Local Body Culture Local Body Spotlight

Local Body Events and Practices: Pandemic Edition

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

I wanted to share some things on my radar from various local bodies.

Gnostic Mass – Pandemic style

Gnostic Mass Liber XVWe have one local body that can celebrate the mass and then share it via video, most local bodies don’t have enough people co-located together to do that. But local bodies are still focusing on our central rite.

Blazing Star Oasis  normally had mass celebrations on Sunday evenings. They are currently facilitating EGC related discussion. At a recent session, they discussed Crowley’s comments on the portions of Liber AL from which the Priestess’ speech from behind the veil is taken.
They are also looking at ways to incorporate group meditations or guided visualizations into various aspects of the Gnostic Mass.
Thelesis Oasis is doing “Dramatic Readings of Liber XV” and broadcast via a Zoom group.
They have a Priestess and Priest working together at home while a Deacon works from Thelesis’ stand alone space in Philadelphia as he lives a few blocks away!
To make their dramatic reading more visually interesting they have pulled together Mass equipment from around the house. Funny the things you’ll find around occultists’ homes!
They’re doing these every two weeks, on Saturdays at 1PM EDST. The next one will be Saturday May 9.
(Note from the editor: have you seen any of the youtube videos with symphonies playing alone at home, but together? I love seeing this applied to our Gnostic Mass. Very creative!)

Other News

Thelesis Oasis is holding online events including a recent lecture by Frater Lux Ad Mundi, “The Structure of the OTO” which reviewed the Constitution of the OTO and compare the written document with what modern day members actually experience. No secrets were discussed of course, but there were still plenty of surprises.
All of their events are being recorded and released through their YouTube channel and to their patrons on Patreon.
Blazing Star Oasis is currently hosting online events three times a week.   They have been pleasantly surprised by the number of attendees at events, and their generous donations and contributions.  It has been encouraging to see how many people have been able to make it out to these events.   Under normal circumstances BSO holds classes every Tuesday evening.  They’ve now transferred that schedule online.  Currently they are running a Book of Lies reading and discussion group and also an extended series on ancient and modern forms of Gnosticism.  They’ve also started up a Friday night study group on Carl Jung’s Red Book, which has been quite popular.
Star Sapphire Lodge has developed an affiliate membership program but they’re calling it a Class Pass. I only knew that term from yoga type classes but the term seems to resonate better than “affiliate membership”.
As they started planning out an online schedule in response to the pandemic, they initially only thought about how to keep the local body connected. But they had an uptick in email subscriptions and received an inquiry from a non-initiate that sparked a bigger idea. The email inquiry was from someone wanting to pay dues and wanting to get plugged into the community even if it couldn’t be face-to-face yet.
That was the impetus for the Class Pass. Subscribing to it for $22/month gets you access to up to 2 events/week!
If you want a Class Pass, you can sign up here:
https://starsapphire-oto.org/membership/
Since launching on April 8, they have 11 subscriptions who are mostly non-initiates.
Star Sapphires use of technology will be featured in an upcoming post.

Local Events (that we can all attend these days!)

Blazing Star Oasis calendar
Thelesis Oasis calendar
Star Sapphire calendar
Love is the law, love under will.

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