Intro by P.R. Koenig
The turbulence that shook the so-called ‘Caliphate’ O.T.O. in 2021 reveals a complex tapestry of systemic dysfunction, ideological fracture, and reputational crisis. At its core lies an esoteric institution ill-equipped to reconcile early 20th-century occultism with the ethical imperatives and social sensibilities of the 21st century.Foremost among the controversies were the Order’s ineffectual responses to abuse allegations, brought to light in the wake of #MeToo. The now-infamous “#respectthenoinoto” campaign—intended as a gesture of institutional awareness—elicited more derision than praise, symbolizing a performative approach to accountability. The silencing of voices such as that of Sister Georgia, and the ensuing exodus of disillusioned members, laid bare a leadership culture characterized more by evasion than by transparency.
Gender politics fared little better. Ongoing disputes over the gender roles embedded in the Gnostic Mass have turned Crowley’s once-radical androgyne ideal into a theater of conflict between reactionary traditionalists and reform-minded progressives. The 2019 E.G.C. manual, though couched in inclusive rhetoric, remained tethered to binary constructs—an accommodation that came across as a reluctant compromise rather than a genuine transformation. Critics have rightfully pointed to this as yet another instance of queer erasure within the Order.
Further disintegration followed the political schism of 2017. High-profile members such as James Wasserman openly affiliated with neofascist ideologies, a move that went unchallenged by the Order’s leadership. This failure to repudiate extremist alignments exacerbated internal dissent and tainted the organization’s public image. The parallel saga involving the Boleskine House Foundation—marked by disputes over ownership, secrecy, and authority—only reinforced perceptions of the O.T.O. as governed by opacity and plagued by hidden hierarchies.
Efforts to rehabilitate the Boleskine estate, ostensibly under secular auspices, have paradoxically reignited public fears of occult revivalism. Both local communities and disaffected former members have expressed suspicion over the project's true affiliations. This mismanagement serves as a microcosm of the Order’s broader malaise: its claims of independence repeatedly undermined by scandal, internal strife, and a chronic inability to adapt.
In sum, the decline of the 'Caliphate' O.T.O. offers a cautionary exemplar of institutional atrophy. Its once-lofty spiritual ideals now sink under the weight of obsolete dogmas, public disrepute, and ideological incoherence. Whether it will survive as a reformed body or merely fade into the footnotes of esoteric history remains an open—and perhaps rhetorical—question.
When “the O.T.O.” is referenced here, it specifically denotes the American organization commonly referred to as the ‘Caliphate’.
In a sense, it is always more than can be said about it. No existing entity can be wholly grasped; there is no final account. In the context of this essay, this O.T.O. appears as a derailment—one variation among others, such as the Swiss O.T.O. and the Brazilian O.T.O..
Some of what follows may summarize what is already known, yet the accumulation of these episodes reveals a pattern—less anecdotal than diagnostic.
Report by the Shadow Scribe
General critique:
Structure
The ‘Caliphate’ O.T.O. is anything but a democratic organization (cf.
Liber CXCIV:10). Its structure is based on a mixture of templarism and
freemasonry. Hence it is hierarchical and pyramidal in its structure. In
other words, few at the top and many at the bottom. In the annual
demographics, we can see that less than 3% of the total initiates
are of the Fifth degree or higher. This has unfortunately not changed
considerably within the last few decades.
Certain higher degrees and positions within the order are required to
give all property to the order in order to advance. They are then
subsequently supported by the order. This also means that, in reality,
the lower degrees and their fees are meant to support the higher
degrees. Hence, it makes sense to have a large mass of lower degrees
paying for a few at the top.
In that perspective, this setup looks more like a sectarian
structure, than an ordinary Order structure: a Hierarchical power
pyramid, the lower degrees paying for a top–down leadership, etc.
Secrecy
Another challenge the (c)O.T.O. has looks like what we encounter in
most esoteric circles: That the not necessarily vegan secrets so heavily
guarded have been revealed long ago. The initiations have been published
by Francis King and more recently by Peter–Robert Koenig. The
innermost secrets, those of sexual magick, that might have been taboo in
Victorian age England, are hardly worth a footnote in this day and age
of Internet porn and the post–hippie sexual revolution. A quick internet
search will reveal many pages of in-depth analysis of the sexual
magickal secrets as well as the basic O.T.O. texts that Crowley
promoted within the O.T.O. top degrees. The secrecy might thus, in this
light, be interpreted as nothing more than an instrument of power and a
strategy of securing, as well as maintaining, said inner–order power
and money-flow.
