Typhonian Ordo Templi Orientis
|
|---|
"Like a vast network, the iridescent tendrils of our occult complex spread across the land, linking such centres as are located in California, Florida, North Carolina, Chicago, and New York. These dynamic centres of Thelema receive their vivifying current through our World centre in England." Such was the message of Janice Ayers in 'Sothis' I;2, in September 1977. | 
|
|
The New Yorker William Siebert was active in Kenneth Grant's O.T.O. in America. He was expelled in 1986. Chartered as a X° was his co-publisher of the Grantean O.T.O. Magazine 'Mezla', his fellow New Yorker Janice Ayers (Tanith 789'.'), who functioned as acting X° from 21st March 1980 until 18th February 1983. [1] At her invitation Maggie Ingalls (Nema) became a member of the Typhonian O.T.O. Ms. Ayers however found the work of an
X° too heavy a burden, and after her resignation Grant asked her to return all her papers to him. "These have never been published so there are no problems. In fact, no one will notice! I note, furthermore, that the term 'Ad Vitam' appears on neither document. You could then continue as a functioning member of the IX°." [2] Her successor as X° was Jeffrey Evans (Kephera-Ma-Ast), who together with his wife Ruth Keenan, a V°, took care of the American membership. [3] Evans was expelled in 2000. Active in Grant's O.T.O. for a time in Canada were Peter and Linda McFarlane, owners of 93 Publishing, where William Breeze — latterly the 'Caliph' — was also active. In 1977 McFarlane published a supposed additional chapter to Liber AL under the title The Book of Perfection, Liber 440, which led to a break with Grant. [4] The McFarlanes were never chartered as representatives, and their representation was purely as publishers of 93 publishing.
Zivorad Mihajlovic Slavinski has been X° for the former Yugoslavian territories since June 6th 1990. Meanwhile, in Great Britain Michael Staley, who has produced the Order's journal 'Starfire' for many years (the earlier London Magazine 'Sothis' was edited by Mike Magee, Jan Magee and David Hall), is Grant's heir-apparent. |
The Cult of Lam |
|---|
|
Crowley wrote in 1944: "My observation of the Universe convinces me that there are beings of intelligence and power of a far higher quality than anything we can conceive of as human; that they are not necessarily based on the cerebral and nervous structures that we know, [5] and that the one and only chance for mankind to advance as a whole is for individuals to make contact with such beings." [6]
Crowley's erstwhile secretary Kenneth Grant (who claims to have formed a link to his 'angel' Aossic, and so calls himself Aossic, Ossik, or A'ashik) has — together with his followers — developed a more or less comprehensible outline of a 'new' cosmos on this basis. Interested readers are referred to Grant's books, many of which remain in print. [7] In this article we shall be concentrating on Grant's resulting theoretical expansion of Crowley's demonology. The latter never seems to have regarded angels or demons as very definite beings; for him, they ruled the material world, and were useful for things like getting hold of money. Under Grant's influence they were elaborated into complex transcendental schemes of alternate dimensions outside the circles of space and time. "The terrestrial vehicle is an outcropping in three dimensions of the Angel: the Angel is the fountain of living waters which empowers the terrestrial vehicle." [8] Through contact with this fountain, the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) opens the gate of remembrance of our supernatural reality, what Grant calls "the continuum often glyphed as the Goddess of which we are terrestrial facets." [9] Grant and his adherents 'remember' the origins of Be-ing [10] and have constructed a remarkably complicated collection of metaphors drawn from sources such as the Qabalah, H.P. Lovecraft, [11] Salvador Dalí, Michael P. Bertiaux, Austin Osman Spare, [12] Lemuria, Atlantis, extraterrestrial visitors from Sirius, the promotion of at least one new 'New Aeon', and a whole shoal of 'revelations'. Grant placed great emphasis on the development of a IX° 'dream-control' technique, borrowed from Thomas Lake Harris, and introduced into the Crowleyan O.T.O. by Ida Nellidorf under the name of "eroto-comatose lucidity." Before going to sleep the sexual energies werefirst raised by constant sexual stimulation without orgasm, and then concentrated onto a talisman bearing a requisite symbol, so that in its dreams, the aroused libido would copulate with a dream-partner. The talisman would thus become magically charged, and would make a particular wish — be it for gold or Gnosis — come true. But the greatest interest