In my last post, I discussed the four essential functions of every local body, dereived from Liber CI and our other Blue Equinox documents. At the most general level, these are:

1) Development of MMM/EGC Rites and environments
2) Providing a ladder from First to Fifth Degree
3) Opening a gateway, with new members coming in and Thelema going out
4) Promotion of a spiritual community

I argue that fulfilling these items is the basic mission of every local body. However, there is also a great deal of room for individual expression within these functions, and every LB will find their own unique ways of manifesting them. With that said, I'd like to offer some ideas about the various goals and objectives a local body might develop for each function.

1) MMM/EGC

At the most basic level, there are three essential components to this function: ritual knowledge and skill, magical theory, and necessary physical items. Although the MMM and EGC rituals and environments are quite different in tone from each other, they are composed of these same three elements, and it is possible to create a similar path to excellence for both. To this end, a local body would promote workshops in learning the various ritual officerships by heart and experimenting with performance variables, such as blocking, music, vocal intonation, pace, lighting, etc. Our Rites are also rich with meaning, and the LB should provide opportunities to examine the mystical theories that underlie them, as well as related magical practices that serve to enhance them. Finally, a local body can devote time to obtaining and constructing all the related materials necessary for our Rites, achieving what is immediately possible while always planning for future improvement. If you are interested, I have written an EGC Development Model that goes into more detail.

2) Ladder from First to Fifth Degree

In most cases it takes a great deal of work on the part of the initiate to reach the Rose Croix, which is nevertheless intended to be the resting place of the majority of initiates. With this in mind, it is the duty of the local body to provide guidance and opportunities for this individual work to bear fruit. My own list of requirements, based upon our public documents that address the Fifth Degree, is as follows:

a) Steady service to the initiate communty
b) Excellent fraternal character, which can be boiled down to:
     1) Courage
     2) Integrity (honesty, dependability, trust in self, and responsibility-taking)
     3) Cordiality (which can manifest as hospitality, generosity, good manners, due aid to siblings in need, and especially harmony)
     4) Foolishness (open-mindedness, tolerance, humor, and the ability to inspire and be inspired)
c) Reasonable self-discipline (most often illustrated by a regular magical practice and fulfillment of initiate obligations)
d) Didactic knowledge:
     1) Of the Order, including history, MoE philosophy, structure, and policies
     2) Of Thelema, including history, literature, and essential mystical philosophy
e) Zeal in helping to manifest the general goals of the Order, which essentially include:
     1) Promulgation of the Law
     2) The Path of Initiation
     3) Building the Spiritual Community

So, what can a local body do to help a sibling meet these stringent requirements? The most straightforward would be classes or events that promote learning about the Order and Thelema (#d). I've already talked about the idea of mentorship programs wich could provide initial efforts to modeling and discussing issues of character (i.e. how we expect members to behave), while also offering many other benefits, which I'll discuss in the Community section below. Although (a) and (e) require members to step forward, the local body also needs to do its part by creating opportunities and rewards for service and other projects that help fulfill the goals of the Order, while also urging less active folks to step up, which can provide opportunities for their own self-growth. Finally, the local leadership can find informal ways to remind the LB that the next milestone of their mutual journey resides in the Rose Croix, creating an atmosphere of expectation that reflects this goal.

3) Member/Thelema Gateway

In practical terms, these are two seperate functions that operate in tandem. In the first case, we have two goals: recruitment and retention. In the second, we have projects designed to promulgate the Law. It should be clear how these two support and enhance each other.

Liber CI and other documents make it clear that local bodies are intended to be quite large. Exactly how large is a matter of debate, but it is reasonable to conclude that Crowley invisioned LBs with several hundred members (remember, every district is intended to have over 1000 members). Therefore, outreach should be a standard activity within every local body, ideally with clear membership objectives (e.g. adding 10 dues-paying members per year, adjusted for exiting members). The flipside to outreach is member retention, which can be looked at as reduction of attrition. While every member is free to come and go as she likes, there are many things a local body can do to inspire cohesion with the group.

I have written several essays that discuss established ways to conduct outreach and improve member retention, collectively titled Building OTO Communities. Recruitment has three key elements, including: (1) figuring out who you want to reach and where they might be, (2) write out exactly what you want them to know about you and get that message to them, and (3) create a call to action---which will normally be a LB event, such as the Mass or a lecture. This is a very simplistic list, but it does cover all the basic elements. After interested guests become members, the next step is retention. There are many ways to do this, but since the essential theme is the creation of a highly cohered group, I'll save it for Community building below.

Then there is promulgation of the Law. Liber CI expects all members to take Thelema into the world. On the local body level, there are too many ways to count for doing this. Offering public Gnostic Masses is certainly one way. However, there are many others, including putting on ritual theatre, promoting festivals and similar public events, doing readings of Thelemic documents in open-mike coffee shops, handing out Liber OZs, setting up an info booth at appropriate conventions or other public events, etc. It might also be very useful for a local body to explore ways for individual members to discuss Thelema and OTO with prospective candidates so that it doesn't come across as mystical mumbo jumbo or a dry lecture.

4) Spiritual Community

This is the most tenuous of the four. Essentially, it is the creation of a Thelemic cultural environment. An important aspect of the communal function is that it creates the environment wherein the unqiue skills, interests, and personalities of a local body can flourish. Beyond this, however, is the development of a new way of thinking about and living within a society, based upon the Thelemic principles taught within our initiations ceremonies. In other words, this function is all about manifesting the Mysteries of our initiatory Rites in the material world, not only in terms of how we interact with each other (i.e. fraternity), but what we can accomplish together.

Although it is easy to consider the local community as being incidental or even unimportant to the local body, it is, in fact, quite complicated and vital to accomplishing its goals. However, once a local body really starts to grow, its culture can easily move away from the core principles of the Order and even work against our fundamental goals if no guidance is offered. To avoid this, it is imperative that local bodies learn the basics of group dynamics and established methods for building communities that are vibrant, creative, and effective.

Again, I offer an outline with many ideas for how to accomplish this function in Building O.T.O. Communities. However, what I offer is by no means exhaustive or definitive. There are many books out there that offer excellent models for understanding communities and many methods for building them.

Briefly, some ways to promote a healthy community include mentorship, developing local goals and objectives, rewarding excellent effort and fraternal behavior, trumpeting successes, developing explicit social expectations (e.g. The Three Pillars of Stewardship), signing social contracts (which can happen through the local by-laws), group challenges (games, sports, etc.), and rewarding affiliation with member-only events (other than business meetings, of course).

Summary

These are, of course, all simply suggestions, although I claim that they are firmly rooted in Liber CI and other BE documents. It is vital to the success of the Order for us to develop healthy MoE local bodies, which essentially means a body that is celebrating our MMM and EGC Rites with competence and vigor, guilding initiates towards the Rose Croix, actively bringing in (and retaining) quality members, promulgating the Law of Thelema, and developing spiritual communities that are creative, vibrant, and effective. No small task! However, until we really begin to define what our core goals are at the local level, we will have a very hard time understanding what it is we are really supposed to be doing. I look forward to the ongoing conversation about what local bodies are doing what what they are trying to accomplish. As I keep saying, I am very optimistic about the OTO, and believe that great things are on the horizon.