This year, the body master of Leaping Laughter Oasis (the lovely Harper Feist) decided this summer would be our Summer of Promulgation. We picked three local events, Paganicon, Pride, and Pagan Pride, and we set up everything we needed to have suites and booths at each. We have completed Paganicon, and Pride, and we’re preparing for Pagan Pride as I type!
Paganicon was great, and we got a lot of great feedback. Several people said our hospitality suite was the best at the con, but that might have been because of the wine. It’s hard to tell. We now have a local Root Worker group renting our lodge space once a month as a result of that outreach, and they have attended a couple of our events as guests. They are totes Thelemites, by definition, but regardless of whether they join, they are happy to know us, and to mix our energies. Lodge folk and Root folk are getting good things out of our interactions.
While that was cool, we didn’t get any new Minervals or regular EGC Mass attendees out of that effort which was sort of a bummer. Don’t get me wrong, it was cool and all; we dispelled some of the rumors about the OTO in the Pagan community locally just by showing up. Apparently ceremonial magicians have some kind of … reputation? When the pagans saw we were cool, they were relieved and shared mead and awesome speaks. That’s totally a success.
Harper with Pope Frank
But Pride! Dude, Pride was amazing. Since doing Pride, we’ve had several Minervals apply as a direct result of talking to us there, and we regularly get new people showing up for Mass as a result of our outreach efforts. People are coming to our classes, our ritual nights, and other events that we set up. It’s been our most successful outreach effort so far.
It was also the most arduous outreach effort. Over two days, four people spent about twenty hours in the booth, with several other lodge members giving us breaks. We spent time before the event going over our “OTO/Thelema Elevator Speeches” and one of our members who is
active in the Pride community came to our prep class and gave us some great pointers on how to talk to people.
Overall, it was a huge amount of fun, and our return on investment has been outstanding. So many people in the LGBTQ community are already living by the tenets of our belief system, it is natural for them to transition into a more structured expression of doing their will.
Also, people, this was just plain fun. Check out the pics below, it was awesome good times.
Everyone asked if they could have a Rose. I mean… YES! on the last day in the last hour, but seriously? No. Have a crane.
Something like 500-1000 origami cranes donated by a Sister at our lodge. The kiddos and millennials were all into them. Had to teach them how to fold them flat for transportation, but we were the only booth with origami cranes.
Some of the lhandouts Harper had made for the event, sporting the snazzy new Leaping Laughter Lamen.
Moar Literatures
Stele that the wind hated a lot, the use of which was donated by a brother who had it printed.
Leaping Laughter’s Public Relations Officer, who coordinated all the things to make this happen!
Harper showing off our Pride Swag T-Shirts
Harper with the 8′ banner we used to promulgate like mofos. Special thanks to IAO 131 for letting us print up this image, dude’s AMAZING.