has been shown in the entity called Lam which Crowley 'beheld' in 1918. [13] In October 1979 Grant (under his alias of 'Aossic Aiwass 718') described Crowley's Amalantrah Working of 1918 as an "active reflex and extension of Lam" and released "An Official Statement of the O.T.O concerning the Cult of Lam, the Dikpala of the Way of Silence." Grant drew up a ritual meditation for making contact with Lam. The entity was imagined as an egg, and the practitioner would enter its eyes with the aid of the mantra "Lam", so that onceunited Tantrically with Lam, one would "see" the world from "yonder". [14] Grant judged the sex-magical versions of this meditation to be "extremely dangerous", and "most emphatically" rejected all homosexual variations of it [in some O.T.O.-groups: the XI°]. To gain the most objective results from all contacts with Lam, Grant enjoined that none of its practitioners should inform each other of their own results for several years. [15] As one example of an actual current emanating from Kenneth Grant's immediate circle, his colleagues were also recruited from other occult groups. [16] By contrast it is notable that the doctrine of the 'enemy' held sway in the 'Caliphate', 'enemy' meaning other Thelemic groups like Grant's or Motta's O.T.O.s, not to mention all other A.·. A.·. lines (apart from those of Marcelo Ramos Motta), and critics like Koenig, Anthony Naylor, etc. Such contacts blocked advancement to degrees beyond the IV°, or even resulted in immediate expulsion. We shall be returning to this theme. |
The Cult of Lam and Michael Staley, Grant's London amanuensis |
|---|
|
The 1919 portrait of Lam drawn by Crowley came into Grant's possession in 1945. Crowley never published any explanation of the image, and this allowed for the development of a distinct 'Lam cult'. For this article, Michael Staley provided the following detail in June 2001: "The point is that Crowley says nothing about Lam in his published writing; whether or not there is anything unpublished, I don't know. Interestingly, I have come across an account by an American visitor to Crowley's flat in Jermyn Street, London, in 1941 or thereabouts, who says that the portrait [he doesn't say who it is, but his description of it — he found it repulsive — leaves no doubt] was on Crowley's wall. When the visitor asked who or what it was, Crowley said that it was a portrait of his guru."
In the 1990's this cult (described as the "quintessence of the Typhonian O.T.O. tradition") was supposed to be a manifestation of the Hidden praeternatural/supernatural God or Holy Guardian Angel (HGA), who united the natural with the supernatural. Contact with this HGA was identical to an entry into the Aeon of Ma'at, or the extra-terrestrial continuum. [17] "In my view Lam is the mask of a dynamicstate of [extra-terrestrial] [18] gnosis, rather than simply an entity." [19] Staley interested himself in Lam as a state of Gnosis, although he admitted that this state could sometimes also take the nature of an entity's mask; but he would break through these masks. Crowley's (feminine?) Hoor-paar-kraat (Set) was again understood as the HGA; in the Tetragrammaton YHVH Ra-Hoor-Khuit (Horus) corresponded with the Vav, and Hoor-paar-kraat to the Heh final. "This identifies Hoor-paar-kraat with the Aeon of Ma'at." [20] Lam 'sits' in the Muladhara Chakra's Bija-Mantra, where the Fiery Serpent (or Kundalini) waits to uncoil. The 'optical' union with Lam took place in Lam's eyes, the region of the Ajna-Chakra (and also the seat of the will). [21] According to Crowley this corresponded to a sex-magical act in which one became conscious of the Ajna and Muladhara Chakras during orgasm. [22] Contact with the HGA was defined as the stage of "reaching critical mass" after doing intensive Abramelin or Liber Samekh exercises. The HGA is the sum total of experience, gathered into this critical mass and then able to take on spontaneous form. [23] This contact with the HGA — whether experienced in concrete exterior form, or as the aspirant's spiritual Higher Self — corresponded with the start of 'occult puberty'. [24] For an occultist, it meant that there was no longer any distinction between inner and outer. Evolution demanded that one cast off such old mental habits, [25] and that humanity should become non-human, as in Crowley's A.·. A.