Ordo Templi Orientis

The Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) is described in the findings of fact of a United States District Court as "a mystical and fraternal organization begun around 1900," whose chief international executive is the Outer Head of the Order.¹ Aleister Crowley held that office from about 1921 until his death in 1947.¹

Reuss and Crowley

On April 21, 1912 the German Theodor Reuss issued a charter making Crowley National Grand Master X for Great Britain and Ireland, with a British section called the Mysteria Mystica Maxima (M.M.M.).² Reuss visited Crowley that May and accused him of publishing the Order's secrets in The Book of Lies.³ In January 1915 Wilfred Talbot Smith joined the M.M.M.⁴

In his examination by agents of the Bureau of Investigation in 1918 Crowley described the Order as "just like masonry," said that its actual head was Reuss, "a German," who had left England with the German ambassador and was reported in October 1918 to be running the Continental Times in Berlin and a branch of the Order under another name in Switzerland, and said that the English lodge at 93 Regent Street had been raided in June 1917 and its nominal head, Mary Davies, arrested as a fortune-teller. He stated that he had "just organized a branch in this country," that its funds were on deposit with the Title Guarantee and Trust Company, New York, and that he was supporting himself "principally through the funds of the Ordo Templi Orientis."⁵ On November 27, 1921, at the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalù, Crowley proclaimed himself Outer Head.⁶

The California lodge

Smith, born in Tonbridge, England, wrote in a May 6, 1941 affidavit that he had lived in the United States twenty years, had been employed by the Southern California Gas Company since April 21, 1922, and had made 1746 Winona Boulevard, Hollywood, his home for ten years.⁷ In May 1932 he and Regina Kahl, with Jane Wolfe, took the house that became the lodge.⁸ On September 21, 1935 the first Minerval initiations of the revived Order in the United States were conducted at Playa del Rey, and Smith announced that the lodge would be called Agape Lodge.⁹ Smith filed articles of incorporation for the Church of Thelema in California on April 19, 1934.¹⁰ On May 6, 1941 he wrote to the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the Department of Justice in Los Angeles that Crowley, "66 years of age, and a native of and now resident in England, is desirous of coming to America," enclosing lists of members willing to sponsor him; Smith's affidavit of support offered 1746 Winona Boulevard as Crowley's residence.⁷ The lodge is the subject of its own page. By 1941 its members included Jack Parsons, a Caltech research fellow in aeronautics, and Grady McMurtry, later a second lieutenant of Ordnance.¹¹

Federal inquiries

A report of the 115th Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment, Headquarters, Sixth Army, San Francisco, dated May 17, 1946, recorded that "a religious cult, believed to advocate sexual perversion" had been organized at Parsons's home at 1003 South Orange Grove Avenue, Pasadena, that the home "had been reported subversive," and that Parsons had been questioned twice with nothing subversive found; the Army, Navy, Air Force Personnel Security Board had denied him clearance on September 29, 1948.¹² An FBI letter from the Oklahoma City office dated March 31, 1944, captioned "Church of Thelma, also known as Oriena Templus Orientus, O.T.O.," security matter G, recorded an informant's account of a weekend initiation at 1003 South Orange Grove, where he met "approx. 40 or 50 members"; it states that "W. T. Smith is said to be the head of the organization in Calif.," that a German alien (Karl Germer, by the released text's bracketed identification) was "organizing for the Order" in New York, that "Orders for the activities of this organization are received from Sir. Aleister Crowley, London, England," and that the Order's book The Book of the Law "tears down everything democracy stands for."¹³

Crowley's correspondence with Smith and with the New York representative Karl Germer records the same period. Germer wrote to Jane Wolfe on March 12, 1942 that FBI agents had been "in the house" at 1007 Lexington Avenue, New York, and "ransacked every nook for almost four hours," reading all his letters and those of his wife Cora.¹⁴ Smith wrote to Crowley on February 3, 1943 that two FBI men had questioned him for three hours.¹⁵ On March 27, 1943 Max Schneider, a member in Hollywood, wrote to Germer that the lodge "has acquired an undesirable reputation to the extent of inviting the repeated scrutinies of the local police as well as of the F.B.I."¹⁶

Succession and the estate

After Crowley's death on December 1, 1947 Germer became Outer Head. About 1950 he moved the Order's tangible property to California. He died in California in 1962; no will was offered for probate, and the property stayed with his widow, Sasha Germer, until her death in 1975.¹⁷ Germer closed Agape Lodge on September 7, 1953 and expelled Kenneth Grant from the Order on July 20, 1955.¹⁸

Crowley's letters to McMurtry of 1943 and 1944 discuss a "Caliph" and a successor to Germer, as set out on the Crowley page.¹⁹ The findings of 1985 record that McMurtry was the acting Outer Head of the Order in the United States.¹⁷ The Order's litigation against Marcelo Motta is described below.

In 1976 the Superior Court of California, Calaveras County, in the matter of the estate of Sasha Germer, authorized McMurtry to take possession on behalf of the Order of property identified as belonging to it.¹⁷

OTO v. Motta

The Order sued Motta, a Brazilian citizen, his Tennessee corporation Society Ordo Templi Orientis (SOTO) and Thelema Publishing Company in the Northern District of California in March 1983. The plaintiffs were McMurtry, William Heidrick, P. Seckler, H. P. Smith, James Wasserman, the California corporation and Thelema Publications. Judge Charles A. Legge tried the case without a jury from May 13 to 17, 1985, with Stuart I. MacKenzie for the plaintiffs and Robert E. Mittel for the defendants.²⁰

The findings of fact, filed July 10, 1985, state that the plaintiff Order "is a continuation of the organization, beliefs and practices originally established and conducted by Crowley and OTO"; that SOTO "is not the continuation" of that organization; that McMurtry "is the acting OHO of OTO in the United States"; that "Defendant Motta is not the OHO of OTO"; and that Motta's registrations of the names "OTO," "Crowley" and "Thelema" "were done in contemplation of this litigation and were done without the rights of ownership." The court held that statements in books Motta published in 1981 were libel per se as to four plaintiffs (including the allegation that McMurtry had "contributed to the death of Sasha Germer") and awarded each $10,000 in general and $25,000 in punitive damages; Heidrick lost on that count. Conclusion 6 applies a prior decision of Judge Gene Carter of the District of Maine in Motta v. Samuel Weiser, Inc., No. 81-0459, to estop the defendants from claiming the Crowley copyrights.²¹

The judgment declares that defendants do not own or have the right to use any of Crowley's copyrights or publications, that the Order is entitled to the exclusive use of the name, initials and insignia (except that SOTO keeps the name "Society Ordo Templi Orientis"), that McMurtry owns the interest in Magick Without Tears assigned to him by Crowley, and that the Order is entitled to possession of "the archives of OTO" and "all other writings by Aleister Crowley which are not in the public domain."²² A headnote to the published text, signed H.B., states that news of the judgment reached the Order on the morning of July 12, 1985, the day McMurtry died.²²

Archives

Crowley's unpublished diaries for 1943 and 1944 and typescripts in the Yorke Collection are held at the Warburg Institute, University of London, as listed in the Crowley Timeline's reference list.²³