POPULAR OCCULTURE
Reviews
Editor's note: This
will
be a regular feature in Silver Star Journal. Any and all readers are
encouraged
to submit reviews that they feel pertain to the magickal community. We
also actively seek publications of all kinds for review in this space.
Send
submissions (or requests for a snailmail address for review books and
mags) to:
aion@psychicsophia.com
In this Issue we have reviews by:
Reviews by Shade Oroboros
Inside Solar Lodge / Outside the Law:
True Tales of Initiation and High Adventure by Frater Shiva,
Teitan Press 2007, 183 pages,
illustrated.
Many thanks to Papa Nick for his excellent review, ( See Papa Nick's review below) which
went into far more detail than I usually manage here; and in general I
am in complete agreement with what he had to say. This group was indeed
an important missing link in the history of the OTO in the USA, and it
is a pity that it turned out so amazingly badly. A couple of quick
notes on the more lurid bits: Ed Sanders’ infamous tome The Family was
indeed mostly about the Manson Family, and Frater Shiva denies that any
contact ever took place, although the Solar Lodge did have quite a few
members and I suppose that anything is possible… surprisingly enough,
Charlie himself does not seem to have included Crowley among his
fixations, although other sources claim him as a ‘Clear’ in
Scientology, and he certainly got his brainwashing skills somewhere!
The lurid and much-repeated ‘boy in the box’ tale involved
a troubled child who set a fire in the Solar Lodge’s desert compound,
destroying a building that contained a large amount of their Crowley
materials and manuscripts. The story does appear to have been somewhat
inflated (perhaps something more like being locked overnight in a
storage shed until a parent arrived than chained for six weeks in a
packing crate in the desert) and the Solar Lodge people seem to have
been caught up in the huge mass hysteria after the Manson Family
murders (in recent news, more possible Manson bodies may have just been
found in the desert). However, on the sleaze-o-meter, Frater Shiva
clearly had to be aware of the thefts of Crowley archives from Karl
Germer’s elderly widow (who was also physically attacked) and from
Israel Regardie and other early OTO members (in other occult scandals,
there were apparently several waves of looting and dispersal of
Regardie’s library, which he had always intended to be preserved after
his death). Combined with denial that a commune of Crowleyites in the
1970’s ever did any drugs (!!!) and were strictly conservative about
sex (???) this seems to go beyond self-serving whitewash and somewhere
into the realm of boggled imagination…
Blood on the Altar: The Secret History
of the World’s Most Dangerous Secret Society by Craig Heimbichner,
170 pages, Independent History &
Research 2005.
There are, however, even worse books about the OTO,
and this one is probably the bottom of the barrel: an hysterically
paranoid Christian rehash of typical Satanic-Masonic-Zionist
conspiracies that conveniently places the OTO as the Eye at the very
top of the Pyramid, alleging that Crowleyites dominate the secret
government, international intelligence networks, Hollywood, UFOS and
the Vatican. Hmm, yeah, right… so the OTO has perhaps a few hundred-odd
members, mostly marginalized magicians, but secretly rules the world?…
THEY WISH! The main thrust is that the OTO is heir to the highest
degrees of Freemasonry (the Rites of Mizraim & Memphis) and that
all the more mundane breed of masons must therefore join the OTO to
achieve the highest levels of a vast Luciferian plot extending all the
way back through Babylonian paganism, Kabbalists, Templars, Illuminati,
Masonry, Mormonism, the OSS and CIA, Mossad and British Intelligence
(much is made of Crowley’s activities as a secret agent in both World
Wars, a historical reality with more details emerging in recent years)
and on into Wicca, Women’s Liberation and the post-Vatican II Catholic
Church. Admittedly, up to a point this is indeed our mystic heritage
and it is very easy indeed to pull some lurid prose out of the works of
our dear Mr. Crowley. Despite the rather well known proclivities of our
founding fathers during the Revolution, the stream of anti-Masonic
conspiracy theory goes back to its very beginnings, and was at one
point the foundation of a major American political party. Many powerful
and prominent people have been Masons and have indeed wielded
considerable power, and the British Empire upon which the sun has now
set was absolutely riddled with the little buggers.