·., where a kind of superman hatched from the Egg or Babe of the Abyss (that is, the concept of dissolution in occult Qabalah, the bridge between human and divine). Freed of Ego, only this new human creature can help human evolution, and perhaps even that of the universe. ['Babe of the Abyss'; the whole point being that the Kabbalistic Abyss is the ultimate womb from which the soul is born before progressing to the Supernal Triad of sefiroth (Kether, Chokmah, and Binah) on the Tree of Life. After being born from the Abyss, it first reaches Binah, the 'Magna Mater'.] For Staley, magic is primarily a matter of communicating with non-human entities. However, such entities are not to be found outside human beings, as man and the universe are one — both are aspects of the universe. [26] Staley found better comprehension of this through the Sanskrit concept of Advaita or "not-divided", and in the Prajnaparamita-Buddhist "Sunyavada". At one stage Staley worked with a Lam-Serpent Sadhana, in which the Lam-Serpent was visualised as the Kundalini surmounted by Lam's head. [27] This Lam-Serpent uncoiled itself along the sushumna, while the chakras were visualised, and the Bija-Mantras were vibrated. According to Staley the 'secret' of sex-magic resided solely in the fact "that matter is malleable and can be influenced by sustained, intense visualisation; the potency of this visualisation can be increased by the directed sexual current." [28] The HGA functioned as the mediator and boundary station between the terrestrial and the infinite. With the HGA projected as the Egregore outside the individuality, the HGA can be used to communicate with the 'Secret Chiefs'; using the occult technique of 'Assuming a God-Form' one becomes an angel/egregore among other angels/egregores. |
A Little Typhonian Gnosis |
|---|
|
As with Pelle Bull/Per Jorgensen in Denmark, Kenneth Grant was requested by the 'Caliphate', via his publisher, to stop using the O.T.O. seal on his books. The 'Caliphate' also demanded that all Grant's books appearing on the American market should have a flyer attached to the jackets containing their own interpretation of O.T.O. history — an interpretation to Grant's disadvantage, of course. Then, astonishingly, there came an informal suggestion from William Breeze, via Grant's then-editor at Skoob (Grant has never received any communication from Breeze), that Grant could be "reinstated" at IX° and pay the backlog of his IX° membership fees due from 1955. In their magazine Starfire (Vol. I No 5, London January 1995) Staley wondered whether the 'Caliphate' was really experiencing financial problems, or whether this was simply some not-so-subtle ploy to bring Grant under control as one of their members. [29]
The magazine included a history of the Order which attempted to present all the facts concerning the 'Caliphate' and Grant. [30] Although there are a number of factual errors in this account — such as the claim that Carl Kellner was involved in the founding of the O.T.O. (which he was not), or Crowley's succeeding Theodor Reuss — these are understandable, since otherwise the article should acknowledge the strict distinction between Thelema and the O.T.O.. [31] Importantly though, there was a renewed assertion that Theodor Reuss had appointed Charles Stansfeld Jones Grant and Staley also wondered to whom _McMurtry had paid his IX° fees. Kenneth Grant himself could be every bit as dogmatic as the 'Caliphate' when it came to perceived challenges to his authority. From the mid-1980s, a then-member of his O.T.O. published the English Nuit-Isis magazine; from 1988 onwards I regularly contributed articles on the O.T.O. phenomenon to it, which were intended to present a new overview of all O.T.O. groups, though in the strictly historical sense. "Kenneth Grant in particular was not amused and set in motion a kangaroo court which expelled Katon Shual [Mogg = Chris Morgan, the magazine's publisher] from the O.T.O. [...] Sadly, this kind of pedantry is not unique to Mr Grant, and many contributors to Nuit Isis have found themselves personae non grata with various so-called Thelemic organisations for daring to voice an unpopular opinion or fact." [34] A different view is provided by Staley: "Katon Shual published a flow-chart showing the descent of the O.T.O., and in particular the main line of descent (the Office of O.H.O.) as going from Crowley to Germer to McMurtry. It seemed curious to name a member of the Caliphate O.T.O. as O.H.O. when a member of the Typhonian O.T.O. ; that's a polite way of putting it. Katon Shual was asked to publish a statement of correction in the next issue, but didn't. Thus the expulsion followed." [35] |
FOOTNOTES
Kenneth Grant died on 15th January 2011. |
[From: Materialien Zum O.T.O.]
Peter-R. Koenig, 2001.
Translation by Mark Parry-Maddocks. Further suggestions by Michael Staley.
Tradução portuguesa: Plano 93 do Espaço Exterior.
Back to the main page about the Typhonian O.T.O.
O.T.O. Phenomenon navigation page | main page | mail
What's New on the O.T.O. Phenomenon site?
More about all this in: Andreas Huettl and Peter-R. Koenig: Satan — Jünger, Jäger und Justiz
|
