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--- phyllis_seckler [2026/10/02 16:48] – Develop biography with specific works, primary sources and archival context; add credited public-domain illustration where available (batch 21). andy
+++ phyllis_seckler [2026/10/04 07:13] (current) – Add matched video with channel credit and reading context andy
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 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 =====
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 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]].