Alobar Greywalker: Magickal Record (aka Frater PVN, LA-BAJ-AL) - On the Origins of the 23 Current (part 2)

          I really should have gone to bed several hours ago, but this post kept niggling at me.   So I stayed up to work thru the wording and get it posted here.



          There are times I am so close to something that I can't see it at all.   For decades I have been trying to figure out the genesis of the term the 23 Current. I was given information in a post written to the EOD e-list earlier today which gave me the key missing ingredient to the puzzle.    I am still digesting this and trying to figure out how to talk about it, but it seems that I was, at least in part, responsible for the naming of the 23 Current.

        Up until today, I had thought that my 23rd Gateway and the 23 Current were either coincidental, or a bit of synchronicity. Now I find out that the first director of the EOD, Randolph Carter, claims to have coined the term 23 Current.   Although we are no longer on speaking terms, I have no reason to doubt his claim. Carter was one of my pre-internet magickal pen pals back then. We began communicating prior to his formulation of the EOD, and prior to my formulation of the MAE.  Carter was the first serious magickian I ever communicated with who took the Lovecraftian mythos seriously.    This was years before I ever heard of Kenneth Grant or his interest in Lovecraft.

          Randolph Carter and I swapped many many letters, and we nudged one-another into each others ways of thought. Back then, I would never have considered it a form of mutual initiation, but now I do see it that way.   See e-mail below to the EOD e-list when I first pieced this together in my mind.   I am sure I must have sent Randolph Carter him a copy of the 23rd Gateway (I had a bunch of stickers of the 23rd Gateway made up when I worked at Glad Day Press).   I can't imagine not sending him one.   Likewise I can't imagine not explaining what it was, or its significance to me.

          My memory is not real clear on linear timeliness.   So I do not remember the year I began writing to Carter.   I am certain it was prior to me owning a computer or buying Math of the ChRySTAL Humm.  That means prior to September 1981. Perhaps we were swapping letters as early as 1976.   I am sure I discussed with Carter my disquietude with the term Lovecraftian Mythos and Cthulhu Mythos.    I know I never used the term 23 along with the word Current back then.   I certainly would have remembered it if I had coined the phrase on my own.   So 23 Current would have been Carter's terminology.   But it sure seems to me that the 23 came from my 23rd Gateway, and I nipped the 23 from Bob Wilson to go with the Gateway Seal I channeled one night (Years before I started using psychedelics, by the way).

Not wanting to be overly mercantile here, but it seems to me that if this were to be phrased in just the right way, this information might help sell my upcoming book, particularly since there is a write-up of of the working which resulted in the reification of the 23rd Gateway Seal in one of the volumes of the Astral Workings which will be included in the book.

The diary entry is dated 18 November 1982. A long segment in that entry is a recollection of the working thru which the 23rd Gateway manifested. All I wrote in terms of a date in that entry is

"appending a more complete description
of my ritual to Ithaqa of a nearly a decade ago."

I became a Thelemite on July 6, 1972. As I recall, my Lovecraftian exploration began about the same time period. Perhaps as late as 1975, but probably between 1972 and 1974. Certainly no earlier than 1971, and no later than 1978. I shall have to look thru old diaries to see if I can pull out an exact date. It might be interesting to erect a natal chart on this if I can find the exact date. Below is an URL to the diaries in question.

http://www.beyond-the-illusion.com/files/Occult/Thelema/General/mirror.txt

Below is what I posted to the EOD list on this topic earlier today:

          Interesting.   Back before the first director was speaking openly of having manifested the EOD, he and I (back when I was Bill Siebert) were swapping letters a lot. During that time period, I created a seal, which I called the 23rd Gateway, which was my personal gateway into this Current. That was prior to me ever having heard 23 being related to this Current. I nipped the number 23 from Robert Anton Wilson, but Bob never (to my knowledge) ever linked 23 to Lovecraft. I just like what Bob was writing about 23 & it seemed appropriate.   I am very tied-into the 93 Current, and the 23 / 93 pun also seemed to fit.

        I have wondered about the origins of the 23 current for years, but have never seen anything approaching an origin of the term. I am not claiming I to be the progenitor of the name, but what you wrote does make me wonder if that might perhaps be the case.   Very odd, indeed.

        By the way, the 23rd Gateway has, over the years, evolved into the keystone of my personal magickal symbolism.   Below is the original black & white of the 23rd Gateway Seal. I have worked with this symbol now for decades. It is now incorporated into the Miskatonic Alchemykal Expedition seal. See the large graphic on my LiveJournal user information page here:
http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=alobar

Alobar

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