secrecy
is necessary to maintain, or else you can't tell the difference
between Coke and Pepsi. Again, it's a business consideration,
one intended, as we see articulated above, to "increase the
power and freedom of the Headquarters of the O.T.O."
> >I think you're obligated to do just what you are
> >attempting to do---talk round and about the truth.
>
> Mut is a loving goddess, even if she has bad breath.
Maybe you're talking about 'mutt'.
> To circle a
> carcus is to point to something.
Yeah, something fucking dead and bloated. We know.
> Not direct, but getting people
> thinking is more important than constantly dictating to them.
How much more compelling that would sound if Aleister
Crowley had written one or two books of suggestions with
respect to the 'Law', instead of piles of obscure
commentaries, laced with these kinds of warnings and
commandments to readers (here offered in 'comment'
upon Liber Legis, Book of the Law):
"The study of this Book is forbidden. It is wise to
destroy this copy after the first reading.
"Whosoever disregards this does so at his own risk and
peril. These are most dire.
"Those who discuss the contents of this Book are
to be shunned by all, as centres of pestilence.
"All questions of the Law are to be decided only
by appeal to my writings, each for himself.
Maybe Crowley was a Calvinist.
> It's a trade-off.
Between integrity and megalomania?
> >> The IXth degree of OTO in particular requires
> >> hints.
>
> >You mean the recognition of it by the managers
> >of OTO?
>
> At one time, that was the rule.
What was the rule, recognition by OTO? That's still the
rule with respect to the validity of claims to OTO
degrees, isn't it?
> More people now know externals of the
> secret,
What do you mean 'externals'?
> and parotting is in the way of such recognition.
In other words, it's the OTO brand of initiation
or nothing.
> Since the
> essence of the secret is a particular balance of mind and body in
> action and sequence of internal states, a direct description of one of
> many technical methods is misleading.
Then I'd suggest to you only those who were likely to not
be misled would much care about that. In other words, as
Crowley said---
"Again, though the secret itself is of such
tremendous import, and though it is so simple that
I could disclose it...in a short paragraph, I might
do so without doing much harm. For it cannot be used
indiscriminately...I have found in practice that the
secret of the O.T.O. cannot be used unworthily...."
> The rule was always to hint, on
> the theory that gradual approach to the notion from association of
> ideas is more likely to lead an individual to actual possession of the
> secret than exterior illustration.
Isn't 'actual possession' almost entirely a function of belief
that the 'association of ideas' has anything more than a
conceptual significance, that it exists 'in fact' and in effect,
rather than merely as a philosophical construct?
In other words, isn't the 'gradual approach' required to
instill a religiosity to what is, after all, supposed to
be a 'scientific' principle? By the time one has invested
so much time and money trying to acquire an 'actual
possession', he's hardly so likely to dismiss the thing
as he would be if, for example, it was simply put to him
that the great secret of OTO reduced to 'eat your sperm'
(which three words I once found erased, but still visible,
on an original Crowley manuscript, wherein the claim was
made by him that the secret could be reduced to three words).
>-- in metaphor, a sheet of music
> in hand does not make a person a musician.
Nor does one become one without it.
Indeed, the analogy only serves to support the notion
that OTO wishes NO ONE to become a musician (or magician)
before ITS time.
> >All the knowledge of it requires is for someone to give the
> >recipe for the secret sauce. And then explain how to
> >use it. Crowley did that, and in plain terms too.
>
> Far from it.
Far from what? Far from general distribution, you mean?
> The "sauce" is nothing by itself.
In other words, the 'swine' could never benefit
from just hearing the secret. They'll need the OTO to
parcel it out to them on OTO's schedule.
> Everything is in the
> attention of the cook and the stiring. When to fold in the the
> ingrediients makes quite a difference in batter, as does temperature,
> leavening and the use of the bread board. If all that is necessary to
> make a kuggle hopf, what more for this?
The problem is, and again your choice of metaphors is
hardly helpful for your case, one can not make a specific
recipe until he knows it. Indeed, it is the many 'makings' which
provide a knowledge of HOW to cook.
The way you would have it, the Culinary Institute would
provide the cookbook AFTER one had graduated and completed
his professional career---kind of a serious cart before
the horse issue there.
> >All the Atu are 'as close', cause they all speak (in
> >varying 'degrees') to the same central theme---Penis as Jesus
> >(particularly Crowley's penis), and Semen-Sperm as Holy
> >Water.
>
> Catchy, but I've never thought of it that way. :-)
Well, maybe you need to have someone nebulize to you
in Heidrick-speak, so you'll have sufficiently
fuzzy ground upon which to base some thinking.
> >So, you mean just because it has a big penis and balls on
> >it doesn't suggest to you a sufficiently clear 'depiction'
> >or 'action'?
>
> It's not the meat, it's the motion --
mantra for the 'meatless'.
> >> All that suggests
> >> something but is not 100% clear without more explicit signs.
>
> >More 'explicit' like what?
>
> What is the goat, and what is the thought?
The Walrus is Paul, that's been established.
Furthermore, when you ask 'what is the goat', that
suggests there IS an explicit sign---perhaps what
you mean to say is that you can't provide an answer
unless explicit proof is given to you that your
querent already possesses and believes in the answer
(re: the meaning of that sign) you are prepared to
deliver.
