avg_rating: 4.29
name: Soror Syrinx
about: Melissa Swaim (Soror Syrinx) began her teenage years meditating in the woods, communing with nature and also reading books by Castaneda while working with runes, tarot and other forms of divination. She then found the Association for Research and Enlightenment in her home town, where she began to spend her days amongst the 25,000 books of their occult library on the 2nd floor of their Virginia headquarters. Shortly thereafter, her quest began in greater earnest undertaking study programs with AMORC, O.M.C.E. and Fraternitus L.V.X. Occulta, among others. However, no real spiritual satisfaction came her way until she found the Goddess and her love for the writings of Dion Fortune. Melissa then joined the International Guild of Sorcery (later Melissa Swaim (Soror Syrinx) began her teenage years meditating in the woods, communing with nature and also reading books by Castaneda while working with runes, tarot and other forms of divination. She then found the Association for Research and Enlightenment in her home town, where she began to spend her days amongst the 25,000 books of their occult library on the 2nd floor of their Virginia headquarters. Shortly thereafter, her quest began in greater earnest undertaking study programs with AMORC, O.M.C.E. and Fraternitus L.V.X. Occulta, among others. However, no real spiritual satisfaction came her way until she found the Goddess and her love for the writings of Dion Fortune. Melissa then joined the International Guild of Sorcery (later known as the International Guild of Occult Sciences) as an inner member, and began writing for their magazine as well as publishing her own books. It was at the same time that she discovered the ads at the back of an occult magazine and became enamored with a word that jumped off the page, "Thelema," which led her to joining the Ordo Templi Baphe-Metis; themselves, an extension of the American Gnostic Church. She began writing for their magazine Abrasax before ultimately, life would happen; marrying and birthing two children with her husband taking her further south to Alabama and deep in the heart of the Bible Belt where she was forced to keep her occult life secret. Though even at this time, her writing career continued with the writing of several novels; one or two even having peripheral Occult themes.After 20 years, her marriage fell apart, and that provided the open door for her to reconnect with her spirituality. The Goddess led her fingers through the Internet where she inevitably came across the works of Paul Joseph Rovelli and she knew she had found the one person with whom she could manifest what she held so closely in her heart for so many quiet years.Together with Rovelli, she went on to found the Gnostic Church of L.V.X. in Hoosick Falls, New York, as a non-profit religious organization providing a unique blend of Goddess worship, Thelema, and Gnostic reconstruction. In manifesting that church, Melissa has produced The Scarlet Grimoire, which not only introduces the Goddess and the nature of her love to a Thelemic audience mislead by the old patriarchy, but also to the Pagan community of Witches who are the ancient manifestation of the Divine Feminine; seeking expression in the emergent post-patriarchal world. ...more