And sure, I’m pretty damn paranoid myself about who is
really running the planet, but I suspect that at this late point in
history it is far more likely to be multi-national corporations and the
military-industrial-academic-media complex than any of the more
esoteric forms of Freemasonry. However, the very notion that the Book
of the Law has anywhere near the amount of human blood staining its
pages that the Bible, Koran, Hitler’s Mein Kampf or Mao’s little Red
Book have achieved is pretty ludicrous, and the very ugly level of
anti-Semitism and homophobia in this book (and many other piles of crap
from the same publisher) is pretty creepy. Full of bizarre accusations
but short on proof, the over-the-top prose is seldom funny enough to
justify spending time or money on this particular plucked turkey.
The History of Modern Magick: Glimpses
of the Authentic Tradition from 1700 to 2000
by Allen Greenfield, 250 pages,
lulu.com 2004.
A much better series of essays is contributed by Allen
Greenfield, a prolific Thelemic scholar, Gnostic Bishop and noted
Ufologist, who traces the history of many early Rosicrucian, Masonic,
Theosophical and Spiritualist influences, the Hermetic Order of Luxor
(aka of Light), the African-American pioneer of sex magick Pascal
Beverly Randolph, Crowley’s influence on Gerald Gardner’s creation of
the Wiccan Revival (Greenfield’s important piece on ‘The Secret History
of Modern Witchcraft’ is easily found on-line and well worth reading),
the OTO itself, Jack Parson’s Babalon Working and his weird L. Ron
Hubbard connections. He also includes some technical notes on the
Gnostic Mass and Michael Bertiaux. The underground history of occultism
is indeed far-reaching, complex and influential, yet was often quite
poorly documented. Greenfield makes many important connections, and
some vital points about how the relatively small number of players
involved tended to cross-pollinate their various concepts and orders in
ways which were not always very clear, but often relied on affinities,
covert relationships, hiatuses followed by revivals, and hidden
identities. He has also introduced and edited the current edition of
Frater Achad’s seminal Liber Thirty-One.
Aleister Crowley: The Fire & The
Force by Don Webb, 62 pages,
Runa-Raven Press 2007.
Don Webb is one of the most public voices to emerge from
the Temple of Set, and I have reviewed his previous works in Silver
Star II and IV. This book is divided in two halves, a series of
internal e-mails directed to the TOS during the centennial of Liber AL,
and a later series of thought-provoking essays analyzing Thelemic
cosmology and history from the TOS perspective. As always he provides
some fascinating insights, though for me the Thelemic view still seems
much wider, and it still perhaps seems that the TOS may have a rather
limited appreciation of the Goddess… however, as with all his works, I
find much to appreciate here. There are so many biographies of Crowley,
but precious few rational studies of his actual system; and for magick
to survive it must be carefully examined, tested, and then continue to
evolve, rather than be embalmed as dogma. I regard this as a truly
important contribution to that process.
The Lucid View: Investigations into
Occultism, Ufology and Paranoid Awareness by Aeolus Kephas,
212 pages, illustrated,
Adventures Unlimited Press 2004.
This may well be the most important book I am reviewing
this time around, and perhaps the only one I have ever seen with a
cover blurb by Kenneth Grant.
An intelligent and detailed study of many of the
implications of conspiracy theory (again covering all the usual
suspects such as Freemasons, organized religion, media control, Nazi
occultism, and many covert government operations including UFOs, the
JFK assassination, Jonestown, the Twin Towers, etc.) and providing a
subtle context for the ways in which what the author terms ‘paranoid
awareness’ can evolve into a truly illuminated ‘lucid view’ of all
strange phenomena, psychology and art, and perhaps the very nature of
‘reality’. Drawing heavily on Crowley, Grant and Castaneda should pull
in the magicians, but almost anyone could be woken up by this clever,
thought-provoking, and very well-written examination of both the
personal and collective survival issues we so seldom dare to face… very
highly recommended!
The SubGenius Psychlopedia of Slack:
The Bobliographon: New Revelations from J.R. “Bob” Dobbs,
241 pages, highly illustrated,
Thunder’s Mouth Press 2006.
Some have described the Church of the Sub-Genius as a
complicated religion masquerading as a joke, others as a complicated
joke masquerading as a religion. I regard it as Big Fun, quite possibly
the One True Way, and definitely one of the greatest spiritual
deprogramming tools of our age. As usual, subversive humor, profound
wisdom and wild graphics from a multitude of creators combine to reveal
“Bob” the Messiah of Slack and his consort/shakti Connie, their
prophecies, ideology and brilliant decoding of the sordid scam most
regard as reality (HA!) via the Zen of sarcasm (and this planet needs
an awful lot more sarcasm). For those familiar with the previous Book
of the Sub-Genius and Revelation X, this new volume continues the vital
blowing of minds.
Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret
History of Comic Book Heroes by Christopher Knowles,
illustrated by Joseph Michael Linser,
235 pages, Red Wheel/Weiser 2007.
A thorough and very entertaining review of the long
history and deeply occult roots of comics, the world mythology now
unalterably the most familiar to America’s youth. From mystical origins
in ancient pantheons to the evolution of fantastic literature and pulp
publishing, the strange underground streams of thought that have
influenced so many artists and writers, and the fluctuations and
scandals of the comics industry (which always has found its peak
circulation in times of angst and national crisis, during wars and
depressions, when people need heroes and messiahs the most), the
collective unconscious and media archetypes of our time are explored by
the “Joseph Campbell of comic books”. Vast in scope and full of strange
connections in a widespread worldview that remains truly “magical”. And
yes, the evil Lex Luthor started out as a mad magician and may indeed
have been based on Aleister Crowley…
Divine Comedy Of Neophyte Corax and
Goddess Morrigan: A Dialectic Play
by Payam Nabarz, Web of Wyrd Press
2008.
A very deep, funny and clever play involving the
complicated relationship between a goddess and her reincarnating raven,
and cheerfully exploring all the mythologies which have played through
the history of the British Isles: Mithraic and Druidic and Christian,
Norse and Shamanic and Qabalistic, Thelemic and Vodou and Tantric.
Mystery plays once edified the illiterate populace, today we have bad
movies… perhaps it is time for a change. Wit can actually make people
think! Illustrated with a series of lovely photos by the author.
Wiccan Roots: Gerald Gardner and the
Modern Witchcraft Revival by Philip Heselton,
334 pages, many illustrations, Capall
Bann 2000.
A very thorough and well-documented work of research into
the life of Gerald Gardner, who sparked the Wiccan revival that became
one of the fastest-growing religious movements of the 20th century, and
the major gateway for those drawn to magic and the ancient pagan gods.
The author addresses the vital question of whether there was a genuine
survival of the Old Religion at the core of Gardner’s teaching, and
concludes that indeed certain sources can be traced. Gardner had a very
interesting life, much of it spent far from England, but upon his
return he met with many members of movements including Co-Masonry
(women allowed!), Rosicrucians, Naturists and yes, apparently, witches.
Many of his contacts seem to have been surprisingly upper class, but
very old families with some surprising traditions. Much is made of
accounts of the Operation: Cone of Power defense of Britain during
WWII, which apparently drew surviving covens together. Unfortunately
the book is devoted to a study of these hidden roots, and breaks off
before the later and more public period of Wiccan diffusion; it is to
be hoped that the author will continue with a further volume of
biography.
Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English
History by
Owen Davies, 246 pages, Hambleton
& London 2007.
An excellent academic study of the folk magic tradition in
fairly late to early modern times, which clearly shows that magical
thought and practice has always survived in some form, but that in many
ways it was fractured, fragmentary and poorly understood by this point
in history. Still, if there are elements in the Craft that are actually
survivals instead of revivals, this is an excellent place to look, and
it is fascinating reading. And it should be noted that many cunning-men
were literate, a rare talent in these times, and drew upon various
sources for herbal medicine and ceremonial magic as well as village
oral traditions.
Kink Magic: Sex Magic Beyond Vanilla
by Taylor
Ellwood & Lupa, 227 pages,
Megalithica Books 2007.
A bold and often quite personal book which narrates the
experiences of a magical couple exploring the implications of sensual
magick far beyond what most of us dare to embrace. Two complex
practices are merging here: a concise and up-to-date manual of the
customs, techniques and ethics of BDSM is extendedinto a detailed
introduction to the contemporary magical and even chaotic dimension,
both being Otherworlds largely unexplored (hence generally
misunderstood) by the general public. The authorshave considerable
expertise in both fields, and the psychological and physiological
gnosis of BDSM is clearly deepened and enhanced by an understanding of
practical energy working, yoga and NLP as well as banishing, spirit
entities and the use of sigils. Both are essentially very ritual
activities, employing a complex symbolism and charged or fetishized
tools and jewelry, role-playing of one kind or another, and a
psychic space very different from so-called ‘normal’ consciousness.
