THE END OF THE FIRST IOT GROUP
The membership of the Group was variable, with a core of Pete Carroll, myself and a couple of others, with other people sometimes recruited at Sorcerer’s Apprentice coffee mornings. Meetings all took place in East Morton, at Ray Sherwin’s place, from where we walked out into Sunnydale. This is a beautiful, wooded valley with a lake and ruined buildings, on the edge of Ilkley Moor. It was possible to get from Leeds to East Morton, where Ray Sherwin lived, by getting on the 93 bus from near the University into town, then an intermediate step, then the 666 bus from Bradford. Ray often encouraged raw, first time visitors with no local knowledge to do so, for obvious qabalistic reasons, even though there were much easier ways to get there.
One early meeting shows the style we were developing. I learned the Bornless One from a photocopy I’d taken from the Appendices in Crowley’s Magick. I was the invoking priest, and we were using the Bornless One as a consciousness-raising working, as a preliminary to the main parts of the evening’s work. Chaos Mass B, the nearest thing the IOT ever had to an official ritual, didn’t exist yet: we needed a consciousness-raising ritual and we were making things up as we went.
One of the later people to join asked for and got a full-scale initiation working, tied up in the woods while various things went on around him, including our hurling sigils at him. Here’s a bit of my diary entry, where I record what was at the time ‘the closest bit of astral clairvoyance I’ve ever done!’:
SAT 30TH MAY: Last Nt: IOT Group Meeting:
I saw, during our projections at the Candidate, this:
Pete actually projected the following:
The Group closed at a rite on Beltaine 1982, when a copper Pantacle for the future development of the IOT was buried in a wood. This pantacle was dedicated to the female influence in the IOT; we had worked out that one thing that kept women away from magical orders was the tired old Masonic structures of most of them, so we determined to find a new direction. I wrote the following Four Goddesses working and sacrificed the energy I’d loaded into a carved Goddess figurine.
SAT 1ST MAY: I.O.T. MAY EVE RITE
1. Simon’s banishing
2. PD’s delivery of Mass of Chaos, followed by consecration of wine and sugar, whilst Caryn recited Hymn to Pan.
3. PD administers sacrament
4. Pete Banishes Baphomet
5. PD presents the Disc of the Summer to Caryn, flanked by Anjie, Janet, Christine.
6. My invocation of Goddesses: ‘To thee be the Kingdom of Earth, all power and mercy’. Opening the 4 Q’s in the names of the Watchtowers. Taking of the Necklace and invocation to each Quarter:
‘Ishtar, bringer of light and inspiration, renew us
Sekhmet, in whose loins is kindled the heat of summer, renew us
Hekhet, mistress of birth, death and cycles
In the Unifying name of Woman, who is known as BABALON, may the Order of the IOT be renewed’
In the Name of Chaos, I release the power trapped in this instrument, for the use of the Order’. Star of Chaos above fire, plunge Necklace into fire.
Repeat Cross, return to place in circle.
7. Christine takes us through the Dragon movements
8. Circle dance, chanting ‘Hekas Hekas Este Bebeloi’ with Caryn in centre with Disc.
9. Caryn consecrates Disc and Ointment. The Disc is buried at the Site.
10. Chris and Janet banish and close.
Afterwards, we used Pete’s belladonna ointment again. It worked a bit – I didn’t get any OOB or lucid dreams, but the most extraordinarily compressed visions while awake – regular crystalline geometries, intricate plant forms, then places, rooms, a railway station and so on until these slowed and I went to sleep.
That group only met about 5 or 6 times in 18 months. It was an early stage of the IOT, the first experiment in a new approach to group magic.
Dave Lee is the author of several books, including Chaotopia, Bright From the Well and Life Force: Sensed Energy in Breathwork, Psychedelia and Chaos Magick. Visit his website and sign up for his newsletter.