Path: Supernews70!Supernews60!supernews.com!news-stk-3.sprintlink.net!news-west.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news.idt.net!out2.nntp.cais.net!news2.cais.com!not-for-mail From: Paul Hume Newsgroups: alt.pagan,alt.satanism,alt.religion.scientology Subject: Re: Crowley Cross? Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 12:05:58 -0500 Organization: William Blake Oasis Lines: 77 Message-ID: <349E9DF6.3F40@lan2wan.com> References: <674tdt$2ni$1@news5.ispnews.com> <67cc89$ii0@fcnews.fc.hp.com> <67d0a6$pc8$1@news3.ispnews.com> <67eraq$dlf@fcnews.fc.hp.com> <67fsfq$8m2$1@news3.ispnews.com> <67i2fo$dbn@fcnews.fc.hp.com> Reply-To: paulhume@lan2wan.com NNTP-Posting-Host: pm1-29.lan2wan.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0C-KIT (Win95; I) Xref: Supernews70 alt.pagan:249513 alt.satanism:83068 alt.religion.scientology:313776 Perry - This thread has wandered over so many lists (news and mail) and I've seen the bits in such disconnected form, I am not sure if this already got answered for you, but... > OK. Let me see if I have this straight. > > Crowley (OTO) performs magick with "his" Thoth deck, which contains a > 12-pointed cross by Frieda Harris. The symbol is later embellished by > Golden Dawn and (possibly) used as a template by Hubbard for the > Scientology cross. > > Do I have the historical timeline correct? Is it OTO, Crowley, Thoth, > Golden Dawn? > Nope...Golden Dawn (est. 1887 or so, when Crowley was 12) comes first. The GD devised the Rose Cross as a paticular symbol of their Second, or Inner, Order, the degrees of adeptship. That's the symbol Harris and Crowley (or possibly just the publisher?) chose for the reverse of the Thoth cards. The Rose Cross being: - the cross bottony (ie. calvary cross with triple lobes at the ends of the arms). Each arm painted in different colors, representing the four Aristotelian elements, and the lower arm, being the longer one on a calvary cross, also having a section painted to represent the planetary influences. -charged with a multicolored rose (22 petals, each bearing a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, each petal painted in the color attributed to that letter as a Path on the Tree of Life, with the letter painted in the complementary color) - radiating from the rose are the 12 rays or "glories," bearing a graphical representation of the "keyword" of the Adeptus Minor grade: INRI, as it is related to the word LVX ("light" in Latin) and the Name IAO. This relationship is from a crucial part of the initiation ritual of the Adeptus Minor grade, and encapsulates some crucial formulae of the GD in general: sort of an "e=mc**2" core formula for their magical system. ANYhoo...so GD develops the Rose Cross symbol. Crowley is initiated into GD in his early 20's, falls out with the London membership but retains the favor of the head of the Order, MacGregor Mathers, at least for a time. The GD schisms, Crowley goes off to Egypt on an extended honeymoon and he and his wife, Rose, write or (as we'd say today) channel The Book of the Law (this in 1904). Splits with Mathers shortly after this. OTO (meanwhile) is founded 1900 or so by Karl Kellner, and doesn't involve Crowley until the 1910's. In the 1920's, AC succeeds Theodor Reuss as head of the Order (which promptly schisms, since some lodges did not accept Aleister's decision to "retool" the OTO as a vehicle for the Law of Thelema, the philosophy he derived from the Book of the Law). Rose Cross is not part of OTO symbology (at least not so far, says the IVth degree member of OTO). Crowley used a form of the Jerusalem Cross, with 10 crosslets (for a total of 11 crosses) rather than 12 (for a total of 13) as part of his signature as head of the Order. Since I've also seen this used by elder brothers and sisters of mine in the Order as constituted today, and not just our present head, I suspect, given the context, that it actually denotes a IXth degree initiate. This is the symbol denounced as the "Crowley Cross" by R.S. Clymer in his anti-AMORC broadside, where he makes play on a putative link between AMORC and OTO. The Thoth deck was designed in the last years of Crowley's life, so the timeline actually runs... Golden Dawn - Crowley - Thoth deck (OTO out of picture except as sponsors of Weiser publishing first commercial run of deck in 1970's). Hmmm...I hope I didn't just give you a lecture on how to build a watch when all you asked for was the time (g). Paul Path: Supernews70!Supernews60!supernews.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!ais.net!news1.chicago.iagnet.net!iagnet.net!out2.nntp.cais.net!news2.cais.com!not-for-mail From: Paul Hume Newsgroups: alt.pagan,alt.satanism,alt.religion.scientology Subject: Re: Crowley Cross? Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 23:39:46 -0500 Organization: William Blake Oasis Lines: 105 Message-ID: <349F4092.599F@lan2wan.com> References: <674tdt$2ni$1@news5.ispnews.com> <67cc89$ii0@fcnews.fc.hp.com> <67d0a6$pc8$1@news3.ispnews.com> <67eraq$dlf@fcnews.fc.hp.com> <67fsfq$8m2$1@news3.ispnews.com> <67i2fo$dbn@fcnews.fc.hp.com> <349E9DF6.3F40@lan2wan.com> <67n3b1$1v9@fcnews.fc.hp.com> Reply-To: paulhume@lan2wan.com NNTP-Posting-Host: pm1-27.lan2wan.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0C-KIT (Win95; I) Xref: Supernews70 alt.pagan:249571 alt.satanism:83099 alt.religion.scientology:313895 Perry, > : Rose Cross is not part of OTO symbology (at least not so far, says the > : IVth degree member of OTO). > > So I take it you are IVth degree OTO? i.e. a fairly reliable source? > IVo yes...reliable does not however follow (g). But neither the Rose Cross as used in the GD, or the personal talisman Crowley called his Rose Cross in "The Vision and the Voice" (vermilion calvary cross with no rays and a big whacking topaz in the center), play any role in the OTO as far as I've gone in it, nor in the rituals of the Ist-IIIrd degrees which I administer as an initiator in the OTO. It is not impossible, I suppose, that some similar symbol crops up in the Vo or higher degrees, but I will be surprised if that is the case, simply because the particular symbolism (esp. of the Golden Dawn Rose Cross) is a whole different symbol set from the ones that seem to me to be developed in OTO. > I think I'll use this information to correct my page, which is fairly > messed up given this explanation. I have completely misjudged what > the OTO is all about. (I'm reading the otohq.org web page.) > Well, evidenced by my own decision to work in this particular lineage of OTO, sometimes called the "Caliphate" OTO, I obviously would think otohq.org is a good source (g). There are other claims to both legitimate descent from Crowley's tradition of the OTO - my personal choice as to which way to go should not be taken as a reflection on their approach. And Peter Koenig, who coupled excellent scholarship on pre-Crowley OTO with some fairly vehement leaps to conclusions (again, naturally, in my opinion) argues that Crowley didn't have a legitimate tradition to pass on in the first place...so you pays your karma and takes your choice, as in most other things. Web pages of these alternate points of view abound. > : Crowley used a form of the Jerusalem Cross...This is > : the symbol denounced as the "Crowley Cross" by R.S. Clymer in his > : anti-AMORC broadside, where he makes play on a putative link between > : AMORC and OTO. > > Are there any .gifs of this 10-crosslet Jerusalem Cross handy? I'm > having trouble visualizing it. > Hmmm...dunno. If someone has scanned in the cover page of the Gnostic Mass from the Equinox, in any of the online Equinoxes, that'd have it. I don't recall seeing it, I have to say. Try this, though... Draw a large, equal armed cross. Draw lines at about the middle of each of the arms, so you have four crosses surrounding (or forming) the large one (total cross count now up to 5). Now...uh...(Hume rushes out to the hall to double check the signature on his charter to run an OTO "Oasis")...draw lines on the top and side arms of the top and bottom crosses, making three more crosses at those two positions, for a total of 11 crosses in all. Hope this works... | --- | -|-|-|- | | | ---|------|------|--- | | | -|-|-|- | --- | Sorta. > So, what remains is the speculation that Hubbard ripped off an OTO or > Golden Dawn image when he declared Scientology to be a religion > (Scientology was originally an alternative to psychotherapy). I thought Dianetics was the alternative to psychotherapy, with Scientology adding the thetan mythos, etc. and using a religious organization, as well as establishing the particular subculture that excites all the concern? > To me, it looks like the Thoth deck graphic, minus half the inner points > and the topaz, plus a trivial 3-dimensional shading effect. Actually it would be less 2/3rds the GD points - at least it looked like a simple sort of diamond shape on the cross when I looked at said page. Crosses with something in the center are pretty common (ex-SCA herald too, and heraldry is butt-deep in variant crosses, and is in fact the source of my oddball terms like "cross bottony" and "cross crosslet"). I dunno that the little whatsit or whatsits charged on the center of the Scientology cross are particularly reminiscent of the "glories" of the GD Rose Cross. My Scout troop back when I was being raised a Catholic had a flagpole topped by a cross (again, bottony I think, with the triple lobed ends) and the Scouting badge (same one worn by a First Class, the fleur-de-lys and the "Be Prepared" scroll) at its center. That's if I remember aright...since this WAS in 1959 or so (Hume rocks more vigorously in his chair and thumps his cane on the floor for emphasis). Anyway, there's a few more cents worth. Paul