The Lesser Feast of J. Edward Cornelius

Today we raise a glass in honor of the Lesser Feast of Jerry Edward Cornelius, Thelemic Author and Adept. He was our teacher. 

From the History Heap:
July 14, 1951 – Gerald Edward Cornelius, sometimes known as J. Edward Cornelius, was born on this date in New Haven, Connecticut. He was the eleventh direct descendant of Captain Aaron Cornelius whose ship arrived in America in 1645. He was also a descendant of Mary Sanford who was hanged in Hartford, Connecticut on June 13th, 1662 for witchcraft. While in high school in the mid-1960s he began hanging around New Haven’s The Exit Coffee House, where he learned to play chess, heard poetry readings, and watched folk singers and other musical bands, and by the late 1960s he had let his hair grow and immersed himself in the counter revolution bathed in sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. He even attended the Woodstock music festival in August of 1969. As for his religious beliefs, he was an outer member of the French Promethean Society in West Haven, Connecticut in the late 1960s and took initiation into the inner circle, or Luciferian, on March 10th, 1970. He also became a member of David James’ New Haven Pagan Community in East Haven, Connecticut.

He joined the O.T.O. on November 18th, 1977 assuming the motto Achad Osher 583. On May 22nd, 1978 he was chartered to run The Frater Achad Chapter of the O.T.O. in Connecticut. After taking I° in March of 1979 the Chapter was elevated up to Brocken Mountain Lodge. J. Edward also created Brocken Publications and published the Lodge Newsletter, Hellspawned: A Newsletter of Brocken Spectres. By March of 1980 he had taken II° & III° initiation. Grady Louis McMurtry, aka Frater Hymenaeus Alpha 777 X O.T.O., would fly out from California and spend time at J. Edward’s house in Connecticut on several occasions. He was so impressed by what he saw and heard regarding J. Edward’s knowledge of phallic magick that he made him a “full VII°” on March 31st, 1979. He later joined the AA under Grady Louis McMurtry (9°=2* AA) as a Probationer 0°=0* in July of 1979. At Grady’s insistence, in order to gain their ‘chakra’ experiences, J. Edward took IV° and P.I. at LaShTAL Lodge in New York City in January of 1981. On April 22nd, 1984, under Grady’s direct guidance, J. Edward become, as the records show, a “Full VIIIth Degree” of O.T.O. Throughout this period, as Bill Heidrick the Grand Treasurer General of O.T.O. remembers, Grady was giving J. Edward “special instructions” regarding O.T.O. mysteries. J. Edward was never made one of the Provisional Degrees which were established for legal reasons. In April of 1984 J. Edward, having also risen up degree by degree in AA to 5°=6*, swore the Oath of the Abyss in front of Grady and under his direct guidance, himself having sworn it years earlier. Cornelius was now a Magister Templi 8°=3* in AA In the early days of 1985 J. Edward sent a lengthy letter to Grady regarding his views of IX° as requested. After receiving this, Grady called, acknowledging that J. Edward obviously knew the Secret. He sent J. Edward a copy of his typescript of “Emblems and Modes of Use,” which arrived in late February, acknowledging that this degree would not be official until they met. Tragedy struck before this would occur. Grady passed away in July of 1985.

In 1986 J. Edward was chartered by newly appointed Frater Hymenaeus Beta to run a Rose Croix Chapter at Brocken. In August of 1989 Cornelius decided to move to Berkeley, California. Here he became the sixth Lodge Master of Thelema Lodge, which Grady had founded in 1977. He held this position from 1991 to 1993. He was also placed in charge of the Neb-Het Chapter of the Rose Croix in the Bay Area. He has written such notable articles as “Did Aleister Crowley Know the Identity of Jack the Ripper?” “Myths of the Solar Lodge Revisited,” “Aleister Crowley in Novels,” “Crowley’s I-Ching Sticks,” “Poetical Flavours of the Beast,” “The Warrior Troubadour” about Grady Louis McMurtry, and many others. In 1993 he stepped down as Lodge Master of Thelema Lodge, and on October 10th he married his second wife, Marlene Smith. Together they began releasing a publication titled Red Flame: A Thelemic Research Journal along with numerous pamphlets, the majority of which he had written. In January of 1996 he and Marlene had a son whom they named Faustus Edward Cornelius. His marriage to Marlene ended in February of 2003.

By April of 2004 he had become totally disgusted with the lies, backstabbing, and treachery of the upper echelon of the new leadership in O.T.O., which by now was being run by a renegade branch of Marcelo Motta’s AA. After twenty-seven years in the Order he decided to go inactive, to let his dues lapse, and to give up his membership. However, he kept writing, releasing such books as Aleister Crowley and the Ouija Board (2005), The Magical Essence of Aleister Crowley (2010), Aletheia: Astrology in the New Aeon for Thelemites (2011), and The Aleister Crowley Desk Reference (2013). On August 31st, 2015 J. Edward married his third wife, Erica Peterson. Together they began a new publishing venture, a 300-page hardback book simply titled Essays. Between 2015 and 2023, they released volumes Nos. 1 through 10. He also republished Frater Achad’s The Chalice of Ecstasy (2017) with a new intro and over 75 footnotes. He released his next book, Memoirs of an AA Initiate, Being a True Story of the Struggles for Freedom in the 1990s Against the Restrictionists, in 2018. He continued to release book after book until his death… and even afterwards! Some of the most popular titles are The Secret Sexual Teachings of Aleister Crowley, the Beast 666, Approaching the Desert of Sand: The True Meaning Behind the Abyss Through the Teachings of Aleister Crowley, and Crossing the Abyss and into the Aeon of the Daughter: The Magickal Story of Aleister Crowley and Charles Stansfeld Jones.

It should be noted that J. Edward Cornelius was a Gnostic “Wandering” Bishop in the Ecclesiae Gnosticae Catholicae Church known as Tau Onverite and was Grady Louis McMurtry’s recognized heir as the undisputed religious Caliph and head of his AA lineage. J. Edward Love’s Sake Clerk House in Prescott, Arizona until his death on December 8, 2023.