The System of the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.)
Dr Raven Dolick MsD
Mar 25, 2016
All rights reserved
The following is an extract from a letter to one of Crowley's disciples:
Let us begin at the beginning. What is a Dramatic Ritual? It is a celebration of the adventures of the God whom it is intended to invoke. (The Bacchae of Euripides is a perfect example of this.) Now, in the O.T.O., the object of the ceremonies being the Initiation of the Candidate, it is he whose Path in Eternity is displayed in dramatic form.
What is the Path?
1. The Ego is attracted to the Solar System.
2. The Child experiences Birth.
3. The Man experiences Life.
4. He experiences Death.
5. He experiences the World beyond Death.
6. The entire cycle of Point-Events is withdrawn into Annihilation.
In the O.T.O. these successive stages are represented as follows:
1. Zeroth Degree (Minerval)
2. First Degree (Initiation)
3. Second Degree (Consecration)
4. Third Degree (Devotion)
5. Fourth Degree (Perfection, or Exaltation)
6. P.I. (Perfect Initiate)
It is improper to disclose the nature of these ceremonies; firstly because their Initiates are bound by the strictest vows not to do so; secondly, because surprise is an element in their efficacy; and thirdly, because the Magical Formulae explicitly or implicitly contained there in are, from a practical point of view, both powerful and dangerous.
Love is the law, love under will
Fraternally,
666
*****
Although O.T.O.'s origins lay in Freemasonry, Crowley said that the purpose of the secret society was to create Magicians (Magi), not Masons.
The O.T.O. had an ecclesiastical wing called Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (the Gnostic Catholic Church), central to which was a Gnostic Mass (borrowing heavily from the grand Roman Catholic Tridentine Mass), where Crowley's Thelemic religious doctrines were proclaimed.
The Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica is still active in California.
Check it out if you're in that part of the world.
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