Bios:
Gerald Edward Cornelius, sometimes known as J. Edward Cornelius, was born on July 14, 1951 in New Haven, Connecticut. He is the eleventh direct descendant of Captain Aaron Cornelius whose ship arrived in America in 1645. He is 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 be began hanging aro
und 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 s*x, 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 was also 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. May 22nd 1978 he was chartered to run The Frater Achad Chapter of the O.T.O. in Connecticut which was elevated up to Brocken Mountain Lodge in early 1979. He created Brocken Publications and published the Lodge Newsletter, Hellspawned, A Newsletter of Brocken Spectres. He joined the AA under Grady Louis McMurtry (Frater Hymenaeus Alpha 777 X O.T.O., 9°=2* AA) as a Probationer 0°=0* in July of 1979. Grady would spend time at J. Edward’s house in Connecticut on several occasions. By April of 1984 J. Edward had been elevated up degree by degree to VIII° O.T.O. He was not one of the Provisional Degrees established for legal reasons. In April of 1984 J. Edward swore the Oath of the Abyss under Grady’s direct guidance, himself having sworn it years earlier. He was now a Magister Templi 8°=3* in AA. 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. Edward was chartered by Frater Hymenaeus Beta to run a Rose Croix Chapter at Brocken. In August of 1989 he 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 1991-1993. 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 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 AA established in the early 1990s. After twenty-seven years in the Order he decided to go inactive, to not pay his dues 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). In August of 2015 J. Edward married his third wife, a beautiful little blonde named Erica Peterson. Together they began a new publishing venture, a 300-page hardback book simply titled Essays. They released volumes No.1 and No.2 in 2015 and No.3 in 2016. It should be noted that J. Edward Cornelius is Grady Louis McMurtry’s recognized heir as the undisputed Caliph and head of his AA lineage. He presently runs Love’s Sake Clerk House in Berkeley, California. Erica Peterson was born on February 9, 1970 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She attended the University of Minnesota where she was the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the undergraduate philosophy journal Juvenilia, which was published at the university for the first time in the Spring of 1995, the same year in which she graduated from that institution summa cm laude in History and Philosophy (double major). The journal was re-named Agathon in 2002. She moved to southern California in 1995. In June of 2002 she earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Science Studies from University of California at San Diego. Between 1995 and 2004 she worked as a college Teaching Assistant or Adjunct Professor, mainly teaching writing and philosophy. She first worked in student affairs back in 1998, when she served as Interim Program Coordinator for the Women’s Center at UC San Diego. Off and on, between 1998 and 2012, she worked in that office, the LGBT Resource Center and Services for Students with Disabilities—the last two at UC Riverside. Having been raised as an atheist and skeptic, in around 2000 she began to embrace alternative forms of spirituality, chiefly through practicing western magick. She was the owner and operator of Ananda Books and Gifts in Riverside, California, a new age center and store, from January 2004 to August 2006. A prolific writer and poet, Peterson has also at various times worked as a freelance ghost-writer and as a freelance editor, including for academic publications. She moved to Berkeley in April of 2013. As a philosopher who conducts practical research within western esotericism and as a ceremonial magician, psychic and noted astrologer, Peterson founded Persephone Counseling Astrology, later renamed as Joyful Psyche Astrology. When asked what motivates her in these diverse activities, she says it is an interest in helping each human being uncover and live in accordance with their own deepest values, as only they can define. While in Berkeley she became an initiate of Aleister Crowley’s OTO. She also joined Grady Louis McMurtry’s AA lineage as a Probationer 0°=0* on July 21st 2009 assuming the motto Absorbeo 410. She rose up in the degrees and was duly recognized and chartered to run Pure Joy Clerk House on January 4th 2015. The name was taken from Liber AL vel Legis II:9. On February 22nd 2016 she signed the Oath of Adeptus Minor 5°=6*. She is the Editor-in-Chief and co-author of Essays, a series of hardback books released by McMurtry-Cornelius AA lineage. She also wrote and published On Getting a Bu****it Meter or, “If I Remember Lemuria, Will You Pay Me $100 a Year?” (2016). She married J. Edward Cornelius on August 31st 2015 in Berkeley, thus becoming known as Erica M Cornelius.
