THE ARCANE ARCHIVE
	a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining to occult, mystical, and spiritual subjects.

Subject: Spermo-Gnostics and the OTO

                           P.R. Koenig

One day the universe broke into pieces - either caused by a female
aspect of the Creator or due to an intermediary entity between the
Divine and the Profane.

Those who  are happy  with and in the world, and benefit from good
health,  and   who  experience  love  and  satisfaction  in  their
preferred  fields:   seem  not   to  need   the   universe-healing
Gnosticism, which  I believe  is a  religious tool  to  deal  with
unbearable life.

The magician  and the Gnostic live in two worlds at the same time.
But, while the magician tries to use the world beyond, in order to
have power  over this  world here;  the  Gnostic  seeks  a  divine
reality, a  realm within  this world here, which is only a sort of
shadow  world.  Both  the  magician  and  the  Gnostic  feel  that
sexuality might  be the  key or  the door  to other realities; but
they   differ    between   ascetic    and    libertinistic/sensual
orientations. Of  these I  will speak  now. I  will summarize  the
complex Gnostic  traditions but  not their literature, nor compare
their cosmology  in general,  nor their History; I will also go to
modern times, where modern Gnostics probably find both worlds more
real than the ancient Gnostics did.

                            Salvation

Living in  a world which is subjectively felt and experienced as a
"rotten place"  (a Gnostic term), cries out for salvation. The way
this salvation  begins is  with the  material body. It rises up to
higher planes  (e.g. the  emotional  plane  and  the  intellectual
plane), until man reaches the divine place in the Pleroma. That is
fulness to overflowing. This Pleroma, be it IN man or somewhere in
outer space,  is the  Gnostic counterpart  to the "rotten" earthly
place. Two  routes can  be pursued  to leave this rotten place: to
suppress or  avoid it  (the ascetic  concept); or  to dissolve  it
while completely  living it  out (the  sensual way).  On a  higher
plane it  is vice  versa. The  sensual way  leads  to  homeopathic
asceticism: weakening  the evil  whilst indulging  in  it  like  a
necessity. The sensual gnostic embraces sin in order to experience
the decaying  of the  world, and  to rise  as the Phoenix from the
ashes. Sexual  orgies are  sweating out  the  divine  Pneuma/Logos
which rises to the Pleroma. The ascetic way reacts allopathically:
against the  poison of existence it gives ignorance of the body as
a remedy.

The term  I have  introduced above,  the concept  of  "homeopathy"
surprisingly is  used as  a method  often with  the ascetic way of
Gnostic life.  Homeopathy surprisingly  has a  lot in  common with
Gnosticism itself.
Homeopathy and  Gnosticism both  regard the  material plane as the
most unimportant  to man.  Both concepts  seek a  bringing back of
man/humanity in/to  a primitive/archaic state of health/salvation.
This state manifests itself on the highest spiritual/divine plane.
Both,  homeopathy   and  Gnosticism   teach  that  healing  and/or
salvation happens  from Above  to Below and from Inside to Outside
(which reminds  us of  Hermes Trismegistos'  Emerald Table  of the
Rosicrucians and  the Freemasons).  But  while  Gnosticism  offers
salvation/health either  via "Optimum through Maximum" or "Optimum
through Minimum", homeopathy follows the middle path of balance.

The central  point with the ascetic and sensual Gnostics lies with
their concept of Sperm.
It is  the sperm  that contains the Holy Logos which, when in Man,
has to be brought back to the Pleroma. This implies two questions:

1. can women be saved? and,
2. what shall we do with the sperm?


                         The Misogynists

Maybe because  it was  the greediness  of the female aspect of the
creative Entity  that caused  the fall into the profane, it is the
duty   of    the   Man    to   give    the   universe   back   its
completeness/integrity.  On   the  material  plane  the  woman  is
punished with  the  large  wound  between  her  legs.  This  wound
signifies the  place where  primitive man  once was bound with his
own female aspect: the perfect Androgyn, now torn apart. It is the
man's turn  now to  experience the  lust which  broke the universe
apart. Woman  has to  suffer. Only man's sperm transports the Holy
Logos. Women  lack the  prostata and therefore are superfluous for
man's salvation  as long as he does not achieve androgynity. If he
does have  "use" for  the female;  then it is only as a channel to
higher divine  entities. Maybe  he sees some use for her menstrual
blood? When  he is  Christian orientated  (let  us  call  him  the
libertine Gnostic),  he might  use her  blood  as  the  "Blood  of
Christ" and  consume it  as a  "religious nourishment". If he sees
the world  as a  really bad  place, he  avoids having children and
animalistic  flesh-eating  (and  here  we  find  vegetarians).  An
ascetic avoids  having  ejaculations,  even  with  his  wife,  but
directs his sexual energies in Yoga-practises into his head (where
he assumes  is found  the most  direct bridge  to the  Divine). In
order to  achieve Androgynity,  he penetrates  his wife  (avoiding
orgasm) so that she, as well, might benefit from HIS luck.

