MOJO MAN, MOJO PLAN, STICK IT TO THE MAN (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} tausirhasirim) wrote,@ 2006-09-27 01:59:00 |
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THE ECCLESIASTICAL EGREGORE
"And the Lord unto Moses, ‘Take thee Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit, and lay thine hand upon him; and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation; and give him a charge in their sight. And thou shalt put some of thine honour upon him, that all the congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient....." Numbers 27:18-23
"And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom: for Moses had laid his hands upon him ..." Deuteronomy 34:9
1 Tim 4:14: Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the eldership."
As nearly as I can tell, the OTO changed its ‘party line’ on the Apostolic Succession based almost solely on the critique of Herr Peter Koenig, who, in correspondence with my late friend Bill Webb, the titular head of the QBLH since the early 1960s, he concluded that the ‘lineage’ of the EGC within OTO was bogus, as it relied on transmission through Webb, who, by then, denied he had ever been consecrated. In the early 1960s Webb was clearly pro-consecration and there is good reason to believe that he had a falling out with his bishop. Thereafter, he tended to dismiss the whole idea, though as late as the 1990s he himself was making bishops – to wit, myself. There is reason to believe he may well have been validly consecrated by Marc Lully and perhaps Mother Serena (so was his QBLH successor, Soror Tala), but no matter….the OTO lineage very likely stretches back to at least 1909 when Reuss exchanged consecrations with Papus at a convention of Masonic occultists, and cross-consecration was so common that it seems more likely than likely that Crowley was multiply consecrated sub conditione. Certainly, Breeze has Apostolic Succession through Jack Hogg (as well as Grady McMurtry, who was consecrated by Crowley in the manner that a Patriarch would consecrate a Bishop) , and Scriven – if he “didn’t” have it through Breeze (he did) would have had it anyway – from ….. get this …. Me.
Yes, when I first heard from Bill, I was not then an initiate member of OTO. Since I had become a Gnostic Bishop the year before, and had worked, at the request of the local OTO body master, Bil Padgett, on organizing the Gnostic Mass at what was then Eulis Camp (later Oasis, later Lodge), I applied to the new Caliph for recognition as a “Bishop in Amity” –that is, one who was not an OTO member, but who worked in amity with OTO. Imagine my astonishment when Bill writes me back, over official signature and seal, recognizing me as a Bishop within OTO, making me that rarest of rarities, an ecclesiastical member of OTO without being an initiate member. His letter was filled with enthused comments on his own Apostolic Succession and mine. Later, I came into contact with one David Scriven, the newest IX* in OTO and a great enthusiast for my research on the Apostolic Succession, which he proceeded to ‘top’ with his own extensive – one might say almost endless – research on various lineages of Apostolic Succession. As he was about to visit Atlanta to do some initiations at Eulis Lodge, which by then I was the Master of, he requested that we cross consecrate.
Now, I had no need to cross-consecrate with him, as he well knew. Whatever Episcopal or other “powers” passed through OTO, his derived from consecration by Bill Breeze, who derived his from (A) Bertiaux (by way of Jack Hogg) or (B) Crowley (by way of Major McMurtry, the late Caliph). As Bo. Bill had followed up on his letter of recognition by putting me up at a nice hotel in New York (paid jointly, I understand, by Jim Wasserman—those were different times) and consecrating me a Bishop by his own hand, the only one who stood to gain from ‘cross-consecration’ was David, in the sense that Bertiaux had more recently consecrated me, after being reconsecrated himself by Rodriguez and F.E.G. Barber—that is, after the Hogg-Breeze consecrations. Not content even with *that* Scriven went to Rodriguez and got reconsecrated once again, adding some additional lineages.
Bishop Jorge Rodriguez
Boring or intriguing, egregore or silly conceit, the point of all this is that through a certain point Bill was utterly convinced of the importance of the Apostolic Succession, and David all the more so. I don’t know *exactly* what happened, but Bill seems to have “freaked” at the Webb-isn’t-a-bishop stuff from Herr Koenig, and David approached me about visiting Bill together and co-consecrating him, which was fine with me. When he visited Bill in North Carolina, it was to discuss the creation of U.S. Grand Lodge. The next thing I knew, Bill and David show up at my basement retreat at the QBLH House in Doraville, and Bill does all the talking, David is strangely silent, we go to dinner at some Indian restaurant with Jeff Clark (by then the local lodge master), and after dinner Bill drives me home, Dave drives Clark back to the Lodge, and Bill uses the occasion, sitting in the parking lot of my home, to tell me that I had been turned down for ‘a grand lodge office’ (ombudsman would be my guess) ‘because I had written a book on UFOs. I’m not kidding. I’m not even making this up. “You should be the historian of the movement, Allen,” Bill tells me. “You shouldn’t be writing things that damage your reputation. Visions of Liber Oz flying away danced through my head. “Let’s face it,” Bill proffered, after an embaradded silence, “ the future of Thelema belongs to academics. We’re the past.”
