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Moonchild: A Dream Analysis By Fra. O.L.L. | |
Page 2 
Our story begins with Lisa la Giuffria who is a narcissistic young aristocrat by marriage who spends her life pal-ing around with a modern dancer artiste. It is her birthday and Cyril Grey shows up at the ending of her party. He is a man of mystery who wears his head shaved bald except for a topknot and is known as an artist, "But no one knows what his art is." There is a short violent seduction and then Cyril heads off to Paris. Lisa follows and there in Cyril's studio, meets Simon Iff, a British Modern Taoist Master. They are attacked by the Black Lodge and Lisa is initiated into a Thelemic Order. Here she meets a variety of characters, but most importantly a powerful yet silent Buddhist adept named Mahathera Phang. Lisa is encouraged to undertake a great experiment of giving physical birth to a Lunar Elemental Soul. She and Simon dub this project 'The Butterfly Net'.Meanwhile, the black lodge master, a man named Douglas who is a barely veiled image of M. Mathers, plots to get Cyril who he hates more than anyone in world. This is because Cyril had joined his black lodge and then taken action to rip it apart at the seams when he recognized that it was a black lodge. Cyril and Lisa escape to the Order chapter house in Capri, but Douglas' evil magick causes the wreck of a train and kills one of his own men. In the chapter house Cyril and Lisa begin to set up their Butterfly Net with the help of the initiates and adepts of the chapter. Lisa is to be dedicated entirely to the Moon. She meditates on the moon, eats only moon food, is allowed only the company of women, has moons and moon-like patterns appearing on her clothes, etc. Meanwhile, Cyril works with one of the able brothers of the chapter to thwart the black lodge, which has sniffed them out. Douglas has sent two competent lackeys and one incompetent black adept to undertake the mission. The incompetent adept, named Arthwait, seems to be a fairly rent veil for the person of A.E. Wait. In short order, one of the competent lackeys is killed by a rebound of his own spell. The black lodge takes a step back to plan their next move. Meanwhile, Lisa has come to the period of her cycle when she is most likely to become pregnant. Cyril with the help of the whole house creates a dramatic ritual re-enacting the rape of Diana by Pan. Diana is played obviously by Lisa and Pan by Cyril and though it's not specified I think they used real sperm rather than stunt sperm because it is clear that she has conceived. They calculate by some unknown means that it will be three months until it is likely that the soul will incarnate into the fetus. If A.C. had left his "scientific" method for this we could put a lot of Choice, Right to Life nonsense to bed. Ah well, another missing piece of ancient wisdom. During this time Lisa, who is now named Iliel, is constantly sung to of the moon and is kept in bed concentrating on the Moon and drowsing and doing invocations of the moon and generally just mooning about. To keep things interesting, though, the black lodge has brought down Dr. Victor Vesquit, who is the "most celebrated necromancer of his age." Dr. Vesquit who is a representation of Dr. William Wescott the third chief of the original G...D... Now Vesquit had been brought in to conjure the spirit of the lackey who'd died earlier so that they might know how it was that he was killed and so that he might show the black magickians the weaknesses in the Butterfly Net's defenses. The horrific preparations for this working are given in some detail. However, back in the Butterfly Net the spell is working. Lisa/Iliel is daily in contact with the moon and begins to have detailed experiences that involve moon images and direct contact with Diana, Goddess of the Moon. The Necromantic work is done and the soul of the lost man is conjured. But the work calls forth one of the White Adepts who encloses the Black working in a Harporcratic cone of silence. The current itself kills Arthwait, Visquit sees the error of his ways and destroys himself. Only the remaining lackey who knows little of magic but is the site officer for Turkish Intelligence in Paris survives. His name is Abdul Bey and he is doing this for love, because he believes that he loves Lisa/Iliel. Having suffered this defeat Douglas recalls his forces so that he may plan his next attempt. While Douglas schemes the time for the in-dwelling of the soul comes and Lisa/Iliel is given a great vision of the soul who will come into the fetus that she is carrying. The Butterfly Net has worked and now Cyril and Lisa can get down to just waiting for the baby to come. However, having so contacted the moon Lisa/Iliel is not just free to go. She goes first through a period of bitterness. And then she finds herself spending a great deal of time out upon the astral during her daily meditations in a landscape drawn from the Tarot Trump, The Moon and in the company of a mysterious old woman. Together they plot to invade the inner sanctuary of the adepts on Walpurgis Night. At this time back in Paris, Douglas has hit upon another plan. He will create a sympathetic magical bond by having Abdul Bey and Douglas' own wife act out the marriage and then perform an abortion on his wife bringing the pregnancy to an end. The infernal operation takes place in the secret sub-cellar of a disreputable Paris bar and whore house. All is going well until during the actual surgical operation Douglas' wife dies during the opening of her womb, a procedure performed on the alter without the benefit of anesthesia. But in her last act she declares her love for Douglas and so ruins the hateful spell. Walpurgis Night comes and Lisa/Iliel enters into the Holy of Holys astrally and observes that the adepts of light are arranged in threes and that each of these threes is bound into a great web of light which extends into infinity. She leaves this astral journey changed and at peace, but the profess house is anything but since the great power that is building up has them all acting wanting to act out. In Paris, Douglas begins his next ploy and from this we can understand that although he may be a black magickian, a drunk, a whore-master, and beneath contempt at least he retains the virtue of tenacity. This time he sends Abdul Bey and an old woman named Cremers to attack the profess house in Capri. The nature of the attack is simple. The new confederate, who is a deformed old woman of pure evil, lures Lisa/Iliel out of the house and the magickal circle of protection. And Abdul Bey, whom Lisa/Ileil had met and danced with at an Embassy ball it turns out, sweeps her off her feet and into his yacht. The next day finds Simon Iff at the profess house in Capri and Cyril reveals that this project has been a blind all along to attract Douglas' attention. While the Master of the Temple performed the same experiment and brought into the world several children who carried the highest form of elemental souls. So that though all is lost nothing is lost. World War One has begun and Simon Iff has gotten Cyril a posting as an intelligence officer to the British forces in France. Cyril leaves immediately. On Abdul Bey's yacht Lisa gives birth to a daughter, which she doesn't give a damn about. Hence the girl is taken to America by the evil old woman. There is a brief exchange between Douglas and Cyril in the Streets of Paris. Cyril casts a horrible spell upon Douglas, who turns out to be a German spy. The saga ends with Cyril saving the day for the British and French by understanding the psychology of his opponents, while Douglas ends up by the side of the road with his tongue torn out and his entrails chewed upon by dogs. Lisa attempts a reconciliation with Cyril but he sends her to the U.S. to find the Moonchild and help her and Abdul Bey turns from darkness to light and join the holy order that Cyril and Simon Iff are members of as a probationer. And Cyril is left with a vision both holy and terrible in our author's words: "Once again tears gathered in the magician's eyes; he understood, more deeply than he had ever done, the Sorrow of the Universe. He saw how utterly incompatible are all our human ideals with the Laws of Life." -(Crowely, 1929, 334)
And we are left with the only person who understands this vision, the Mahathera Phang.
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