Orryelle is an entity of many parts, artist, actor, author, musician,performance
artist and above all Magickian. Orryelle’s practice centre’s around his order
“The Hermaphroditic Chaorder of the SILVER DUSK,” which is a global community
of artist-magickians who seek to form a movement which creates not only a
counterpoint, but a bridge between the solar scientific magic of the 19th
century order “The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn” and the “primarily
intuitive lunar,arachnean and artistic apprehension of magick.”
An example of the SILVER DUSK at work is Orryelle’s
coordination of the 156=Musick Babylon Kaos project officially known as the 156=Musick
project. According to Orryelle, ("t'was Kestral's revelation that Musick spelt with a "K" as Crowley spelt Magick with "K",that gives it numerological significance as 418=The Great Work also equalling 156 that was the inspiration for thee CD's title".
In actual fact Babalon was thee primary deity invoked in many of the tracks herein.For her passion is indeed akin to thee mystery of music and the sonic majesty of an "aural apocalypse"(meaning unveiling or revelation).
Within these recordings,we see an experiment in “Process”: a Magickal Musick created usually in a ritual context with invocational intent –the work was then posted on CD to other members in another country for them to add more layers to, progressively until completion.
In actual fact Babalon was thee primary deity invoked in many of the tracks herein.For her passion is indeed akin to thee mystery of music and the sonic majesty of an "aural apocalypse"(meaning unveiling or revelation).
Within these recordings,we see an experiment in “Process”: a Magickal Musick created usually in a ritual context with invocational intent –the work was then posted on CD to other members in another country for them to add more layers to, progressively until completion.
Included in the 156=Musick recordings are “several live
improvisations from when various members converged physically in different
locales:” Arguably the most successful of these is “She shall ride He”which is
an invocation to “Babalon and the Beast”. The piece utilized a 9-person jam
with which to launch the 156 project and was performed in Melbourne in 2004. in
order to launch the 156 project. The piece rises to a fervorous magickal
crescendo which is something akin to those who have drank the “Vinum Sabbati”
and are invoking the “Pan-Daemon-Aeon”
as Orryelle calls it.The whole album is the most engaging and exciting thing I have heard from Orryelle
and the first project I have heard by the Order. In short I find the recordings to have a
great variance of sounds and as the project evolves it seems to have a cadence
of divine sublimnity, which loses nothing of its excitatory viscerality. A
great album to test ones sensorium with and a surefire, interesting and
entertaining way into the Magickal states therein.
In visual art terms,this investigation into Orryelles astral
world and ethos would be somewhat lacking without a treatise on his sublime
pan-theurgical work on the alchemical process which is the Tela(latin for
weaving) Quadrivium-an alchemical bookweb which contains the four phases of
Alchemy,the red(Conjunctio),the gold(Coagula),The black or Nigredo(Solve)and
the white or purification(distillation).
So far the first three have been published by London’s fine
press purveyor’s of esoterica Fulgur and the fourth is on it’s way, this time
utilizing a six colour printing process including silver and gold. In “Distilliato”
the artist/mage is using a full palette and paint for the first time and from
the works I have seen on prints and in the flesh at Fulgur’s I-MAGE exhibition
at the Store Street Gallery,London May 2013-are some of his best yet.
The underpinning of Orryelle’s sublimated magickal theory
and ethos is intrinsic in it’s manifested relationship to the whole Quadrivium and
Orryelle’s fulgurative creative instinct
cannot be denied.This makes the bookweb a quite wonderous read which delves
into the pantheon of the gods unforgivingly to erect a continuum betwixt the
light of truth and the sole apart of Horus and Maat which form the nexus of the
present and future aeon and the shamanic playground of Zos-Kia. Continually changing
from each read,as we in our wo/manifestation aid themselves and the cosmic mind
on the journey into enlightenment.
In order to better understand “The alchemy of the Tele
Quadrivium,”I believe it to be a most excellent idea to offer some discourse on
Orryelle’s “Metamorphic Ritual Theatre Company’s” performance at the
Austrailian launch of the first in the series,the Red book, “Conjunctio” at the
Wick in Melbourne,2009.The performance was faithfully re-enacted for the dvd
edition of Orryelle’s Silk-Milk Magazine and spool.
Conjunctio-A Metamorphic Ritual Theatre
Company Production(2009)
Transcription
The Science and Arte of Alchemy’s intention is to take the
first or base matter(the nigredo or “prima material” and transmute this into
gold-the philosopher’s stone. Alchemy is not merely a “physical process” but a
metaphor for an inner process, a spiritual process.
As Nema, priestess of Maat said, “for the nature of alchemy
is that it not only changes the substance of the work but also changes the
alchemist.”
Or as Austin Osman Spare said “as within/so without.”