I don’t know what happened with poor ole Dave in North Carolina, but I can’t recall him ever mentioning the Apostolic Succession to me again. Verily, a man of principle had shown his mettle. Eventually, I was able to ask him about his strange silence that night, and just what Bill had done up at Jack’s house in North Carolina. “He went out for groceries a lot.” Dave told me. I’m no more sure what that means than you are. When I’d visit Bill up there, we’d do a little business, he’d show off his latest project, show me something that was from ‘the vault’ and we’d watch something from his porn collection. And he’d go out for groceries, at lot.
I tried with Dave one last time, while visiting with him in his Southern California home. Drawing on my experience as a former elected member of the British Scociety for Psychical Research (SPR), I proposed an objective experiment, based on parapsychological “triple blind” carefully controlled experiments with alleged psychic healers. Bertiaux had said that he could tell by the ‘aura’ of Bishops which lineages they held, and which they did not, and I proposed a well-controlled, relatively inexpensive experiment in which unconsecrated ‘controls’ would be ‘read’ by a well-attested alleged ‘reader’ who would have the task of distinguishing the ‘unconsecrated’ from the ‘consecrated’. I outlined several variations. In short, I was willing to put my ideas to the test. David seemed less than enthused and nothing ever came of it. So much for Scientific Illuminism and OTO. All kinds of anecdotal claims are made about OTO and magick within its initiations, but no proofs or even evidence is offered.
Now, you may ask, what the hell difference does any of this make? From a magical point of view, rather than a religious one (in the strict sense), I am heavily influenced here by Tau Michael Bertiaux’s concept of “Egregore”. Let me try to define the term, which is complex*. Bertiaux told me that any occult tradition that lasts a hundred years has, by definition, its own ‘egregore’. Wikipedia says of the term “Egregore is a term from Old English which is fading from general use in modern English. Essentially, an egregore is the ‘spirit of a thing’, usually a human group or organization, shared by the members of the group, for whom it provides guidelines concerning principles, beliefs, and goals. Companies, religions, states, and clubs all can be said to have egregores. An example of the presence of an egregore could be when ‘a project takes on a life of its own.’”
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Michael Paul Bertiaux, Patriarch
The Apostolic Succession is probably at least two thousand years of magical power being transferred under cover of religion. It is probably much, much older. As an egregore, it is formidable, and if the OTO upper management dismissed it because Herr Koenig complained about a ‘weak link’ it is a tribute to Koenig’s power and to Breeze’s and Scriven’s intellectual and moral cowardice. If there are other reasons, they need to be given with more credibility than has thus far been supplied. As I put it on my web site((http://www.mindspring.com/~hellfir
It is my own conviction that verifiable spiritual powers are demonstrably attributable to various lineages of spiritual succession, be this the so-called "Succession of the Apostles" (which descends from the ancient Roman State Religion through Roman Christianity), various non-apostolic but similar lines of succession (Latter Day Saints, Doinel Gnostic, New Aeon, et al), or blood lineages as in the hereditary Hindu Brahmins or Hebrew Kohenim, from which I descend. I profess only two fundamental convictions in these endeavors: I advocate Scientific Illuminism, or the method of science employed in pursuit of the aims of religion, and I holds firmly to the conviction that the world as-it-is is sufficiently unsatisfactory that exploration of almost any ethical "out-of-the-box" alternative, however unconventional, is worth the effort. We consider this Tikkun Olam, the attempt to improve the world as envisioned in our native great Hebraic tradition.
Anyway, David seems to have had some kind of ‘conversion’ and I became one of only a handful of EGC prelates who thought the baby was being thrown out with the bathwater. After *again* being re-consecrated “now and forever” as part of the VII* initiation in OTO ten years ago (I was the very first so co-consecrated in U.S. Grand Lodge, with Soror Helena as co-consecrator), I thereafter for years made a point of – in co-consecrating EGC Bishops, laid hands upon every new Bishop with full apostolic intent. This was my own, quiet, effort to keep the OTO properly empowered with the egregore of the ancient authentic tradition. It was, alas, not to be.
