[from http://www.trapezoid.org/statement.html ]

			[Order of the Trapezoid]


                               MISSION STATEMENT
                                       
INTRODUCTION
   
   Consecrated by the Prince of Darkness, in his image as Wotan
   Hollenjaegerof the One Eye, the Order of the Trapezoid is a chivalric
   order of knighthoodwithin the Temple of Set. Its members are adept
   black magicians who havesworn fealty beyond death to the spirit of
   their higher selves. These knightsare dedicated to the quest for the
   Grail by seeking the angular mysteriesof the Trapezoid, partaking of
   the Black Flame, and achieving a highly dynamicstate of development
   known as Walhalla!
   
   The Order of the Trapezoid is the most culturally diverse order in
   theTemple of Set. A full account of its specific areas of focus,
   ranging fromthe magical traditions of Northern Europe and Southern
   Asia, to mad labexperiments and the martial arts, would fill a dozen
   volumes. The sectionsthat follow give a brief outline of the Order of
   the Trapezoid in termsof its history, essential elements,
   organizational structure, and criteriafor membership.
   
   
HISTORY
   
   The history of the Order of the Trapezoid is that of a formula for
   theemergence of an unknown entity into the world of humankind. Many
   attemptshave been made at this formula. Yet while the formula has yet
   to be fullyrealized, our Knighthood has developed it to its furthest
   manifestationthus far. This section will trace its development through
   the contributionsof Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Anton Szandor Lavey,
   Dr. Michael A. Aquino,and Dr. Stephen E. Flowers.
   
   Our history begins with the most ancient artifact of intelligent
   life,the human unconscious. It is from this primal landscape that H.P.
   Lovecraftfound inspiration for his fantastic tales. Otherwise
   conservative and staunchlymaterialistic, Lovecraft allowed his deeper
   fears of water, dark places,and strange animals to come alive in his
   writings. In this, his work wasmuch like that of many other
   expressionists of the time.
   
   Unlike his contemporaries, however, Lovecraft was well read in the
   naturalsciences. He was among the first authors to explore the new
   physics of Planck,Einstein, and Schroedinger, and express the human
   implications of theirworks in fiction. By combining depth psychology
   with cutting edge cosmology,Lovecraft had stumbled upon the primal
   dreams of another world. The worldof Lovecraft struck a deep chord
   among his readers, reminding people ofsomething that they would rather
   forget; a world so real that people havebeen searching for the "real"
   Necronomicon ever since.
   
   Forty years after they were written, Lovecraft's tales would inspirea
   creative and iconoclastic showman, a Magus who proclaimed himself
   the"Black Pope" and gave the late sixties and early seventies a
   name:Indulgence. Anton Szandor LaVey ushered the Lovecraftian mythos
   into theritual chambers and postmodern culture of the Church of Satan.
   Seeing thecorrelation between the "strange angles" of H.P.L., and the
   "negativearchitecture" described in Lafforrest's Houses That Kill,
   LaVeyformulated the aesthetic function of this geometry in the Greater
   and LesserLaws of the Trapezoid, in which certain angles that were
   harmful to mostpeople, would be beneficial to those who were properly
   initiated into theirmysteries. The latter was visually demonstrated in
   the photographs of Mortensen'sThe Command to Look, and verbalized a
   century earlier when ImmanualKant likened the experience of the
   sublime to standing atop a high cliffthat simultaneously attracts us
   to move closer to its ledge and repels usto scramble for safety.
   
   Further inspired by a Lovecraftian tale that introduced the Order
   ofthe Shining Trapezohedron among its protagonists, LaVey formed the
   Orderof the Trapezoid within the Church of Satan. As stated in a 1970
   issue ofThe Cloven Hoof:
     
     "The O.Tr. is the 'board of directors' and security staff of the
     Church. Its functions are many, and its members are chosen by
     appointment, according to the special abilities and attributes of
     each. All Priests and Priestesses are automatically admitted into
     the Order, although identities of most members of the Order are
     unknown even to each other. Members of the Governing or Grand
     Council of the Trapezoid are known only to the High Priest, who
     solicits their aid when required."
     