Or as Orryelle says, “Metaphor is just a metaphor for inner
metamorphosis, causing metaphor for metaphor until you get
metamorphopsychosis.”
The art of alchemy is reflected in the first of the
Tele-quadrivium bookweb,CONJUNCTIO.The red book represents the first in the
four colour stages of the alchemical process. This fourfold web,the X-roads
weaving, a web of tomes, of books.
In the opening, Ganesha is seen holding the scribes
umbrella, the bookweb is opened revealing the pattern of the four web-books ,the
red book conjoined with the black, the white and the gold. From them a sequence
is formed, not just a circle but a spiral which can be read middle outwards,
middle to beginning, middle to end, end to beginning. The pages are turned so
we can keep reading around, each web will form a different imagery and
narrative which interlink a greater path between the archetypes and mythologies
therein.
The first stage of alchemy is the Nigredo,the black, the
first matter, “massa confuse”.The blackness-nigredo.Calcinato,death,dissolution,destruction,dispersion,the
nigredo,(this is improvisationally danced by Heidi Valkyrie.)
From the blackness comes the ash,like a phoenix the swan of the white phase of alchemy rises
in a purification of the substance, (improvisationally danced by Medea Luminae,)this
white can be split into many colours, the spectrum, the white matter, the white
phase is the “cauda parvonis” the peacocks tail, the colours of transformation,
Medea Luminae disrobes and is transformed in a improvised dance of both purity
and sensuality.
The “Cauda Parvonis” is a phase of the alchemical process
describing a subjective perceptual change in which the wayfarer (or
experiencer) becomes aware of the dreamlike nature of existence.With half of
the eyes opened and half of the eyes closed “as if” in a sleep state,the
experiencer now relates to their existence as a waking dream where conditions
and encounters are revelatory”
Lizbeth Rymland
From the purification, the rebirth occurs, the breaking of
the white into the spectrum of the peacocks tail. Gives birth to the red, the
phase of life,love lust,Rossio,Rubea. Conjunction betwixt opposites –betwixt
equals opposed,twins,separation and union.
The red sancta sangra,the holy blood, the red sands, the red
sea, the red hands, the red soil, the blood red heart, the blood red arte of
alchemy. This section is danced by Xristi Fox.
Conjunctio presents pairs of divine lovers, sacred twins,
different pantheons,different cultural mythologies. For example conjoined on
two page spread are Pan and Diana Multi-mammia,when you turn the pages the
figures unite. And it is also the same with the sacred twins of our aeon,they
are Horus, pure positive power and Maat, goddess of truth,as there is no
asolute truth, a space is left for her form,only implied by the individual
truths of different cultures and in this way they suggest her subtle prescence.
Conjunctio can be read or apprehended in multiple
directions, the true beginning is the middle,the ATUM, sending out the eye of
the moon and the eye of the sun into the void,symbolizing the Alchymic marriage
of polar opposites
Conjunctio-from this centre the pages are read backwards,
the moon waxes from the end to the middle. From the beginning to the middle, the
moon wanes, coming to fullness and disappearing in the black book,so this pair
of sacred twins, these divine lovers conjoin in Conjunctio with the turning of
the pages. As Aleister Crowley once said, “we are divided for lovesake for the
chance of union.”So in the red book forms and coulours may multiply and
diversify,create and unite “for Arte’s sake for the chance of division.”
Conjunctio,the red lion conjoins with the white
eagle,Conjunctio,the white lion sheds his blood,the red lioness bleeds eagles
teeth. Polarities shift, the tapestry tears, the veils lift and from the rift
flows the blood of the moon.The red sea,the red soil, the red dust collected
and concocted, conjoined with the white seed of the sun,incubating,potent from
the light, homunculi are breeding, brooding incubating, fermentating,waiting
for the distillation of the gold.
Conjunctio-hot/cold, silver and gold,Ida and Pingala,the
energies of the moon and sun running up either side of your spine,entwined,Sun
and Moon combined. From this body, conjunction shall be distilled,the gold.
The gold is the final phase,the magickal chylde,the magickal
children-the hybrids,the hermaphroditic deities formed from the union of
opposites and complimetaries.
From the cosmic egg comes the collective eye,the kia in Zos
Kia Cultus. Vision united with the hand, (Zos) the body considered as a
whole.Ob,hatching.
Zos Kia, the eye of love, the hand of death, the cycle comes
around again-this process of holy conjunction is aided by each reader/each
viewer of the graphic grimmoire. By uniting these pairs ,by turning the pages,
the reader is aiding the creation of the children, the hermaphrodites,the
hybrids to come in the book of Gold.
