The following article was originally Part Two of "One, Two, Three ... Zero", which I had shared with only a few friends after writing it, also sending copies to those people mentioned therein. I may have never published it if Ray Eales and Paul Joseph Rovelli hadn't forced my hand by publishing a very public response to the article that only they and a handful of others had, up until then, read.
Ray Eales and "The Holy Order of RaHoorKhuit", abbreviated H.O.O.R., although they seem more like prostitutes without much to sell. (Grand Lodge, P.O. Box 51486, Indianapolis, IN 46251-1486) The "Official Organ of H.O.O.R." - this guy is just too Freudian for me - is a newsletter entitled WARRIORS LVX. It is supposed to be published quarterly at the Equinoxes and the Solstices and over the past few years copies have been sent to me which I have simply set aside until there was enough to say to justify a review. It has been tough going for the fact of the matter is these newsletters are an incredible waste of paper, time and effort. Ray Eales is a master indeed, but only in his ability to say a whole lot of nothing.
Frater 939.·., aka "Slippery" Eales, wrote in Volume 1, Number 1, the Winter 1994 E.V. issue: "We are the first of the new Thelemites. We are the first whose organization has its roots firmly in this New Aeon ... we are also the next in the unbroken chain of those orders and organizations which throughout history have had one eye on the Silver Star and one eye on the river of Life." While in Volume 3, Number 2 of Spring 1996 E.V. he wrote that "There has been some confusion on the subjects of the A.·.A.·...." and reminds readers "that HOOR as an organization accepts that the LVX enamates from The A.·.A.·. and that the A.·.A.·. is currently represented in HOOR by the line of succession TO MEGA THERION - SATURNUS - EVER - 939." What it all boils down to is that like Bersson, Eales was a Motta crony and his whole claim to being A.·.A.·. hinges not upon demonstrable attainment or even legitimate documentation, but upon the fact that he was associated with Motta (whom you will recall from "David Bersson: Part I" disassociated himself from Eales) who as nothing more than an aspirant to the A.·.A.·. proved himself too obviously to question quite paranoid and mad, as far from the A.·.A.·. as one could possibly be.
Last Thanksgiving I had to laugh when Gregory von Seewald called me from Connecticut, once very vocally opposed to Motta and now associated with Eales, claiming that he was wrong about Motta, Eales is the real thing, and then, although he thought he might be breaking some oaths in doing so, inviting me to join "the A.·.A.·.", under his authority where he has always wanted me. I have learned that he has tried to coax others into joining this travesty, which would have validated its worth in his mind, and met with the same response as mine.
We find in Volume 1, Number 2, Spring 1994 E.V., that a convention was being held, a mere $100.00 being charged per person, along with a surcharge of another $10.00. First Grade Initiations would be held for $11.00 plus an additional $10.00 "Temple fee to cover the costs of procuring the Temple facilities". Elsewhere Holy Oil is offered for $5.00 per dram and $2.00 for shipping up to 10 drams and another bastard pseudo-Equinox book, called Volume VII, No. 1, is being offered by Eales' Silver Star Publication to HOOR members for $25.00, the list price being $34.50, $2.50 for postage, etc., etc., etc.
A feature article entitled "EYE ON THE POMPOSITE" is described as HOOR's "continuing effort to debunk the pompous and confound the charlatan" - gosh, I wonder where they got the idea? - accomplishes nothing beyond confusing the reader with pointless sarcasm directed at unspecified individuals. In Volume 1, Number 2, for instance, the name of the person targeted is withheld, an idiot who thought that "Cara Soror", which opens the letters in Magick Without Tears, was an individual's name. The only thing of interest here is that Motta's reply letter was reproduced, wherein, for example, he whines about receiving "little or no thanks" from "the overwhelming majority of (his) pupils". The number of Motta's pupils was never overwhelming, by the way, and it did not take most of them much time to realize that they had nothing to thank him for! The letter also reveals that Motta and Germer disagreed upon the issue of contacting the Holy Guardian Angel at will, Motta believing that this was "one of the privileges of the Adeptus Minor" while Germer "exclaimed: 'But that is a much higher Initiation!'" Generally speaking, Germer was, of course, closer to the truth. It goes on further to prove Motta's ignorance as well as Eales' who obviously believes the late Marcelo Motta's idiocies to be utterances of wisdom.
In Volume 1, Number 4, Fall 1994 E.V., Eales actually mentions a name, but only, again, to attack William Barden, "a scoundrel" who "is also an expelled Probationer of the A.·.A.·." who "was removed from the post of director of the SOTO by its present Frater Superior, Frater Sphinx of New Mexico USA" - that would be David Bersson, now (ugh) a resident of Pittsburgh. By the way, Gold Coins is also reviewed here, very briefly and rather so carefully that one might think Eales has enough sense to recognize how idiotic it is, but not enough sense to be truthful about it and upset his pal Bersson, thus promoting this unthelemic used toilet tissue of nonsense.