Both are ultimately designed in part to be transformative and
empowering forms of what might be called guerilla psychotherapy. Both
share some similar practices in the history of both the conventional
and mystery religions, and both have certain perils for the uninformed
amateur. Both authors have been previously reviewed in this column, and
their work is invariably encyclopedic, cutting-edge and sophisticated.
This is also in many ways a magical record, and there is some courage
involved in sharing activities both intimate and extreme.
Tarot of the Morning Star by Roger Williamson,
deck and booklet, Magus Meta Media
2007.
A rather handsome and
colorful set of the 22 Atus of the Major Arcana, mainly in an Egyptian
style but with deep echoes of other primal mythologies. They are also
somewhat larger than usual, emphasizing their function as talismanic
icons or geometric gateways rather than mere tools for the casting of
fortunes. The accompanying booklet is no mere manual, preferring that
the images speak for themselves, but rather a lecture on the esoteric
origins and secret uses of this treasure-house of images from the dawn
of time, and the nature and history of magical consciousness.
The Book of Mephisto: A Left Hand Path
Grimoire
of The Faustian Tradition by Asenath
Mason, 75 pages, illustrated, Edition Roter Drache 2006.
The legend of Faustus is one of the major archetypes of western
civilization, that of the philosopher who sells his soul to the Devil
for the love of forbidden knowledge. Widespread throughout all of
Europe, a cautionary tale whose very nature cries out to throw caution
to the winds, or perhaps to the flames… his companion demon
Mephistopheles was perhaps the best known avatar of Satan or Lucifer in
the Middle Ages and became in many ways the spirit of the Renaissance,
which birthed the freedoms of our modern world.
The author traces the literary corpus and forms of this
Jungian Shadow, this Opposer or Trickster who is also a Liberator,
through avatars such as Melek Taus, Hermes, Aiwass, Nyarlathotep and the Black Man of the
Witches Sabbat. She explores the ‘Sitra Ahra’ or Other Side, the Shells
of the Qlipoth or Nightside of the qabalistic Tree of Life & Death,
and the saga of the fabled Nephelim or Fallen Angels. Anyone who
follows the Left Hand Path, seeking to resolve duality in human nature,
will find thoughts of value in this fine series of essays, images and
rituals. And she has made me happily revisit Marlowe’s Tragickal
History of Doctor Faustus, still far better than Goethe’s precious
posturing…
Necronomicon Gnosis: A Practical
Introduction
by Asenath Mason (& others), 186
pages,
illustrated, Edition Roter Drache 2007.
What hath Lovecraft wrought?
The Cthulhu Mythos may have begun as an alleged form of fiction,
but Kenneth Grant pulled it into the purview of Magick and later of
Chaos (notably thanks to Phil Hine with his Pseudonomicon and Madame
Blavatsky with her Stanzas of Dyzan) picked up the
fabled Shining Trapezohedron and ran with it. Various other versions of
the Necronomicon subsequently appeared, and now we have the most
complete and cogent exploration yet, a very detailed grimoire of the
Great Old Ones cleverly combining the extensive literary corpus in
unholy miscegenation with the cutting edge of post-modern sorcery and
all its Goetic and astral techniques in an elegantly illustrated volume
of the darkest glamours and chthonic lore. The vast importance of
nightmarish places and active dreamwork as gateways are emphasized, the
perils and rewards are charted, the experiences of some of the
survivors are recounted. As the T-shirt says:
WHAT PART OF
ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh
wgah’nagl fhtagn
DON’T YOU
UNDERSTAND?
Spirits in Sequins: Vodou Flags of
Haiti by Nancy Josephson, 176 pages, profusely illustrated,
Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 2007.
A beautiful art book, and the largest collection of Vodou banners I
have seen. Both African beadwork & embroidery and European military
& religious banners influence these remarkable representations of
the Loa: some are used in temple rites and others sold as art, often
for export to collectors. Opening with a review of the pantheon and a
discussion of the techniques of their making, the major part of the
volume is an extensive study of some of the major artists and a
stunning collection of hundreds of images in glorious color. Many of
these artists have become friends of the author, who gives fairly
detailed accounts of their lives. Few countries on this earth have
survived a more tragic history than Haiti, and the spirit of the people
is a marvelous thing.
Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth &
Reality edited by Patrick Bellegarde-Smith and Claudine Michel,
161 pages, illustrated, bibliography,
Indiana University Press 2006.
A new collection of academic studies, notable for the fact
that all the contributors are actually Haitians and some are also
practitioners. Since an enormous amount of racist nonsense has been
written about Vodou, and even the better books have often been by
American and European anthropologists, this is very welcome. Ten essays
cover African roots, Haiti’s history, community and politics, the place
of Vodou in the traditional and modern medical systems, music, art,
education and the lives of women, and the process of priesthood.
The Case of the Scarlet Woman:
Sherlock Holmes & the Occult by Watkin Jones,
124 pages, Greenwich Exchange 1999.
A fairly serviceable pastiche of Sir A.C. Doyle’s great
detective, replete with obsequious lower classes and the befuddlement
of Scotland Yard. Three interlocked cases involving the Golden Dawn
(older brother Mycroft Holmes is revealed as a member), W.B. Yeats, and
the hidden influence of Aleister Crowley. Fair enough, but rather
solemn; I wish there had been more fun involved!
The Case of the Philosopher’s Ring by
Randall Collins,
152 pages, Crown Publishers 1978.
Indeed, there was far more fun in this similar but more
rollicking 1978 Holmes versus Crowley novel (I’m rather late on my
reviews): “Amid the Drugs & Cult Mysticism of the Edwardian
Underworld, Sherlock Holmes Encounters the World’s Most Evil Genius
& His Plan to Destroy Western Civilization!” This also featured
Theosophists Annie Besant and Bishop Ledbetter (“There is no genital
chakra, it is the spleen!”), Bertrand Russell, Krishnamurti, Leilah
Waddell and a far more entertaining confrontation between the World’s
Greatest Detective and the World’s Wickedest Man. A word to the wise:
for those who like their Holmes slightly disguised but brilliantly
done, I will also recommend The List Of Seven and The Sixth Messiah by
Mark Frost, co-creator of Twin Peaks; highly recommended!
Shadows Over Baker Street: New Tales
of Terror!
edited by Michael Reaves & John
Pelan, 464 pages, Del Rey 20055.
As for those who always wondered whether Sherlock Holmes
could beat Cthulhu (sort of like those old debates about Jesus versus
Superman), a number of possible outcomes appear in this excellent
anthology including contributions from such popular luminaries (is that
really the right word for this sort of literature?) as Neil Gaiman,
Caitlin R. Kiernan, Brian Stableford, Richard A. Lupoff, Poppy Z.
Bright, and of course the darkly luminous editors themselves and even
F. Gwynplain MacIntyre (who is a personal hero of mine for his previous
novel Woman Between The Worlds, a charming H.G. Wells pastiche
featuring a scurrilous depiction of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister
Crowley fighting invading aliens with kung fu!).
And all of this was authorized by the Doyle estate, what
the hell were they thinking? On the other hand, other authors have
repeatedly squared Holmes off against Dracula and Jack the Ripper…
The Repairman Jack Series by F. Paul
Wilson:
The Tomb (1984, revised 1998),
Legacies (1998), Conspiracies (1999), All the Rage (2000), Hosts
(2001), The Haunted Air (2002), Gateways (2003), Crisscross (2004),
Infernal (2005), Harbingers (2006), Bloodline (2007), By The Sword
(2008).
I will not attempt to review this ongoing series, I would
merely like to draw your attention to it… Repairman Jack is a fixer and
trickster who lives outside the law and beyond the bounds of society,
and one of the most likable action heroes of our time. His cases
involve elements from the merely mundane (mobsters and subway shooters)
to the most horrible cthuloid entities (reptilean monsters, dead
people, sentient viruses, and scientologists, oh my!). As the series
progresses he is being drawn into a vast and ancient battle for the
sanity of the universe itself… but so what? The point is that these are
fabulously fun page-turning occult thrillers, and probably the only NY
Times best-sellers I’ve ever reviewed here other than Harry Potter. The
author has a ton of other books as well, including medical thrillers;
he is also a practicing MD, and I can’t imagine when he finds time to
sleep…
(Editors Note: How can you call
yourself an occultist if you havent read all the Repairman Jack
novels???!!!)
