I can\u2019t recall the number of times I have sat at my computer with a stack of books by my side in the middle of the night, say at 2:45 AM or maybe 4, bursting (silently) with excitement over some intellectual epiphany, some sudden realization or Eureka! moment in which I feel like I have finally cracked open the secrets of the universe. All the questions I have struggled with for years\u2014answered. An entire treatise of occult knowledge and mystical revelation unfolding before my third eye. When you spend most of your time immersed in theological and religious questions, great conversion moments are almost guaranteed to happen with an unsettling regularity, unsurprisingly proportionate to the number of books you read that purport to share some hidden knowledge.<\/p>\n
This doesn\u2019t always mean that such moments stick the following day, when the daylight breaks in through the shuttered window and you try desperately to sleep off the hangover you got from rereading too many passages of The Book of Lies<\/em> in a single evening. More worryingly, the harsh light of day frequently makes you rethink what the point of it all really is\u2014okay, so I felt last night like I discovered the missing link, the connecting tissue that really Explains It All\u2014but does anyone else care? Maybe my spiritual issues are only my spiritual issues. Maybe I should stop positing a \u201cmissing link\u201d at all.<\/p>\n Reader, I have discovered the missing link. It is Frater Achad.<\/p>\n This column explores the intersections between Catholic theology and the Thelemic current, so it was only a matter of time before Frater Achad\u2014mundane name Charles Stansfeld Jones\u2014came up. Prior to the late nineteenth century, most occult and esoteric movements were Christian, many heterodox Catholic\u2014the Elus Cohen of Martinez de Pasqually, the Martinists, the Rosicrucians of the Parisian occult revival, and even many members of the Golden Dawn. In the twentieth century, A.E. Waite, Dion Fortune, and many other figures continued the esoteric Christian current. But Thelema appears to have a built-in bias against Christianity, stemming directly from its founder and from his Aeonic schema, which suggests that the formula of the dying and rising God (the Aeon of Osiris) is now outmoded in favor of the formula of the crowned and conquering child (the Aeon of Horus).<\/p>\n I have tried to show how this is an overly simplistic picture of the relationship between the Christian mythos and Thelema, but it is the story of Frater Achad that really provides the missing link. Achad could be said to be the most prominent Catholic Thelemite to have lived since the reception of the Book of the Law.<\/p>\n This is because, in 1928\u201419 years after first joining the A\u2234A\u2234 as a Probationer\u2014Frater Achad converted to Roman Catholicism.<\/p>\n Achad\u2019s claim to fame as a Thelemite\u2014and the reason he must still be contended with even by orthodox Thelemites who might think his curious researches were mistaken or dangerous\u2014is that he discovered the qabalistic \u201ckey\u201d to the Book of the Law<\/em>, causing Aleister Crowley to rename the book Liber AL vel Legis<\/em> in place of Liber Legis<\/em>, its previous title. Achad detailed this discovery in his magical diary, published later as Liber 31<\/em>. This epiphany caused Crowley to anoint Achad as his magical son prophesized in the Book of the Law<\/em>, and to recognize his claim to the grade of Magister Templi, a \u201cBabe of the Abyss\u201d in the Thelemic system.<\/p>\n Yet by the 1920s, certain publications of Achad\u2019s had caused Crowley to grow disillusioned with his son and heir. Specifically, Achad\u2019s 1922 Q.B.L.; or the Bride\u2019s Reception, <\/em>contained Achad\u2019s experiment with rearranging the paths of the qabalistic Tree of Life. Achad continued this work in two further books, 1923\u2019s The Egyptian Revival <\/em>and 1925\u2019s The Anatomy of the Body of God<\/em>. To put it mildly, Crowley considered such experiments foolhardy.<\/p>\n By this time, Achad was also an active member of the Universal Brotherhood, another esoteric order that purported to share universal religious and philosophical knowledge, a \u201ctrue transcript\u201d of the objective universe. Crowley, and many other occultists, considered the complicated UB system to be a \u201cswindle,\u201d or, worse, a front for the Catholic Church\u2019s infiltration of occult groups (for more on the UB, see the recent article in the O.T.O. anthology Success is Your Proof<\/em>). Founded by a Catholic scholar of comparative religion, Merwin-Marie Snell, many high level members of the UB ended up converting to Catholicism.<\/p>\n Crowley and Achad eventually ceased contact, and Achad was expelled from the O.T.O. in 1936. But Jones never ceased reflecting on his role as Crowley\u2019s magical child, and the insights of Thelema remained a central part of his spiritual world-view. After Crowley\u2019s death, Achad exchanged a voluminous series of letters with Crowley\u2019s executor Gerald Yorke. In April 1948, these letters\u2014which will eventually be published by Starfire<\/a>\u2014\u201cannounced the incoming of the Aeon of Maat, and from this time onwards the correspondence includes material documenting the unfolding of the new Aeon which Jones had detected, and exploring its ramifications and implications.