Since some of these bishops, and priests, priestesses and deacons I have ordained or consecrated may be interested to know what they *really* have a right to claim, again let me quote from my own page (http://www.mindspring.com/~hellfire/bis
“Please note that, as Tau Michael Bertiaux has held, since June 16, 1979, all major independent lines of the traditional apostolic succession through consecration at that time by Bishop Forest Gregory Barber, all such lines flow to me by virtue of my consecrations by Bertiaux. Bertiaux, later re-consecrated by Jorge Rodriguez, then also consecrated me. In line with my former associates at OTO's Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, Patriarch Tau Silenus and Primate Tau Apiryon, I hold that there is a distinction between, on the one hand, Spiritual Appointment and Consecration in the lineage of Edward Alexander Crowley (Baphomet XI*) and, on the other, the traditional Apostolic Succession. Both have their importance and validity. in my view, and, in having held both, I believe I can render a rather well informed and detached opinion on this. I held the succession of Baphomet as a Bishop "now and forever" through Consecration by both the Absolute Grand Patriarch of the Ordo Templi Orientis Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (November 19, 1988). While I am no longer associated with EGC-OTO, I hold with the Augustinian doctrine "once a bishop-always a bishop" though I claim - and would have - no authority within OTO as of late July, 2006. As Tau Silenus recognized me in writing unconditionally as Bishop in writing prior to my becoming an OTO initiate, I maintain I hold the succession of Baphomet, such as it is. Others are free to disagree; nobody questions my Full Apostolic Succession, which is what counts magically. The "Baphomet descent" doctrine peculiar to the current OTO management was, in my opinion, a reaction to questions about their own Apostolic Succession, and nothing more, a silly over reaction typical of them. I also hold the Latter Day Saints succession through Bishop Conway, and the Doinel Succession through various consecrations.
Here I will give – the rest of you can skip this (please skip it—trust me) – a few of these lineages, beginning from where it distinguishes itself from other lineages:
EASTERN ORTHODOX (JACOBITE) EPISCOPAL SUCCESSION
(Jacobite/Eastern Orthodox Succession of Antioch)
JOSEPH RENE VILATTE consecrated by Archbishop JULIUS ALVARES May 29, 1892
PAOLO MIRAGLIA consecrated by VILATTE May 6, 1900
JULIEN HOUSSAYE consecrated by MIRAGLIA December 4, 1904
LOUIS FRANCOIS GIRAUD consecrated by HOUSSAYE July 21, 1911
JEAN BRICAUD consecrated by GIRAUD July 12, 1913
VICTOR BLANCHARD consecrated by BRICAUD May 5, 1918
ROGER MENARD consecrated by BLANCHARD January 7, 1945
ROBERT AMBELAIN consecrated by MENARD June 10, 1946
ROGER POMMERY consecrated by AMBELAIN MAY 26, 1958
WILLER VITAL-HERNE consecrated by POMMERY September 16, 1967
ROGER VICTOR-HERARD consecrated by VITAL-HERNE September 7, 1970
JORGE RODRIGUEZ consecrated by VICTOR-HERARD January 6, 1985
MICHAEL PAUL BERTIAUX consecrated by RODRIGUEZ November 14, 1985
ALLEN HENRY GREENFIELD consecrated by BERTIAUX September 21, 1986 &
December 4, 1993
OLD CATHOLIC & LIBERAL CATHOLIC EPISCOPAL SUCCESSION
(This constitutes the full succession of Rome, through Pope Urban VIII, his Archbishop of Rheims, the Archbishop of Mieux, and the subsequent accepted lineage of the Dutch Old Catholic Church through Archbishop Geraldus Gul.)
