News
Inanna Arise! A Winter Solstice Ritual and Feast
Join us Thursday, December 21 as we celebrate the first day of winter with a dramatic ritual and potluck feast.
This year’s winter solstice ritual is Inanna Arise!, based on the Sumerian epic “Inanna’s Descent into the Underworld”.
Afterward we will enjoy fellowship and a potluck feast. Please bring a dish and a beverage to share.
Thursday, December 21
Doors at 7:00pm, ritual starts at 7:30pm (no late admissions)
Open to the public, free admission, $10 donation accepted
Let us know you’re coming
Harry Smith Movie Night
Join us Friday, October 20 for an evening celebrating the life and work of American occult legend, Harry Smith.
An American polymath, Smith (1923-1991) was an acclaimed painter, experimental filmmaker, folklorist, musicologist, and collector as well as an occultist and icon of radical non-conformity. Join us this evening for a screening of Heaven and Earth Magic, his groundbreaking animated film, as well as selected shorts. The evening will begin with a short presentation on Smith’s life and work by Mark Dalton.
2820 Thorndyke Avenue W, Seattle, WA 98199 (map)
Doors at 7pm, show starts at 7:30pm.
$10 admission w/ snacks
Let us know you’re coming
Celebrating 35 Years!
Fall 2023 Classes
Thelema and Pan
Denny Sargent
Tuesday, October 24, doors at 7pm
Why does the great god, Pan, recur throughout the work of Aleister Crowley? What was Crowley’s relationship with Pan such that he insisted his Hymn to Pan be read at his funeral? These questions and many more will be answered in this lecture by Denny Sargent, which will introduce listeners to the power and magick of Pan within the context of Thelema. This lecture will not only consider the role of Pan in the life and work of the Beast 666; it will also situate that work within the context of renewed cultural interest in Pan in the British and European art and literature of Crowley’s era. Delivered by a serious devotee of Pan, this lecture is not to be missed! IO PAN!
The Use of Color as a Language in the Thoth Tarot
Scott Wilde
Tuesday, November 14, doors at 7pm
During this lecture, we will explore the premise that all color usages in the paintings of the Thoth Tarot were intentionally chosen for their specific symbolic import. That in general, the chosen colors simply reinforce the explicit attributes of the card, but also that there are many instances where color adds additional narrative that is not accessible based purely on form. The talk begins with an overview of the history of the use of color in occultism. The latter half will be spent looking at specific cards from the Thoth Tarot and decoding their colors.
The Serpent and the Egg: The Central Truth of the Thelemic Philosophy
Entelecheia
Tuesday, December 19, doors at 7pm
“Our central Truth—beyond other philosophies—is that these two infinities [Nuit and Hadit] cannot exist apart.” With these words, Crowley begins his “New Comment” on The Book of the Law. This lecture by Entelecheia will explore Crowley’s justification for this bold statement along with many of the implications it has for Thelemic metaphysics, theology, and soteriology. We will also consider how this central truth is embodied and given dramatic and symbolic expression in Liber XV and in the Thoth Tarot.
Kenneth Anger Movie Night – July 22
Kenneth Anger Movie Night
A Celebration of Brother Anger’s work presented by Horizon Lodge O.T.O.
July 22, 2023
Doors at 7pm, movies start at 7:30pm
$10 entry (includes snacks)
- A short presentation about Kenneth Anger
- Kustom Kar Kommandos
- Mouse Heaven
- Invocation of My Demon Brother
- Lucifer Rising
2820 Thorndyke Avenue W, Seattle, WA 98199
Fundraiser for The Trevor Project
For the month of June, Horizon is proud to host an online fundraiser for The Trevor Project.
Founded in 1998, The Trevor Project focuses on suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth. Through their toll-free number, their trained counselors provide crisis intervention and suicide prevention for people under the age of 25.
We chose to fundraise on behalf of The Trevor Project because their mission to foster safe, accepting, and inclusive environments for all LGBTQ youth at home, in schools, and in colleges aligns with our own Thelemic values. Our Prophet, Aleister Crowley, was bisexual and arguably gender fluid, and he faced the threat of unfair discrimination in his own time. Crowley was also adamant that the Law of Thelema justified freedom of gender and sexual expression.
