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THE TRUTH Perth, Western Australia, Australia 12 November 1916 (page 11)
SECRETS OF SPOOKS.
MYSTERY OF THE FIERY STAR.
The Occult Mission of Master Therion.
Two advertisements in Saturday’s cocksure dailies so stimulated the curiosity of Aunt Ann that she determined to investigate the occult on her own, so in fear and trembling she journeyed to the I.O.O.F. Temple last Monday evening quite prepared to see spooks and be scared out of her senses. The advertisement ran as follows:—
On arrival she found rows of depressingly empty chairs and a very small and [illegible] audience—mostly posing psychics and professional healers of a sort. Behind a table decorated with a water-[illegible] and glass and two large volumes
WITH WEIRD PICTURES
on the covers, sat a big, strong man—big and strong enough to eat Aunt Ann if he had had cannibalistic tendencies, but he proved quite tame. Visions of herself going rapidly down the passage with the assistance of his [illegible] somewhat quelled her adventurous spirit, so she touched wood, and sent up a prayer that the fatherly old [illegible] that guarded the door would give her 10 paces start, if the occult forces in the service of the boss Therion gave her away, and compelled her to flee for [illegible] natural. However, all was peace with a capital P, and she stayed to pick up a few points on magic and astral [illegible].
The boss Therion is a big man, about [illegible] years of age with brown hair going bald on the top, and a bushy brown moustache, which he pulled and [illegible] while speaking. He is an intelligent-looking chap, and, though he has some trouble with his h’s, speaks well. He is the last man in the world she would suspect of ascetic of spiritual inclinations.
The proceedings began with
AN INVOCATION
to heathen deities and a large and varied assortment of angels. Aunt Ann confesses she had never heard of them before, and the sounds of their barbaric names were so mysterious and weird that she failed to grasp any except Cherubim and Seraphim.
The next item was the reading of the Message of Master Therion. It was about two weeks long, and very mysterious and occult, but the reader made some lucid explanations. He said that some centuries ago there was an order called the Rosicrucians, which had attained great knowledge of occult things, and established an order called the Order of the Open Door. Some years ago the master Therion had collected all the knowledge of similar secret societies and mystics of all ages, after “going out into the wilderness for six years” had put them in book form. The book was now on the table.
There was a great difficulty, he said, in choosing a name for the new order, and so they had not chosen one, but simply called it the A.A. The letters stood for nothing—the society was simply called the A.A., which our marvelous friend
PRONOUNCED HA. HA.
The A.A. now flourished in England, France, America, and other countries and he was here to explain its teachings and make ready for a Master Therion, who would arrive here after Christmas to establish the order if sufficient inducement offered. He would begin classes for the study of the teachings of the A.A. as soon as there were enough students. Then we suppose the society will flourish as the A.A.S. (Just here we may mention that Aunt Ann consulted her dictionary about the Rosicrucians and found that a Rosicrucian was one of a fraternity who in the beginning of the 15th century, affected an intimate acquaintance with the secrets of nature, and pretended, by the study of alchemy and other occult sciences, to be possessed of sundry wonder-working powers. The A.A.S. is in for a great scheme of progression—she don’t think.)
Continuing the reading of the lengthy paper, the man with the big brown mo, spoke of spiritual influences and progress. All members of the Order of A.A. had for their motto
“DO WHAT YOU WILT,”
even going so far as to have it printed on all their notepaper. “Do what you wilt” did not mean do what you like, but that by faith and will-power one could do what they wilt if they so wilted. The whole explanation of how to do as you wilt was as clear as the mud in the mangrove swamp at the million muddle.
The man with the mo, who continued to read from his books and papers, continued to explain everything. He mentioned that the physical body was now perfect, but the mind was not in such a perfect state. That explained the reason of the war. The masters that controlled the destinies of the universe had decreed progress. Everything must progress. The mind of the world had been sunk in inertia and so the war was necessary. Those that were passing out in the war were progressing at the rate of a thousand years in a week and when they were re-incarnated they would remember all they had passed through. Their minds were like sensitive plates, upon which all their knowledge and experience was recorded. The world was progressing at a terrible speed.
The study of spiritual influence was a most fascinating one, and he was certain that no matter how slow and stupid the inquirer into occult matters was that they became satisfied with small results and left off at the beginning. They became so satisfied with the little knowledge that they
DID NOT DELVE DEEP
in occult mysteries.