SUPPORT
INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORES!
EXPLORE YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY!
Review by Papa Nick
Inside
Solar Lodge/Outside the Law
by Frater Shiva, Teitan Press,
2007.
To prepare for this review I reread “The Solar Lodge of the O.T.O.”
chapter in Ed Sanders’ “The Family”. Even in 1971, I understood
enough
about the O.T.O. to know that what Sanders described was not Standard
Operating Procedure for that organization. And, being already a
self-taught student of Aleister Crowley’s magick and philosophy, I
could tell Sanders didn’t know what the hell he was talking about in
that respect. He writes that Crowley had “problems in the field
of
sadism”. WTF does that mean? That he was an inept
Sadist? (Well,
Crowley’s personality was more masochistic than sadistic, but I don’t
think that’s what Sanders meant). And he credits Crowley with the
aphorisms of the Powers of the Sphinx, and I always thought we had
Eliphas Levi to thank for those (although A.C. did claim he was Levi in
a previous life). Such flapdoodle made me question the validity
of
Sanders’ “reportage” in the whole book, which turned out to be
justified. This chapter was omitted from later editions of “The
Family”.
But, like any titillating urban myth, it took on a life of its
own.
Francis King took up the echo in “The Magical World of Aleister
Crowley” in 1977. King, too, had the good sense to excise those
paragraphs from later editions of his book. But later authors
didn’t
take the cue from Sanders and King and continued to perpetuate the
myth, and milk it for all it was worth, and add a little tabasco sauce
in the process.
So, I was excited when I heard that, some 40 years after the fact, a
high-ranking insider from Solar Lodge was publishing a book to clear
the air. I was one of the 418 people who plunked down hard-won
dinero
to get the limited edition. After reading it, did I feel like I finally
knew the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about what went
on?
I’d have to say No. “Inside Solar Lodge” is certainly not a
whitewash
- Frater Shiva candidly admits that much of what has been reported did
happen: the theft of Crowley artifacts, the “boy in the box” incident,
the megalomania of Jean Brayton and the “slave labor” aspect during the
“Tong” period. Yet, I can’t help but read such tell-all books,
written
decades after the fact, when most of the major players are long dead,
without a critical eye. Shiva himself comes out smelling like a
rose
grown in (what became) a pile of manure. I don’t think it was
written
solely with the magnanimous intent of revealing “the Truth”; there is,
inevitably, a personal agenda at work here as well.
Everything written about Solar Lodge before Shiva’s book focused on the
“bad stuff” that may or may not have happened, but did nothing to
explain what they were really about—their beliefs and practices - how
this Thelemic organization translated Crowley’s written teachings into
action. This book does that: it provides a morsel of meat from
the
barbeque when all we’ve seen before is smoke from the grill.
As Shiva describes it, the structure of Solar Lodge combined the O.T.O.
degrees with the grade work of the A.’.A.’. - for example, a Minerval
was expected to complete the grade work of an A.’.A.’. Probationer, and
afterwards complete the work of the Neophyte before being initiated as
First Degree in O.T.O., etc. The outer structure of these two
organizations, and their focus, had by Crowley’s accounts seemed
separate: the A.’.A.’. dealt with an individual’s Great Work, while the
O.T.O. focused on a wider agenda, and worked a specific formula: the
agenda being Brotherhood and extending the Law of Thelema to society,
and the formula that of sexual magick. Most Thelemites, I
believe,
have had the desire to do both, but Crowley himself never found a way
to weave them together. (This was not an original concept,
though: it
seems Nu Isis Lodge had already envisioned this in the
1950s.) Solar
Lodge attempted that, and that made it a worthy experiment, at
least.
I had always assumed Solar Lodge was sort of created from whole cloth
and had no connection with Crowley’s O.T.O. at all. That’s only
partly
true. Brayton was initiated by a member of Agape Lodge - Mildred
Burlingame. That provides a link between Agape Lodge and Solar
Lodge,
but only in the sense that Brayton was initiated as a Minerval, and
later given the secret of the Ninth Degree. But O.T.O. Inc.
contends
that when this happened, the O.T.O. was dormant, and neither the
Burlingames or any other surviving member of Agape Lodge had the
authority to initiate new members. There was never a charter
issued
(who would have issued it, at the time?) to justify the creation of a
new O.T.O. Lodge in the States, and the Magickal Link between
Burlingame and Brayton did not seem to even imply that - but there was
that certain silver talisman... Brayton took the ball and ran
with it
when nobody was looking, and crafted her own cult with O.T.O. trappings.