Writing in Magick in Theory and Practice, he said, “Every man has an indefeasible right to be what he is.” In the New Comment on AL I.41, he wrote, “The sexual act is a sacrament of Will. To profane it is the great offence. All true expression of it is lawful; all suppression or distortion is contrary to the Law of Liberty.” Perhaps most famously, in his New Comment on AL I.51, he wrote:
The Beast 666 ordains by His authority that every man, and every woman, and every intermediately-sexed individual, shall be absolutely free to interpret and communicate Self by means of any sexual practices soever, whether direct or indirect, rational or symbolic, physiologically, legally, ethically, or religiously approved or no, provided only that all parties to any act are fully aware of all implications and responsibilities thereof, and heartily agree thereto.
Or as he succinctly put it in Liber Oz: “Man has the right to love as he will”.
Given their close alignment with Thelemic values, The Trevor Project was a natural choice for an organization for us to fundraise on behalf of.
We are conducting our fundraiser through Facebook. The amount you donate through Facebook will automatically be transferred to The Trevor Project, minus Facebook’s transaction fee. If you are not on Facebook but would like to participate, you may also donate via the PayPal link at the bottom of this page. We will transfer the full amount we collect to The Trevor Project at the beginning of July. Donations will be used by The Trevor Project to pay their crisis counselors, to help provide crisis services 24/7 free of cost, and to assist in the expansion of research and advocacy efforts.
Thank you for joining me this year in supporting The Trevor Project in their mission of making the world safer and more inclusive for LGBTQ youth.
And please be sure to share our fundraiser with allied friends and family!
Master’s Inaugural Speech
By Entelecheia
Delivered 5/7/2023
Brother, Sisters, Siblings of Horizon Lodge, friends of the community, welcome. Thank you for being with me on this evening for what I can only describe as an awesome occasion.
When I began to craft a vision for my mastership of Horizon, I posed three questions to myself:
- Where do we go?
- How do we get there? But most importantly of all:
- Who are we?
Who are we? Who are we as a community? Who are we as an O.T.O. local body?
Thelema teaches that you cannot impose standards on any individual without taking into account its nature or true will. The same goes for an O.T.O. local body, which is like an organism with its own true will.
The flame of the Lamp of Horizon is like its true will. It is the flame that burns in our hearts, in the core of our star. There are three lenses through which to understand the characteristics of this light which is uniquely our own.
We can understand ourselves as an O.T.O. local body. We are tasked with fulfilling the mission of United States Grand Lodge in accordance with its principles and values. This includes performing the rites and rituals of O.T.O. and disseminating its doctrines.
We can understand ourselves as a local body of O.T.O. San Francisco and New York are both American cities, but they feel completely different to be in. Similarly, each local body of O.T.O. has its own distinctive characteristics, its own particular way of realizing the mission of O.T.O. in its particular context. Each community brings its own perspective and skillset to the mission. We have done many workshops over the years to bring our local identity into focus.
But first and foremost, we are a community of Thelemites. Thelema is the flame that burns at the core of our star. Thelema is what drew us here. Thelema is what has transformed us. Thelema is what keeps us here. (Diabolical laughter.) Thelema is our superpower. Thelema is our magick. It is our adherence to the Thelemic path that is most essential to who we are.
There are three principles of Thelema that I would like to share with you which I think are of particular importance to Horizon.
The first of these is the idea that every man and every woman is a star. Each individual is the ecstatic union of Hadit with Nuit. This union or process of unification is ongoing. This means that the true will of an individual is not static but is instead dynamic. It is the will of every organism not just to exist but to thrive. It is our will not just to be but to become, to expand outward into our environments, to push the limits of what we can do and who we can be.
This means that it is not enough that we just change. It’s a bit of a cliché to say that the only constant is change. We do not just want to change. We want to grow. When we understand the laws of change and utilize them in order to increase our powers, then we are growing, then we are thriving. This is the second principle, which Crowley called love under will or magick. We can use our magick to increase our physical abilities, to increase our intellectual and moral abilities. We can also direct it toward our spirit, to unlock our occult powers, to reveal ourselves as gods. We can use it to transform ourselves from a mere what into a who. A god is an infinitely deep who. That is what our magick allows us to do.