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Crowley\u2019s Thelemic system, an Aeon covers roughly a period of 2,000 years (coinciding with the precession of the equinoxes), and is ruled by a central spiritual idea or formula as well as the god-form that personifies that idea. The Aeon of Horus, announced by Crowley in 1904 with the reception of Liber AL vel Legis<\/em>, is ruled by the crowned and conquering child, the god Horus, and will not end for several thousand more years.<\/p>\n Yet some unorthodox Thelemites, like Achad, have accepted the possibility of a premature dawning of the Aeon of Maat\u2014for example, Kenneth Grant in his Typhonian Trilogies, the Thelemic magical order Ordo Adeptorum Invisiblum, and Nema\u2014whose received text Liber Pennae Penumbra<\/em> and system of Maat magick is perhaps the most influential result of the Maatian speculations. Don Karr\u2019s book, Approaching the Kabbalah of Maat<\/em>, provides the best account of these recent currents in speculative occultism.<\/p>\n Although Achad\u2019s announcement of the Aeon of Maat inspired several important occultist researchers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, his Maatian revelation doesn\u2019t obviously follow from his books, his Catholic conversion, or his involvement with (and eventual leadership of) the UB. One must understand the qabalistic implications of Achad\u2019s 1920s theories to fully grasp the significance of an early Aeon of Truth and Justice\u2014the spiritual ideas personified by the god-form of Maat.<\/p>\n Achad is perhaps uniquely pro-materiality among early twentieth century occultists. Unlike various Gnostics, Neo-Buddhists, and Theosophists of the era, Achad supports a material world that is infused with spirit\u2014one might say sacramentally infused. This goes hand-in-hand with the philosophical realist teachings of the Universal Brotherhood. Significantly, it also fits Achad\u2019s radical qabalistic speculations. Unlike other qabalists, Achad\u2019s complex vision of the primal fall and eschatological restoration of the Tree of Life resembles a process of cosmic fulfillment rather than a myth of transgression and forgiveness. He has this in common with the modernist Catholic theologians who were current in his day. In The Anatomy of the Body of God<\/em>, Achad writes,<\/p>\n Idealism and Materialism must unite and go hand in hand if a new Civilization is to be built up. The Soul of Humanity is the connecting link. There is nothing to be ashamed of in our material bodies, but they would not be of much use without the Spirit and Will which give them Life and motion. On the other hand we should not be so cowardly and selfish as to desire to be re-absorbed into Spirit, as if the whole Creative Plan were a waste of time, and had better never have been started. No! Let us give thanks in our souls for both body and spirit, using both rightly and to the full extent of our power.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Achad\u2019s writings become increasingly oriented toward the immanent fulfillment of the Kingdom of God over the course of the 1920s, a view that would be labeled \u201crealized eschatology\u201d in the terms of Christian theology. Again, from Anatomy<\/em>: \u201cWe must enter upon the heritage of Freedom that has been prepared for us in the Father\u2019s Kingdom upon Earth\u201d; \u201cIn the Name of the True and Living God, let us cease from bloody sacrifice, and start to build a \u2018Living Temple, not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens\u2019\u2014upon Earth.\u201d The preface to the book concludes with the stirring declaration,<\/p>\n There is a place prepared for every one of you, Here and Now. There is a place for everything, when all things shall be put in place. Take up your places in the Kingdom of the Ever-Coming Son, fulfill yourselves, in the fulfillment of the Will of God within you, and show those who are still in darkness without, that there is room for all who are prepared to keep their place, and cease from trying to usurp that of others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Frater Achad\u2019s understanding of the incoming Kingdom of God results from his interpretation of the cosmic processes of Qabalah. The Egyptian god forms in the orthodox Thelemic schema, Isis\u2014Osiris\u2014Horus, correspond to Binah\u2014Kether-Chokmah\u2014and Tiphereth, respectively. Maat completes the sequence of four by representing Malkuth, the Material Kingdom. The Aeons can also be assigned to the four letters of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, IHVH\u2014Osiris (I), Isis (H), Horus (V), with Maat (final H) completing the sequence.<\/p>\n The letters of the Tetragrammaton fulfill a cosmic myth recounted in most books on Hermetic Qabalah. In order to restore the Tree of Life to its pre-Fall state, the fallen Daughter (Heh final) must unite with the Son (Vav) to rise to the level of Heh prime, installing the Daughter\/Malkuth on the throne of Binah, the Mother (Heh prime). As Achad explains in Q.B.L., <\/em>the Mother then \u201carouses the active force of THE FATHER, and these twain being UNITED, all is RE-ABSORBED into THE CROWN.\u201d Thus the eschatological kingdom is realized on earth, Malkuth being united with Kether in fulfillment of God\u2019s plan for creation.<\/p>\n In the Catholic system, this process can be described through the salvation economy of Mary, a Daughter of Israel and child of earth, conceiving the Son, the Christos, by the Holy Spirit, then being united with God the Father in her Coronation as the Mother of Heaven. The Son\u2019s Incarnation thus redeems the material world of Malkuth\u2014represented in microcosm by Mary\u2014 through the inbreaking of the eschatological Kingdom in the event of Jesus Christ. Catholics participate in this reality\u2014the eschaton made present here and now in fulfillment of God\u2019s plan\u2014through the Eucharistic Mass.