ORDO TEMPLI ORIENTIS VS “ORDO TEMPLI ORIENTIS”

Dedicated to Hymenaeus Beta, Marsyas and (C)OTO.

Not everyone understands the fundamental difference between Ordo Templi Orientis and the American religious corporation of the same name, which is widely represented on the Internet (oto-usa.org, oto.org, oto.ru, etc.). In this work, we will establish a demarcation line between them, since their identification leads to a substitution of concepts and error.

The situation is not easy to understand, since the said corporation considers itself the real O.T.O., uses its name, symbols and heritage, and traces its line of succession through Theodor Reuss, who founded O.T.O. in the early 20th century, to Aleister Crowley, and further to Karl Germer, Grady McMurtry and William Breeze. Everything seems valid until it turns out that the history on which this organization relies is falsified and its succession is fiction.

Let’s move on to the plot.

1. Theodor Reuss expelled Aleister Crowley from the O.T.O.

A. Crowley, under T. Reuss, was the national master of the O.T.O. in Great Britain and Ireland, along with many other national masters (C. Chinsky, A. Krumm-Heller, C.S. Jones, K. Hansen, G. Tranker, etc.).

It has been established that from August to October 1921, T. Reuss corresponded with S. Lewis, the founder of AMORC and an honorary member of O.T.O. in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. In it, T. Reuss reported that the connection with A. Crowley was broken and he no longer had any relation to O.T.O.

On November 27, 1921, A. Crowley wrote in his diary: “I have proclaimed myself the Outer Head of the Order – the world leader of the O.T.O., who will either be appointed by the predecessor or elected by secret ballot of all who have reached the X degree.”

Accordingly, T. Reuss expelled A. Crowley from the O.T.O. even before he had proclaimed himself its head. Apparently, T. Reuss ignored A. Crowley’s action and remained the head of the O.T.O. for almost two more years – until his death on October 28, 1923.

Immediately after the death of T. Reuss, A. Crowley did not publicly declare his succession – only in January 1925 he first informed C.S. Jones that in his last letter T. Reuss invited him to become the successor and head of the O.T.O. The existence of this letter has not been established – its content contradicts the fact of T. Reuss’s message about breaking off relations with A. Crowley and is not confirmed by any evidence from T. Reuss.

Believers believe that this letter has been lost, but this approach is untenable in the absence of any evidence. It is quite possible that A. Crowley simply invented such a legend, wishing to subjugate some members of T. Reuss’s organization. There is no fact of the transfer of O.T.O. succession from T. Reuss to A. Crowley.

2. Aleister Crowley appointed Karl Germer as the head of his O.T.O., who did not hand it over to Grady McMurtry.

Aleister Crowley set out his will in a will, according to which he ordered that his ashes, books and writings be transferred to his successor, K. Germer, at that time the treasurer of the O.T.O., so that the latter would pass into the possession of the O.T.O. under the leadership of K. Germer.

A. Crowley indicated that all other property should be divided between his executors (K. Germer, F. Harris, L. Wilkinson). He also recommended that it be passed on to his friends after him in accordance with the wishes that he had voiced or written during his lifetime, but left this to the discretion of the executors.

All rights to O.T.O., including the right to choose the heir, were transferred by A. Crowley to K. Germer, who in his last will delegated it to his wife and F. Mellinger. G. McMurtry is not mentioned in K. Germer’s will. K. Germer’s widow, Sascha Germer, immediately declared that M. Motta was the successor. Subsequently, she also named F. Metzger, who had the only active branch of O.T.O. at the time of K. Germer’s death, as the successor. As a result, both M. Motta and F. Metzger considered themselves the heads of O.T.O.

The fact of the transfer of the succession of A. Crowley’s O.T.O. from K. Germer to G. McMurtry is absent. Moreover, it could not have happened in principle, since it is known that K. Germer had personal hostility towards G. McMurtry.