   Although LaVey grasped the aesthetic correlates of the trapezoid in
   Lovecraft,and the Weimar-era expressionism of pre-war Germany, the
   LaVey-centeredpolitical organization of the O.Tr. kept it from
   becoming a proper orderwithin the Church of Satan. The formula
   remained a thought experiment throughoutthe demise of the Church, and
   the ascension of the Temple of Set, whereit was alternatively used to
   designate the Council of Nine and the Magistry.
   
   On October 19th, 1983, Dr. Michael Aquino, Magus of Xeper, HighPriest
   and founder of the Temple of Set, took the thought experiment
   toWalhalla, the inner sanctum of the Wewelsburg Castle in Westphalia,
   Germany.This was the site where another experiment had gone awry:
   where the positiveaspects of German romanticism - dynamism,
   life-worship, irrationality, artisticalchemy, and xenophilia - had
   tragically become the tools of totalitarianism,negative tribalism, and
   brutal acts committed on a mass scale.
   
   Dr. Aquino performed the rites at Wewelsburg to recapture the
   positiveelements of this romantic stream from the place where the dark
   arts of theNorth were last attempted. There, he combined this stream
   with that of Lovecraftianexpressionism, a genre with which he was
   familiar having previously servedas LaVey's "lefthand man" in the
   Church of Satan, and writtenthe "Ceremony of the Nine Angles". The
   marriage of German romanticismwith Lovecraftian expressionism was a
   powerful one indeed, perhaps eventoo powerful. To insure that the arts
   which emerged from this marriage wouldnever be misused again, Dr.
   Aquino reestablished the Order of the Trapezoidas a chivalric order of
   Knights sworn to uphold standards of honor and ethicalconduct. The
   formula had come alive.
   
   For the first time since it was conceived, the Order of the
   Trapezoidhad become a working organization with a working formula.
   Four years later,the Grandmastership of the Order was passed to Dr.
   Stephen Flowers, YrminDrighten of the Rune Guild, scholar of Germanic
   magical traditions, andauthor of numerous books on European magical
   systems. During his nine yeartenure as Grandmaster, Dr. Flowers
   developed the IndoEuropean Northern rootsof the Order, articulating
   its historical sources, and establishing a rigorousmethodology for
   awakening traditional systems. Organizationally, he establisheda
   system of lodges and houses, and an inner council of advisors within
   theOrder.
   
   The work of Dr. Flowers gave rise to a particular school of
   mysticismwithin the order. This school linked concrete accomplishments
   in objectivereality to the knowledge of deeper mysteries which
   transcended rationalthought and sense perception. This combination of
   objective and subjectiveendeavor became known as the two-fold path of
   initiation. From the deepermysteries of his own work, he became the
   Magus of Runa, the seed of allRunes and essence of mysteries
   represented by a geometric yantra comprisedof the nine angles of the
   trapezoid, and articulated in the formula, Reyntil Runa.
   
   
Central Elements
   
   The specific interests within the Order of the Trapezoid are too
   diverseto be generalized and too broad to be sufficiently rendered in
   an introductorytext. Yet despite this, all works within the O.Tr.
   share four major elementswhich are central to the Order:
   
   The Black Flame is the central source of the Order.Every Knight of the
   Trapezoid, male or female, is an Initiate of the LeftHand Path. That
   is, every Knight is engaged in self-directed self-deificationthrough
   liberating antinomianism. The Black Flame is the dark source
   andinspiration of the individual's own psyche as a uniquely developing
   deity;a kindred spirit of the Prince of Darkness. The Black Flame is
   signifiedby the ninth angle of the trapezoid, which at a collective
   level, functionsas the central pivot which binds the O.Tr. to the
   Temple of Set.
   
   The Grail Quest is the centralactivity of the Order. Each Knight must
   find his or her own path of becoming,and swear to its realization. The
   Grail is the ultimate truth of one's ultimateendeavor. It is a truth
   which is ever sought yet never found. Yet thereare ways to partake of
   that which cannot be fully grasped. The keys canbe found in the
   seeking.
   
