Yes, actual expulsion might be argued to cause an adverse result upon membership numbers. In my time, it was considered more effective to go for lengthy periods of “suspension”, which could then be bumped up as required. Gerald Suster, the Secretary of the London group I happened to run for several years until we saw there was no way things were going to be changed for the better (at least under the current regime) - was suspended in this way a number of times for the heinous crime of “abrasive inter-personal relationships”, a clever piece of quasi-Orwellian Newspeak for basically asking too many embarrassing questions & being argumentative with those in favour at the top.
I am surprised they are fussing that much about your friend not getting his second – that is still pretty small chipolatas in the scheme of things, I would have thought, and the Second is not a big deal initiation anyway: the Third would have been more of a loss. (By a similar process I was effectively barred from getting a Fifth, before I resigned. Such is the state of power-play and politics in a supposedly "New Aeon" org...)
But I notice that as of today the current numbers are 9,487, which means there are now “513” to come in from the cold. If it’s a number reflecting the membership for the incorporated O.T.O., it suggests it will come down all the time that Lashtal grows until they end up with a big fat zero!?
N Joy
Well, that's not acceptable behavior in any gang, org, army, navy or dictatorial society/country anywhere. The slaves shall serve ... dammit!
Such is the state of power-play and politics in a supposedly "New Aeon" org...
I think it goes back to the cave days, and will undoubtedly be active in the sci-fi future.
Didn't the OTO expel the host of Thelema Coast To Coast? I can't recall his name, but his last podcast was odd, indeed...
( "Palo, also known as Las Reglas de Congo, is a religion with various denominations which developed in Cuba among Central African slaves and their descendants who originated in the Congo Basin. Denominations often referred to as "branches" of Palo include Mayombe (or Mallombe), Monte, Briyumba (or Brillumba), and Kimbisa. The Spanish word palo "stick" was applied to the religion in Cuba due to the use of wooden sticks in the preparation of altars [...]. [...] Controversy[:] Palo has been linked to a rash of grave robbing in Venezuela. Residents report that many of the graves at Caracas' Cementerio General del Sur have been pried open to have their contents removed for use in Palo ceremonies.[...] In 1995, the US Fish and Wildlife Service arrested a Palo Mayombe high priest in Miami, Florida, who was in possession of several human skulls as well as the remains of exotic animals.[...] In Newark, New Jersey, in 2002, a Palo practitioner was found to have the remains of at least two dead bodies inside pots within the basement, along with items looted from a tomb. [...] A Connecticut Palo Mayombe priest was arrested in 2015 for allegedly stealing bones from mausoleums in a Worcester, Massachusetts, cemetery." (Source: 'Palo (religion) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia' - - - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_(religion) ) )
'Toque de Palo Monte Mayombe- Centella Ndoki' ( = "Touch of the stick of Monte Mayombe- Spark of the curse" (ndoki = "curse [...] sorcerer/sorceress; evil spirit" , source: , https://glosbe.com/ln/en/ndoki ) - - - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Vu8Sh_trcw
'Toque de Palo Monte Mayombe- Buena Noche' (= "Touch of the stick of Monte Mayombe- Good Night") - - - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSv1OwwqhJ4
'Mayombero' - - - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05SPT3rMSOc
"mayombero
Also known as a black witch, this is a “santero” who specializes in necromancy, revenge and the destruction of human life. (Source: https://www.thefreedictionary.com/mayombero )"
To you all, witness the horror of thread necromancy (, I like some of the music derived from the Palo religion, and hope for no extreme controversy with respect to the practitoners of the Palo religion during these pandemic times)!:
ignant666: "As [...] fellow member of the Old Guard of "Gullible Thelema" (as opposed to that "skeptical" kind)".
ignant666: "To anyone who disputes the Official Census [...] will [...] not be invited to any of the "Gullible Thelema" picnics (our softball team, the "Abject Superstitionists", is kicking butt this summer BTW!)."
ignant666: "i was a good Pyrrhonic skeptic even then, inclined to doubt all, including the evidence of my senses telling me i was entrousered). As I was 12 or so".
As you with respect to AC's Thelema, apparently do not accept AC's "Aeons-ideas", and AC's “praeterhuman intelligence”-ideas about the name Aiwass penned by him, what are you at present time in 2020 "gullible" about, or a "Superstitionist" about, with respect to AC's Thelema? The world-shattering mass impact of it upon our species in the future?
My embrace of "Gullible Thelema", and making the joke that the "Gullible Thelemites" had a softball team called the "Abject Superstitionists", was done in sarcastic mockery of the claim by Erwin and S.'. H.'. Fra. DR. Los 8=3 PhD that their naive materialist/reductionist views were "Skeptical Thelema", and that anyone who disagreed with their reading of AC believed in "goblins" and "spacemen".
