Alex Sumner's Blog, page 59

Adeptus Major

Today I am going to do a survey of the grade of 6=5 Adeptus Major, by examining how the various different offshoots of the Golden Dawn -  the Alpha et Omega, the Stella Matutina, the Holy Order of the Golden Dawn, and the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross – decided to deal with the subject. The one thing they all have in common is that they agree the grade has to do with Geburah – in the same way that 5=6 Adeptus Minor is to do with Tiphereth – but there the similarities end. Each different faction went off in their own direction, having different ideas about what the Adeptus Major was actually meant to do.

As far as I am aware, none of the published Adeptus Major rituals are used by modern day Golden Dawn orders – they have gone on to use different or modified versions.

Alpha Et Omega

The Book of the Concourse of the Watchtowers, by Sandra Tabatha Cicero

The Alpha et Omega 6=5 so-called Ritual has now been published: as an appendix to Tabatha Cicero's new publication, "Book of the Concourse of the Watchtowers." I say so-called because the version published is not a real ritual. It does not have an opening or closing, nor does it have any drama in it. It consists of one chief officer, the "Conferring Adept," teaching the signs and words of the grade to the Aspirant, who is prompted throughout the ceremony by a conductor. The explanation of the Tarot cards is brief. If anything, it is more of a fragment of a ritual – perhaps part of something that remains unpublished, or a work-in-progress.

The only interesting thing, IMHO, is that the brief explanation of the nature of the signs gives a tantalising glimpse into what Mathers might have imagined the work of an Adeptus Major to be – i.e. the use of Geburah-force to subdue evil entities – although no detail is given about the Adeptus Major curriculum itself. It is also interesting in that the symbolism anticipated the ideas the Crowley expressed about the nature of the Adeptus Major grade in the latter's John St John.

Stella Matutina

Now the Adeptus Major ritual of the Stella Matutina is a far more interesting affair. An incomplete version of the ritual was published by Pat Zalewski in his book Secret Inner Order Rituals of the Golden Dawn: fortunately though, I have seen a copy dating from a Stella Matutina temple circa 1916, so I have been able to compare. Now this is a proper ritual. It has drama, it has beautiful ritualistic speeches, but most importantly it introduces in the course of the ritual several key qabalistic concepts which provide much food for thought. The ritual should be read in conjunction with the account of W B Yeats' own experience of this ceremony, which is printed in George Mills Harper's Yeats' Golden Dawn, which gives details of the astral work that went on invisibly as the ceremony took place.

This ritual lays much emphasis on the Shekinah – the divine presence of God – who is here portrayed by a female officer. Why the Shekinah? I believe the answer must lie in the fact that in Gematria, "Geburah" is equivalent to "Debir," which is the Holy of Holies, where the Shekinah was said to reside upon the Ark of the Covenant between the wings of the two kerubs. The aspirant is therefore the High Priest, who goes into the Holy of Holies (actually the Vault of the Adepti which has been re-dressed for the occasion) and after a period of meditation discovers the Shekinah, who first comes to him (or her) like a light-bearer in darkness.

An interesting feature is that the Aspirant remains completely silent throughout the ceremony, until formally released at its climax. It is worth noting that quite separately Wynn Westcott did indeed describe the Adeptus Major grade as:

"…a degree of death and solmnity—referring to the precedent stage of obscuration, during which silent study and meditation may be considered as the typical condition…"

Flying Roll XVI, the History of the Rosicrucian Order.

One is tempted to speculate that in this respect the Stella Matutina ceremony is probably more to what Westcott intended than that of the AO! Unlike the AO ceremony, which is nothing but signs and an explanation thereof, the Stella Matutina 6=5 mentions two signs ("thou shalt avert thy eyes from evil as did Isis on the right … thou shalt withdraw from evil as did Nephthys on the left,") but does not really demonstrate what they are: obviously part of the esotery that was only transmitted from person to person.

The lacuna in Zalewski's ritual amounts to three-fifths of the oath being omitted (the oath of an Adeptus Major is in five parts), as well as an instruction that the Aspirant is censed in the form of a Pentagram, before being led out temporarily before then next point in the ceremony. When read in full, the oath of the Adeptus Major reveals that the duty of the new initiate is to apply the severity of Geburah to his or her own moral nature, whilst emphatically being merciful to the faults of others.

I found one mistake when I first read Zalewski's version, however: when I checked, I found that the mistake had been in the original ritual! Namely: the wrong passages of the Sepher Yetzirah are quoted when the aspirant is given the teachings of the Paths of Mem and Lamed.