All the  Gnostic movements,  be they  the old ones or modern ones,
assign salvation  only to  man: the  woman has  to become a man in
order to  enter heaven. The ascetic Gnostics avoid ejaculation and
let the  woman join  in HIS  wonderful ability  to  "produce"  the
Logos; the  libertine Gnostics  use all  of the  woman's gifts  in
order to sweat out the Pneuma.

Well. Our two questions (1. can women be saved? and, 2. what shall
we do  with the  sperm?) cannot be separated. Only man's sperm can
offer salavation and woman has to become man in order to be saved.

Which spermo-Gnostics  are known  today?   Since the  turn of  the
present century,  the most  famous group has organised itself as a
quasi freemasonry  organisazion, called  Ordo Templi  Orientis, in
short: OTO.


                               OTO


Three famous  OTO-protagonists are: its founder, the Austrian Carl
Kellner; the  German Theodor  Reuss and  the notorious Englishman,
Aleister Crowley.  The reader  will find the beliefs and practises
of the OTO(-groups) below.
These modern  Gnostics (and  their sheep)  were sperm-eaters. They
assigned this  to the Holy Logos; and, at least Reuss and Crowley,
did not  like women.  However, while  Reuss' biography  opened his
mind towards  both ascetic  and libertinistic  ways as  a means of
achieving salvation,  Crowley's libertinistic  biography shows  an
individual whose  universe got  smaller each  day, and whose world
was populated  with demons,  which did not dissolve at the darkest
moment in order to give rise to a phoenix.


         The OTO under its founder Carl Kellner, ca. 1895

While Madame Blavatsky warned from Yoga-teachings which are unsain
and disapproved by the "Masters", Kellner teached Hatha Yoga which
included  sexual  exercices  leaned  on  to  the  philosophies  of
Samkhya, Advaita  and Franz  Hartmann. Kellner  was specialised in
Yoga-meditations  aiming   at  experiencing  earlier  incarnations
(Patanjali's Yoga  Sutra). His wife was the Great Goddess. Kellner
himself acted  as Babylonian  Priest. In  his  house  was  a  room
without windows  where the tantric rites took place to prepare the
Elixire, that  is: male  and female  sexual  fluids.  The  pseudo-
templar/freemason  structure  (introduced  apr.  1903  by  Theodor
Reuss) was  not that  important to  Kellner who  worked  with  his
circle withouth order system.


                   The OTO under Theodor Reuss

After Kellner's  death in  1905, the OTO-system now consisted of 7
pseudo-freemasonic degrees,  opening  the  7  Chakras,  while  the
sexmagical VIII.  and IX. were "given" without any rituals. The X.
only labelled the country's leader.
The surviving  papers of  Reuss show  that he  continued the Yoga-
teachings of  Kellner but  also introduced Manichaeism. The sexual
organs were  meant to  be divine  and a Holy Mass was the symbolic
act of  re-creating the  universe. The  sexual energies  should be
stored,  together   with  correct  breathing  both  leads  to  the
transmutation of  the energy  in  order  the  Magician  becomes  a
Clairvoyant  (in  German:  "Seher").  Since  Reuss  spoke  of  the
"Hermetic Brotherhood  of Light"  as the central and secret source
of the  teachings it  is easy  to assume  that  he  followed  P.B.
Randolphs teachings  of using drugs in order to reach illumination
while having  sexual intercourse. Randolph also gave techniques to
focus the  sexual energies  upon  a  wish,  a  sort  of  an  inner
photography which represents the desire to be fulfilled.
Reuss was  not that fond of masturbating (the VIII. under Crowley)
and called  it "Selbstpeinigung"  (causing pain  to  oneself)  and
"widernatuerlich"  (against   nature)  [see   forthcoming   Reuss-
hypertextlink  at  this  URL].  Nevertheless  he  saw  the  Lingam
(phallus) as creator of the universe.
It seems that Reuss worked along homosexual or at least homoerotic
tantric lines  (mutual touching  of  the  phalli,  the  XI.  under
Crowley) but  the central  secret of  his  OTO  was  built  around
Richard Wagner's  "Parsifal". The  spear became  the phallus while
the Gral,  of course,  was the  vagina which contained the "Grals-
speise" (the  nourriture of  the Gral,  that is, sperm and vaginal
fluids).
Reuss' OTO-system  was leaned  on an  utopian communistic  society
where the  Mother (with  references to  the christian  Maria) took
central position  in social  and sexual life, called "community of
Neo-Christians". [see forthcoming Reuss hypertextlink at this URL]