3. A. Crowley considered the possibility of G. McMurtry becoming the head of the O.T.O. after K. Germer, but disavowed it in his will.

Considering K. Germer’s age, A. Crowley did think about possible successors after him. G. McMurtry was not the only one for whom A. Crowley made such plans – there is information that after K. Germer’s death he also considered F. Mellinger as a successor. In addition, there is correspondence between A. Crowley and K. Germer, in which he instructed the latter on how to choose a successor for himself.

Discussion of such a variety of possibilities in the letters obviously does not constitute any kind of disposition or transfer of rights. Nothing of the sort was done with regard to G. McMurtry, while A. Crowley’s official will was drawn up. Since G. McMurtry does not appear in it, this means that de facto A. Crowley made a decision not in his favor.

A. Crowley’s will states that after his death papers may be found with various wishes, including those signed by him, but it is stated that “no such writing shall be considered part of my (A. Crowley’s) Will.” This statement, made in an official document, disavows the meaning of any other assumptions regarding inheritance made by A. Crowley.

A. Crowley and K. Germer did not give G. McMurtry any documents according to which he would be granted the powers of the head, nor the basic documents of the O.T.O. According to the testimonies of people whom G. McMurtry initiated, he did this according to the book by F. King “The Secret Rituals of the O.T.O.”, published in 1973.

A. Crowley, who already in 1918 in Liber Aleph gave instructions not to make a mistake with the heir and remained concerned with this issue until the end of his life, did not leave G. McMurtry even the initiatory rituals, without which no work of the O.T.O. is possible.

A. Crowley called G. McMurtry “Caliph”, on the basis of which some believe in his legitimacy. The word “Caliph” has curious connotations, since, on the one hand, it is a derivative of California, where G. McMurtry lived, and on the other hand, it is the Muslim title of the successor of Muhammad – the prophet of Allah. There is an opinion according to which A. Crowley identified himself with the “prophet”, and called his successor “Caliph”, but this is an extremely superficial interpretation, unworthy of the genius of A. Crowley. Allah in “Bagh-i-Mu’attar” is recognized in sodomy with a catamite. Muhammad in “The Book of the Law” is hit in the face and blinded by Ra-Hoor-Khuit. How A. Crowley understood and what fate was prepared for the Caliph – it is impossible to imagine without humor.

In any case, the fact of the transfer of the O.T.O. succession from A. Crowley to G. McMurtry is absent. No admission in personal correspondence on this matter in the presence of an official will can be recognized as such a fact.

4. Grady McMurtry failed to pass on his O.T.O. to a successor, and the executor of his will disqualified William Breeze from the IX degree of succession.

G. McMurtry had no authority to head A. Crowley’s organization, but, along with many others, was initiated into the secret teaching of the IX degree, which came from T. Reuss’s O.T.O. G. McMurtry died in 1985 and indicated James Grab as an executor in his will. The new head, V. Breeze, was elected by the Council under the chairmanship of J. Grab by the members of G. McMurtry’s organization. A. Crowley’s rule, according to which, in the absence of a successor, a new head must be elected by secret ballot of all who have reached the X degree, was violated, since the only member of the X degree, and a self-proclaimed one at that, in this organization was only Grady, who had died by that time.

In 2004, V. Breeze limited the powers of the key body of the O.T.O. – the Sovereign Sanctuary of the Gnosis, described in Liber CXCIV. J. Grab responded to this with a statement about the severance of the initiatory connection between A. Crowley and V. Breeze, with the following content:

“Aleister Crowley initiated Grady McMurtry into the IX degree of O.T.O. with full rights and privileges. Subsequently, Grady McMurtry, an initiate of the IX degree and Caliph, initiated me into the IX degree. At your election in 1985, I initiated you into the IX degree, so your direct initiatory succession runs from A. Crowley to G. McMurtry, then to me (J. Grabe), and from me to you. You may not know this, but Grady asked one thing of me as his proxy – that you not become Caliph. Since you have broken the oath and the true nature of the Sovereign Sanctuary of the Gnosis, you have broken the initiatory link that once existed between you and Crowley.”

