|
SMITH'S WEEKLY Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 29 November 1924
Sydney's Temple of Love
Will it be built at Roseville? First High Priest in our Midst Will Sydney’s Love Temple be at Roseville?
Two weeks back, “Smith’s Weekly” predicted a Love Temple for Sydney. The story was then told of the pernicious doctrines of the debased cult, “The Temple of the Orient.”
Master mind among devotees of the system of immorality is Aleister Crowley, author of “The Equinox,” which has been dubbed in a court of law the “most lascivious and libidinous book that has ever been published in the United States.”
Will the High Priest of Sydney’s Temple be Frank Bennett, 15 Emmett Street, North Sydney? Bennett claims to be the representative in Australia of Aleister Crowley and his Priest in Sydney. He offered one of “Smith’s” Secret Service Men ten volumes of “The Equinox” for 25 guineas. And will the Assistant High Priest to the rites of Priapus and Pan be a country policeman?
All these intriguing possibilities derive from an interview between Smith’s man and Bennett.
Let the Secret Service Man tell his own story: Bennett looked a man of about 50. In his boarding-house front room he affected a corduroy smoking jacket and a strong pipe. “I am the Australian representative of Aleister Crowley and his pries in Sydney,” he said.
“Ours is a higher branch of Freemasonry. That order only has 33 degrees. We go much further than that. For instance, I’m a 96 degree man.
There’s a lot of ritual, of course, but it is not committed to books. It is the old Egyptian magic. So far as I’m concerned I don’t need any ritual now. I make it up myself. I am a high priest and have my own temple. All of us when we are sufficiently advanced can be our own priests.
I have been with Crowley since I was 27, and I’m no chicken now. I first met him in 1905, and spent time with him in Sicily, France, and Germany.
I am not a Christian. I have no time for Christians.
What is the name of the order to which you belong? I asked.
“The A. A.” Bennett replied.
“Anything to do with the A and A Co., Newcastle?”
“Oh no. That’s John Brown’s show. ‘A’ is the Hebrew Aleph, meaning the beginning. The first A is the beginning, so’s the second, so that A. A. means ‘back to the beginning’—our motto.
ALL MEN ARE GODS
I preach that all men are gods. I got that from the bible, which is the biggest book on magic. God said, “Ye are Gods.” I believe there is a divine presence and that His all-seeing eye is ever upon us.
I ALSO BELIEVE THAT I AM A GOD AS WELL AS THE DIVINITY
Men are Gods, no matter how wicked so-called Christians may consider them. A man from the race-course, be he the biggest gambler under the sun, is a god, a superman. Every man who has daring and courage is a superman, a man of god. Every strong man is a superman, a god. No man need be any- thing but strong.
I would sooner have a man as student who is not well educated. He will make a superman in quicker time than a well educated man. The trouble with a person of education is he has the power of reason developed too strongly, and that is no good at all.
To be a superman the student must dismiss reason from his mind and obey implicitly what I teach him. He must so subordinate reason that it will become subservient to the sub-conscious mind, and so the spirit within him will be given free rein.
The trouble with us is that we have things which have fettered us, but have retained one—fear. It is only fear that makes people go to church. They are afraid of the hereafter. We fear God, not realizing we are God ourselves.
Once we get our minds to obey our will and banish fear of consequences then we begin to realize that ‘whatever a man thinketh in his heart that shall he become.’ I myself can become anything I wish simply by exercising the silent force of will.
It is simply this: I have so identified myself with my sub-conscious or spirit self that all fear has gone from me, nothing is denied me. So it will be with my students.
Once a student has realized what he can do by cultivating the subconscious self, new sensations are ever open to him. Life is filled to overflowing with pleasure. Life is his, with all its abundances, for knowing how to live, he stands among the Holy Ones.
Two years ago a sergeant of police, I think from , came to me, thinking I was a fraud. I had a long talk with him, and the outcome of it was that he became one of my students. He is now very far advanced, and has his own temple, of which he is the priest. He also has a good number of students.
BACK TO THE BUSH
I am moving from here very soon. I have built a little place out in the bush at Roseville, where I intend to spend all my spare time in ritual. Being so high up in the order, I will have to compose my own ritual.
About two years ago I advertised for students. The response was so great I have had more than I could really deal with. I charge £2/2/- for the course, which is very short, and the students, if they do exactly what I tell them, will become supermen.”
“Would you take me as a student?” I asked.
Bennett hesitated and said, “Have you ever studied Theosophy?” I replied in the negative. “Them, “ he said, “I am afraid you would not make a good student. I would not advise you to take it on.
You would want to reason too much. I like students who would really follow my teaching so closely reason would have to be left to one side.”
Bennett was insistent I would not be suitable. Before dismissing me he explained that he was working on the Blue Flush outfall sewer. As this did not seem to remove my disappointment, Bennett then said, “I will give you a set of these books, they will help you to understand what we are and what we do.”
Unfortunately for any hopes “Smith’s” secret service man may have entertained of “becoming a superman for £2/2/-“ Bennett only gave him 3 vols. of the series of 5. Forever now, moreover, he must be denied the Crowley key to “Divination, Clairvoyance, Intuition, and Inspiration”—part 4 of the series.
COMPOUND OF DOCTRINES
A consideration of parts 1 to 3, however, reveals a strange compound of the doctrine and practices of Coue, Mesmer, Braid, and Bennett. Coue’s “Day by day, in every way, I get better and better” appears in at least three variations. To cure toothache “or other pain” simply pass the hand over affected areas, the pain becoming less and less intense.
From the outset, however, there is a very definite effort made to break down normal attitudes to normal things. This is the first lesson:
The reasoning mind must be set aside or held in check. Should anyone “get benefit. . . even from any special drug,” he “should continue such treatment.”
Lesson 2 suggests the discredited Abrams conception of life and disease. Its manifest object, however, is to deal another blow at revealed religion. In an involved explanation of the “life force of the spirit” we are told: “This spirit is God, so we have God chasing himself through the universe.”
Lesson 3 gets genuinely interesting. The student is here definitely told: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”
“To be unafraid and unashamed is godlike.”
Meantime the clergy are compared most unfavourably with business men. While members of the Stock Exchange and bookmakers are elevated to a higher hierarchy still. Presumably Messrs. Tye, Corteen, and Godby would make a newer and better Trinity.
The neophyte is seriously enjoined to “experiment with” strong drink and other temptations, ostensibly “to discover the extent of his power to resist them.” “He can then say to the pure all things are pure.”
It’s certainly a fine religion for anyone working on a sewer. |