A sort of curriculum has emerged as to what the Stella Matutina envisioned for the Adeptus Major grade. Although on first reading it does not seem much, from my own personal researches I believe that additional papers were also issued to the adepts which suggested ways in which the Adeptus Major practices could be extended to achieve extremely sophisticated result. In any event, the lines "try to find your own Path for the Inner Life," and "now is the time to fill in gaps of the 5=6 syllabus and to choose your special subject in which to qualify,"  conceal more than they reveal: I get the impression that Felkin, the author of the Stella Matutina 6=5 ritual, believed that if the Adeptus Minor grade was equivalent to a Bachelor's degree in Magic, then the Adeptus Major was equivalent to a Master's.

Holy Order of the Golden Dawn / Fellowship of the Rosy Cross

Whaddaya mean, I'm not the prophet of a new aeon?

The Holy Order of the Golden Dawn Adeptus Major Ritual has now been published in Regardie's Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic. It catches Waite as he was beginning to embrace mysticism, yet had not completely thrown off all of the trappings of the original GD. Now here is a curious thing: despite superficial differences, much of the underlying structure of the first Waite ritual is identical to that of the Stella Matutina version. E.g. the aspirant remains in silence until released in the final part of the ceremony, he or she goes into the Vault for a period of meditation, before encountering the Shekinah, who leads the aspirant out. Intriguingly, Waite identifies the Shekinah as Nuit, and the newly advanced aspirant as Horus. Could this in fact mean that Waite was a secret Thelemite (extremely ironic given the caning he received from Crowley in the Equinox)? Or perhaps when Crowley received the Book of the Law, the Gods were telling him not to become the prophet of a new aeon, but that he was now ready to become an Adeptus Major?

After the Holy Order of the Golden Dawn closed, Waite founded the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross. The grades are named after those of the Golden Dawn – but Waite finally took the opportunity to abandon the last vestiges GD dogma of which he disapproved and finally do his own thing. Nevertheless, the FRC Adeptus Major ritual still displays certain similarities to the version he wrote for the Holy Order of the Golden Dawn. There is a sojourn within the sanctuary, the Shekinah makes an appearance – but the insistence of silence is strictly removed. Needless to say, any references to Horus and Nuit have been removed.

As far as I know, there was no curriculum per se for the FRC grades – I believe that Waite intended the ceremony itself to be both the initiation into and the teaching of a given grade. In this sense the FRC is rather like a masonic version of Rosicrucianism. I did hear one senior esotericist say that this being the case, an initiate could theoretically be advanced through each grade at successive meetings, or slightly less than a year if they met every month, although I doubt very much that this would happen in practice.

Filed under: Occult Tagged: 6=5, A E Waite, Adeptus Major, Aleister Crowley, Alpha Et Omega, Book of the Concourse of the Watchtowers, Felkin, Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, Geburah, Golden Dawn, Holy Order of the Golden Dawn, Horus, Isis, Macgregor Mathers, Nephthys, Nuit, Shekinah, Stella Matutina, tabatha cicero, Wynn Westcott

The L Word

These people do not care about "Lineage."

No order claiming to be "Rosicrucian" has any lineage whatsoever! Even the genuine ones (if there is such a thing).

The reason is simple: they have no lineage because the original order described in the Fama Fraternitatis had none itself. When Frater N was sitting in the library that fateful day in 1604, he had absolutely no way of knowing that he was truly connected to the original order founded by CRC. Then by chance he found the Vault of the Adepti, and based his legitimacy to be a Rosicrucian purely on the fact of that discovery.

So: anytime you hear anyone go on about the L Word, just remember that Rosicrucianism itself was never founded on the basis of lineage, but on possession – even physical possession – of "Rosicrucian secrets" e.g. The Vault, the cipher mss, etc.

Filed under: Rant Tagged: cipher mss, Fama Fraternitatis, Golden Dawn, Lineage, rosicrucianism

Shall We Kill The President?

Novelist and author on the occult Alex Sumner introduces his new novella, entitled "Shall We Kill The President?" This is a dark fantasy tale in the series "The Demon Detective, and other stories," about modern day sorcerer Guy Shepardson, and features vampires, demons, and American politicians.

