Gays, Thelemites, Mormons and Government

[jbarros]

Every Brother is expected to use all his influence with persons in a superior station of life (so called) to induce them to join the Order. Royal personages, ministers of State, high officials in the Diplomatic, Naval, Military, and Civil Services are particularly to be sought after, for it is intended ultimately that the temporal power of the

Comments

[jbarros]

1.) So our authority is derived from the State. I don't really like that.

2.) I don't think anyone will complain about this ;)

3.) I must admit that I really do like the newer copies of much of the
material, as the footnoting and introductions that Sabazius and HB have done are pretty impressive bits into and of themselves, but at the same time, they can't seem to keep book 4 in print, and my Confessions, Magick without Tears and a the like all had to be bought used because they're not available new. In a land where anyone can go onto lulu and keep books in print for under $100 a year, I would say that the books are actually amazingly LIMITED because of the fear of lawsuit, rather than helped by the publishing efforts of the OTO proper.

I have pirated copies and PDF's of things you just can't buy these days, and it's not because I didn't want to buy them, but because they're not available.

I would say that these are all distractions, but they're not. Especially the books. If we are to claim that the OTO's purpose is to promulgate the law of Thelema, but we're serving to keep books out of print, I think we're at very least horribly confused and internally conflicted.

Check out the link above on copyright, provided to me by my own insidious sources, battling in the dark of the interwebs against the forces of... um... something. ;)

-- James

[thiebes]

I just typed a long response and then closed the window by accident. This one will be perhaps somewhat more brief.

1) Only in the minds of those to whom we are promulgating the Law, which is typically the people who have yet to join the Order. I guess what I'm saying is, it's PR.

2) I'm not sure to what "this" refers. :)

3) This is the part where I had the lengthy response. Here's the short synopsis:

a) OTO has of course numerous agreements with various publishing houses who can put books on the shelves in brick-and-mortar stores. How quickly would you suggest they burn those bridges in favor of online sales?

b) Publishers determine when to publish based on cold calculus, with loan interest and warehousing costs on one side and consumer demand on the other. If anything is "keeping the books out of print," it's a lack of demand. OTO's involvement is generally limited to their work in preparing new editions and in creating the demand. I'm doing my part in creating more demand, and I think that the government of OTO is doing so as well.

Incidentally, you know, popular books go out of print all the time. Publishers can't even keep the works of William Blake in print reliably. If and when we ever do promulgate to such an extent that there is a demand enough to keep ABA constantly in print, if it is within my lifetime, I will die a happy man.

c) You complain about lack of availability yet you mention having the books in PDF form. Do you see OTO persecuting hermetic.com or sacred-texts.com for making these available? Of course not.

d) if you look at the timeline of what has been published and when, since Grady took over, you'll see a record of regular and relatively frequent preparation of books that subsequently go into print. Take for example the recent paperback edition of III:1 or the new Parsons volume. OTO is to thank, not Naylor or Motta or Grant or Koenig, for Crowley and related titles consistently going into print.

[jbarros]

"2) tax-exempt donations" was the one I don't think anyone could find issue with. ;)

-- James