The third idea is that the world was destroyed by fire in the year 1904 e.v. The cubical stone upon which the Aeon of the Father rested was cracked. It began to crumble. It is still in the process of being torn away. We are still in the process of making way for the New Aeon. To realize divinity in the world is a project, not something we can simply count upon. All human relations need to be reestablished upon a naturalistic, rational foundation which takes into account the individual natures of each. When it is still possible for a black teen to be shot just for knocking on the wrong door, or for a transgender individual to fear for their lives by using a public restroom, that tells us that we have a long way to go before such relations are established.
Horizon brings particular gifts to this battle. Spend any time among our members, and you will quickly find out that this is a community of individuals highly focused on self-development and growth. For some this manifests as a focus on athleticism or physical fitness. For others, developing our intellectual understanding of Thelema and communicating it better. For others it means honing their artistic or musical crafts. For others, understanding and applying new technologies in the fulfillment of our mission.
Horizon exemplifies the principles of dynamic change and adaptation to circumstance I mentioned earlier. When the pandemic hit, four of our siblings immediately started live streaming the Gnostic Mass. I suspect they had the camera rolling even before they had gotten permission from Sabazius to do it. Another brother quickly adapted his ritual invocations for YouTube livestream. The pandemic destroyed many local communities. It didn’t destroy us. We adapted, and as a result, we expanded our reach! We get comments on Youtube almost daily from people in Europe, South America, and other parts of the world. Some of these comments are even worth reading!
This is the spirit of Horizon. We adapt. We don’t just change. We grow. Through the wise application of the Four Powers of the Sphinx, we transform conditions of resistance into conditions of persistence.
We do not compare ourselves to anyone. We neither look down upon nor look up to any other local body. We look to ourselves. We try to be a slightly better version of ourselves today than we were yesterday. This is why we are one-of-a-kind.
The initiation rituals of O.T.O. teach that every individual is the incarnation of an adventuring god. Think about that. No matter what the circumstances we are born into, no matter what we encounter, life is an adventure. It requires those virtues of vision, understanding, exploration, and perseverance embodied in our Lamp and Talisman. It means that birth, life, and even death are not merely foisted upon us. We can take up the circumstances of our lives and reveal the divinity and the joy inherent in them.
O.T.O. also teaches that there is no god but man. Absent the divine individual, the word “god” has no sense. This means that if we fail in our self-understanding and our self-discipline, if we fail to reveal the divine in ourselves, the world is empty of meaning and purpose. God is as good as dead.
This means that what we do in here matters.
How we understand ourselves matters.
How we relate to ourselves matters.
Whether we come to know who we truly are matters.
How we relate to the world and other beings matters.
Whether we are cowardly or courageous matters.
Whether we resolve our differences with civility matters.
Whether we tell the truth matters.
Whether we seek justice matters.
How we conduct ourselves matters. The choices that we make matter.
This is not merely about self-discovery. This is not just an exercise in self-improvement. So much more rides upon what we do than that. Do not be fooled by our humble storefront church. Nothing less than the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven is at stake.
Brothers, Sisters, Siblings of Horizon, friends of our community: we face many challenges. We face a constantly changing world. But with our unique gifts and outlook, we will face these challenges head on. We will not be defeated by them. We will instead grow through our encounters with them. Encouraged by the flames in our hearts, and the flame burning at the heart of this community, we will conduct that light outward ever-further into the world, with vision, understanding, exploration, and perseverance.
Winter & Spring 2023 Classes
Join Horizon Lodge this winter and spring for our new class series! In this series of classes, members of O.T.O. will share their knowledge and research so that we may grow in deeper connection with our Thelemic spirituality.
The Ma’at of Thelema
Aion 131
Tuesday, February 21, 7:00pm-9:00pm
Ma’at—the Egyptian concept of truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice—pervades the gnosis of Thelema as manifested in Liber AL vel Legis, and it whispers through many Thelemic Holy Books. Truth, Justice, and Balance are all crucial to success in understanding and practicing magick. This presentation and discussion by Aion 131 will focus on how Ma’at magick weaves itself not only through Crowley’s works, but also how it connects with the ‘Ma-Ion’ Ma’atian gnosis as proclaimed by Frater Achad, the black flame Ma’at emanations of Soror Nema, as well as others in the wider Thelemic community. Achad saw the spiral of the Aeon of Horus and the Aeon of Ma’at entwining and supporting each other, and others believe that the balancing of the Aeons of Horus and of Ma’at will help humanity survive the force and fire of this Aeon.
