#24 1 01 Feb 86 03:34:19 (RECV'D)
From: Usenet on 132/101 To: Brad Hicks on 100/523
Subject: O.T.O. sex magicc
Date: Sat Jan 25 20:42:29 EST 1986
From: "New Age Moderator"
New Age Digest #35
Moderator:
Tim.Maroney@k.cs.cmu.edu
uucp: {decwrl,seismo,ucb-vax,lll-crg}!k.cs.cmu.edu!tim)
Sat Jan 25 20:42:33 EST 1986
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Tonight, at long last:
Moving to California on Feb. 1
Re: anti-psi software
Re: various topics
Tarot info request
Re: the secrets of O.T.O. sex magick
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Date: Sat Jan 25 20:01:16 EST 1986
From: Tim Maroney
Subject: Apology and Important Information
I am sorry that so much time has elapsed since #34. I should send out short
digests when items get old, but frankly I am always glad to have an excuse
to avoid this chore. Not that I don't like the Digest, it's just that
shaping it up and sending it out is a pain in the eleventh degree....
Now for the news. In one week, I will be moving, together with my companion
Pam, to Berkeley California. I have a new job, with a startup Appletalk
company called Centram Systems West. This old address at CMU will have
forwarding for a while, but I wouldn't count on it for more than a month.
Between uninformed, hateful bullshit from the system staff, and CMU's belief
that they have an interest in seeing the planet destroyed -- oops, I mean to
say, "developing our Peace Shield" -- there doesn't seem much reason to hang
around this cold place any longer. Oh well, I learned a lot and had some
fun. I have no regrets, but it's time for me to move on.
I don't believe Centram is on the uucp network yet, though as chief UN-X
person I will be fixing that if so. (Or I may be using the mt xinU
machines...) However, John Gilmore and Laura Creighton have kindly agreed
to let the mailing list be based on their home system. This is only a
little bigger than my Macintosh (sun 3, 480 megabytes on line), but for our
purposes it should suffice. :-)
John's machine is named "hoptoad", formerly "l5". It is in San Francisco.
>From ARPA, the feed is "lll-crg". The mailing list address will be
"hoptoad!new-age@lll-crg", or from uucp, try
"{well,sun,dual,ptsfa,lll-crg}!hoptoad!new-age". Note that due to John
being a friendly person, unlike the people I would have had to go through at
CMU, there will be a real mailing-list-type address, not just my personal
login. My mailing address, at least provisionally, will be "hoptoad!tim".
I will replot everyone's addresses, though if you want to write and suggest
a good address to your site from Northern California, feel free. The
information in the USENET list of lists will be updated, and I will probably
list this in the ARPA list of lists as well.
I also want to apologize for being even worse with my mail than usual,
though that is somewhat hard to believe, I know. I'll try to catch up
during February, if I can get time between house-hunting and work.
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Date: Sun, 1 Dec 85 21:18:44 pst
From: ihnp4!chinet!magik@decwrl.DEC.COM
Subject: Re: anti-psi software
STella, I've had the same musings myself in regard to the suppression of
psi. My working assumption is that my higher self withholds knowledge from
me that I have not properly trained myself to conciously control. A sort of
natural self preservation. (when I am ready to handle a new level in life
someone/thing shows up in my life to show me the way)
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From: amdcad!ihnp4!pegasus!lzla!tek@decwrl.DEC.COM
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 85 13:05:41 pst
Subjects: sundry
Re: Tim Maroney (trinities), New Age Digest #33
In your comments about dualities and trinities in religion you touched on
something. Is it human nature or natural law? I believe that it's connected
to natural law. Let's not forget those prime numbers! Five, seven, and thirteen
have special meanings in many of the world's religions. What do others have to
say on this???
Re: Stella Calvert (Anti-psi Software), New Age Digest #34
I vote for case 2. I have two children and have been training them to
develop their psi. How? It's simple don't discourge them and coach them on!
I believe we learn not to use our psi when children. There can be many
reasons but I think the best one is that if a child is not encouraged they
don't develop in that direction. It's the middle of the road reaction which
produces no effect. If the child gets a very negative reaction they will
probably supress it but there is a chance that they will develop it out of
rebellion. The best avenue is that of encouragement and reward. The reward
could be as simple as a hug or positive verbal reinforcement. This is my
belief and I'm not saying this is the law... It's just my experience.