Doesn't sound very brave---for a thelemite. But it's
certainly wise---for a salesman.
> >A 'tie'? What does that mean exactly? Is this wand only mentioned
> >there?
>
> First part of Liber Reguli,
You mean this?:
The Vertical Component of the Enchantment.
1. Let him describe a circle about his head, crying NUIT!
2. Let him draw the Thumb vertically downward and touch the
Muladhara Cakkra, crying, HADIT!
3. Let him, retracing the line, touch the centre of his breast and
cry RA-HOOR-KHUIT!
> association to chakras involved with the
> cross members of the HG cross. Also visible on Waite deck for
> Hierophant and Justice Trumps, same locations.
I can see how you might draw that conclusion
in Hierophant, but not in Justice. At any rate, can
you quote something from Waite that would suggest he
saw things similarly to Crowley regarding this symbolism?
> >> Top Bahadi of that wand indicating Hadit.
>
> >And what is Hadit, and what has it to do with Devil.
>
> Nothing to do with the Devil, except for a leg-pull remark by Crowley
> in MTP and one or two other places.
So why mention it, unless you also are just providing
'leg-pull remarks'?
Or, maybe, what you've just said isn't true.
After all, I'm sure you've bothered to read (but perhaps
conveniently forget) the following:
"The Devil" is, historically, the God of any people that one
personally dislikes. This has led to so much confusion of thought
that THE BEAST 666 has preferred to let names stand as they are,
and to proclaim simply that AIWAZ --- the solar-phallic-hermetic
"Lucifer" is His own Holy Guardian Angel, and "The Devil" SATAN
or HADIT of our particular unit of the Starry Universe. This
serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods
of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade "Know Thyself!" and
taught Initiation. He is "the Devil" of the Book of Thoth, and
His emblem is BAPHOMET, the Androgyne who is the hieroglyph of
arcane perfection. The number of His Atu is XV, which is Yod
He, the Monogram of the Eternal, the Father one with the Mother,
the Virgin Seed one with all-containing Space. He is therefore
Life, and Love. But moreover his letter is Ayin, the Eye;
he is Light, and his Zodiacal image is Capricornus, that
leaping goat whose attribute is Liberty."
> The
> Ba-hadi is the winged sun of Egyptian art and iconography. The Stele
> of Reveling used by Crowley and cited into Liber AL has this feature
> depicted and described -- however, the "Ba" was omitted from the
> heirogliphics on the Stele. The result of this is the usage "Hadit"
> instead of "Ba-Hadi". The full word in Egyptian means "In(to) the
> disk (of the Sun)". The "Ba" is the In(to) part.
The facts are these:
1. The word depicted on the Stele of Revealing is that
for Horus in his aspect as Solar god. The word used for
Horus is 'Behdet' (Budge uses 'Behutet'), the word Bill
calls 'Ba-hadi'.
2. It was common in Egyptian writing to refer to a god by
the name of the town in which his worship was centered.
Here, the word, 'Behdet', actually refers to the god,
'Horus', by reference to his town, the modern Edfu. We know
this by the fact that there is town determinant in the name
(the little cross in a circle which depicts a crossroads
with a wall). The whole top of the stele is actually a
dedication to the great god, Horus.
3. The translator Crowley hired to decipher the stele
simply missed this, or wrote a shorthand, 'hut-t', or
'Hadit', which does mean 'winged disk', but is not really
the word depicted here (he probably figured it was good enough
for some ignorant Brit tourist). Lastly, I don't think
the word, whether in short of long form, suggests
'into' anything, but rather refers to the 'seat' or
'throne' of the winged disk, which would be Edfu.
The point is that Crowley was not really interested in
Egyptology, he was much more concerned to use the stele
(whatever the hell it might have said), and his trip to Egypt,
to fire his imagination to help him ward off the ever-present
threat of boredom with his new wife.
From this kind of desparate search for novelty came Liber
Legis.
> >> >Why did Phyllis Seckler feel as she did about the rituals
> >> >and teachings of OTO? Was she just an uppity bitch?
> >>
> >> Aside from a personal problem with her relation to Grady,
>
> >She had more than a personal problem, and it was with
> >more than Grady, as you well know.
>
> Sorry, I don't know. Aside from matters related to her personal
> feelings about Grady, most of her criticisms are of a type either
> derived from that relationship or of a sort that I and others have
> voiced in the normal course of trying to get OTO going where it's
> going.
Perhaps you have difficulty accepting the criticism
of a woman as anything more than an expression of 'her
personal feelings'. It's also possible she was expressing
some 'personal thoughts', some of which I doubt you
shared (since they were directed against the nature
of your behaviors re: OTO).
> >Like she said, you guys couldn't afford to throw her out.
>
> Wrong.
She certainly did say that, Bill. Are you saying she
was wrong in her estimation of her situation?
> >Non-linear thinking often means, in the occult, convoluted
> >nonsense.
>
> That's not thinking. Linear thinking carried to extremes is nonsense,
> as the Socratic method amply demonstrates.
The Socratic method amply demonstrates an 'extreme of
linear thinking'?
It's merely a method to get people to think for themselves
while at the same time analyzing their arguments.
Do you have a problem with that?
(jk)
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