Admittance and advancement
Since advancement in the O.T.O. is primarily on the background of the
service provided to the order, it might be said that the O.T.O. is not a
magickal order as such. It is, in other words not a teaching order. On
top of that, since the lowest triad is open for anybody “free and of
legal age”, many misunderstandings have arisen between leadership
and newly initiated members (seeking a magickal order). Also, although
there is much talk about “The Current of Thelema” and how initiations
might influence the member, a member might in theory go through the
O.T.O. with no magickal schooling, experience or even (spiritual)
development.
Young Leadership
Young organization, relatively speaking, with little to no
supervision of the many departments worldwide. Meaning that instances
of molestation and oppression in diverse forms are free to happen with
an absent leadership, that only seems to be interested in taking the
money and protecting its organization.
Conclusion
With an Order that has a structure that siphons money from the lower
degrees to the leadership, having a hierarchical power structure and
simultaneously having nothing original to provide (as all the secrets
are public), and at the same time having nothing in its structure that
demands a magickal schooling as such (and thus failing to guarantee a
leadership more spiritually evolved), one wonders what the (c)O.T.O.
might provide other than physical initiations.
One might therefore conclude that the (c)O.T.O. is an order ill adapted
to our current day and age, and has no apparent agenda other than
furthering its own growth.
Main Critique:
For convenience we shall limit the main critique involved to the
following points.
— Re–Booting: Legitimacy
— Re–Formatting: O.T.O. as a Corporation — (c)O.T.O.
— Re–Defining: Thelema as a Religion
— Re–Dacting: The redaction of the Class A Text “Liber AL vel Legis”
(Class A means the holiest of the holies)
— Re–Creating: Uniting the O.T.O. and the A.’.A.’. in
an attempt to consolidate the Power
— Re–Configuration: The rewriting of the O.T.O. initiation oaths
LEGITIMACY
Item 1: The re–booting of the Order
Concerning the Legitimacy of the (c)O.T.O. we can see that although
they currently have the copyright to the name and logo in the United
States, their claim rests on as legitimate a claim as many another
O.T.O. faction's.
1.a: Karl Germer died in 1962. In 1969, in competition with the then Solar Lodge, Grady Louis McMurtry invoked his emergency authorization from Crowley and assumed the title of ‘Caliph’, which Crowley had granted him for California. He began performing sort of initiations in 1969.
Fact 1: Karl Germer was the head of Crowley’s O.T.O. after Crowley's
death and passed on without (?) naming a successor.
(It seems that the German Friedrich Mellinger
has been targeted by both Crowley, as well as by Germer.)
Fact 2: Grady McMurtry (a.k.a. Hymenaeus Alpha) re–booted an O.T.O. as a ‘Caliph’ (and not as an Outer Head of the Order, O.H.O., proper) seven years after Germer's death.
Fact 3: The ‘Caliphate’ is not in an un–severed lineage with the Original O.T.O. as it is a re–boot, it is not identical with Crowley's Original O.T.O. and thus cannot legitimately claim to be the one–and–only O.T.O.
Fact 4: There is to date no proof that Reuss ever handed over the
leadership of the O.T.O. to Crowley. Did not Reuss expel Crowley and
favour Hans Rudolf
Hilfiker?
As such, Crowley's version of the O.T.O. would thus still have been regional (known as the M.'.M.'.M.'., i.e. Crowley's version for Britain and Ireland), meaning that other regional versions of the O.T.O. would be equally valid and entitled to the name O.T.O.
And what about Kenneth Grant?
O.T.O. AS A CORPORATION — (c)O.T.O.
Item 2) The re–formation of an Occult Brotherhood/Order into a Corporate
entity
2.a) Legal actions leveled against the Brazilian version under Marcelo
Ramos Motta (IX° and XI° O.T.O.).
How can an Order claim Legitimacy by suing other Brothers in a worldly
court, when it clearly states in Crowley’s Liber CI (Seventh House: 25)
that: "Lawsuits between members of the Order are absolutely
forbidden, on pain of immediate expulsion and loss of all privileges,
even of those accumulated by past good conduct referred to in the second
part of this instruction."
In other words: the (c)O.T.O. has according to its own rules and by its
own actions, invalidated its own existence.
2.b) Threats of legal actions against members.
The current leader of the ‘Caliphate’, Bill Breeze,
has threatened members with legal actions due to differences of opinion.
An example of this was his move towards Phyllis Seckler /
Soror Meral (founding member of the ‘Caliphate’ and one of their
IX°s).
