Hard copying manuscripts

In the good old days before the advent of the personal computer and the publishing of the Golden Dawn documents by Regardie, a member of Golden Dawn had to hand copy all the documents they wanted a copy of. It was simple. You filled out the form and the lodge (Order) loaned you the master copy of a document (ritual, lesson, address, flying roll, etc.) for a specified length of time, and you sat down and hand copied it.

It was slow and tedious, even in the days when people were still used to doing things this way. After doing it a couple of times, one begins to sympathize with the monks who did this for a living before the printing press was invented. One understands the marginal comments of relief, and curses uttered when someone damaged or stole a book.

And it is a thing of the past. Yet there are times that even today it serves a purpose.

I have personally ended up typing rituals and lessons out of books (for me, having something in Word makes my studies easier, especially the type of studies that one does in ZAM and beyond); it is tedious even now that I am better at typing. Despite the difficulty (I started out as a "Biblical typist"--"Seek and ye shall find"), it is worthwhile doing.

There are things I would have never noticed if I won't have been typing them up into Word. "Did he really mean to say this? And if so, why? What would be the point of doing it like that?"

Maybe I am the only one that needs to approach the material like this. If so, I apologize to those who brought the Revised (Three Officer Version) Neophyte Ritual.

There are some who consider the price tag on that book to be too high. And it is if you already belong to a lodge that has enough members to do the version that Regardie published. But there are some students of Golden Dawn who live nowhere near a functioning lodge, and do not know enough people to petition for a Warrant to establish one. It is for them that the modified ritual is meant for.

And I want them to type it into Word. I don't want the book to meet the photocopier, and I don't want numerous copies to be printed out UNLESS someone took the time to hand copy (AKA type) it. After they do that, I figure that they are going to run off copies for the three other people that they gather to work the ritual. At that point, I don't care.

The ritual is meant to be used. And considering that I am not personally there, I did what I could to make sure that some of the lessons that I learned would pass onto them. One of which is that handcopying a text helps you actually read what is on the page--not what you think is on the page, but the actual words that are there. The book is purposely expensive to make sure that it is easier for someone to type it up than it is for the other three to spend that much money on copies of the ritual.

And besides the ritual (as are all Golden Dawn rituals) is an "open document." It is subject to change as it is used. Over the years, the ritual evolved from the original version of it. I expect the same to happen as new groups of people start to use it. Each of us brings something new to the tradition, and our footnotes and comments should make their way into the texts of our tradition.

[Updated: June 21, 2013--Changed the link for the Three Officer version of the 0=0 ritual from the Lulu sales page to the Smashwords sales page.]

Some stuff is going to have to wait...

Some of the stuff that I need to do is just going to have to wait because I am too tired to do a proper job of it. Sorry for any inconvenience that this causes anyone. I was so tired that I almost fall asleep in class yesterday, this is how tired that I am. And the announcement that I had to send to the BT membership and the creation of the one poll (concerning the mass meeting in November) proved to me that I need to take the day off--yes, it was that bad (I rewrote it three times before getting it right, or at least acceptable).

Did some work on website

Did some work on the Bast Temple website today. Started to work on the Microcosm of Man page; it is basically the standard lecture plus a few minor notes about it. I thought about finishing the page tonight, but I am getting fuzzy around the edges. I should have it completed by this time next week--I hope.

[Updated: June 21, 2013--updated the Bast Temple link to the current official site.]

Worked on the lodge's website.

Well, I worked some on the lodge's website today. Added some more of the material from the Z3, including the Sign of the Enterer. It has been slow going, considering that I am doing this between regular writing and college (classes and homework, oh how it piles up). It didn't help that I couldn't access the site the last couple of days. But it is progress.

[Edit--June 21, 2013--removed dead link to the old website. The current official website is the Bast Temple blog.]

Outage continues

Well, according to OfficeLive, they can get to the website just fine. In the meanwhile, I cleaned out all my cookies, and shut off all of my protective software, and still can't get to the site. Last time, I checked the message "Server not found" meant that the server was not found. It is not how I wanted to spend my birthday weekend.

As I said before, sorry for the inconvenience (unless they are right and it is just me having the problem).

Site outage

The Bast Temple website currently seems to be experiencing a temporary problem originating with the hosting service. Sorry for any inconvenience that this causes.

What?! Me?! An authority?!

Earlier this week (Monday) on my way into the Microeconomics class, a student (who was hoping to get a late admission) thought that I was the professor, rather than the student that I actually am.

Personally, I find such inicidents alarming. They might be amusing if it wasn't for the frequency that such inicidents occur in my world. Considering how often I am mistaken for places that I don't, or for being an expert in a subject that I barely understand, I occasionally find myself wondering why it happens.

My latest theory is that I suspect that I carry the air of authority around with me. I would blame it on age, except that it has been happening for years; there is also the fact that I come across much younger than I really am. It is definitely not my Adeptship, for it was happening long before I took my Inner Order oath.

It probably wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for one thing. I know how much I don't actually know.

Realistically, I realize that the experts of various fields can not know everything about their area of expertise. Just a quick glance through the pages of an older textbook while comparing it to a newer textbook reveals how much the experts had it wrong. For a good laugh, do the comparsion with a text that is a hundred years old.

So obvivously, it is more of a personal problem of belief rather than one of actual substance. My own belief is that I am the last person that should be an authority. This belief rises its ugly head everytime I recieve an email from someone asking me a question about why something is done the way it is. It also acts up twice a year when the lodge decides to leave me in my current office. There is also that annoying part of it grinding its teeth whenever someone I admire (call them mentors and teachers, loyal friends and people who know where their towel is at) treat me as if someday I will end up teaching others. Or remind me that much of what I am currently doing makes me a de facto authority.

At my age (forty-two as of tomorrow), you would think that my self-image would have caught up with my experience. After all, I have been a lodge officer constantly since the start of 1998, besides serving a couple of years in Hathoor Temple. And there is that whole business of management and being a writer.

But then again, my thought is that maybe it is a good thing that I have a hard time considering myself an authority. Many of the worst experts are those who consider all their opinions true and absolute. This type of expert either has never learned or has forgotten how to say "I don't know"; something that I say at least once a day.

If I am lucky and the lodge is smart, the instant I consider myself an infalliable expert (aka authority), they will remove me from office. Cross your fingers for both of our sakes.