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 ====== Phyllis Seckler ======
-Phyllis Seckler, born on June 18, 1917, and also known as Soror Meral, was an influential figure in the development and continuation of Aleister Crowley's A∴A∴ (Astrum Argentum or Silver Star). She was a dedicated occultist, Thelemite, and teacher who played a crucial role in the preservation and expansion of Thelemic practices, particularly in the United States.
+**Phyllis Seckler (1917–2004)**, known as **Soror Meral**, was a Thelemic teacher, editor, poet and artist. Her work connected the California community of Agapé Lodge with later systems of education and initiation. She also helped preserve Crowley's writings through the demanding practical work of preparing manuscripts for publication.
+===== Training and artistic work =====
+Seckler entered O.T.O. in 1939 and became an A∴A∴ Probationer under [[jane_wolfe|Jane Wolfe]] in June 1940. These were distinct forms of participation: membership in a fraternal order and individual work with a teacher. She later corresponded with [[karl_germer|Karl Germer]], who recognised an attainment in 1952. That later recognition should not be mistaken for the beginning of her training.
+Art was another sustained part of her life. She completed a master's degree in art at UCLA in 1955 and worked as an art teacher in Livermore. Her correspondence with Crowley included cartoons, and her later writing ranged across instruction, commentary and poetry. She participated in the renewal of O.T.O. activity with Grady McMurtry and others in 1969, founded College of Thelema in 1973, and led 418 Lodge from its establishment in 1979 until her death.((Harper Feist, [[https://oto-usa.org/usgl/lion-eagle/phyllis-seckler/|Phyllis Seckler]], O.T.O. U.S. Grand Lodge, institutional biography.))
+===== Making texts available =====
+Seckler typed material for Germer, including [[the_vision_and_the_voice|The Vision and the Voice]], [[magick_without_tears|Magick Without Tears]] and part of [[confessions|Confessions]].((Feist, //Phyllis Seckler//.)) This kind of work sits between the composition of a manuscript and its eventual appearance as a book. It requires a readable copy through which an editor, printer or later student can approach the text.
+Her contribution belongs to the same wider history of transmission as [[gerald_yorke|Gerald Yorke's]] collecting and the copying of documents for institutional archives. The continued availability of Thelemic literature depended on people preserving, organising and reproducing material, as well as on the original author. A useful history of a particular edition therefore asks who prepared its copy and what manuscript or typescript was used.
+===== College of Thelema =====
+College of Thelema developed a programme of foundational study related to A∴A∴ work. Its account of its purpose brings together psychology, Qabalah, astrology, magick and Thelemic ideas. Instruction is organised around a student's progress with a teacher, rather than a single reading list completed at the same speed by everyone.(([[https://thelema.org/college|College of Thelema]], institutional account of its educational purpose.))
+This approach gives preliminary study an active role. A correspondence table, for example, is useful when a student understands the symbolic relationships it arranges; learning the entries alone does not demonstrate that understanding. Similarly, keeping a [[magical_record|record of practice]] makes it possible to discuss what was actually attempted, the conditions of the exercise and its results. These distinctions connect the College's educational purpose with the practical emphasis of texts such as [[liber_e|Liber E]].
+The journal **In the Continuum** provided another means of teaching. A periodical allows an explanation to be developed across successive issues and creates a durable body of material beyond a private conversation. Seckler's work as an editor thus complemented her work with individual students.(([[https://thelema.org/college|College of Thelema]], account of //In the Continuum//.))
+===== Teaching in the first issue of In the Continuum =====
+The first issue of **In the Continuum**, dated **1973**, makes Seckler's teaching method visible in detail. Its opening letter, dated **20 March**, begins with questions about the pentagram ritual and directs readers to specific passages in Crowley and Regardie. She then places quotations beside her own explanations and additions, identifying a specifically Thelemic form of the practice.((Phyllis Seckler, //In the Continuum// I:1, 1973, pp. 1–6, available in the [[https://thelema.org/downloads/ITCvol1.zip|College of Thelema's Volume I archive]].))