The truth about the Solar Lodge is important, because if nothing else,
it served as a bridge between the disappointing Agape Lodge and the
later emergence of O.T.O. Inc. It was a shaky bridge, to be sure,
but
it was financially successful, something Crowley would have loved to
have seen from Agape Lodge, when he was starving and in need of a fix
at Hastings. In one respect, Solar Lodge had been at that point
the
only successful implementation of Crowley’s O.T.O. vision yet, anywhere
in the world, because they did it “in business way”. They owned
several parcels of income-producing real estate, and businesses that
made money as well. They had cash, a good line of credit, and
dozens
of willing workers. This was not a bunch of acid-addled hippies
just
imagining in the cannabis smoke a new way of life, outside the
system.
They were well on their way to making it happen - a more-or-less
self-sustaining Thelemic community: Crowley’s wet dream during the
Abbey of Thelema period.
Solar Lodge, legitimacy aside, was a good idea... gone bad. It
was
not, from Shiva’s account, anything like the pack of blood drinking
orgiasts that Sanders describes. Their program of initiation,
based
mainly on Crowley’s work, was sound, and they took it seriously.
The
problems arose, primarily, from the unbalanced personality of the
leader - Jean Brayton. And that trickled down to create the chaos
that
ensued. We’ve all seen it before, in other occult organizations,
in
business and in government. Moral of the story: the hierarchical
model
is just a bad idea. Perhaps organizations themselves are just bad
ideas. The problem was not Thelemic philosophy or the A.’.A.’.
curriculum - it was how it was administered and implemented.
During
the “Tong period”, after the legal problems, it was no longer about
magick and initiation at all. It was all about the money.
The real turning point, by Shiva’s assessment, was when Brayton walked
out into the desert after the fire to meditate and was told by a
booming inner voice “The Gates of Initiation are closed! Send
everyone
away!” But instead of listening to the voice of the “Seven Secret
Chiefs”, Brayton allowed her ego respond with a resounding “No!”, then
returned to the group to tell them she had decided they would
rebuild.
Brayton broke the link she had (?) to the Secret Chiefs before that and
concluded that the organization, and her control of it, was more
important than the Great Work for the individuals involved. The
child
abuse involving the young arsonist followed soon after, resulting in
arrests, the dispersion of the group, flights to Mexico and then Canada
to avoid prosecution, and eventual resettlement in Las Vegas of the few
remaining members who lacked the will to break from Brayton’s control.
Frater Shiva was one who was strong enough to break away from Brayton’s
control, but only after enduring a “Grand Tribunal”, where Brayton,
holding court from her bed, passed judgment on his attitude and
aspirations. This was during what Shiva calls the “Tong” phase,
when
Brayton was weeding out the loyal from the unloyal. He failed the
Tong
Test, but writes that Brayton privately asked him to stay, to keep the
thing going. He, to his credit, DID listen to his inner voice,
and in
1972 left to continue the Great Work on his own terms and in his own
way. Today, he is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine and an instructor
in
the martial arts, living in New Mexico.
My suspicion that Sanders’ “The Family” was no more than the drool of a
burnt-out rumor-monger were confirmed when I subsequently looked into
other accounts of, not only the Manson Family, but other groups
maligned in the book. The Process Church of the Final Judgment is
also
raked over hellfire in “The Family”. This chapter was also
omitted
from later editions, after a successful libel lawsuit by The
Process.
A more accurate account can be found in “Satan’s Power: A Deviant
Psychotherapy Cult” by William Sims Bainbridge, a sociologist who was a
participant-observer in the group. Even Sanders’ account of the
Manson
Family turned out to be way off-base and exaggerated to some
degree.
Sanders was one of those “reporters” for whom digging into the facts of
the matter just took too much work: this was not “investigative
reporting” as we’ve come to know it, it was a matter of “the wilder the
rumor, the better the copy”.