                  The OTO under Aleister Crowley

After Reuss'  death in 1923, Crowley made an entreprise out of the
OTO's secret.  There is a surviving plan to promote the "Elixir of
Life" (under the name "Amrita", the Magical Medicine)) and to heal
patients according to OTO methods, that is: to heal them with yoga
and sexual  fluids. Crowley used the OTO (as he used other real or
ghostly orders)  as a  play, a  publishing house  and found  it  a
suitable instrument  to extract the "gold" (be it alchemistical or
sexual) from  the pockets  of his  followers. To  that purpose  he
pretended never having had sex out of sheer lust. It always should
have been  a "duty", a "prayer to God" (Aiwaz, Baphomet or Sheitan
- there  are many  more disguises);  in consequence  a  prayer  to
himself whom he identified with an erected penis.

Crowley's VIII.  unveiled the "pupil" that masturbating on a sigil
of a  demon or  meditating upon the image of a phallus would bring
power or  communication with  a (or  one's own) divine being/Super
Ego. The  IX. labelled  heterosexual intercourse  where the sexual
secrets were  sucked out of the vagina and when not consumed (when
considered holy)  put on  a sigil to attract this or that demon to
fullfill the  pertinent wish/order.  In his  "Emblems and  Mode of
Use" Crowley  describes the  method of  how to  smear sperm  on  a
talisman/sigil in  order to  attract for example money. This paper
is so  secret  that  its  possession  is  equal  with  having  the
IX.degree OTO. There is no other proof.

Crowley played  around with  different sexmagickal methods. One of
the OTO's secrets is the adoration of the idol Baphomet of the old
Templars.  While   the  splinter-group,  the  Fraternitas  Saturni
definitely tried (and still tries) to incarnate Baphomet in flesh,
in the  OTOs the  subject  is  not  that  clear.  Crowley  advised
selection of a female partner. The magician and his mate "copulate
continuously" until  impregnation results: a homunculus. [see link
to "Ein Leben fuer die Rose" at this URL]
For his Holy Mass he gave a recipe using blood and sperm. In order
to avoid  a HIV-infection  the current  American  OTO  (the  1977-
founded "Caliphate") advises to bake the host with 160. Fahrenheit
in the oven.
In the  XI., the homosexual degree, one identifies oneself with an
ejaculating  penis.   The  blood   (or  excrements)   attract  the
spirits/demons while the sperm keeps them alive.


                               -+-

The OTO  was, and  still is,  a secret  part of  the  ethnological
underground of civilisation. At the bottom of that dark well, lies
only a mouthful of sperm. Because this fact is too simplistic, and
maybe   to    shameful;   it    is   wrapped   into   many   "word
shells"/euphemisms. While  the ancient  Gnostics  headed  directly
towards  the   religious  technicalities  of  dealing  with  sperm
(avoiding ejaculation  or consuming the sexual fluids); the modern
Gnostics promote  innumerable traditional  ways,  in  Eastern  and
Western traditions,  of salvation  outside spermo-Gnosticism; only
to hide  the sperm  in the  inner sanctuary of their organisazion.
Also the  crack in  the universe  is attempted  to be  healed with
sacrifices, liturgies,  chants, and consecrations. But the mystery
has gone  astray: there is too much materialism in the OTO-groups;
and this  tears the  seeker down  to earth,  and hinders  him from
becomimg one with the Divine.
After many  years of  paying membership  fees;  and  after  having
bought their  beloved leaders'  books; and even after they already
know the  "secret": one day an OTO-member may discover by accident
or suffering  experience, that the order's scheme of salvation has
not brought  Gnosis. Because  the OTO  has such  a  complex  grade
structure, taking  many years  to complete  and to  pay  for,  and
blends the  simple Gnostic  doctrines of technical psychology with
all the  other religious  tools and  with the  biography of  their
charismatic leaders;  the organisazion itself becomes an intensely
"rotten place". Unfraternal behaviour, inflated egos, lying, game-
playing, subterfuges and hysteria; cause endless splits, in-fights
and even  court proceedings. All this compounded together can make
the OTO an almost unbearable place.
Although all  the splintered  OTO-groups as  a whole  are  "rotten
places," where  the seeker  can easily  enter  into  the  Pleroma;
Gnosis does  not happen  there, because these "rotten places" have
changed from Gnostic places into psychological projection screens,
where the  seeker throws  his image  of his Holy Father upon, i.e.
Crowley. The sexual revolution of lust and Gnosis has deformed and
degenerated into  psychological ruptures.  Gnosis has  become Dia-
gnose which  neither brings  homeopathic (sensual)  nor allopathic
(ascetic) salvation.  Vice versa  on a  lower plane:  only ascetic
seekers who  practise homeopathy  (outside the  OTO) and libertine
quasi-Gnostics who practise allopathy.