+The discussion includes the relation between a printed Tree of Life and its imagined placement on the body, the meaning of names and the work of visualisation. She encourages readers to keep observations and investigate symbolic correspondences. The page thus moves between inherited text, explanation and an assignment for the student. It is a concrete example of her role as an interpreter and instructor, rather than simply a reprint editor.
+The issue's date also clarifies inconsistent dating on later web descriptions of the journal. The surviving first issue establishes publication in 1973; a description beginning the run in 1976 should not displace that primary evidence.
+Seckler tells the reader that her presentation contains more than a reprint:
+> I have also added later instructions by Crowley which are not in any of these books.
+— Phyllis Seckler, //In the Continuum I:1//.(([[https://thelema.org/downloads/ITCvol1.zip|In the Continuum I:1]], letter dated 20 March 1973, p. 1; the preceding references include The Equinox, Magick in Theory and Practice and books by Regardie.))
+This is her attribution of the additional instructions. It identifies the issue as a witness to a transmitted version of the ritual, while leaving the history of each addition to be established from further evidence. Her method combines quotations, comments and additions within one exposition. Readers comparing the journal with //Liber O// should therefore mark those layers instead of assuming that everything on the page appeared in Crowley’s earlier printed text.
+===== A specific alteration to the Qabalistic Cross =====
+Seckler's 1973 exposition makes its Thelemic revision concrete by inserting **Aiwass at the breast** in the Qabalistic Cross. She interprets the name in relation to the Holy Guardian Angel and Tiphareth. Her accompanying arrangement places the gesture for Malkuth lower on the body while explaining its ideal correspondence with the feet. The explanation therefore distinguishes the place of a gesture from the larger symbolic map of the body.((Phyllis Seckler, //In the Continuum// I:1, pp. 2–3, in the [[https://thelema.org/downloads/ITCvol1.zip|College of Thelema's Volume I archive]].))
+The contrast can be checked directly against the earlier printed **Liber O**, whose Qabalistic Cross places Malkuth at the breast and does not insert Aiwass there. Seckler presents her additions as later instructions from Crowley. Her article is evidence for her transmission and explanation of that version; it should not be silently substituted for the wording of the 1909 publication.(([[https://keepsilence.org/the-equinox/1.2/liber-o_low.pdf|Liber O]], section IV, Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram.))
+This comparison gives a precise example of continuity through adaptation. The sequence remains recognisable, but a newly inserted name changes the expressed religious identification. The commentary also gives the change a rationale, allowing a reader to see what Seckler believed the adaptation accomplished.
+===== The diagram and the person facing it =====
+The same discussion addresses a common difficulty in relating the **Tree of Life** to the body. Seckler explains that a printed diagram faces its viewer: assuming the Tree as one's own bodily arrangement reverses the apparent left and right of that frontal picture. Her account connects the person's right with Severity and the left with Mercy.((//In the Continuum// I:1, p. 3.))
+This is more than a list of correspondences. It is an explanation of how a representation changes when the observer becomes its imagined subject. Alongside the Aiwass addition, it shows Seckler treating the ritual as something whose words, spatial relations and underlying assumptions needed to be explained to students, rather than merely reproduced from an earlier page.
+Her explanation addresses a practical difficulty in reading a body diagram:
+> Let me here emphasize that you are the Tree of Life and that you see a mirror image of it on the printed page.
+— Phyllis Seckler, //In the Continuum I:1//.(([[https://thelema.org/downloads/ITCvol1.zip|In the Continuum I:1]], letter dated 20 March 1973, p. 3.))
+The next sentences ask the reader to imagine backing into the Tree and place Severity on the practitioner’s right. The change of viewpoint is the point of the instruction: right and left must be assigned to the person performing the gesture, not casually inferred from a facing picture. This example shows Seckler teaching through a reader’s likely misunderstanding and a physical comparison, as well as through the transmission of ritual words.
