I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net

daemonic sigils. The 1920s-era FS, like most groups that include sex magic
in their teaching, were often accused of celebrating orgies. No doubt they
would have if conditions had allowed, but their chronic lack of female chelas
limited their opportunities. The only ritual approximating group sex in their
known liturgy is the notorious Gradus Pentalphae working, in which a
copulating couple is encircled by the group energy of their 18° lodge
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brothers. The literal climax of the rite called for the blood of a. beheaded hen
or rooster to be poured over the copulating pair, a sacrifice timed to occur
just before the moment of the couple's orgasms.
The Fraternitas Saturni tradition continues today in Germany,
although its methods and terminology have evolved from the days of its
inception in Weimar-era Berlin. Several conflicting groups claim to represent
the true spirit of the FS, a chronic phenomenon in magical circles, which
brings us inevitably to consideration of another Berlin-based sex-magical
Order...
The O.T.O And The Phenomenon Of Occult
Organizations: Decorated Cages
The pioneering German-English sex magician Theodor Reuss, founder of the
O.T.O., and his contentious colleague Aleister Crowley, who was associated
with Reuss's O.T.O. from 1912—1921, have been aggrandized into the stuff
of occult folklore since the magical revival of the 1960s. In the process, the
letters O.T.O. (Ordo Templi Orientis) have become indelibly connected with
popular ideas of Western sex magic. Consequently, the vexing topic of occult
organizations in connection with the sinister current must be briefly
addressed. For the past few decades, and even in Crowley's time, there has
been a persistent controversy between various factions, each claiming to be
the "real" and legitimate O.T.O., while denouncing all other claimants as
impostors. This magical war, typical of the entire modern occult subculture's
infighting, has long ago progressed from curses into prolonged legal battles,
with bad blood all around. The ongoing strife between bickering camps is so
characteristic of O.T.O. history that it often seems that the various claimants
have spent more time waging judicial combat against each other in court than
performing the erotic rites for which they have become notorious in the
public mind.
Since our concern will be limited to determining if the various
O.T.O.(s) under Reuss, Crowley and their spiritual successors have
relevance to left-hand path sex magic, we will largely ignore this endless
struggle for legitimacy. In our estimation, such trivial squabbles have less
than zero significance to the work of left-hand path initiation. Although we
must admit that there is a certain irresistible potential for low comedy in the
spectacle of respectable judges and attorneys hairsplitting over the burning
issue of which competing Crowleyan sect has the legal right to confer the
holy mysteries of sperm-and-blood wafers and anal sex upon its
parishioners.
From our view, we should establish from the first that we personally
see little value in the creaky Masonic apparatus of rigid grade system,
hierarchical structure, reverence for sectarian holy writ, and scripted
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ceremony that has typified the O.T.O. from its inception sometime between
1906—1912 to most (but not all) of its quibbling manifestations in the past
century. Such inflexibility, coupled with the nearly necrophiliac cult of
personality that has formed around the icon of Aleister Crowley in the
majority of post-1947 branches of the O.T.O. seems extremely ill-suited for
sinister current liberation. Which leads us to an important question
concerning the Western occult organization phenomenon in general: can any
formalized magical order convey the radical emancipatory power so
essential to left-hand path initiation?