The O.T.O. doctrine is silent as to whether this form of breaking the initiatory bond is valid, but in the general context this is not so important, since the facts presented clearly indicate that the legitimacy of the modern American religious corporation called “O.T.O.” is a fiction.

Conclusion

Among experts, the question of the legitimacy of the O.T.O. has been closed for about half a century. One of the first researchers of the history of this order, Francis King, who revealed the rituals of the O.T.O. to the world, wrote in the preface to them: “My final verdict is that no group (K. Grant, G. McMurtry, F. Metzger, E. Grosche, etc.) can make any legal claims on the O.T.O. However, any group that sincerely works with the spirit and is able to establish the necessary contact with the forces on the higher planes that stand behind the O.T.O. can regard itself as, magically speaking, part of the genuine O.T.O.”

In such a situation, despite the actual lack of legitimacy, the American corporation, otherwise known as the “Caliphate”, continues to appropriate the rights to the name O.T.O., falsify history, position itself to the ignorant public as the only legitimate one, not recognize and publicly discredit any other O.T.O. groups, make legal claims against them, hide and limit access to a number of works by A. Crowley, etc.

The inadequate behavior of the administration of this organization calls into question not only its own reputation, but also its use of the name O.T.O. It knows very well that it is not an authentic and legitimate O.T.O., but just one of many attempts at a modern reconstruction of O.T.O. according to A. Crowley’s patterns, which anyone can undertake. It is not in its interests to admit the obvious and delegitimize itself, so it, like a solipsist, hides in its own parallel reality and avoids any open scientific discussion of the history of O.T.O.

Without the continuity that gives this organization a false mythological grandeur, it immediately becomes apparent that this is not at all a factory for producing geniuses, as the O.T.O.’s creator T. Reuss saw it. This organization has not given anything fundamentally new to the world – it only reproduces and adapts what was created by others and before it.

The quality of this work over the decades can be judged by internal statistics collected by its former manager Allen Greenfield. According to them, about 1% of members have the VII degree and above, which results in a rather insignificant chance for a person to rise up the initiatory ladder of the O.T.O. and a complete lack of chance to work through this system in its entirety.

It should be noted that the absence of an initiatory perspective is not replaced by any other activity – translation, publishing, missionary, since the main meaning and purpose of an initiatory organization is to carry out initiatory work.

All these circumstances once again emphasize that it is inadequate to confuse the Ordo Templi Orientis, created at the beginning of the 20th century in Germany, with its dubious reconstruction of the same name, created more than seventy years later in the USA.

By now, the O.T.O. phenomenon has long since gone beyond the confines of any single organization that it was at the beginning of the 20th century. O.T.O. is already a system of initiation and a tradition that is alive in many groups around the world and is refracted in a variety of forms. It is this understanding of O.T.O. that is relevant for the present and future.

The only legitimate organization, the O.T.O., has not existed since 1923, so if you meet any intellectually gifted individual who positions the Caliphate in this capacity, please refer him to this work and let him challenge it publicly and on the merits. It is clear to us that it is hardly possible to refute the above using the method of science, so we wish all opponents all the best and good luck in advance.

Recommended reading:

– Francis King “Secret Rituals of the OTO”, 1973.

– Theodor Reuss, Aleister Crowley “OTO Rituals and Sex Magick”, 1999.

– Peter-R. Koenig “Introduction to the Ordo Templi Orientis”, 2000.

– Peter-R. Koenig “Consider other OTO groups non existent”, 2000.

– Allen H. Greenfield “Inquisition in 21st century America”, 2006.

– Michael Staley “It’s An Ill Wind That Bloweth…”, Starfire I:5, 1994.

– Sabazius and AMT “OTO History”.

© Fra Aumgn, 2018
© Basileus OTO 2018.