Coagula
One of Orryelles
current most auspicious projects is the creation of the tela-quadrivium, a
four-fold Alchymic bookweb, the second
of which Coagula, “births the Magickal Children of the Gods and Goddesses
united in the pages of the first volume (Conjunctio).”In it,” Hermaphrodites
and Hybrids from the conjunction of masculine and feminine, solar and lunar,
silver and gold, gestate herein and coagulate back into the world of
form.”(Orryelle Defenstrate Bascule, Coagula, London, Fulgur Limited,2011)
The book is of mixed media, pen, pencil and gold paint
symbolizing the alchemical process and “the employment of the Golden Mean to
construct the pyramid”(ibid).
Within its pages Orryelle uses the pantheon of Gods at his
disposal,ranging from the Hindu, Kali and Shiva in the repose of a divine
Yantra,(a geometric figure which represents the basic energies of the universe)
to the Celtic god of the wild hunt and the underworld Cernunnos, returning from
the cauldron of rebirth. Nearly all the gods on display are hermaphroditic
hybrids which show the ancient divinity of both masculine and feminine.
In his book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” the author
Joseph Campbell makes reference to this in his chapter on the apotheosis of
initiation. He states that in Tibetan Buddhism “the female form is to be
regarded as time and the male as eternity.”(Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a
Thousand Faces, California,New World Library,2008).It is arguable therefore
that what Orryelle wants to show us in his graphic grimmoire is the true nature
of the void and the world, the correlation of polar opposites,what the Hindu’s
call “Om mani padme hum,”(the jewel in the lotus).This refers to the notion of
androgony which is the fall from perfection into duality. In the case of the
Hindu concept of the Bodhisattva ,”the jewel of eternity is in the lotus of
birth and death.”The final incarnation before one reaches enlightenment.(Ibid)
In Orryelles first book of the tele quadrivium “Conjunctio,”
“pairs of lovers from various cultural pantheons are aligned on opposite pages
in such a way that when the pages are turned the figures unite.”(Orryelle
Defenstrate Bascule, Coagula, London, Fulgur Limited 2011) Orryelle invites us
to wonder in his introduction to the second volume if the readers “did in fact
aid the process in the turning of the pages, were the pairs of divine lovers,
not already in eternal union even when the book lay closed on the shelf?
This theory is similar to the avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth
Anger who, in reference to his “Magick Lantern Cycle”states that when the gods
appear on-screen they are the gods themselves participating in a ceremonial
communion with us the voyeur.(Jack Hunter, Moonchild, The Films of Kenneth
Anger, New York, Creation Books,2001)It is possible that like Anger who has
chosen the camera as his magickal weapon(ibid), Orryelle has chosen the medium
of mixed media and the book as “auratic object” is his vehicle.
Orryelle also states in the introduction to Coagula using
Crowley’s most quoted line the “Chance of (re)Union”(Aleister Crowley, Magick
in Theory and Practice, New Jersey, Castle Books,1991) that “any student of
Alchemy know that Separation is a vital part of the process…Without it there is
indeed no Art,no Life: eternal union has no dynamic.”(Orryelle Defenstrate
Bascule, Coagula,London,Fulgur Limited,2011)This brings to mind an aphorism in
Austin Osman Spares book of Zos vel Thannatos which calls for “infinite unities
and equal separateness,”(Kenneth and Steffi Grant,Zos Speaks,London,Fulgur
Limited,1999).
Orryelle uses a quotation to highlight this point which he
gathers from Hans Bellmers “Little Anatomy of the Physical Unconscious,” it
states, “Opposition is necessary in order for things to exist and form a third
reality.”(Hans Bellmer,Little Anatomy of the Physical
Unconscious,(translated.Jon Graham, Dominion Press,2004) Within Coagula it is
arguable then that “placed before us are these third realities,” Orryelle adds,
“Energy never truly dies, it just changes form and Gods and Goddesses are
expression of energy…They move and change, unite divide, derange, rearrange,
compose, decompose, in flux with changing cultural memes and mores.”(Orryelle
Defenstrate Bascule,Coagula,London,Fulgur Limited,2011)
It is Orryelles intention that the tele quadrivium
corresponds,“in such a way that the books can be placed around in a fourfold
formation to form a yantra.”(ibid) The idea being that the books can be read
clockwise or anticlockwise to create new esoteric meanings.There is also one
section in each book that makes up a continuous picture from which Orryelle has
taken as inspiration,”the great temples of the world from Egypt and Greece to
India.”(ibid) The pictures in Conjunctio therefore represent an orgy of “raw,
primal sexuality,” which in Coagula are sublimated “from the sexual Kundalini
fire into the creation of art.”(ibid)
It was Austin Osman Spare(1875-1956)who said in one of his
aphorisms,”a mystic is one who experiences more of himself than he can
articulate.”(Kenneth and Steffi Grant,Zos Speaks,London,Fulgur Limited,1999)And
so it is that through the tele quadrivium that Orryelle Defenstrate Bascule
articulates the extent of his magickal ethos and experience. This is arguably
an ethos steeped in mystic and aesthetic training in tune with both the western and eastern
mysteries. The artists knowledge of self is highly attuned to the current of
post-modern occultism and is one who has set out to face the unknown and
through unity and the process of individuation has coagulated his vision back
into the world of form, namely himself and the tele quadrivium, the vision of
his esoteric labours.
