Veil the Shrine
seated the Throne & Altar of the Shrine unseen from the clouded eyes of the profane.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
With the experience of how deeply seated the intense hatred, dogma infested puppetry, and set in stone bias against those who are involved with the occult I do not see the secret society that is the magical organization ever coming out into the open. Those who have done so have always met with disaster. Verification of such a stance is in the Book of the Law Itself where if used as a guide as it should be used we veil the shrine.
The Rites of Eleusis done publicly in 1910 e.v. by Aleister Crowley and members is a prime example of such a breach in our protocol where this line in the Book of the Law was overlooked. Newspaper articles all over the world began to create every story imaginable about Aleister Crowley. Being called the wickedest man in the world was only part of the issue for by not veiling the shrine it took longer to gather the children into the fold.
Concerning "Blasphemy" written by A.C. in 1910 e.v. should be studied carefully where he exposes the raw hypocrisy of the times and the newspaper articles surrounding the entire slander campaign should never be lost with Thelemic history. This lesson of what occurs when you do not veil the shrine should be clear from those array of newspaper articles where the intensity of persecution was bombarded so maliciously during the time of the Rites of Eleusis openly being staged for the public. I urge all Thelemites to avoid the persecution by veiling the shrine.
We know better now. It is absolute insanity to have the Gnostic Mass, the Rites of Eleusis or any ceremony presented officially to the aspirant done publicly to be used where the profane might scrutinize our magick. Those who ignore this warning and have the Gnostic Mass or the Rites of Eleusis will not win any battle in the favor of public opinion or find any better membership. They will feel the recoil as they attempt to climb at a forty five degree angle when clearly the Path is clear with level ground. You have the inertia of the fear, hatred, jealousy, suspicion, dogma being a very real repulsion among those who do not understand us nor will they attempt to understand us being so gravely ingrained with there upbringing that they live the life of delusion that we are all the way propaganda would so viciously label us.
It is otherwise an important observation to note that all the Profess Houses written of in Liber CI must be considered invisible houses. They can be anywhere. Neighborhoods with homes too close together without yards to separate them make it much more difficult to retain secrecy. The house must have a sufficient down payment to make the payments small enough to pay up in a reasonable amount of time. The Profess Houses are our sanctuaries which enrich our lives where real privacy has permitted us to engage in real magical gesture. It is absolutely forbidden to unveil our shrine and permit the profane world know which is a Profess House, which is an Abbey of Θελημα or even an official house that is used for Lodge activity.
It is well that such caution to observe the fourth power of the Sphinx is aligned to our adherence to what is written in the Book of the Law to veil the shrine. With regards to Liber CI it should otherwise be observed that no commentary nor memorandum will ever be given publicly with regards to its contents. It is considered a breach of protocol to inform anyone but membership how we apply the guidelines written in the Houses in Liber CI. It should go without stating that the safety, privacy and movements of the Order are consistent with, again, our concern to veil the shrine from the profane.
We remain a secret society and use the Book of the Law as our guide which tells us to veil the shrine. It is with great wisdom and good sense that such protocol be observed.
We are the secret Society Ordo Templi Orientis. It is well that we veil our shrine to avoid persecution from the profane eye.
Love is the law, love under will
The Assemblage of Ceremonies
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
The assemblage of ceremony is a vital formula which will eventually manifest the gestalt of insight where the great puzzle is finally gathered together as an overall picture. Such a universe of skills means any real book of magick ancient or modern will become immediately workable. No doubt, much ceremony exists and such an assemblage starts with the first banishing.
It is best that as you gather those ceremonies which are considered in alignment of your Great Work whereas you do not permit yourself to move into a favored routine once you have duly assimilated the added ceremony.
In contradiction to this you will have basic ceremonies that are a daily practice. These ceremonies are considered "practices" which keeps alive and develops your skills with magick. They should include banishing, evocation, Adoration Unto Nuit, and other ceremonies that develop command of the legion of spirits where a well written License to Depart takes advantage of anything that comes to the outskirts of your circle. Learn to command, curse, and awaken any spirits for your Legion of Spirits.
A ceremony where the spirit touches the magical dagger swearing an Oath to you is to be considered as vital a skill as an evocation of a spirit that wouldn't ordinarily come to the outskirts of your circle in curiosity of the energy. Many such spirits are easily added to the Legion of Spirits. Yet, the skill of developing the Legion of Spirits is otherwise an important magical power to develop.
With regards to magical groups you must give a sufficient amount of ceremony to their daily planners to develop the evocations, the skill of working with others in the circle and to discourage dogma by encouraging the working of the ceremonies that are in the list of assemblage of ceremony.
It should be a grave lesson of the death of theurgy means henosis cannot exist in its purest form for the initiate - and dogma will eventually create a mechanical current or religion that repeats over and over never arising to any higher plane. Such a grave lesson for the Gnostic Current trying to manifest the Thelemic Current using the Gnostic Mass only to degenerate or stabilize where insights are limited to the lower planes. Naturally, this is only an example and other magical groups might be even obsessed by one ceremony. The key is variety to unlock the doors to accumulated magical energy - and all of the magical energy carefully put under the control of the magicians involved. You must partake of a multitude of energy and a multitude of ceremony to gain a multitude of insight. The more you do, the more you can do! Most certainly, you must know that other ceremonies exist in our curriculum besides the Gnostic Mass. The painful alternative is dogma and the tendency for dry reiterations of a Church rather than a living Temple of magical energies where you are truly building the magical pyramid unto the stars.
My personal experience is I will be going about the business of my daily magical practices and be concerned that some of the ceremonies I have either created or been passed on to me haven't been done in a long time. I then vigorously attempt to adjust the situation & find myself involved in magical gestures that having been given under the shadow of wings are impossible for those who haven't followed the formula of the assemblage of ceremony.
