The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

LIBER CXCIV O.T.O. INTIMATION WITH REFERENCE TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE ORDER Any province of the O.T.O. is governed by the Grand Master and those to whom he delegates his authority, until such time as the Order is established, which is the case when it possesses eleven or more Profess-Houses in the province. Then the regular constitution is automatically promulgated. The quotation is slightly adapted from an address in one of the rituals. “This is the Constitution and Government of our Holy Order; by the study of its Balance you may yourself come to apprehension of how to rule your own life. For, in True Things, all are but images one of another; man is but a map of the universe, and Society is but the same on a larger scale. “Learn then that our Holy Order has but Three True Grades; as it is written in the Book of the Law: The Hermit, The Lover, and the Man of Earth. “It is but for convenience that these grades have been separated into Three Triads. “The Third Triad consists of the degrees from Minerval to Prince of Jerusa- lem. The Minerval degree is a Prologue to the First; the degrees subsequent to the Third but pendants to it. In this, the Man of Earth series, there are then but Three Degrees; and these Three are One. “The Man of Earth takes no share in the Government of the Order; for he is not yet called upon to give his life to it in service; and with us Government is Service, and nothing else. The Man of Earth is therefore in much the position of the Plebeian in Rome in the time of Menenius Agrippa. But there is this marked difference; that every Man of Earth is encouraged and expected to push on to the next stage. In order that the feelings of the general body may be represented, the Men of Earth choose four persons, two men and two women, from among themselves, to stand continually before the face of the Father, the Supreme and Holy King, serving him day and night. These persons must not 241