+===== Essays, poetry and recorded voice =====
+The posthumous collections preserve several distinct forms of Seckler's work. **The Thoth Tarot, Astrology, & Other Selected Writings** includes essays on the trumps' psychological symbolism and the relationship between tarot and astrology. Its companion volume gathers further instructional essays and correspondence. **Collected Poems 1946–1996** presents a long poetic career, including mystical themes and more personal subjects.(([[https://www.totss.org/store/|Temple of the Silver Star publications]], descriptions of the Seckler collections.))
+Her successors also released a recording of her reading the first chapter of //The Book of the Law// in her garden in the early 1980s. It preserves the sound of her delivery alongside the written record. Such materials give access to different aspects of a teacher's work: extended argument in an essay, personal expression in poetry and interpretation through spoken performance.
+These distinctions matter when approaching her bibliography. A selected volume is an editorial arrangement drawn from a longer working life, while an issue of the journal preserves the original setting in which instruction appeared. Studying both makes it possible to follow particular teachings and to understand the sustained practice of publication through which she addressed students over time.
+===== Temple of Thelema =====
+In 1987 Seckler co-founded **Temple of Thelema** with James Eshelman and Anna-Kria King. The Temple describes a system of group initiation and instruction. Its ceremonies and institutional structure should be distinguished from the individual teacher–student relationship described in A∴A∴ literature, even where the systems share subjects and personnel.(([[https://thelema.org/temple|Temple of Thelema]], institutional history and description.))
+===== Writings and legacy =====
+Posthumous collections make different aspects of Seckler's work available: selected writings on tarot and astrology, further writings on Qabalah, magick and Thelema, and poems spanning 1946–1996. These volumes provide routes into her own voice alongside later institutional biographies.(([[https://www.totss.org/store/|Temple of the Silver Star publications]], descriptions of the Seckler collections.))
+Her historical importance lies in the combination of these activities. Classroom teaching, manuscript preparation, journal editing, poetry and initiatory instruction each addressed a different audience. Together they show how Thelema developed through sustained educational work across generations.
+See [[thelemic_organisations|Thelemic organisations]], [[a_a_argenteum_astrum|A∴A∴]] and [[research_bibliography|the research bibliography]].
+===== Video: a personal account of Seckler’s legacy =====
+Catherine Berry discusses Phyllis Seckler's magical legacy in this Blazing Star Oasis lecture, recorded on 27 October 2020. The channel identifies the presentation as a personal perspective, reflecting Seckler's importance to the speaker as a guide. It provides testimony about teaching and influence to place beside the article's documentary account of Seckler's institutional, editorial and artistic work.
+{{ youtube>-nmUtTDagCU?full |The Magical Legacy Of Phyllis Seckler}}
+**The Magical Legacy Of Phyllis Seckler** — [[https://www.youtube.com/@BlazingStarOTO|Blazing Star O.T.O.]]; 1:34:10. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nmUtTDagCU|Watch on YouTube]].
-Seckler was initiated into the A∴A∴ in 1952 by Jane Wolfe, a student of Aleister Crowley and an early member of the Agape Lodge of the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) in California. Phyllis Seckler would later marry Grady McMurtry, who would eventually become the head of the O.T.O. Under the tutelage of Wolfe, Seckler advanced through the grades of the A∴A∴, eventually taking on the magical motto "Soror Meral" and dedicating herself to the work of the order.
-In 1976, after the death of her husband Grady McMurtry, Seckler was instrumental in reviving and reorganising the A∴A∴. She founded the College of Thelema in 1973, which served as an educational institution for teaching Thelemic principles and practices. Later, in 1996, she established the Temple of the Silver Star (T.S.S.) as an outer order to the A∴A∴, further expanding her influence and work within the Thelemic community.
-Phyllis Seckler authored several books and essays on Thelema, including the four-volume set "The Thoth Tarot, Astrology, & Other Selected Writings," which compiled her teachings, essays, and correspondence. She was also a significant contributor to various Thelemic journals and publications, including "In the Continuum" and "The Magical Link."
-Seckler's dedication to the A∴A∴ and her work in developing the College of Thelema and the Temple of the Silver Star helped ensure the continued growth and preservation of Crowley's teachings in the decades following his death. Her influence on Thelema and the broader occult community remains significant, even after her passing on May 31, 2004.