To create a knowledge lecture it better be based on raw experience or you will find yourself falling into the pit of the old Golden Dawn where those knowledge lectures cannot have the basis of reality not being based on the magical work.
Such an assemblage of ceremony is highly recommended. For I repeat that monotheism itself is a lie which limits the perception of the mystical universe.
Love is the law, love under will
A Message about the Higher Life
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
What does it mean for the Adept to live a higher life? A profane, for instance, is baffled by our disgust with them.
Picture then, young disciples, the difference between emotional control in a relationship with the jealous hatred of a profane partnership. Picture then, young disciples, the difference between partaking of the essence of the Temple, immediately knowing magically what to will or insane ruach wanderings.
Such is a far cry from the random pulsations of ruach desire that the profane lives by, or the routine of daily magical practice that has to occur in the early Initiates training. No doubt, routine is only negative when dogma has taken the place of daily practice. This paradox is very difficult for beginners who have Magical Impulse through their Holy Order and mistake this (after a long period of magical work over the years) with the Real Attainment where they are a Master of the Temple.
Liber LXI tells you an excellent example of one Magical Organization dying as a consequence of this problem of routine. The old Golden Dawn failed to initiate and this Order was rapidly becoming more "Masonic" than a Magical Order. Once again, picture how the freemasons, having a few magical keys completely corrupted cannot seem to bridge the gap completely between a magical order and a profane club. Since they have "ritual" and "symbol" they DO evoke and invoke a magical current. The Masonic Heads see themselves as powerful leaders promoting a great cause for the good of the community. Of course, they cannot be progressive enough to bridge the gap to a magical order. After all, they will deny their own sorceries and they will be completely unaware of the consequence of their stagnation. None of these people live a higher life. The connections they occasionally establish to better themselves among themselves has no relevance to the higher life of an Initiate of the Western Esoteric System.
Anyone who has access to any library can access these so-called Masonic secrets which do not amount to anything more than a deliberation on a few of the balances of elements, a lesson taught in our very own Temples in the first three degrees.
At least one Star has resigned from our ranks and joined a Masonic Order. He is still under the delusion that We are impressed by his silly choice of organizations and lives the life of delusion that he is advancing and promoting himself. A fitting end to one who could not understand the discipline that must be offered to the Order to awaken the Higher Life as an Adept. Today, this person is a petty and mean person completely dead to the Spiritual World. A revolting animal barely to be mistaken for human. This is apparently the destiny of some Initiates who try and fail only to become lower than humans.
Perhaps it is difficult for some to picture, this vision of the higher life that I am attempting to impart. Yet it really exists, and it is a consequence of advanced magical work. This is the ordered harmony that mentioned in Liber LXI. This is the Great Reward that is mentioned in Our Oaths. Yea, this is the divine dew of immortality that is touched upon in Liber Tzaddi. This the Initiate symbolized as the Sphinx who makes glad the concourse of things in Liber CCXXXI.
In the Book of the Law we observe the self same Lesson imparted to us as the omniprescence of Her Body and the joy of dissolution all. Therefore heed the warning of this that I impart to you, that energy manifests into the lower planes as a result of the gravitation of higher to lower.
Therefore my advice is to complete each Grade as completely and scientifically as possible.
Considering this, I close this essay by quoting the Book of the Law, Chapter II, verse 19...
"They shall rejoice, our chosen :
who sorroweth is not of us."
Love is the law, love under will
ON MIXING OF THE PLANES
Do what thou wilt shallbe the whole of the Law
Not long ago I was meditating on the mixing of the planes. I was told long ago to be careful not to mix the planes. At the time, it seemed a reasonable perception. After all, an example would be if you tried to purchase a gallon of milk with Monopoly game money. The paper money is good for its plane of use, that is, the game of Monopoly. Yet to try to purchase a gallon of milk in a store with fake money would be a confusion of the planes. Only real money would be accepted. You have thus mixed the real world of capitalism with the imaginary world of a game of Monopoly.
The true purpose of learning not to mix the planes is to cleanly look at the planes so they can be 'mixed' by an act of will to create change. Magick is then, ironically, an operation of the mixture of the planes by an act of will. We keep the planes separate by following our correspondences in Liber 777 to build a ritual of some operation and then totally contradict our first principle by using physical objects to manipulate non-material objects. A delightful paradox! We mix the planes by, say, using a physical object like a green Ankh to attract the attention of the Goddess Ahathoor to assure the love of our life to magically appear. Other examples of how magick mixes the planes is using physical sex to awaken energies in our aura to cause change.
Mixing the planes during communication between Thelemites is very common. Much of this is concerning ego based problems. We have the type of Thelemite who mixes the planes of another Thelemite by some accusation or speculation based on some petty irritation. In this particular example, we have an accusation instead of a real fact. It is as if such people make something up, then become convinced that it is a fact. They are then mixing the planes of what is real and what they have made up. It is as if they confuse their hatred based on the way their ego is reacting on the rival and become completely out of touch with reality.
We have then, two ways to mix the planes. One is a contradiction that is a dispersion. The other is a harmony that is balance of energy. We have harmonious planes of existence such as a physical magician controlling the forces of nature, or inharmonious planes of existence such as a a physical magician who is controlled by a mechanical current of the dead aeon. In the latter case, the physical magician has failed to perceive how energy is controlled and mixes the planes by using a improper formula.
In conclusion, we see that the proper key to the problems of mixing the planes is volition and harmony. And remember that in the Magus card in the Tarot he is juggling his weapons, the planes of the magician being symbolized as absolutely perfect and in harmony.
Love is the law, love under will