THE Organ of the O.T.O. --- the ORIFLAMME, will now pass under the Editorship of Brother Crowley. In future it will appear regularly on the 1st of every month, beginning in January 1914. It will also be the official organ of the Antient and Primitive Rite of Freemasonry, which includes the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, the Rite of Memphis, and the Oriental Rite of Misraim. Further particulars will be announced in due course.
With regard to the article No. 9, "Energized Enthusiasm," a circumstance of exceptional interest has arisen. The author was not acquainted at that time with the literature of those gnostics who were the earliest and only true Christians. In Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, however, we find the following passage:
" After the banquet they keep the holy all-night festival. And this is how it is kept. They all stand up in a body, and about the middle of the entertainment they first of all separate into two bands, men in one and women in the other. And a leader is chosen for each, the conductor whose reputation is greatest and the one most suitable for the post. They then chant hymns made in God's honour in many metres and melodies, sometimes singing in chorus, sometimes one band beating time to the answering chant of the other, (now) dancing to its music, {5} (now) inspiring it, at one time in processional hymns, at another in standing songs, turning and re- turning in the dance. "Then when each band has feasted (that is, has sung and danced) apart by itself, drinking of God-pleasing (nectar), just as in the Bacchic rites men drink the wine unmixed, then they join together, and one chorus is formed of the two bands, in imitation of the joined chorus on the banks of the Red Sea, because of the wonderful works that had been there wrought. For the sea at God's command became for one party a cause of safety and for the other a cause of ruin.
[Philo here refers to the fabled dance of triumph of the Israelites at the destruction of Pharaoh and his host, when Moses led the men and Miriam the women in a common dance; but the Therapeuts all over the world could not have traced the custom to this myth.]
"So the chorus of men and women Therapeuts, being formed as closely as possible on this model, by means of melodies in parts and harmony --- the high notes of the women answering to the deep tones of the men --- produces a harmonious and most musical symphony. The ideas are of the most beautiful, the expressions of the most beautiful, and the dancers reverent; while the goal of the ideas, expressions, and dances is piety. "Thus drunken unto morning's light with this fair drunkenness, with no head-heaviness or drowsiness, but with eyes and body fresher even than then they came to the banquet, they take their stand at dawn, when, catching sight of the rising sun, they raise their hands to {6} heaven, praying for sunlight and truth and keenness of spiritual vision. After this prayer each returns to his own sanctuary, to his accustomed traffic in philosophy and labour in its fields. "So far then about the Therapeuts, who are devoted to the contemplation of nature and live in it and in the soul alone, citizens of heaven and the world, legitimately recommended to the Father and Creator of the Universe by their virtue, which procures them His love, virtue that sets before it for its prize the most suitable reward of nobility and goodness, outstripping every gift of fortune, and the first comer in the race to the very goal of blessedness."
The striking identity of this with the account of the ritual derived from a priori considerations will at once be manifest.
"DEAR SIR,
"Your name has highly been recommended to me in the Occult Review of Messrs. William Rider & Son, that you are one of the world's famous Magicians. Therefore I hereby inform you to send me if possible your illustrated catalogue price list of your Powers. I want Hynotism, Clairvoyant, Talisman, Charms for Girls, Electric Rings and Belts, etc. Don't fail to send my requests per the next coming mail. I will one of your best customers in the world.
"I am,
"Yours sincerely,
"E ------."
This is what comes of Crowley's amiability in accepting {7} A. E. Waite as a disciple! Please note that he is in sole charge of this department, and should be communicated with directly.
As explained in the last number, Volume II of the Equinox will consist of Stainless Silence. In Volume III, however, it is hoped to publish a complete study of the Greek Qabalah, with a numerical dictionary on the same lines as the Sepher Sephiroth; an essay on the effects of that elixir which Frater P. has rediscovered, and whose results have already proved so remarkable, with the completion of the work of Dr. Dee, of which two sections have already been published. Et Cetera.
We beg to congratulate Phoebe Miller and Lady Abdy on their latest ventures in matrimony.
It is of course common knowledge that the A ∴ A ∴ and the Equinox and all the rest of it are a stupid joke of Aleister Crowley's. He merely wished to see if any one were fool enough to take him seriously. Several have done so, and he does not regret the few thousand pounds it has cost him.
Few people are ignorant of the fact that the A ∴ A ∴ and the "Equinox" and all the rest of it are a dishonest device of Aleister Crowley's to pile up an enormous fortune in a few months. With the three-and-a-half millions sterling he has made he will now retire to Paris*, and emulate Nero, Caligula, Vitellius, Messalina, Heliogabalus and others.
It may be a relief to some to learn that there is no such person as Aleister Crowley. He is probably a sun-myth. {8}
* A very wicked city in Atheistic France.