2.c) Obscure and unfair expulsion of dedicated members.
The case of Allen
Greenfield comes to mind.
Just like the case of Jerry Cornelius.
Or the Riettis.
THELEMA AS A RELIGION
Item 3) The re–defining of Thelema as a Religion
According to Crowley, one could call Thelema a Religion, yet he failed
to see the reason to do so: In Magick Without Tears, he writes:
“To sum up, our system is a religion just so far as a religion means
an enthusiastic putting–together of a series of doctrines, no one of
which must in any way clash with Science or Magick. Call it a new
religion, then, if it so please your Gracious Majesty; but I confess
that I fail to see what you will have gained by so doing, and I feel
bound to add that you might easily cause a great deal of
misunderstanding, and work a rather stupid kind of mischief.”
The “mischief” that he refers to here might be the mischief we
see happening around most religions. Namely: Corruption, Superstition,
Tyranny, Redaction of historical facts, Manipulation of literary
elements to fit the cosmology to the current agenda and
Oppression.
3.a.: Invoking a secret–chief as the main reason behind your action and
its legitimacy (Superstition)
In the Kill–gate Scandal (see point 4.a), initially Bill Breeze (H.B.)
claimed that the Secret–Chiefs had guided him to make the changes to the
Class A text known as Liber AL vel Legis. He writes on the official
O.T.O. homepage (http://oto.org/news0413.html):
"That this particular book—with corrections!—should arrive in that
brief period when The Holy Books were being proofed was amazing, though
not entirely unsurprising to me. I believe the Secret Chiefs are paying
attention to our work and can arrange such things—if I didn’t believe
that, I wouldn’t be editing The Holy Books in the first
place!"
3.b.: The registering of the E.G.C. as a church and the following
consequences
By having an outreach program to inmates in prisons as an extension of
the officially E.G.C./O.T.O. registered Church (“The O.T.O. prison
ministries”) and the compromise that this poses in relation to the
philosophy of Thelema as it is manifested within the O.T.O. (it would
seem that a more Christian–like rhetoric was chosen for this
manifestation), the (c)O.T.O. engaged in a relationship (Baptism in the
EGC and then membership of the Sekhmet–Maat Lodge) with the felon David
Ray Taylor, who would later rape two sisters of the Order. He was later
sentenced to death.
(http://www.oregonlive.com
/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2016/04/
trial_begins_for_veteran_26_ac.html)
Whether or not a charitable program was seen as required in order to be
a registered Church or if it was an attempt to Clean Up the
name of the O.T.O. in the eyes of the mainstream communities or if it
was a misguided attempt at going Good, the fact remains that
this is a very clear example of how an esoteric and magickal order,
trying to put themselves up as an exoteric Church, fails in their
endeavor. Perhaps the (c)O.T.O. is going about this the wrong way?
CHANGING THE TEXTS
Item 4) The redaction of a Class A text.
The risk of changing a Class A text, besides going against everything
that the classification of texts stands for in general as well as the
safeguards they represent when specifically speaking of a Class A text,
might include creating a precedence of redaction of holy thelemic
texts.
4.a The Kill–gate scandal
In May 2013, William Breeze (Hymenaeus Beta) issued a statement
concerning the change of a letter in the Book of the Law based on a
Marginal note in pencil probably scribbled by Crowley in the Book
“Thelema” given by Crowley to James Thomas Windram in the fall equinox
of 1913, which Breeze had received.
The statement is here.
His point being that there have been many errors in several books and
these marginal pencil notes in that book are to be seen as a legitimate
reason to change the text. He does this with the words: “What if all
prior printed editions had it wrong?”. In other words, rather than
taking a step back to reevaluate the situation and open up for dialogue
and critical thinking, he asks that of everybody else after having made
the change. In accordance with the guidelines found in Liber Legis, chpt
1:54, this is clearly not acceptable. Likewise we find, related to the
Class A status of the text, in the relevant passage in Liber 207:
“Class A consists of books of which may be changed not so much as
the style of a letter. That is, they represent the utterance of an Adept
entirely beyond the criticism of even the Visible Head of the
Organisation.”
William Breeze's change thus signifies a break with the guidelines of To
Mega Therion, the A.·. A.·. as well as the Thelemic current, as this
change undermines the textual foundations whereupon the Thelemic current
rests and through which it is promoted.
When the Swiss O.T.O. changed the ingredients of the host at Mass (by adding grapes), it was branded as blasphemy by the American O.T.O. And when Hermann Joseph Metzger had himself declared the world leader by his own followers, it was declassified as improper and ridiculed.
