Craig Berry

Salon is running a fascinating interview with James Carse, whose new book The Religious Case Against Belief raises all kinds of interesting questions about the nature of faith and religion.  I haven't read it yet, but based on this article the book has jumped to the top of my pending list.  He emphasizes the differences between religions, which I find somehow refreshing given the warm fuzzy "all religions are pretty much the same" vibe that permeates Los Angeles.  Eclecticism and ecumenical harmony are fine and welcome, but we shouldn't pretend that there are not real differences between (say) Judaism and Hinduism.

"All words are sacred and all prophets true," but each says true things in different ways, about different things, in different contexts.  I rather like a world with that kind of vibrant variety in it.  It would be even better if people would stop killing each other over such differences.

In entirely unrelated news, we finally let Wafer out to wander the neighborhood on his own yesterday; we figure he's had enough time to get used to the idea that family, safety, and (most importantly) food are located in the new apartment now.  He came in and out several times during the afternoon, clearly building up his nerve with ever-longer expeditions.

Then he disappeared for more than an hour just as twilight was deepening.  The last light was fading from the sky when we heard the unmistakable sounds of a feline territorial battle under way behind the neighboring condos.  We called his name now and then so he'd know where to run if he decided to retreat, but otherwise just kept our fingers crossed.

An hour or so later, Wafer scratched at my bedroom window, and I went to the front door to let him in.  He was covered with leaf-litter, but didn't have a scratch on him.  I guess we've introduced the new alpha cat to the block.  madelineusher imagined him saying to the other cats "I used to fight coyotes.  Stay out of my way."

Last weekend I mentioned to a few people that I'm working on a project called "Vox Dei" which turns English-transliterated Hebrew words into music according to Paul Foster Case's note correspondences. A very preliminary, not-ready-for-prime-time version is here.

I'm mostly putting this out there to see if it works for other people; you'll need Java 6 installed to even give it a try. If anyone has Java 6 but can't make it work, please let me know.

I just unsubscribed from a Rosicrucian mailing list after a week, in large part because its denizens relentlessly top-post and fail to trim quoted text when replying -- even if they're replying to a thirty-message digest.

I am reasonably sure that the true representatives of Frater CRC will exhibit much better netiquette when I find them.

Yet another renegade religion has nailed its theses to the internet.  While their fifth proof ot the divinity of Google is technically unsound (even under IPv6), I have to say they make a pretty strong case.  Isaac Asimov wrote a story with the same theme, back when transcendently knowledgeable computers were still a subject for science fiction.

It's going to be a busy week for me, even beyond my rather frenetic day job.  Tonight, I'm hosting "Stump the VIIth" at LVX; Thursday, it's Gnostic Boot Camp at the new Blue Horizon location.  The latter is quite near the spot where I joined the OTO, at Chris Parker's home, back in 1987.  It's nice having a local body in that neighborhood again.  Chris's local body was named "Azoth Oasis", which makes another neat circle, as I'm finding myself increasingly fascinated by the azoth formula in alchemy.

The other evening I taught my segment of LVX's "Ceremonial Magick 101" class series, "The Language of Astrology".  During the class one of the attendees asked me to explain a trick I had surprised her with a few months earlier; to my own surprise, the entire class was flabbergasted and delighted with the trick, and spent most of the rest of the evening playing with it.

I realized as I tried to explain how to do it that my own technique relies on being able to rotate one wheel against another mentally and visualize the new relationships, which not everyone can do.  So I've developed a way to do it numerically.  So, by request and without further ado, may I present....

Over the last few days I attended Blue Horizon's annual Babalon Puja, a group campout and ritual marathon which I had never attended previously. Now I'm kicking myself for all the years I missed. Despite periods of winds strong enough to snap tentpoles, everything came off beautifully. The moment when a pause in the invocation of Hecate was filled by a chorus of coyotes from the nearby hills was...well, let's just say "wow" and leave it at that. Performing Brother K's Deacon ordination under field conditions -- outdoor lantern-lit Mass temple, heavy clothes under my robe for warmth -- was wonderful. It's much easier to adore the body of Nuit when it's right there over your head.