                  Sperm as homeopathic medicine?


The Gnostic  and the homeopath try to bring man back to the divine
order in/of  the universe. The Gnostic seeks immediate presence of
the Divine  while the  homeopath seeks  the most balanced order of
the individual  with the  divine universe.  Hippocrates said  that
illness comes  from the  Gods; that  is, from  above; and that the
earthly world  can be regarded as wounded God. Well, some Gnostics
now see  the sperm  as  universal  medicine  to  heal  everything.
Because of this fact, and also because during my researches on the
OTO-Phenomena, I  have met  several  ascetic  spermo-Gnostics  who
practised homeopathy,  I will  now try  to discuss the homoepathic
aspect of sperm-eating.

It is my opinion, that, even when one sees sperm as the vehicle of
the Logos,  it could  not be used as a homeopathic remedy, because
the similarity  of the  homeopathic remedy to the similarity of an
ill patient  is based  on the total and individual completeness of
symptoms and  on the  peculiarity of  a superior illness/disorder.
Logos as  a homeopathic  remedy would,  by homeopathic definition,
dissolve Logos.
In order  that sperm could act as a remedy, it must first become a
remedy, which  it is  NOT as  a substance.  It should primarily be
treated in  a homeopathic  way so  that it  takes on  a  different
nature on  a higher  level where  it might  take  effects  on  the
patient's  superior  disorder/illness.  This  homeopathic  way  is
called potenciation.  The substance  itself is going to be thinned
out far  over the  point where scientists might find any molecules
of the substance, and at the same time, the product is going to be
hit or shaken.
As yet,  no homeopath has found a scientific explanation for this,
but  homeopathic-medical   experience  showed,  that  this  action
transforms a  material  substance  into  an  energetic,  that  is,
"healing" state,  which reminds  somewhat of the Christian concept
of transubstantiation. But what is the Gnostic use of such, since,
in  Gnostic  belief,  the  substance  itself  contains  the  Logos
already? And  what about  all the  human energetic  aspects,  e.g.
predispositional illnesses like syphilis or HIV? What is caused by
a potencialised HI-virus? This is a question which is not answered
by the homeopathic scientists themselves.
Nevertheless I have met homeopaths who would use sperm as they use
other human  substances; for  example urine or blood or pathogenic
agencies. But sperm as homeopathic medicine should not be regarded
as an in-bringing of the Logos. The use of homepathic sperm should
depend on  the total  and individual completeness of symptoms that
sperm (be  it potencialised  or not)  would cause  by a " healthy"
individual. These  side-effects could  then be  used  to  dissolve
similar symptoms of an "ill" patient.

The question  arises as  to the  practise by  some OTO-members who
bake a  host consisting  of sperm  and vaginal  fluids in order to
destroy the  HI-virus. What  effect does  heat have on the Gnostic
Logos? Others put their sperm into a mouthful of brandy to make it
more tasty. Spiritus Sanctus?
What about  all those women who are forced by their men to swallow
his sperm.  Should these  suppressed women  not be  more free than
their suppressors? Can these women really not be saved?

Obviously the crack in the universe is still open. Christians like
other religions  await a  kind of apocalypse or place of salvation
beyond this  world, beyond  the open gap between earth and heaven,
for which ascetic and libertine Gnostics try to build a bridge.



               You have not heard the last of the spermo-Gnostics.

C by P.R. Koenig August 1996