But when you do the same thing, of course it becomes
sacrosanct.
ONE ORDER TO RULE THEM ALL
5) The Recreation of an Order: Consolidation of the O.T.O. and the
A.·. A.·.
In an attempt to fuse the (c)O.T.O. with his own A.·. A.·. Lineage
(i.e. Motta's), Breeze has gone after those in his O.T.O. that represent
alternative A.·. A.·. lineages. In his endeavors to purge his O.T.O. of
others claiming A.·. A.·. authority or perceived as such, he has
subjected such members to expulsion from the (c)O.T.O. Following are a
few examples.
5.a: Breeze vs. Phyllis Seckler (Jane Wolfe's A.·.
A.·. lineage)
As seen in the letter from Seckler to Breeze, Breeze seems to be
striving to exclude any and every mention of other Argenteum Astrum (A.·.
A.·.) lineages than his own. This he does by trying to prevent Seckler
from using the name or lamen of the A.·. A.·.. This is indicative not
only of a consolidation of the A.·. A.·. and the O.T.O., but even of an
exclusion
of all other A.·. A.·. lineages within Bill Breeze's version of the
O.T.O.
5.b: Breeze vs. Jerry Cornelius (Grady McMurtry's A.·. A.·.
lineage)
With the indirect confrontation (via the release of Cornelius’ book Red
Flame 7) of Breeze's A.·. A.·. lineage's monopoly within the O.T.O.,
Cornelius experienced a challenge within the (c)O.T.O.
As a result of Breeze ongoing endeavors to expunge the (c)O.T.O. of any
and all other A.·. A.·. lineages besides his own, Cornelius experienced
himself thrown out of the (c)O.T.O. As Cornelius had taken most of his
upper degrees directly from Grady McMurtry, he was not subject to
Breeze's attempts via the initiation oaths to, what some have seen as,
suppress the members into submission.
The tactics employed by Breeze to silence Cornelius' claims of an
alternative A.·. A.·. lineage, included slander, misinformation and
internal O.T.O. manipulations within the Areopagus. By blurring the
lines between the O.T.O. and the A.·. A.·., Breeze attempted to convince
the Areopagus that the two different Orders had always been one and the
same, and that Cornelius' claims within the Red Flame 7 were not only
untrue, but a threat to the O.T.O.
Based on the proceedings of the Areopagus on 29 April 2000,
Cornelius came to this
conclusion:
“However, at the Areopagus meeting, Breeze admitted that his
A.’.A.’. undisputedly runs the O.T.O. as a dictatorship and that both
Orders are connected or 'entwined' as an 'Inner and Outer'
school.”
“OBEY MY AUTHORITAH”
6) The re–configuration of an Order: The rewriting of the O.T.O.
initiation oaths
6.a: The new VI°.
Some time during the early 1990s, William Breeze (Hymenaeus Beta) made
changes to some of the Oaths in the (c)O.T.O. rituals, specifically the
oath taken during the sixth degree. The oaths in the VI° degree are made
to the “Grand Master Baphomet”. William Breeze removed Baphomet
from the wording of the oath and implemented himself into the oath as
“Grand Master Hymenaeus Beta”, which can be seen in the
“new and improved” initiation papers. The implications of this
change are diverse.
Firstly, as the oath of unconditional and unswerving obedience was
originally to Baphomet, we must conclude that William Breeze meant this
to mean not an oath to Baphomet as the Egregore of the Order nor as a
metaphore of the Secret Perfected Self, but rather a reference to
Aleister Crowley's magickal name “Baphomet”. As such, one might claim
that the logic of the swap of “Baphomet” for “Hymenaeus Beta” makes
sense. Breeze would then just be swapping the magickal name of a former
O.T.O. leader for the current O.T.O. leader.
This, of course, only if Breeze disregards the fact that the wording in
the initiation ritual already has references to the OHO (Outer Head of
the Order) side by side with Baphomet, and therefore the swap makes no
sense at all.
Therefore, Breeze's swap in the oath of obedience has now been cemented
as a pledge of allegiance to a person and not a concept.
Secondly, by turning the (c)O.T.O. into a de facto “Cult of Personality”
via this new oath, with anybody in the VI° and above sworn into
obedience to Hymenaeus Beta, any and all conflicts or differences of
opinion could be stopped immediately or alternatively the disagreeing
member could be kicked out of the Order for “insubordination” with
reference to the VI° oath. An example of this might be seen in the case
of Allen
Greenfield and his expulsion from the order on exactly those
grounds, namely of “insubordination”.