"Shall We Kill The President?" is initially available for download as an ebook from SmashWords.com

As an introduction to the story, throughout February 2012, it is possible to download the first story in the series, "The Demon Detective," which forms a prequel to "Shall We Kill The President?" *BY DOWNLOADING THIS YOU WILL GET A FREE PROMOTIONAL CODE TO GET "SHALL WE KILL THE PRESIDENT?" AT 50% OFF.*

Shall We Kill The President? available to purchase from Smashwords: http://bit.ly/yh91db

The Demon Detective… available for FREE: http://bit.ly/wvAkS3

Filed under: Publications, The Demon Detective Tagged: America, Belial, Dark fantasy, Demons, ebook, free download, Guy Shepardson, horror, smashwords.com, vampires

Guess What I'm Invoking

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Ashes To Ashes, Bob Marley, Burn, Burn You Up Burn You Down, Burning Down the House, Catch A Fire, Crazy World of Arthur Brown, David Bowie, Deep Purple, Fight Fire With Fire, Fire, Firestarter, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Peter Gabriel, Prodigy, Talking Heads, The Unforgettable Fire, U2

Alex vs the First Amendment

At times when I am desperately bored I read the UK's comedy newspaper, the Daily Mail, looking for some badly written news article … and just today I find one entitled Pagan mother's fury after son brings home Bible from school but witchcraft books are banned. It tells of a Pagan woman who was outraged when her son brought home – of his own accord, mind! – a Bible from school, which was one a consignment donated by the Gideon Society. So incenced was she that such scurrilous literature was available at the school, she tried to bring in a load of spell-books to distribute to the pupils… but was declined.

This story is remarkable for a number of reasons. For a start, this is the first time I have heard of a Pagan giving her books away for free, given that Llewellyn usually charges top-dollar for all kinds of rubbish . Secondly and more to the point, though, American schools apparently have an all or nothing approach to religion based upon an interpretation of the First Amendment. This is alleged to be part of a successful "grand experiment" to avoid religious trouble which has happened in e.g. Germany and Ireland. This of course plainly ignores the fact that such trouble has not happened in the UK, which operates a Church-of-England-by-default-but-you-can-opt-out-of-it-if-you-want type of system. Maybe this system works in the UK because the Church of England doesn't count as a proper religion!

Anyhoo, in the all-or-nothing debate, I am backing the "All" option – for the simple reason that if it goes through, I intend to found my own religion! That way people will be forced to read my books! (Actually I don't mind if they don't read them as long as they pay for them ).

Incidentally, I note from another article on the same news story, that the day the School Board is meeting to decide whether to allow Pagan Books in schools is February 2nd. Oh the irony!

Filed under: Comment Tagged: Bible, Daily Mail, Imbolc, North Carolina, pagan

Ask A Wizard 5: Chart Rectification

In response to a request from Manuel (see: How to Use Horary Astrology With Tarot) I present a short tutorial on "Chart Rectification" i.e. how to work out the most likely Ascendant when the time of birth is unknown.  There is a conventional method which involves analysing the movements of the slow-moving planets such as Saturn and Jupiter: but I suggest that it is also possible to get a quicker result using a crafty analysis of sun-sign characteristics.

Filed under: Occult Tagged: Ascendant, astrology, Chart Rectification, Horoscope

Manifestation

This is an experimental video project. The soundtrack is an "isochronic tone" intended to aid "Manifestation" (cosmic ordering, creative visualisation, "the Secret" etc). The images are selected to represent positive goals which will benefit both the individual and the whole planet, e.g.

* Success (sporting endeavour)

* Abundance

* Love

* Peace

* Respect (for others and for the planet)

Recommended for meditation.

No copyright intended: all sounds and images are copyright the respective owners.

Isochronic tones available from:

http://www.iso-tones.com

Filed under: Occult Tagged: Abundance, Cornucopia, cosmic ordering, creative visualisation, happy new year, Isochronic Tones, Kelly Holmes, Love, Martin Luther King, Matthew Pinsent, Mia Hamm, Muhammad Ali, Nadia Comaneci, Nelson Mandela, Peace, Pele, Respect, Rosa Parks, Steve Redgrave, Success, Tank Man, Tiananmen Square, Usain Bolt, vlog, Youtube [image error]

Music In Theory & Practice, part 4

Pythagoras

The Harmonic Method

I will just briefly mention this because it is vaguely to do with the theme of associating colours and musical tones mentioned in the preceding blog posts in this series. The main problem with this method is that it was an idea ahead of its time and therefore, as far as I can make out was not taken up in a great way in the past. Ironically however, living in the twenty-first century we are now technologically advanced enough to develop the idea for the future. The basis of the idea lies in Harmonics.

Musicians who play stringed instruments like the guitar or violin will be familiar the concept straightaway – they are the bell-like tones produced by lightly touching a string at the 4th, 5th, 7th, 12th etc frets or the equivalent positions. What you actually have here is a tone which is equal in frequency to that of the open string, multiplied by a whole number. Hence:

Frequency
Known as
Where on guitar


x
The First Harmonic (Fundamental)
0 (Open string)


2x
The Second Harmonic
12


3x
The Third Harmonic
7


4x
The Fourth Harmonic
5


5x
The Fifth Harmonic
4


6x
The Sixth Harmonic
3 *


7x
The Seventh Harmonic
15 *


8x
The Eight Harmonic
17 *

* These harmonics are not as easy to play on a guitar as the other harmonics. But if they were easy, then it wouldn't be a guitar!