I am probably more superstitious than average, actually- i have to put my left shoe on first, for example. Or maybe just wicked OCD.
BTW, i used to, around the turn of the millennium, have a Chilean pal who was a Palo practitioner. He had a very old African skull that he fed blood to, and was friends with all the heavy santeros in Brooklyn, many of whom were retired drug dealers/gangsters. He was known as Chino because his Communist parents had raised him in exile in China, so he was well-read in Marxism-Leninism, a rare thing among occultists.
A very entertaining guy to hang out with. I was at one point going to do the santero initiations, but they cost money, and a lot of it, like thousands. Santeria is very big among NYC latinx correction officers (prison/jail guards) and cops as well as gangsters. One of my closest friends married her wife in a santeria ceremony involving shells (all concerned being Puerto Rican).
So is Santeria a path of enlightenment?
I know the mafia used to burn a photo of Christ as a sort of ritual.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
It includes both low magic, and high magick, components, in addition to being a religion, and a very potent social group fraternity in some places.
The Brazilian versions are called candomble and macumba.
Palo, which is how we got into this, is technically not part of santeria, but my lost pal, and most Palo folks, in NYC at least, are also santeros (i have never heard of a female one). Palo seems to function like those Masonic groups where you have to be a Master Mason to join- some santeros get invited in. Then you need to get an African skull, and feed it blood, past a certain stage.
They do have different gods than straight-up santeria, being derived from a different African tribe. Palo has a pretty "black magic" rep, so some folks involved are very heavy gangsters/criminals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santer%C3%ADa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candombl%C3%A9_Ketu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macumba
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_(religion) This is a not at all informative article, and only mentions skulls in connection with fairly frequent arrests of Paleros for grave-robbing and having human skulls. The nganga/caldero mentioned is a skull.
The Brazilian versions are called candomble and macumba.
@ignant666 One of the most beautiful memories of my life is remembering New Year's Eve on the Copacabana in Rio 1999/2000. I went there late afternoon with my girlfriend (then not yet wife and ex-wife) and the beach was deserted. We sat down and watched when most "elderly" macumba women in beautiful dresses went into the water and released little rafts full of gifts to the gods into the the sea (lots of flowers, food, candles etc.). It was so peaceful that we kind of dozed away looking into the sky and when we awoke the beach was crowded by millions for the New Year's Party featuring free concerts by Gilberto Gil and other Brazilian superstars. We were kind of blocked from all the shops so unknown people did share their drinks with us so that we could welcome the new year with a toast. Wonderful memories indeed...
Love=Law
Lutz
Yes, New Year's Eve being in summer, not winter, in Brazil has certain advantages. Everyone dresses in white and goes to the beach for the macumba, and then there are fireworks and drinking and dancing.
A British pal once got possessed/"ridden" by one of the macumba deities, i forget which, on New Year's Eve on the beach in Rio. So count yourself lucky, @the_real_simon_iff . This is a great honor, or honour, since he is British, but it scared the bejesus out of him.
ignant666: " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_(religion) This is a not at all informative article, [...] The nganga/caldero mentioned is a skull."
Yes, and the "The main practice of Palo" as described in this article, "focuses upon the" skull as "a consecrated vessel which serves as a microcosm" [...] "often [...] believed to be inhabited by a spirit of the dead (almost never the direct ancestor of the object's owner), [...] who acts as a guide for all religious activities which are performed with [it]".
A religious practice which is in total disagreement with AC's Thelema and his The Book of the Law. Where said book "states"; [as "said" by the macrocosm equivalent Nuit in Chapter I, verse 30:] "This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all." And where said book "states" [as "said" by the microcosm equivalent Hadit in Chapter II, verse 44:] "Aye! feast! rejoice!, there is no dread hereafter. There is the dissolution, and eternal ecstasy in the kisses of [the macrocosm equivalent] Nu."
But my point is to ask you ignant666, what sources do you recommend for high quality data with respect to the number of self identified Thelemites when this thread was started in 2015, and now at current time in April 2020?
There weren't any such data sources then, and aren't any now.
self identified Thelemites
What if a person identifies as a Thelemite (look but close into the word and pick your grade) on one or two levels, but identifies more strongly with something else on other levels. Can this person claim self-identification as a Thelemite? If you can answer this, without presenting any "solutions" or "prophecies," then maybe you can help the societies of the world sort out the gender gap and who gets what surgical transformation. Thank you for resolving this matter.