Speaking of which: The Summer Triangle consists of Deneb, Altair, and VEGA. If I could just go back in time three days and say "Vega" to myself, I could save myself a lot of frustrated brain-wracking. Needless to say, I finally remembered it out of nowhere, while thinking about something else, during the drive home. Gee, thanks, brain. Of course, we just renamed Vega to "Dylanus the Pickle Star" for the weekend, which worked out fine -- Dylanus is always ready to fill in for random fixed stars, although she prefers being a little closer to the ecliptic.

There may be better ways to improve one's mood than sharing good food, good wine, and good conversation with a beautiful woman while sitting at an outdoor table at a nice little Italian restaurant on a crisp LA autumn evening. But I'll definitely settle for that one. Thank you, lady_saffir; it's nice to know that two obsessive-compulsives can manage something spontaneous.

I seem to be prone to bursts of extreme happiness lately. On the bus on the way to work this morning, listening to the end of "Supper's Ready" by Genesis nearly made my heart burst with joy; the sensation was all the more overwhelming for being completely unexpected. I've listened to that song dozens of times, and while I always enjoy it, and frequently am inspired by it, it doesn't typically knock me into an ecstatic bhakti trance of love like that. I'm sure my fellow passengers wondered why I was crying and smiling. If anyone ever asks, I'll be happy to share the recipe.

Attendees of my recent "Creative Destruction" class may wish to note that the words "Perfect Happiness", used as a partial synonym for the Great Work at the conclusion of the Gnostic Catholic Mass, have the initials PH, Peh in the Hebrew alphabet, the destructive path of the Blasted Tower. On a similar note, "True Wisdom" as an acronym yields the Hebrew letter Tav, a path of birth, creation, and manifestation. This might be worth thinking about.

"I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that very reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment." — Gautama Buddha

"For one kiss wilt thou then be willing to give all; but whoso gives one particle of dust shall lose all in that hour." — Liber AL, I:61, excerpt

madelineusher just pointed this out to me.  I love my kid.  And I love how weird the world is.

A few days ago, I was getting a lift home with anubis75 and lady_saffir when she pointed out a car ahead of us with the vanity plate "ORGONE".  It turned out they weren't familiar with this term or with Wilhelm Reich, so I gave them a brief explanation and pointed them to the Wikipedia article about Reich.

Since then I have been immersed in a synchronistic haze of references to orgone and Reich.  An article I hadn't read yet in the issue of Harper's I was carrying around at the time of the initial sighting unexpectedly devoted its middle third to discussing Reich's weather control experiments; a mailing-list argument about post-conquest burnings of Aztec manuscripts mentioned that Reich's books were burned by U.S. officials in the 1950s to show that this was not a uniquely Spanish-colonial tactic; while looking up a technical point of religious history, I followed an intriguing (but seemingly un-Reich-related) link and found myself reading a discussion of orgone as another term for pneuma.  And that's just a few of them.

Okay, Universe, you have my attention.  Wilhelm Reich and orgone, check.  Now I need a verb.

Every now and then, an old and beloved piece of art -- most commonly a song, but sometimes a painting or poem -- becomes suddenly new for me again. Familiarity breeds contempt, and even a piece that filled me with holy awe on first listening can become background music after a few hundred repetitions over many years. Then, unexpectedly, I hear it again, and my spine is suddenly tingling with the beauty and intensity of the experience.

I have no idea what triggers these; if I did, I'd make them happen far more often. One occurred on the way home from LVX with anubis75 and lady_saffir the other night. "The Rover" by Led Zeppelin came on the radio, and we all remarked on it being one of our favorite Zep tunes. Then I found myself actually hearing it, hanging on every chord and every word, nearly in tears. Jimmy Page is famously a Thelemite, and that worldview leaks through into Zep lyrics in quite a few places, notably including this song. That aspect of its message hit me with full force, and I was swept away.

It's probably silly to have a religious experience in the back seat of a car while listening to quarter-century-old rock music on a car radio. If so, mea culpa. I'd rather feel it in odd times and places than not feel it at all.

I'm listening to music as I catch up on dozens of past-due OTO projects. Just now "I Want To Know" by Ambrosia played, and I was struck once again by its perfection as an (old-school) Gnostic hymn...

( Out of the way, demiurge! )

I guess all I really needed to get out of my funk was to have the universe ritually destroyed while I drank wine and mixed music on my laptop.

I wasn't even really aware of it, but over the latter part of October and early November I'd fallen into a mildly depressed state of relative inactivity. All the crucial stuff was still happening, but a lot of second-tier tasks that I usually get done in little bursts of energy late at night and on weekends were languishing -- because those little bursts weren't bursting.