The Man with the Mo went on to tell us that delvers into the occult should choose a god-form and concentrate on that. They should keep the god-form before their psychic eyes and concentrate their thoughts on it. They should wear its particular color. He showed us some weird circles in the form of a man in his book and told us how to get the god-form vibrations. It seems that you do this partly by magic signs. You form a triangle with your two thumbs and forefingers, touch your forehead and chest and each shoulder with it, and then jig it up and down in front of your face several times chanting an invocation, something like “Hickory, Dickory Dock,” all the time, and finishing up with a long weird moan. The Man with the Mo showed how to perform the black magic art, and while so working overtime looked more like an escapee from Bedlam than a sane strong man of the twentieth century, but he took himself very seriously and the students of the occult regarded him with much admiring awe.
After the triangle hugger-mugger, we were told to stand up straight, with the arms extended and the palms upwards, and breathe through the nostrils, the mind being concentrated on the god-form. The vibration from the god-form
WOULD BE QUITE HOT
and the person so performing would perspire profusely, and be quite exhausted for a time, but afterwards would be greatly benefited. Everyone that performed this rite correctly would have perfect health.
It was well to choose the most perfect god-form—that of the cross-legged Buddha, or the rigid, upright Egyptian deity. Before beginning these mystic rites it was necessary to recite the Banishing Ritual, thus banishing all elementals and entities from the room. The banishing ritual consisted of swinging your arms ahead of you as if you were over-arm swimming, and saying “Jehovah” with the Hebrew pronunciation “Ye-ho-ah” in a loud, commanding voice. He said it several times, and reminded Aunt Ann of the Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum giant of the Jack and the Bean-stalk nursery story.
He explained that there were dangers in astral [illegible], the danger of the physical body being taken possession of by elementals or entities while the spirit was indulging in astral experiences. To prevent such a catastrophe, you
MUST FIRST BANISH
all the elementals, entities, spooks, and so on from the room by the process and word already mentioned, and then sit yourself down in the same position as your particular god-form. If Buddha, you sit cross-legged; if the Egyptian deity, you sit upright with your legs stiff and the palms of hands on each knee. Then you make two huge five-pointed stars in the atmosphere, beginning at the end m=nearest your shoulders, and these glow like fire, thus warding off elementals and other evil spirits, who can see them, and are unable to reach your body. There your body may sit in perfect safety while you travel where you “wilt.”
Having performed all these mystic rites, you close your eyes tightly, and think of your own body. You build it up in thought-form till it is as perfect as your own body, and then with your physical eyes tightly closed you try to see the objects in your room. It is not advisable to travel till you can see things with your thought-form mystic eyes, for if you do, you will not see things and remember them. It is not advisable to choose
A TOO-PASSIVE GOD-FORM,
for if you do, you are liable to fall asleep and dream, and dreaming is nothing at all like astral travelling. When you can see all the things in your room with your mystic eyes, you can then travel anywhere you like, and your physical body will be perfectly safe while under the charge of the two five-pointed stars.
This concluded the revelation of the occult, and the Man with the Mo asked if anyone had any questions to ask. One woman said that the upright god-form was very tiring to any sufferer with a weak back. The Man with the Mo struggled with the occult question, and then suggested she should try a reclining god-form. There was one with his hand under his head, in a half-recumbent position, so he settled himself down into a Sleeping Beauty attitude, and posed nicely for our benefit. Still, he did not advise a too-comfortable position in case the delver into occult science might fall asleep instead of going
FOR AN ASTRAL FLY.
A man at the back wanted a few words of advice about the five-pointed star (the circle of fire of the black magic art of mediaeval ages), and the banishing ritual for the evil spirits, and then the meeting concluded.
As Aunt Ann left, the fatherly old ager who guarded the door held out his flipper for a small contribution to defray the expenses of the gas, and with a burst of generosity, she donated the price of a milk-shake. She hopes she has given the Man with the Mo a fair dinkum report, and candidly confesses that she is no neophyte. If he had worn a magician’s hat, waved a hand and produced a spook, she would have found the show more entertaining. As it was it was deadly dull, and far from convincing, and there was no magic about his five-pointed stars and similar [illegible]. She had never heard of god-forms or incantations and invocations of heathen deities, so her 20th-century intelligence failed to pilot her [illegible] through the intricacies and general tommy-rot of
MEDIAEVAL WITCHCRAFT.
The whole business seems flat, stale and unprobable. Aunt Ann reckons that, though she now knows how to do the astral fly act, she couldn’t get the art down fine enough to enable her to flutter to the Melbourne Cup. She intends to go into training at an early date however and the landlord is hereby warned that if she doesn’t respond to the knocker some Monday morning he can conclude she has done a flit—an natural flit, of course, nothing so vulgar as t’other sort. |