Volume 2, Number 3, Summer 1995 E.V., goes on about "all manner of odd creatures", "Certain creatures", "other creatures", an "all knowing creature", and of course one "creature" in particular who is "a lazy do nothing miscreant who had never done a day's work in its life", but the whole thing is so vague that it has no impact while at the same time proving to the reader that Eales can't take criticism, has no guts, can only cry and whine, and be, well, pompous. I am sure he actually does have his "eye on the pomposite" as Slippery Eales is probably fixated on mirrors most of the time.
Another convention is advertised in the Spring 1997 E.V. issue of WARRIORS LVX, Volume 4, Number 2 - "Four members to a room - $93.00 per member. Two members to a room - $133.00 per member", etc. This one will be held June 13 through 15 in Tampa, Florida. Oh gosh, I will probably miss it, and I did so awfully much want to hand over my hard-earned money to Ray Eales and company ... right after I send $100 to David Bersson, as per his suggestion, if impressed by his "Money Wand" spell. The sad thing is that there are so many people in the occult community who crave social interaction with others that they think will accept them and validate their desires and fantasies, that I am sure there will be enough attendees to make it all worthwhile for Eales ... financially speaking.
Preliminary Thoughts on H.O.O.R. is a little booklet that doesn't sound too bad, but then again there is not much substance to it either. There is the H.O.O.R. Manifesto, a member's article from Mezlim, "Binding A Community" by Paul Joseph Rovelli - it is all the common rhetoric which sounds good but says little. At least Slippery Eales is a better and more convincing bullshit artist than his buddy David Bersson. However, neither of these Mottaites are as entertaining as their "master" used to be, so what, I ask, is their benefit to society?
The Scarlet Hoor (yawn) is a magazine that they publish. Volume I, Number II, Vernal Equinox, An XCIII, being priced at $3.00, lists the staff as Paul Joseph Rovelli, David M. Stein, Ellen Gustafson, and John P. Sorrentino. Apparently, to judge by Volume II, Number I, priced $4.00, some of the staff jumped ship as only Rovelli and Stein are listed. [July 1998 E.V. Note: I have since corresponded with Ms. Gustafson and Mr. Sorrentino, and, not surprisingly, they have, to put it mildly, expressed great dissatisfaction with H.O.O.R., Eales, Rovelli and Bersson.]
I.II takes a shot at "the Caliphate" in the opening letter from the editor, Rovelli, accurately referring to them in a somewhat indirect manner as "one OTO working the legal system so that they can be the only dispenser of Thelemic materials", yet the reader is told that "The real enemy is that Christist egregore". While the Judeo-Christian community is a problem, its foundation in lies and hypocrisy, Thelemites need to be more concerned with the individuals and groups that falsely claim to be Thelemic, their own foundations based upon lies and hyopcrisy while espousing the elitist principles that tend to undermine every world religion whose members feel that they are God's Chosen and everyone else is doomed to one form of Hell or another.
"Whence Came the Stranger: Tracking the Metapattern of Stranger in a Strange Land" (whew!) by Adam Walks Between Worlds (if you can believe that one) is mildly interesting, but it was originally prepared for publication in Green Egg Magazine. And part of Leah Hirsig's diary was published in this issue of The Scarlet Hoor, but anyone with access to the Internet can acquire this for themselves - unless by now someone has pulled it off the Net. As with the Hirsig diary, "Knight of the Rose and the Cross (VIII degree?)" by Theodore Reuss is interesting from a historical and psychological perspective, if not practical. However, then we come to "Psychic Attack and Defense" by Ray Eales, something apparently written specifically for the magazine. We are told after a column and a half that "Any treatise on 'Psychic Attack' must develop a working theory of what is often called the Astral Plane", then it goes on for eight or nine more columns before we finally get "Having said all of this let us consider the 'Astral Light' as a fractional dimension like the crumpled piece of paper or like the Mandelbrot set for instance. ... We find that this fractional dimension is an interim state between mind and body. We find that this fractional dimension is both mind and body and neither." And then the article ends referring to varioius works, mostly by Crowley. Again, not very practical and of little or no dubious substance. Perhaps Slippery Eales should become a politician.
In this issue there is a review of "The Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO): Four Books by Peter-Robert Konig" by Joscelyn Godwin, reprinted from Theosophical History in 1975 E.V.. It is mildly interesting, but while Mr. Godwin views P. R. Konig as "a spiritual archeologist in the style of Gordon Melton and Massimo Introvigne", he neglected to notice or mention that Konig will quote material out of context or otherwise use accurate information to lead one to inaccurate conclusions, and not for altuistic reasons does he do this sort of thing, but merely to "get even" with those who have spurned him over the years. The comparison to J. Gordon Melton amused me, by the way, because Mr. Melton, who publishes a great many reference books on the occult community, never can seem to get even the most easily verified details correct.