“Inside Solar Lodge/Outside the Law” is an important contribution to
the history of Thelema in America. It does provide a vastly
clearer
picture of what this group was about than we’ve seen anywhere before,
and covers a period when this group was the only “organized Thelema” of
note in the States, after Agape Lodge and before the emergence of the
Caliphate, not to mention the growth of the American branch of
Typhonian O.T.O. in the late 1970s and the birth of the Horus Maat
Lodge.
That said, there are some things that bother me about Frater Shiva’s
account. As Jean Brayton’s “right hand man” for so many years,
could
he really have been so unaware of some of the shenanigans that were
going on? He admits that much of the library, including books and
items that at that time were suspected to be stolen, were stored in his
own bedroom. I have to question, if his motivation was so pure,
why he
didn’t speak up when he saw the improprieties of other members and
Brayton herself.
Some of the issues he either danced around, or put a personal spin on,
IMO:
• The use of psychedelics and other drugs. It
was the late 1960s,
man, in California of all places, and most of the members were
20-something college students who were wild about Crowley, one person
who certainly had no qualms about using drugs in his magick and
mystical pursuits. Neither did college students in California in
the
1960s. Why the avoidance of this subject? The only real
story about
drugs is when Shiva “bravely” stopped evil Brayton from an ether binge,
and his mention of Frater Shem’s dosing of the punchbowl at a party
with LSD. This is a somewhat important point, only because
Brayton has
been painted by the slanderers as an “acid messiah” type, who bent her
students to her will while they were high on psychedelics.
Shiva’s
account did not answer this question for me. Is it just
coincidence
that she did seem to focus on dental students, and a dentist who could
write ‘scripts, for her membership? There is mention of a box of
pharmaceuticals at Solar Ranch that the membership hid from the cops,
but no mention of the members ever using such drugs themselves, except
for evil Brayton and the dentist Frater Shem. Not only were
the
Solarites totally monogamous, they apparently never passed around a
joint in a group setting. Okay, well - he was there and I wasn’t,
I
guess I’ll have to take his word for it.
• Motivation. He and others blamed a certain
“Soror Ma” for ratting
out the group, resulting in their arrest for child abuse, following the
“boy in the box” incident. She was allegedly seen talking to a
cop
near one of the order-owned bookstores, and then came the bust.
Soror
Ma’s motivation, he contends, is that her sexual overtures to the
monogamous membership were rebuffed, so she took up with a non-orderite
and got pregnant. Isn’t it just possible, that a pregnant woman,
with
conscience intact, simply thought it was WRONG to see a child chained
up in the desert heat, and reported them for that reason—not because
she couldn’t get laid by the in-group? Soror Ma at least saw the
limits of loyalty—Frater Shiva apparently did not for quite some time.
• Apocalyptic vision and racism: the motivation for
Solar Ranch,
according to the slanderers, was to provide a safe haven for the
Solarites away from the race riots and those uppity black people.
Solar Lodge property was located very close to the places where the
Watts riots erupted after the assassination of Martin Luther King
Jr.
Shiva denies that this had an impact on them, yet, he sees fit to
include mention of Ray Burlingame’s warning: “Never initiate a black
person or it will be the end of everything”. Shiva says there was
no
conscious effort to exclude minorities, but when a black man was
initiated to the Minerval degree, Shiva writes: “In less than a month,
Solar Ranch was engulfed in flames and the beginning of the end
arrived”. Draw your own conclusions. So it was the black
guy’s
fault? Give me a break... and a shower, because this part
squicked me
out.
It is not my intention to trash this book or Frater Shiva. Like I
said, I think it is an important contribution to the history of
Thelema. But, weighing it against the feather of Maat, it comes
up a
bit light in the measure of Truth.
We should always hold “tell all” books written decades after the fact,
when all of the major players are dead, at arms length. You have
to
consider the motivations of the author. Is it really the truth
finally
revealed, or is it the weaving of a further fiction that is
self-serving, with nobody left to either refute or confirm the “facts”
as the author sees them? There are more than two sides to any
story.
Another recent example is Simon’s “Dead Names: The Dark History of the
Necronomicon”. That is his version of the “discovery” and
“translation” of the “ancient manuscript”, appearing decades after the
alleged events, only when all of the people who could confirm his
version of it have been dead for years. Both of these books are
good
reading. Both of them contain a lot of the back-story of now
legendary
periods in American occultism, and for that, they are valuable.
But
still - reader beware - don’t swallow it whole before an aperitif of
salt the size of a golf ball.