Now for us who are past childhood... My experience has been it is totally
tied up in belief systems. "You can because you think you can." Not just
your logical rational mind, but all of you. I read Johnathan Livingston
Seagull by Richard Bach, in childhood and it helped me a lot! Illusions is
very useful also. I've read Illusions many times. Every time I read it I get
more convinced it is a real story! On the other hand my logical mind tells
me no, no it can't be real.... I find it a help to keep the psi flowing.
New subject:
Ram Dass, NYC, Dec 8, 1985
I just attended a lecture given by Ram Dass last night. It was the first
time I got to see him in the flesh. For those that were wondering what
he's doing these days, read on...
He was in the east at a Buddhist meditation camp for a couple of months.
Meditations ran from 3AM til 11PM and consisted of following your breath, or
walking meditation (following your feet). He was to be there for three
months but left after two because he felt he had to go back to Boston to
take care of his father. He's now director of an organization that Wavey
Gravey pushed to get started. It's called SEVA. Its purpose is to eliminate
blindness in the 3rd world. I was surprised (small world) that SEVA is
supported by a small computer teleconferencing buisness. What a new idea
(ha ha)! He states that 80% of blindness in the world can be cured or
prevented... Well I could go on some more but I've probably said enough. If
you are interested in further details or any of the new stories he told send
me mail...
ihnp4!pegasus!lzla!tek
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Date: Thu, 2 Jan 86 15:46:55 est
From: umcp-cs!aplvax!osiris!jcp@seismo.CSS.GOV (Jody Patilla)
Subject: Tarot inquiries
As a Christmas gift, my brother gave me a very unusual modern Tarot deck
featuring fanciful Cat People. It is very attractive, the suit cards as well
as the major trumps, and is accompanied by some information as to the
meaning in divination of each card, and how to read a 6 card spread. I have
not really studied Tarot before this, though I am interested, and now I want
to order a Thoth deck and perhaps one other to compare the decks and learn
more about it. In the early issues of the Digest, a couple of people
recommended some books about Tarot: I saved those and now would be
interested in further discussion, especially about the meanings of different
decks and different methods with which people use them.
Jody Patilla
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Date: Fri Jan 24 06:25:17 EST 1986
From: Tim Maroney (tim@k.cs.cmu.edu)
Subject: O.T.O. sex magic
STella: First, though by this time you've probably forgotten you thanked me,
you're welcome. Glad I was just being paranoid about offending you!
As per David Sher's criticism, in my new drafts of my "Thelema Sutra" I am
making it more obvious where Crowley ends and Maroney begins. (Thanks,
David!) The correlation of the components of romantic love to the elements
was mine and should have been marked as such. Incidentally, the new
versions are so much improved that readers of my tryout drafts would barely
recognize them. I appreciate in particular those people who told me they
found the chapters incomprehensible; the new drafts should make sense even
for someone who has little experience with occult symbolism (though you will
still have to stop and think sometimes...) This sort of criticism is
invaluable; one indication of a flaw is worth a hundred "Hey, good job"s!
Of course, if I didn't get the encouragement too I would probably give up.
As you know, I prefer to point people to the sources containing the
information on the O.T.O. sex magic rather than explaining it explicitly.
This gives me a wonderful feeling of superiority to the poor idiot who asked
the question. On analysis, this does not seem like a very good basis for
behavior, so I've changed my mind. However, my essay on the O.T.O. will not
be made available until (and unless) my book is published, unlike other
chapters which I will be marketing as magazine articles first. So for a
full explanation you will have to wait.
However, a summary is in order here. Sex magick proper is confined to the
third triad of the O.T.O., eighth degree and up. (The seventh degree
reportedly contains a practice on consecrating and worshipping the image of
a phallus, in a way reminiscent of Indian practice, where such images have
always been the most common objects of devotion.) The eighth degree
practice is described in "Liber A'ash". Briefly, one masturbates to an
image of the deity, allowing its image to fill and enflame consciousness.