<\/p>\n Numerous orthodox Thelemites have suggested outlandish theories as to why Frater Achad would ever convert to the Roman Church: insanity, the desire to convert the Church to the Law of Thelema, or being lost in the Abyss as a Black Brother. Yet Achad himself gives a different explanation of his curious conversion:<\/p>\n It was necessary for Achad to be led to the opposite Pillar of the Temple there to learn the mysteries of the R[oman] C[atholic] Church. He became an orthodox member of that Church and received his first communion at Midnight Mass, Christmas, 1928. This step, and this alone, led to the opening of the Initiations and Ordeals which were to follow in accordance with Liber Legis<\/em>. (Jones, letter to Gerald Yorke and Albert Handel, May 6, 1948; cited in Hymenaeus Beta, Prolegomenon to the Second Edition of Aleister Crowley\u2019s Liber Aleph<\/em>).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Achad is referencing here verses 63-67 of chapter III of Liber AL<\/em>:<\/p>\n After coming through these ordeals, Achad was ready to proclaim the dawning of the Aeon of Truth and Justice\u2014the eschatological Kingdom fulfilled on earth, glyphed in esoteric terms by the goddess Maat, glyphed in the New Testament by St. John the Divine\u2019s vision of the New Jerusalem:<\/p>\n Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.\u00a0And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (Revelation 21:1-3)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is the bride\u2019s reception\u2014<\/em>the New Jerusalem come down to earth, the divine united with\u00a0the material world. Achad saw his initiations into this new <\/em>New Aeon as relevant to both the occult community and the Catholic Church: \u201cJones communicated the news of his 1932 Silver Star Ordeal not only to Crowley, but to the Catholic Church as well,\u201d explains Hymenaeus Beta. \u201cHe developed a conviction that the Aeon of Horus was ending, and a new Aeon of Truth and Justice\u2014ruled by the Egyptian goddess Maat (or Ma) was imminent.\u201d<\/p>\n Achad\u2019s conversion allowed him to join in the sacramental life of the Church. This means he also participated in the Eucharist, with his first Mass being the Mass celebrating the Incarnation at Christmas, 1928. The Eucharist is, for Catholics, the Kingdom of God made present here on earth, the eschatological reality breaking into our present moment. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, the Eucharist is \u201ca pledge of future glory,\u201d a foretaste of the heavenly banquet to come (CCC<\/em> 1323).<\/p>\n Like the inbreaking Kingdom of God, rushing in from the future to meet us in the present (see, for example, radical Catholic theologian Edward Schillebeeckx\u2019s God the Future of Man<\/em>), the Aeon of Maat is a \u201cbackwards current,\u201d granting us a vision in the here and now of an age in which \u201cwe all may become something far greater, something which exists in the form of seeds within us in the eternal Now\u201d (Horus\/Maat Lodge FAQ page<\/a>).<\/p>\n Unlike other unorthodox Thelemites, who posit a \u201cdouble current\u201d in which both the Aeons of Horus and Maat are active at once, or those who suggest a premature dawning of the Aeon of Maat to replace that of Horus, my reading of Frater Achad through the lens of the Catholic Mass suggests that the new Aeon of Truth and Justice is <\/em>here in the present at the same time as the \u201cforce and fire\u201d of the Aeon of Horus\u2014sacramentally, in the Eucharist, through the foretaste we receive here and now of the heavenly banquet that is to come. The Daughter is raised to the throne of the Mother, the Father is roused, and the Son of God is born in the midst of the people of earth. As Frater Achad proclaims, \u201cKether is in Malkuth and Malkuth is in Kether.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, check out my new personal blog, The Light Invisible<\/a>, for more pieces on Christian esotericism.<\/em><\/p>\n The Blooming Staff<\/em> is published on bimonthly on Tuesdays here on the Agora; follow it via RSS<\/a> or e-mail<\/a>!<\/p>\n Please use the links to the right to keep on top of activities here on the Agora<\/em><\/a> as well as across the entire Patheos Pagan<\/a> channel.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I can\u2019t recall the number of times I have sat at my computer with a stack of books by my side in the middle of the night, say at 2:45 AM or maybe 4, bursting (silently) with excitement over some intellectual epiphany, some sudden realization or Eureka! moment in which I feel like I have finally cracked open the secrets of the universe. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2733,"featured_media":13398,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[330,604,2138,187],"tags":[857,2139,2355,2357,2356,2313,25,26,861],"class_list":["post-13381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-magick2","category-the-blooming-staff","category-theology-ethics","tag-aleister-crowley","tag-catholicism","tag-charles-stansfeld-jones","tag-eschatology","tag-eucharist","tag-occultism","tag-pagan","tag-paganism","tag-thelema"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/124\/2016\/08\/frater_achad-709x1024.jpg\")
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