Orryelle calls his
art Esoterotica, within and without, the fact is that his art is “esoteric,”
inner as opposed to “exoteric,”(www.crossroads.wildnet.au)the title may seem
contradictory as erotica is generally associated with the physical body and its
sexual expressions. Orryelle depicts more than just the outer forms in their
interactions, his images are arguably a distillation of the inner kundalini,
(which is an instinctive libidinal form or Shakti lying in three coils at the
base of the spine, representing desire.)This is the fire which inspires such
activity, and the spirits and phantasms which emanate there from. Orryelle’s
esoterotic art is essentially about the interplay between the flesh and the
spirit.(Ibid)
Solve
In Solve,the gold distilled in Coagula is dissolved, tearing
apart our egos and dismembering our bodies, hurling any conceptions of
perfection back into the primal void.(ibid.)
Within the tome, lies death, destruction, and the “Prima
Materia,” the base matter, the Al Khem-the fertile black soil of decomposing
forms, the compost for new growth.(ibid)
Interestingly on this graphic grimmoire’s backward-turning
path the forword is at the end(the beginning) and the backword at the beginning(the
end) for in the forword we are warned of the tome’s intentions.
We are forwarned that the book we hold is a work of Black
Magic and that “even just to open it and flip through the pages will expose you
to its spell of darkness,as you unwittingly participate in acts of destruction
against the very Gods.”Verily, as reader it is your “own informed decision
whether to expose yourselves to it’s black gnosis.”(ibid.)
There is hope aplenty however as Orryelle explains in the
forword that if we “cast aside all the outmoded and inherently racist and
sexist moral metaphor’s of light=good and dark=bad, which have marred the
collective consciousness of humanity from the dominance of fundamentalist
religious patriarchies for at least the last two millennia or so, we will
discover that Darkness itself is essentially harmless”.(ibid)
In the forward Orryelle also draws parallels between light
and dark.“Light can blind and burn.But darkness is passive and neutral. Like
silence and stillness,it is an absence rather than a presence,and only negative
in an essential (not moral) sense.”(ibid) It is evident in the forword that
Orryelle believes,“the bad reputation of darkness comes from it’s association
with the Unknown.” It is the fact that, “darkness conceals, and while itself
cannot hurt us what is hiding therein perhaps could.”It is fear of the unknown
then “that is the essence of our civilizations all-abiding and inappropriate
association of darkness with evil.”(ibid)
The word “occult” means “hidden” so it is implied therein
that occultists are less afraid of the unknown, it is there primary intent “to
explore the unknown,“to plunge into the great abyss of mystery.”The question
Orryelle asks us is “how many of you if reading the words which begin this
forword before going any further into this tome would have then stopped there?”(ibid.)
This implicit racism and sexism concerning the “dark equals
bad,” metaphor has succeeded in the aforementioned Caucasian Patriarchs
dominating other cultures and genders, reducing bigotry to the fear of the unknown.”
:Exploring SOLVE-backword and forword Kaaotic ecstasy,wave
upon wave of fearless pleasure,ecstoicism and supreme bliss.The crepuscular
beckoning of thee silver dusk, initiates us-within:familiar plane and pleasure.Hekate:enthroned,our
guide and Keeper of the Keys of the Cosmos-as we wander,the baphometic
coven,kindling a fire in honour of experience,a true nature,wave upon wave of
Sumerian haze,as we dip our paintbrush into Daath,the colours flicker,a
cornucopia of Sheer delight…
An Orphic Mystery
Play
The piece uses archaic metaphor to elucidate happenings
through an astral journey with-in the tree of life,an apocraphyl story which
awakens mythos in the “atmospheric self “ of the psychonaut-“divided for arte’s
sake,for the chance of (re) union.the crepuscular bacchanalia of the Dionysian
rite comes forth through light to “slay the gods.”
Centuries pass-the Orphic head,sailing down the river of
Acheron,singing laments to the pleasure of the flesh: The head Has been found
by the Knight’s Templar and through transmogrification and the perfection of
Solar and lunar parallel’s,the disembodied head reunites with the fleshly life
and becometh their oracle,IO! BAPHOMET…. The concept of this Orphic Mystery play is
supported by a recording through time-emit.