However, last weekend's Rite of Luna seems to have kicked me back into high gear. As soon as I woke up Sunday morning I could feel the change, and sure enough I cleared out more of my to-do list on Sunday than I had in the preceding two weeks combined. I've kept up that pace since then, and the dreaded list has contracted to a size which, while still daunting, no longer induces panic. Best of all, I've delivered a couple of items right on time which I was steeling myself for delivering days late with copious apologies. Some things I've done a week or more early. Go me!

I'm hoping this lasts, as there's still some very big stuff to be accomplished over the next few weeks, with preparations for IV/PI exemplifications at LVX and for Kaaba in Portland topping the list. But at least now I feel like I can concentrate on a few big things without being distracted by the ominous ticking of dozens of smaller guilt-bombs.

Word on the grapevine is that the centennial edition of Liber AL, a gorgeous hand-crafted leather bound volume limited to 418 copies, is shipping today. I can't wait!

Those placing orders were allowed to request specific numbers, which of course turned into a feeding frenzy among the more gematria-obsessed members of the Order.  Numbers like 93, 418, 111, 220, 31, and similarly juicy choices went very quickly, presumably to various senior members (RHIP).  So most of us mere mortals had to choose numbers of secondary but still important significance.  For example, I chose 406, the enumeration of the Hebrew letter Tav spelled in full, as I wished to emphasize this edition's nature as a talisman of manifestation and stability.

Those of you reading this who also have copies on the way, what number did you choose, and why?

I just received a phishing email, allegedly from Bank of the West's anti-fraud unit. You have to wonder why someone would take the time and trouble involved in such a scam -- crafting the web of hidden URLs and redirections, the official-looking HTML email, the obscure and protected servers -- and then send out the email with the subject line "COSUMER ALERT : Protect Yourself Against Financial Fraud !" ALL CAPS makes misspellings even more obvious. Nice job, there, guys.

My new niece Kylie is apparently thriving happily, as are the new parents. I'm really looking forward to visiting up there in September; meanwhile, we're getting plenty of pictures. I keep finding myself musing over who she might turn out to be; there is nothing in the universe so radiant with limitless potential as a newborn baby.

For various reasons I have been rereading parts of Schueler's book on the Enochian system. I have to say that it doesn't inspire confidence in an author when he claims that there are 72 Tarot cards (and that's not the only obvious blunder I've found, either). Still, it's reminding me that I really ought to do some serious experimentation with Enochian soon; I've dipped my toe into that pool, but never really gone swimming in it.

While pondering the arrangement of the elemental squares and their directional assignments, it occurred to me that the unofficial names for the four original dorms at my college, which were rectangles arranged in a larger rectangle, were West, East, North, and South (with South the northernmost of the four, by a couple of inches). Lo and behold, their arrangement is identical to that of the tablets. I lived in Air of Water, by this mapping. This falls squarely (ha ha) into my "Things that make you go 'hmmmmm'" file.

At last night's Gnostic Mass we baptized lady_saffir and anubis75's lovely eleven-year-old daughter D, who has been waiting for the chance to do this for a year. She's another brilliant young Thelemite on her way up, like madelineusher (indeed, the two of them are friends). magdalena_lvx and frater_pfdv performed the ceremony. magdalena_lvx had worried beforehand about getting too choked up to speak the words, but was holding it together reasonably well until D started silently crying, at which point magdalena_lvx started crying, and very quickly everyone else in the temple followed suit. They managed to finish the ceremony perfectly, but with many pauses to get past lumps in the throat, and with a constant chorus of sniffles from around the temple. The beautiful Mass that followed, and the Confirmations following that, had a dreamlike, ethereal feeling thanks to the intense burst of emotion of the Baptism that preceded them.

Sometimes we all focus on what's wrong with the OTO -- organizational issues, financial issues, personality issues, an endless cycle of doubt and annoyance and tension. Watching D crying with joy as the waters of Mayim flowed over her, I was pierced to the core of my being by the realization that this was it, this was our Work, this was what matters. All else is the smoke and steam released as waste from the great engine of our Magick; in that temple I was watching the pistons and the wheels that move us forward in accord with Will, and with Love under Will.

( Look out! He's philosophizing again! )