ARNOLD HARRIS MATTHEW consecrated by Old Catholic Bishop GUL April 28, 1908
FREDERICK SAMUEL WILLOUGHBY consecrated by MATTHEW October 28, 1914
JAMES INGALL WEDGEWOOD consecrated by WILLOUGHBY February 13, 1916
IRVING STEIGER COOPER consecrated by WEDGEWOOD July 13, 1919
CHARLES J. HAMPTON consecrated by COOPER September 13, 1931
HERMAN ADRIAN SPRUIT consecrated by HAMPTON June 22, 1957
FOREST E. GREGORY BARBER consecrated by SPRUIT June 15, 1971
MICHAEL PAUL BERTIAUX consecrated by BARBER June 16, 1979
ALLEN HENRY GREENFIELD consecrated by BERTIAUX September 21, 1986 &
December 4, 1993
JULES DOINEL - "NEW GNOSTIC EPISCOPAL" SUCCESSION -
1893 - Jules Stanslas Doinel consecrates Gerard Encausse
1909 - Dr. Gerard Encausse consecrates Dr. Theodor Reuss
1912 - Dr. Theodor Ruess consecrates Sir Aleister Crowley
1944 - Sir Aleister Crowley consecrates Major Grady McMurtry
1983 - Major Grady McMurtry consecrates Tau Silenus
1988 - Tau Silenus consecrates Tau Allen Greenfield
1993 - Tau Apiryon reconsecrates sub conditione Tau Allen Greenfield
FROM THE DUTCH OLD CATHOLIC CHURCH
Arnold Harris Matthew was consecrated on April 28, 1908 by Archbishop
Gul of Utrecht, assisted by Bishop J. J. Van Thiel of Haarlem, Bishop N. B. P. Spit
of Deventer and Bishop J. Demmel of Bonn, Germany, to serve as the First
Old Catholic Bishop of Britain.
Continuation in the United States:
Fredrick Wiloughby, 1914;
James I Wedgewood, 1916;
Irving S. Cooper, 1919;
Charles Hampton, 1931;
Herman Adrian Spruit, 1957;
Forest E. Gregory Barber, 1971;
Michael Paul Bertiaux, 1979;
Allen Henry Greenfield, August 29,1986, December 4, 1993
Patriarch Michael Paul Bertiaux,
Consecrated to The Sacred Episcopate 1979:
Allen Henry Greenfield,
Consecrated to The Sacred Episcopate August 29,1986, December 4, 1993
Some Lineages
Armenian Uniate:
Chorchurian - Chechamian - Crow - Newman - Maxey - Wadle - Spruit - Barber - Bertiaux - Greenfield
Syro-Chaldean:
St. Thomas - Shimun XVIII - Antony - Bartlett - Newman - Maxey - Wadle - Spruit - Barber - Bertiaux - Greenfield
Anglican, Celtic origin:
Moore - White - Hopkins - Chechemian - Crow - Newman - Maxey - Wadle - Spruit - Barber - Bertiaux - Greenfield
Orthodox Patriarchate:
(Constantinople) - Sergius - Kleefish - Aneed - Wadle - Spruit - Barber - Bertiaux - Greenfield
Russian Orthodox:
Nikon - Makarius - Ortinsky - Kleefish - Aneed - Wadle - Spruit - Barber - Bertiaux - Greenfield
Non Juring Bishops of Scotland:
Montaigne - Seabury - Richardson - Newman - Maxey - Wadle - Spruit - Barber - Bertiaux - Greenfield
Syrian-Malabar:
Alvares - Vilatte - Miraglia - Lloyd - Lines - Raleigh - Wadle - Spruit - Barber - Bertiaux - Greenfield
Syrian-Gallican:
Alvares - Vilatte - Miraglia - Lloyd - Lines - Raleigh - Wadle - Spruit - Barber - Bertiaux - Greenfield
Coptic; Coptic Uniate; Anglican, Non-Celtic; Irish; Welsh; Old Greek Melchite (Byzantine); Old Armenian; Corporate Reunion:
Mar Georgius (Corporate Reunion) - Maxey - Spruit - Barber - Bertiaux - Greenfield
Mariavite Church:
Jan Maria Michal Kowalski - Marc-Marie-Paul Fantome - Paulus Helmut Norbert Maas - Ephem Maria Mauro Fusi - Clemente Alfio Sgroi Marchese - Hugh Geroge de Willmott-Newman - Richard de Palatine - Forest E.G. Barber - Michael P. Bertiaux - Greenfield
Liberal Catholic: Wedgewood - Cooper - Hampton - Sheehan - Hadaway - Spruit - Barber - Bertiaux - Greenfield
Ecclesia Apostolica Synarchica Universalis: Mar Paul Athanasius - Antoine François Alvarez (Julius I) - Joseph René Vilatte (Timotheus) - Paolo Miraglia Culotti (Paul) - Julien Houssaye (Julio) - Louis François Giraud (François) - Jean Bricaud (Jean II) - Victor Blanchard (Targelius) - Roger Menard (Eon II) - Robert Ambelain (Jean III) - Roger Pommery (Tau Jean) - Willer Vital-Herne (Tau Guillaume - Primate of the West Indies) - Roger Victor-Hérard (Tau Charles) - Jorge Rodriguez Villa - Michael P. Bertiaux - Greenfield