There weren't any such data sources then, and aren't any now.
There is no need to be so blunt about these delicate, but abstract, matters. Can't you compose a koan or sing a song?
Shiva, you yourself have provided a [Hadit-]point of departure from AC's Thelema's The Book of the Law, from which questions can be asked, to engage replies that "can answer this, without presenting any "solutions" or "prophecies [...]", [...] [and] "then maybe [...] help the societies of the world sort out the gender gap and who gets what surgical transformation."
With the hope of this kind of help being within the reach "of the societies of the world", 'The Boleskine House Foundation: Appeal For Funds' ( https://www.lashtal.com/the-boleskine-house-foundation-appeal-for-funds/ ), might even get UN funding for building a Help Centre to provide said help.
Such a Boleskine Help Centre can act as a kind of receiver for Nuit's kiss: (BOTL I,53: "This shall regenerate the world, the little world my sister, my heart & my tongue, unto whom I send this kiss.")
Cooperation from UN might help to "Get the stele of revealing itself" [...] as "your Kiblah" to "your holy place" at Boleskine.
'The Boleskine House Foundation: Appeal For Funds' [...] might even get UN funding for building a Help Centre to provide said help.
Cooperation from UN might help to "Get the stele of revealing itself" [...] as "your Kiblah" to "your holy place" at Boleskine.
Are you serious? You imagine the UN is going to give money to BHF/(c)OTO?
SHARE YOUR DRUGS DUDE! I've never been that high, but am willing to give it a go...
Just imagine what said OTO can achieve at said location, with proper funding.
'The Boleskine House Foundation: Appeal For Funds' ( https://www.lashtal.com/the-boleskine-house-foundation-appeal-for-funds/ ), might even get UN funding for building a Help Centre to provide said help.
Just imagine what said OTO can achieve at said location, with proper funding.
Even if that were possible regarding its speculated history as an 18th century military installation and with the assistance of various levels of government pushing for it, such a contribution could put limitations on the type of development that could take place.
Just imagine what said OTO can achieve at said location, with proper funding.
Why would they achieve any more than they do now?
Because they would not need to appeal for funds, as they do now, and instead just be doing what they intend to do when they have enough funds.
Just imagine what said OTO can achieve at said location, with proper funding.
Um, fail to properly restore the place, lose the funding, get sued for sexual improprieties, and have $6.00 in cash? That one?
Or the one about "just imagine what OTO can do about publishing some books, which would not require a LOT of funding?"
Or "Duplexity rules and dominates Thelema from Scotland. Pay your dues or be cast out?"
You used the word, "imagine," so I just let my imagination run free ... down the road of probable outcomes.
Just imagine what said OTO can achieve at said location, with proper funding.
I don't think you've ever used the word 'said' so many times in one thread.
Your Jugorum practise is to abolish the use of the word 'said' in your writings and speech.
To begun immediately.
You high, boy?
What would they do?
They would piss the money away like they have the last 3(?) decades of no new books.
Me: "But my point is to ask you ignant666, what sources do you recommend for high quality data with respect to the number of self identified Thelemites when this thread was started in 2015, and now at current time in April 2020?"
ignant666: "There weren't any such data sources then, and aren't any now."
Is there a high quality source available- or are there high quality sources available - with respect to the number of members OTO had in 2015, and how many members this Order has now in 2020?
Also, is the Boleskine House Foundation organized in a way that can make it profitable?
And as for the subject matter of this thread, This Man Invented A Religion [= Thelema] And Turned Scores Of Followers Into Occultists, is it not potentially advantageous for this Thelema that a holy place for it, has become more available and accessible to self identified Thelemites, and others with a positive enthusiasm?
And as for the subject matter of this thread, This Man Invented A Religion [= Thelema] And Turned Scores Of Followers Into Occultists, is it not potentially advantageous for this Thelema that a holy place for it, has become more available and accessible to self identified Thelemites, and others with a positive enthusiasm?
I read this question and started to get a headache. So I turned away to write my review, which I have now completely completed. It is finished!
me: "Also, is the Boleskine House Foundation organized in a way that can make it profitable?"
Ok, fine, it appears to be a charity, of which one Keith Readdy also appears to be a fully committed trustee:
'The Boleskine House Foundation presented by Keith Readdy – University of Amsterdam' - - - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqROF1-nqfc
And the OTO also being involved together with Keith Readdy the trustee, the more the merrier, good for them, and all the best for the future, for them, for you, for me, for us all, for the universe, and for plenty more than that.
The Boleskine House Foundation is a scam
Given the potentially libellous nature of your comment, Marco, this thread is now locked.
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