The ninth degree practice involves heterosexual intercourse. The mind is
kept focussed on the intent of the ritual. The sexual fluids of the man and
woman are collected and used to consecrate a talisman, or more commonly as a
Eucharist. This elixir is symbolically a complete macrocosm.
The eleventh degree practice is almost too gross to describe; Crowley
referred to it as sucking down stolen fire in a hollow tube from heaven in a
way no adept had dared to do before. For the unremittingly dense: This is
like the ninth degree practice, but involving the anus rather than the
vagina. The Thelemic practice of destroying one's aversions, it seems,
would be a prerequisite to eleventh degree practice.
These are only the physical formulae. One of Crowley's biggest jokes, I
think, was the idea that there was ONE "secret of the O.T.O.". In fact, a
number of clues from different places have to be put together, and the whole
network of deception is set up in such a way that one will tend to think one
has gotten it all (and stop looking) once the physical formulae are
discovered. The editors of the journals appear to have fallen into this
error, for instance. Another joke is that ONE chapter of the "Book of Lies"
gives the formula. In fact, that book's whole story of Crowley's entry into
the O.T.O. is probably false, a deliberate ruse to prevent the secrets from
being extracted from the book. Not only does the chapter "The Star
Sapphire" embody a ritual of the ninth degree, but vital doctrines are
dispersed all throughout the book. For instance, the identification of
family members with each other in "The Star Sapphire" clearly has to do with
the unity of parent and child explained in other chapters; this further
bears on the secret or seminal (one might almost say sociobiological) will
discussed in several chapters. Finally, bring in the connection between
death and begetting frequently referred to, and consider this in the light
of the infamous note in "Magick in Theory and Practice" concerning
sacrifice. The whole formula emerges (I think): The elixir is mystically
identical with the magician. In accord with the frequent instructions in
"The Book of Lies", the magician "kills himself" by consuming or fixing the
elixir. This self-slaying formula would appear to apply to all three
practices.
Oh yes, in the ninth degree I think the woman is supposed to be on top. But
Crowley may have considered this a point of personal preference. It is not
very strongly stressed, compared to these other points. There are also some
variations on the formula, which I have not extensively catalogued; this
includes, for instance, the breathing practices referred to by Crowley in
his "New Comment" on the relevant verse of Hadit. Since this is mentioned
nowhere else that I have noticed, I assume this is a variant, not strictly
necessary to the formula. There is also a less concealed but also less
fully developed sixty-nine formula; I mention it because all the formulae
listed above exclude lesbians, which is hardly fair.
This is all from decoding, in the light of whatever grasp of magick I have
acquired. My membership in the O.T.O. did not incorporate sex magick
instructions, because I decided to leave the group after administrative
incompetence deep-sixed my fourth attempt to arrange to take the next degree
past the Minerval degree, which is numbered 0. (Or perhaps I was being
asked to leave. It hardly matters now.) I have not experimented with these
particular techniques of invocation; my Neophyte work in the A.'. A.'.
system, which I follow on a solo basis, keeps me engaged for now. Astral
projection without drugs is not easy! Perhaps I'll start experimenting with
sexual invocations in another three or four years: "Liber A'ash" is not only
eighth degree O.T.O., but Dominus Liminis A.'. A.'. .
By the way, on psi-squelching in software. I don't believe in psychic
powers, though I have no disrespect for those who do, and I hope to continue
to see interesting discussions of psi here. But I would be remiss in my
skeptical duties if I failed to point out that the idea of psychic barriers
preventing powers from manifesting seems like the idea of the "nemesis" as
explained by Frazer. When a spell doesn't work, the shaman always has an
excuse -- some rival sorceror has blocked it, or the gods said no, or some
other "explanation" that only has explanatory power if you assume that there
ARE psychic powers. Another modern Nemesis is the presence of skeptics: how
strange it is that unconscious psychic powers in the psychically undeveloped
skeptic should so easily overcome the highly sharpened and deliberate
psychic powers of the test subject!
But, hey, maybe this is just reductionism, and your model is right. The use
of the Nemesis principle SUGGESTS that it is not right, but it can not be
said to PROVE it. Who knows? The world is a very weird place, and none of
us is free of error in perceiving it.
Congratulations on your wedding!
Tim
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End of New Age Digest
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