As a sort of aside, it is worth noting that going by Pythagorean Temperament, the various Harmonics would thus be equivalent to: -

Harmonic
Note


1st
I


2nd
I'


3rd
V'


4th
I"


5th
III" **


6th
V"


7th
b VII" **


8th
I"'

** NB: The note-equivalents of the 5th & 7th Harmonics are approximations – probably more suited to a Just Tempered scale, as opposed to a strict Pythagorean one. The strict Pythagorean versions of these notes would be several cents sharper than the corresponding harmonics.

It is here that Madame Blavatsky shoved her oar in: she asserted that the colours of the spectrum correspond to Harmonically to one another, hence:

Harmonic
Note
Colour


1st
I
Red


2nd
I'
Orange


3rd
V'
Yellow


4th
I"
Green


5th
III"
Blue


6th
V"
Indigo


7th
b VII"
Violet


8th
I"'
"The Ghost Ray"

"The Ghost Ray…" Yes indeed, Blavatsky postulated that there was an eighth, mysterious colour of the spectrum, which is where Terry Pratchett got the idea for Octarine from. Hence Chaos magicians have incorporated this into Chaos Magic thinking they are being really ironic, when in fact they are just re-cycling hundred year-old Theosophy!

Anyhoo… now that we have a basis for assigning colours to harmonics, it is possible to analyse the timbre of a musical instrument in astrological terms – e.g. if one particular harmonic is stronger than the rest, one could say that the sound of the instrument is more under the presidency of the corresponding planet or planets than others. However, in terms of using this for practical magic, this system would have had limited functionality in the late 19th century when it was first proposed. For a particular planetary working one would have to hunt high and low for the particular instruments that sounded just right. Pipe organs would have been more useful in this regard – unfortunately, most organs were not and indeed are not built to accommodate the full range of harmonics as listed above.

Fairlight CMI

So, to fully make use of the system in the 1880s would have been very inconvenient. However: fast forward one hundred years, and the invention of digital synthesisers from the 1980s onwards does now allow one to pick and choose the harmonics with which to imbue your tone. This of course is only if you are prepared to actually synthesise instead of just use the presets. However, such synthesisers can do far more sophisticated things than just "pick a harmonic" – for example, by creating dynamic tones in which the levels of different harmonics alters in real time, thus reflecting that as in music, so in astrology, and so in Life – the influences of the various planets are not constant, but are modulating continually.

Filed under: Occult Tagged: chaos magick, Fairlight CMI, Music, Pythagoras, Terry Pratchett, Theosophy

Music In Theory & Practice 3: The Hexagram and Middle Pillar Rituals

More rituals scored according to Macgregor Mathers' system of attributions.

The Lesser Hexagram Ritual

The Lesser Ritual of the Hexagram, composed by Alex Sumner © 2011.

The Middle Pillar Ritual

The Middle Pillar Ritual, composed by Alex Sumner © 2011.

Filed under: Occult Tagged: Alpha Et Omega, Golden Dawn, Lesser ritual of the hexagram, Macgregor Mathers, Middle Pillar, Music, Qabalah

Yale Scientists want to brainwash you into becoming mindless Zombies

"Inception becomes reality: People can teach themselves new skills in dreams" says the Daily Mail. Apparently researchers at Yale University have published a paper on the same in this week's New Scientist.

Honestly: when I first read the article, I thought that the Daily Mail had raided my site for one of my old blog posts – but no, apparently, despite the fact that lucid dreamers like myself and others have been saying it for years, some scientists have now done experiments on it, which purportedly makes it official. The idea of being able to control ones dreams so as to stimulate ones learning sounds so plausible to me that I didn't really give it much of a second thought. Until I saw the following throwaway remark – referring to Peter Morgan, the author of the paper:

Morgan hopes to be able to improve a person's social control and decision-making abilities.

(Emphasis added).

I think not! Is it just me or does this remark sound incredibly dodgy? What the fuck is a person's "social control" any business of Peter Morgan, Yale University, or anyone else's for that matter? To "improve" a person's social control you have to lay down a standard by which it can be judged. In other words, it entails imposing one's own arbitrary values on someone else. And they intend to control someone's dreams to do it!!! Never have I heard of such an intrusive idea! Oh wait, yes I have, as a matter of fact: Aldous Huxley first wrote about the same thing in Brave New World in 1932. Fuck me, these scientists ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Filed under: Comment, Occult Tagged: Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Daily Mail, lucid dreaming, Peter Morgan, Yale University