II.I gives us more of the same. Yawn. Almost the first seven pages of Crowley's "John St. John" from The Equinox, Volume I, Number 1, is reprinted. If they stretch this out they can fill quite a number of issues with Crowley bait, but really, just find a copy of The Equinox. More of the Hirsig diaries bait the hook, and there is the usual yawners by Eales and one Dadaji.
The book review of The Secrets of Aleister Crowley by Amado Crowley written by Gerald Suster is the only thing I found amusing. Beginning thusly you just know where it is going: "For all connoisseurs of the idiotic here is a wonderful opportunity to waste 5.99 pounds on a completely fatuous book. It is badly written and atrociously reasoned, yet those with a perverse sense of humour might find it funny in its uniquely appalling way." Amado Crowley, "more generally known as 'Mike'", is a whacko claiming to be Crowley's son. A copy of his book was kindly given to me by Suster's friend, James Barter, but, alas, I have not yet had the time to read it and inflict a review upon Newaeon readers. Priorities, don't you know. However, having glanced through the book I think it is safe to say that Mr. Suster's review is far more interesting, amusing and easier to read than Amado's book.
Still, I cannot see any reason to spend money on The Scarlet Hoor nor on membership in H.O.O.R.
Back in the sixties hippies and flower children were "dropping out", refusing to participate in the activities of the society their parents were members of, and yet they all seemed to gravitate towards one another to live in communes in an attempt to create a new society, afraid to be alone, and to the best of my knowledge all of these communes failed. Yesterday's hippies and flower children are either living in the streets today or they are overweight housewives, members of the PTA, or businessmen wearing the suits they spurned in their youth. They are, in short, generally speaking, either the homeless who haunt dark allies and live under bridges, or members of the society that they once tried to drop out of. There is something that apparently drives most people to seek social acceptance and communal membership, and while the rebelliousness of youth encourages them to live in communes or join supposed occult fraternities or religious fringe groups, for the most part, they seem to fall right back into the Judeo-Christian community and oblivion. Deciding that the main body of human society is a waste, they seek smaller societies wherein they think that they will receive greater acceptance and better enjoy the companionship of others, believing that they will change the world. In time they discover the smaller society to be merely a microcosm of the greater society from which they tried to escape and many return to the greater society merely because it is more organized, more established, more safe and secure, in either instance selling their souls for a little companionship and abatement of the utter and abysmal loneliness that they feel. So the question is, why do so many people feel so completely alone that even wife and children seldom makes them feel better? So lonely that membership in any community fails to distract or satisfy them? The answer is simple. The loneliness that people generally suffer from is not due to a lack of like-minded people to associate with, but rather is it the natural result of an individual being cut off from him or her Self.
And this is why Thelema is necessary while groups like the Caliphate pseudo-o.t.o., the S.O.T.O. and H.O.O.R. are not, for they do not really offer one Thelema. They merely offer another, smaller society to join and eventually become dissatisfied with.
I have been asked why I do not start a Thelemic group, get more involved in the occult community and bring all the members of the various groups calling themselves the O.T.O. over to my group. Well, with apologies to the relative minority of sincere students and aspirants of Thelema and recognizing the fact that most of the true Thelemites in society are those outside of that community who do not yet realize their Thelemic nature, my reply has often been that I am interested in reaching and influencing the Movers and the Shakers...
Televangelists always have their hands out for donations. The collection plate is passed in church. The above organization and others like it, on top of demanding fees and dues, also solicit donations. And Marcelo Motta used to demand photographs of applicants in the nude! Myself not being a millionaire - in fact, currently unable to pay anything but the minimum monthly payment on a maxed out Visa card, giving my all to Thelema - why should I too not make a bid for your money?
It is not a plea nor is it a demand. It is merely a suggestion.
I offer you no fancy titles, no membership in a great international fraternity, no degrees or grades; I am neither selling initiations nor a place in the kingdom of heaven. In fact, if you make out a cheque payable to G.M.Kelly and send it to P.O. Box 19210, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 U.S.A., the only thing I can promise is to keep the Newaeon web site alive and continue my work for whatever you may think it is worth. That's it. All you would receive in return, along with my thanks, is the satisfaction of knowing that I will be able to continue my work in behalf of Thelema, which, with time, assistance and finances, will increase with the years.
If you would like to assist Newaeon and I in our work and you cannot afford to help us financially, please do not feel guilty! Guilt is a mental obsession inappropriate to Thelemites. If you have information that you believe I might find useful, especially if it can be backed up with accompanying documentation, please share it with us. If all you can do is sincerely wish me the very best in my efforts, your good wishes will give me strength and be appreciated.
G.M.Kelly (Frater Keallach 93/676)
26th of May 1997 E.V.