   The Trapezoid is the central mystery of the Order.Runa, the essence of
   mysteries, is represented by its ultimate example.The trapezoid
   functions to link objective and subjective realities, justas it
   beckons its initiates to explore worlds where the arrow of time
   nolonger points in a single direction. The trapezoid is a
   two-dimensionalrepresentation of a three dimensional shadow. It is a
   prism and a gate.Most importantly, it is a mystery.
   
   Walhalla is the central state of becoming withinthe Order. The
   universe of the Black Magician is marked by major periodsof time
   called Aeons. We are currently living in the Aeon of Set, guidedby a
   philosophy of self-deification that is encapsulated in a Word,
   Xeper,meaning "become." Walhalla, the Hall of the Fallen where
   greatheroes live in a highly dynamic state beyond death, describes a
   qualitativelydistinct state of self-transformation that transcends the
   notion of changethrough time.
   
   
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
   
   The Order of the Trapezoid is the first among the orders of the
   Templeof Set, subject to the by-laws therein. Internally, it is owned
   and operatedby its Knighthood, who are also members of the Temple.
   
   The O.Tr. is led by a Grandmaster, a spiritual monarch charged with
   overseeingthe Order according to his or her vision for a period of
   time not to exceednine years. The Grandmaster is a Master of the
   Trapezoid appointed by aprevious Grandmaster subject to confirmation
   by the Knighthood.
   
   The Trihedron is the inner council of advisors whom the Grandmaster
   appointsto delegate the duties of his or her office. The members of
   the Trihedroninclude a Chancellor in charge of internal affairs, a
   Herald in charge ofcommunications and insignia, and a Marshall in
   charge of external affairs.In addition to the Trihedron, the
   Grandmaster is advised by previous Grandmasters,and other Masters of
   the Trapezoid.
   
   Founded by Masters of the Trapezoid, the Houses of the Order are
   autonomousschools for specialized training in trapezoidal Initiation.
   They are notgeographically local, and their interactions may extend
   beyond the Orderand the Temple. They can be joined by any Knight
   according their respectivecriteria. The Temple of Set is represented
   among these Houses as the Houseof the Ninth Angle, which is overseen
   by the High Priest of the Temple ofSet.
   
   Lodges are geographically localized groups within the Order of the
   Trapezoid.They are led by Lodgemasters who are Knights of the
   Trapezoid, and conducttheir internal operations according to their own
   criteria. Lodges may ormay not be defined according to specialized
   activities. Only one Lodge,Munsalvasche, is not geographically
   localized. The Munsalvasche Lodge isthe banner representing the
   Knights Errant of the Order of the Trapezoid.
   
   The O.Tr. is an Order of leaders. Hence, it is up to the individual
   Knightto affiliate with a Lodge or a House, or conduct his or her
   affairs accordingto Knight's own will. Half the Knighthood conducts
   their work without anyaffiliation beyond those of the Order and
   Munsalvasche. The Order recognizesthat individual Knight is the
   highest authority for his or her own initiation.Ultimately, we must
   each conduct our quests alone.
   
   
ENTRY
   
   The standards for entry into the Order of the Trapezoid are as
   follows:
   
     * The candidate must be a member of the Temple of Set who has been
       recognized as an Adept, second degree.
     * The candidate must be sponsored by a Knight of the Trapezoid who
       is also a Priest or Priestess of Set. The candidate is usually
       well-known to the sponsor, because all subsequent actions and
       nonactions of a Knight reflect, not only on his or her own honor,
       but the honor of the sponsor as well.
     * The candidate must participate in an induction ceremony conducted
       in the presence of a Master of the Trapezoid or Lodgemaster.
     * During the induction ceremony, the candidate must take the Oath of
       the Order, to which he or she will be bound beyond death.
       
   
   Direct any further comments or inquiries to the Heraldof the Order.

			[ mailto:herald@trapezoid.org ]
   
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   The page from which this was excerpted was created by 
   Sir Thorwald, K.Tr.  All material contained herein &copy 1997 
   Temple of Set. All rights reserved.

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