Eglise Gnostique Apostolique: Jean Bricaud - Victor Blancard - Roger Menard - Robert Ambelain - Roger Pommery - Willer Vital-Herne - Roger Victor-Hérard - Jorge Rodriguez - Michael P. Bertiaux - Allen H.Greenfield
Gnostic Albigensian: Jules Doinel - Fabre des Essarts & Gérard Encausse - Jean Bricaud -Victor Blanchard - Roger Menard - Robert Ambelain - Roger Pommery - Willer Vital-Herne - Roger Victor-Hérard - Jorge Rodriguez Villa - Michael P. Bertiaux - Allen H. Greenfield
Old Gnostic Elusinian & Old Gnostic Apostolic: E.C.H. Peithmann - Dr. Arnoldo Krumm-Heller - Dr. Johannes Muller Riders - Roberto de la Caridad Toca y Medina - Jorge Rodriguez Villa - Michael P. Bertiaux - Allen H. Greenfield
Gnostic Therapeutic Sempiesta: Jean Sempé - Julien Houssaye - Louis François Giraud - Jean Bricaud - Victor Blanchard - Roger Menard - Robert Ambelain - Andre Mauer - Roger Pommery - Willer Vital-Herne - Roger Saint Victor Herard - Don Jorge Rodriguez Villa - Michael P. Bertiaux - Allen H. Greenfield
Gnostic Catholic Apostolic: Arnoldo Krumm-Heller - Dr. Johannes Muller Riders - Roberto de la Caridad Toca y Medina - Jorge Rodriguez Villa - Michael P. Bertiaux - Allen H. Greenfield
Sources-
http://www.oldcatholicorthodoxchurch.org/
http://www.ind-movement.org/people_r.htm
http://www.ind-movement.org/
http://home.earthlink.net/~tbegonja/
http://www.mindspring.com/~hellfire/bish
http://gnosisaeterna.org/lineages.htm
http://members.aol.com/BpBarwin/index.HT
There are so many other lineages, they would take more of your time than anyone would be willing to read – or if they are, they do need to get a good hobby. Suffice to say that, between F.E.G. Barber (Consecrated by Spruit on June 15, 1971) and Rodriguez (consecrated by most everbody, including Victor-Herard January 6, 1985), I hold whatever lineages you might care to point to. Big big ju-ju.
*References on the concept “egregore” -http://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos/t
http://www.crcsite.org/egregor.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore
http://www.scarletwoman.org/scarletlett
Egregore
Egregore
Egregore was a collective ritual held among the ancient hunting and agricultural societies. Usually leading the ceremony was a sorcerer or witch doctor.
http://www.themystica.org/mystica/articl
I have seen things ranging from what I would categorize as little more than a thought form, to things so complex as an egregore considered as simply servitors.
http://www.cantrap.net/theory/serv.html
They fulfill the duty of an "egregore", a term derived from the Greek word for "watcher".This term usually refers to the autonomous psychic residue of a group mind. Such an egregore bespeaks a yet to be heard wisdom.
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/caezza.htm
There develops a group "egregore", or group soul/mind, which unites the members in very subtle and potent ways.
http://www.jwmt.org/v1n0/getstart.html
Archetypes, Archons and Egregores
Frontline: From Jesus to Christ: The Gnostic Gospels
First Gnostic Church
The Pearl: Christian Gnosticism
The Hymn of the Pearl - The Acts of Thomas
Gnostic Christianity | Solving 100 Biblical Mysteries ...
http://www.psyche.com/psyche/links/gnost
In Other News – Thanks largely to the efforts of my friend & colleague
peristera, the new version of our web site offering that biting, cutting edge of experimental magick,
In Still other news, ignore the critics, they’ve just completely missed the point on Brian de Palma’s latest effort, and go see “The Black Dahlia” at your local theatre with the biggest screen. Imagine “The Big Sleep” meets “L.A. Confidential” and, assuming you aren’t fooled – as most of the critics were – by the stylized period acting in this superbly period film, if you’re a fan of film noir get ready to cream your jeans.
BLACK & BLUE
