From thelema93-l-owner@www.hollyfeld.org Fri Nov 12 18:47:26 1999 Return-Path: thelema93-l-owner@www.hollyfeld.org Received: from www.hollyfeld.org (209-67-233-180.bst0.flashcom.net [209.67.233.180]) by prop.sonic.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA08080 for ; Fri, 12 Nov 1999 18:47:23 -0800 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by www.hollyfeld.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA15576 for thelema93-l-outgoing; Fri, 12 Nov 1999 21:55:12 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: www.hollyfeld.org: majordom set sender to owner-thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org using -f Received: (from kender@localhost) by www.hollyfeld.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA15572 for thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org; Fri, 12 Nov 1999 21:55:11 -0500 Received: from marine.sonic.net (marine.sonic.net [208.201.224.37]) by www.hollyfeld.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id TAA13951 for ; Fri, 12 Nov 1999 19:23:58 -0500 Received: (qmail 14447 invoked from network); 13 Nov 1999 00:14:27 -0000 Received: from prop.sonic.net (208.201.224.193) by marine.sonic.net with SMTP; 13 Nov 1999 00:14:27 -0000 Received: from 208.201.230.106 (d106.pm10.sonic.net [208.201.230.106]) by prop.sonic.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA14673 for ; Fri, 12 Nov 1999 16:14:58 -0800 X-envelope-info: Message-ID: <382C5E91.FA9@luckymojo.com> Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 11:38:08 -0700 From: catherine yronwode Organization: Lucky Mojo Curio Company X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Macintosh; I; 68K) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org Subject: Re: Hyper-Real OTO? (was The O.T.O.?) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org Precedence: bulk Reply-To: thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org Status: RO Subject: Re: Hyper-Real OTO? (was The O.T.O.?) nagasiva@luckymojo.com wrote: > > 49991110 IVom > > Hierorophos@aol.com: > # ...the O.T.O. was founded by a specific person, at a specific time, > # with a specific aggenda in doing so. > > and apparently this is under contention. some claim that it was > founded by a man named Karl (or Carl) Kellner, I think his name was Carl -- he was Swiss, not German. The trouble seems to have arisen because folks -- including Crowley, who also consistently mispelled the names of his Hindu friends and acquaintances -- assume that Switzerland is primarily Germanic, when in fact it is almost equally Italian and French in culture. The papers presented by Po\eter Koenig show that the man's name was Carl Kellner. A good mnemonic is to recall that Carl Gustav Jung -- a Swiss contemporary of Kellner's -- also spelled his name with a "C." In fact, the links between the two Carls are intriguing, given that they both hung out and even gave classes and lectures in the then-hot occult tourism town of Ascona, Switzerland (the Sedona, Arizona, of its era) and they both focussed at the time on "Aryan" and "solar phallic" theories of culture. It is not entirely clear to me whether Carl Kellner was a co-founder of the OTO or was rather a teacher of yoga and solar phallic theory who greatly influenced Theodor Reuss. Reuss was, in any case, one of the founders (or perhaps the only founder) of the OTO. I have heard arguments on both sides of the issue of Kellner's participation in the OTO. If my opinion is sought, i'll venture that -- because of his intensive on-the-spot research among family members rather than his winning literary style or capacity for polite discourse -- i tend to give the most credibility to Peter Koenig's opinion in this matter. > others that a man named Reuss > created Ordo Templi Orientis as a kind of esoteric excuse to have sex > club parties in dance halls. Well, here we are venturing into hotly disputed territory. It is contended that both Theodor Reuss and Aleister Crowley -- like Anton LaVey the Satanist after them -- hired professional strippers (called "dancers" or "models" then) to take part in their "rituals." Crowley's help-wanted ads in "The Stage" magazine calling for auditions for women dancers to perform in his "Rites of Eleusis" in London are a matter of record. In other words, it appears that these men did not seek to perform actual magical rites involving their own compatriots, male and female, but hired paid, professional strippers to play the parts of "priestesses" before a paying public which may have consisted in part of libertine men who were "initiated" by viewing a live-sex-act or titty-show. > # Of course the essential teaching of that order is of antiquity > # ...the order still has a spiritual core that can actualize > # itself in its intiates regardless of temporal leadership? > > does it? or is the essential core masonic? magical? social? > there appears to be a diversity of opinion on the matter. >From what i have read in the new Naylor book that sets forth the texts of the rituals of the OTO -- both those written by Reuss and by Crowley -- virtually all the rites are shallow, schoolboyish rip-offs and plagiarisms of Craft Masonry and/or the Scottish Rite (the latter is not Masonry per se, but is a French-originated fraternal order which only Masons may join; its rites are based on the metaphor of the Knights Templar, and it is therefore referred to a Templar order). > # i wonder if that spiritual core is gradually becoming something > # alive in and of itself feeding the current of the new aeon in > # various ways unseen even by the practitioners of its workings? > > there has often been talk of a "93 Current" which is probably > related to the promulgation of the Law of Thelema understood > in a variety of ways by the people hoping to push for it. > maybe this is the writhing thing you're talking about? Now, as to Thelema, that is a different matter. I do see an increased familiarity on the part of the general public with the concept of "will," but i personally do not connect it to the growing influence of the OTO or that non-Thelemic abomination, the EGC. > # Is the name O.T.O. becoming an talisman of the teaching that > # resides in that organization? Not among my friends and acquaintances in the magical and occult communities -- many of us see the OTO as a form of pseudo-Masonry that teaches a type of dead-end mysogyny as "spermognostic" dogma. As for Thelema itself, that, as i said, is another matter, and one well worth investigating, once the hold-overs of Crowley's racism, sexism, and drug-abuse are eliminated from our understanding of what a Thelemic culture could and might still be. > # Is it becoming an Aetheric pattern for magicians to tap into > # to guide them in not only their individual works, but their > # group workings as well? > > there's a lovely idea. I've contended (and others have occasionally > mentioned) that "OTO" is a kind of egregore or archetypes, perhaps > even a transdimensional 'Higher Order' which is only approximated > by the various contenders for this name. the usual argument from > the Crowleyan OTO folx is that this is the role of his AA (or the > various Great White Brotherhood knock-offs previous to this), yet > the division may only be a psychosis of the poet. Yeah, that's a very personal take on the situation. As a member of a Co-Freemasonic organization -- one that Crowley himself claimed (in his "Confessions") was unworkable and improper due to its inclusion of female members -- i tend to view quite skeptically the many free-floating claims for the OTO's wonderfulness and uniqueness. Rather, i participate occasionally in this e-lst because i am interested in the contemporary application of Paschal Beverly Randolph's thelemic dictum: "Will reigns Omnipotent; Love lieth at the Foundation" ("Mysteries of Eulis," 1874) -- which was obviously an influence on Crowley's famous rephrasing. cat yronwode Freemasonry for Women ------- http://www.luckymojo.com/comasonry.html Lucky Mojo Curio Co. http://www.luckymojo.com/luckymojocatalogue.html Send e-mail with your street address to heypresto@luckymojo.com and receive our free 32 page catalogue of hoodoo supplies and amulets ____________...oooOOO---thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org---OOOooo..._____________ To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe" to thelema93-l-request@hollyfeld.org To unsubscribe your@email.com send "unsubscribe your@email.com" To unsubscribe from the digest send to thelema93-l-digest-request@hollyfeld.org http://www.hollyfeld.org/heaven/elists/thelema93-l.phtml