Dear Grant et al
That's such an informative reply, thank you - could i repost that in my
newsletter "Mandrake Speaks"
where i have a comment on the current issues which i'm told is
reasonably objective?
Mogg
ps: the current issue also has a some notes on the use of the term
"pagan" -
that may be of interest to
to those on another thread. - To Caroline i'd recommend a book called
"Moses the Egyptian" by Jan Assmann for some interesting data on the
magical use of "Moses" in Roman Egypt - which is provides a good reason
why maybe Crowley
shouldn't have substituted "Ankh-Afner-Khonsu" for "Moses" in the
opening prayer.
that i'm told is reasonably objective Potts wrote:
> Greetings Mogg,
>
> mandrake wrote:
>> I just wonder - maybe its none of my business - whether there is some
>> internal mechanism , whereby you can bring your leadship to account -
>> and if you are able to talk about that?
>
> Although I've heard OTO members put out different interpretations, I
> myself believe, and have had members of US Grand Lodge confirm, that
> the only "secrets" within OTO are those directly related to
> initiations. So, I consider myself free to talk about anything but
> the specific contents of initiations, and perhaps specific
> confidential bits of information I may be privy to that would be a
> violation of another persons privacy--but the latter is just basic
> ethics.
>
> So, yeah, I can address your question. There really is no direct
> mechanism within OTO for the general membership to hold the leadership
> accountable. Ostensibly, they could rally others within the higher
> grades to take up their cause, but that's pretty much it. Lacking
> that, the only recourse a member unhappy with actions not directly
> related to them has one course--leaving. In this way, OTO is truly
> hierarchical, and I wouldn't want to suggest otherwise. When I made
> my point earlier I only trying to suggest that it is not monolithic
> (just as the Catholic church is not really monolithic despite its
> centralization around the Vatican). My own observation has been that
> members within the lower grades who have issues with the leadership's
> actions usually are able to gain a voice in policy, if at all, through
> informal channels, as there is no formal channel for doing so.
>
> Now, if a member feels that they have a grievance that relates
> directly to them, there are formal channels for addressing that
> through an Ombudsman's office, at least within US Grand Lodge. So, if
> you feel directly harmed, you can seek to bring the leadership to
> account for that through specific formal channels. But if you simply
> disagree with the direction, all you can really do is make your
> disagreement known.
>
> One potential exception, of course, is the office of the
> revolutionary, whose job it is to depose the current sovereign within
> a grand lodge. So, if one is in strong disagreement, one could
> potentially secretly join the cause of the revolutionary. There are
> supposed to be two revolutionaries within any grand lodge. I think US
> Grand Lodge is the only lodge that currently has an appointed
> revolutionary (there is only one, and it is a recent appointment), and
> the identity of that revolutionary is secret. Based on my
> conversations and interviews, I'd say that some members do seem to
> hold the belief that if they are in strong disagreement with the
> present leadership, it is not merely their right, but their duty, to
> try to topple that leadership--either from without or within. I'd
> have to go back into my notes and transcripts to really get specifics
> on this--I don't have time for that kind of detailed work, but this is
> one of the questions I do hope to address in formal writing in the
> future.
>
> Let me add, though, that my own knowledge is primarily based on local
> body participation and observation of actions on the grand lodge level
> in the United States. I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the
> specific workings of the International Leadership or about other grand
> lodges. When I set out my project as a researcher, I constrained
> myself to the specifics of looking at the order on a local body level,
> and really only concerned myself with even grand lodge issues as they
> affected the local body. Of course, I have my own knowledge of those
> workings because I've been a member for quite some time and because I
> work as editor of Agape, the US Grand Lodge newsletter.
>
> I hope that helps address your questions. The institutional mode of
> management is definitely one of my areas of interest, and I hope to
> specifically address in my future writing some of how members
> understand the hierarchical structure of the order to integrate with
> the seemingly individualist ethos of Thelema. Again, though, a
> responsible account of that requires a kind of detailed work I won't
> be able to do for some months.
>
> Regards,
> Grant
>
>
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