I spent seven years in the B.O.T.A., and while they were good years and I gained a lot, I was still struck horribly nonstop. It was not until I switched to the Golden Dawn entirely that I regained the peace I had had as a Mormon.

Last night was a double treat: Hanukkah and Shabbat. As I sat staring at the Hanukkah candles, I “saw” myself and many around me’s many past lives in Judaism. We were right there, singing those same elegant tunes. With its proscriptions on the visual art that built the ancient world and Christianity, Judaism is conjured by music.

I was Mormon because of all those Jewish lives and because my father is Jewish in many lives, including, genetically in part, this one, though in faith he was an astrologer, also a gift of Judaism. There are many Deep Self Jews* in Mormonism. The people relate to each other the way the Jews relate to each other. It is a very powerful world with much practice and sacrifice, and the people are very open to each other and not to outsiders.

This morning I worked my B.O.T.A. deck in the normal fashion. I usually just witch it, because it needs to be spanked after all it has done to my clan, but today I worked it normally. As I sat down to continue memorizing the Latin prayers of the rosary, “Paul Case” came to me and showed me the Catholic underworld of the B.O.T.A. I never saw much in the B.O.T.A. I had energy but no vision. It was in the Golden Dawn with all of its Egyptian gods that I had the vision. The Norse gods and old ones of my deep chthonic energies love putting on the stripey lion headgear and getting themselves all tricked up in serpents and Nile stories. It’s great. Or maybe I need the work in the body.

It was not until this morning when I sat down to do my Latin prayers that I finally “saw” the B.O.T.A. underworld in its magnificence.

You have to be Catholic to play that game. It is hinted about in Paul Case’s work as a Catholic priest, but still. They should come out and say it.

Most of the people in the B.O.T.A. are middle aged and do not have time or energy to waste blindly building empires of lodges. Doing the course work is not enough. It takes ten times as much work in death as in life to “make your notes,” as Dion Fortune would say. The B.O.T.A. is irresponsible in trying to be all things to all people. They should come out and say, 1. Play at being a Catholic in Latin. 2. Be a Mason if you are a man or a European witch if you are a woman. 3. Read the cards instead of just gazing upon them. That is how you get into the “Great Worlds” brokered by the B.O.T.A., as the Taoists would say.

And if you have a serious magickal work ethic, like, say, a former Jew/Mormon, 4. Practice ceremonial magic.

The Rosicrucian underworld offers everyone the chthonic work if they will go to church three times a week and make spells all the time. That’s what it takes. Or wait until death and trudge around in the underworld helping others go to church three times a week and making spells all the time. Your call.

*Here the Danes in my Deep Self gulp, because most old Mormon families come from Scandinavia. The LDS Church was a perfect storm, and I could not have avoided joining it at puberty.