Thelemic Solar Magick: Liber Resh
Entelecheia
Tuesday, March 21, 7:00pm-9:00pm
In this class, Entelecheia will lead us in considering the practice of Liber Resh both from a theoretical and a practical point of view. We will consider Liber Resh as a form of Thelemic mindfulness practice, as a way of drawing closer to nature, and as a means of tapping into the Thelemic magical current. We will consider practice details and how to incorporate Liber Resh into a daily Thelemic spiritual regimen.
Babalon Before the Bible
Brother Brian
Tuesday, April 18, 7:00pm-9:00pm
Join us as Brother Brian leads us on an exploration of Thelemic antecedents in feminine divinities prior to the Old Aeon.
Aiwass, Secret Chiefs, and the Nature of Revelation
Brother Mark
Tuesday, May 16, 7:00pm-9:00pm
With Brother Mark, we will look at Crowley’s developing ideas about his connection to higher forms of intelligence in the context of artistic creativity and the continuing excavation of the unconscious mind.
Keys to the Magick of Aleister Crowley
Brother Kellen
Tuesday, June 20, 7:00pm-9:00pm
In this class taught by Brother Kellen, we will examine the concept of correspondences in the Hermetic Qabalah used by ceremonial magicians, the history of the idea, and their use both in constructing ritual and interpreting the works of Aleister Crowley. The class will end with some practical suggestions for learning correspondences.
$5 donation requested
Must show proof of vaccination against COVID-19 to attend.
Book Review: City of the Beast: The London of Aleister Crowley by Phil Baker
Strange Attractor Press, London, 2022
Review by Mark Dalton
I really liked this book, and I think anyone with an interest in, and some knowledge of the life of Crowley would also find this an interesting and indeed entertaining book. The book is a collection of vignettes, many just a couple pages long, some longer and more complicated, describing places around London and their relationship to the Beast and his activities. Over these many stories (93 in all!), the author tells a larger story about Crowley, his haunts, his friends, and the adventures and shenanigans he got up to in Britain’s capitol city during the many years he lived there. “A biography by sites,” as described on the cover.
A remarkable amount of research went into this book, historical, biographical, and architectural. Places and buildings and businesses are described, both in Crowley’s time and what remains today, sometimes with directions on how to find them if interest remains. (Although this is not a travel book, it would be fun to take on a trip to London!). A good book to dip into for the individual tales, or, as in my case, to just devour cover to cover! Highly recommended!
The Living and the Dead: Truth Embodied in Liber XV
The raising of a corpse, a litany of dead saints, the fulfillment of the covenant of resurrection, and the eventual return of all into the silence of the tomb: the living and the dead play an integral role in the liturgy and drama of Liber XV.
In this lecture, Entelecheia will lead us on an exploration of truth as the difference between what is alive versus what is dead. We will consider the ways a ritual, a tradition, and an individual can serve as living symbols of truth. We will consider the radical possibility that what we call life is in fact a form of death, and that perhaps the dead are more alive than we realize.
This lecture will be given live at our temple in Seattle and will also be livestreamed via an unlisted link on our YouTube channel. Attendance in person or online is $10 and is free for our members and Patreon “Patron” tier subscribers. The lecture will be made public on our YouTube Oct 28. All fees collected support Horizon.
In-person attendance is limited by space capacity and COVID restrictions. All in-person attendees must comply with in-person attendance requirements as they appear on seattle-oto.org on the day of the event.
Doors open at 6:30pm, lecture starts at 7:00pm sharp.
Entelecheia has been a member of O.T.O. and Horizon Lodge since 2014. He is an ordained Priest and Deacon in E.G.C. His areas of interest and research include western philosophy and esotericism. He has a Masters degree in philosophy from the New School for Social Research. His website is lapis-mercurii.org.