Thirdly, in respects to the change creating a precedence of a “Cult
of Personality” within the O.T.O., it puts the individual member up
against hirself. The change in the oath seems to be in violation to that
part of the first degree oath which deals with subjecting oneself unduly
to another person, as that specific part of the VI° oath is now not
taken to a concept like Baphomet or an office (like in the case of the
OHO part), but rather to a living person, i.e. “Hymenaeus Beta” /
William Breeze.
With the change of the oath in the VI°, the internal implications of
this oath might be said to have been changed from a magickal oath to a
worldly and political oath. A shift from “empowerment of the O.T.O.
member” to “power of the leader over the O.T.O. member”.
Yet, this swap was not undertaken by any of the immediate (c)O.T.O.
leaders following Crowley (e.g. Hymenaeus Alpha), which therefore makes
HB's interpretation a weak case.
This swap has been criticized by old as well as new members alike,
especially since it has been wielded as a power tool in consolidating
Hymenaeus Beta's power within the O.T.O., and puts members at odds with
previously taken oaths.
Conclusion:
* * *
*
* * *
Burning for Donald Trump
P.R. Koenig
Donald Trump's first presidency triggered an ideological rift within the
O.T.O.
Let us examine one prominent figure at the center of this polarization:
James Wasserman (b. 1948) encountered the writings of Aleister
Crowley in 1969. He would go on to become general manager and managing
editor at Samuel Weiser Inc., a New York-based occult publishing house
under the leadership of Donald Weiser. Wasserman was, for a time, a
member of Marcelo Ramos Motta’s O.T.O. in Brazil. During the legal
disputes between Motta and the so-called ‘Caliphate’, Wasserman
deliberately misled Motta—who remained his nominal superior—regarding
the status of those proceedings. In 1976, Wasserman, along with his A.·.
A.·. associates James Daniel Gunther and Richard Gernon, shifted
allegiance to Grady McMurtry. This earned Wasserman an immediate
elevation to a high degree within the ‘Caliphate’ structure.
During the Trump era, Wasserman found a political home.
While not all Thelemites shared his convictions, Wasserman became the
most prominent right-wing advocate within the Order, publicly
championing “militarism, patriotism,” a “strong military,
decisive national self-interest,” and the “self-reliant
citizen-soldier.” His stance alienated a significant faction within
the organization. Some high-ranking members deemed his
views abhorrent and resigned in protest.
In August 2017, Wasserman and his alt-right Thelemite followers voiced support for the neo-fascist "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville—an event effectively condoned by Trump’s public response.
Former O.T.O. member Augustus Sol Invictus, though no longer affiliated at the time of Charlottesville, was a key organizer of the rally. His earlier notoriety for ritually sacrificing a goat in the Mojave Desert in 2015 had already attracted unwanted attention. That episode, coupled with his claim to the highest A.·. A.·. grade of Ipsissimus—thus challenging the authority of the Gunther–Breeze–Wasserman triad—may have precipitated his expulsion.
A lower-degree O.T.O. initiate, Matthew Lyons, further embarrassed
the Order by appearing in a Getty Images photo alongside far-right
leader Gavin
McInnes.
By early 2018, the U.S. Grand Lodge was compelled to amend its vision
statement, in response to Wasserman’s anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and his
defense of the Charlottesville demonstrators’ right to free
speech.
In mid-2019, several high-profile members departed the ‘Caliphate’,
including such recognizable figures as Rodney Orpheus and Clive
Harper.
Why Breeze tolerated Wasserman for so long remains a matter of
speculation. Given that the ‘Caliphate’ functions as little more than a
fundraising mechanism and recruitment platform for the purportedly
superior A.·. A.·, it is worth noting that Wasserman, along with Martin
Starr and other allies, played a crucial role in bolstering Breeze’s
A.·. A.·. claims.
Wasserman died on November 18th, 2020.
While Trump supporters are often caricatured as dismissive of
COVID-19 precautions, O.T.O. activities were suspended during the
pandemic. Ironically, this suggests that at least the lower levels of
the organization exercised prudence. This stands in stark contrast to
the presence of a well-known AIDS denialist
in the Order’s upper echelons, specifically within the so-called
“Cabinet of the Caliphate.”
Conclusion:
Very little has changed since the publication of the O.T.O.'s Journal of Thelemic Studies, 1:2 (2008), page 40: http://thelemicstudies.com/ JoTS1-2.pdf [page defunct]
“The reason these aspects of Thelema [Mass of the Phoenix, Liber
Nu, Liber Had, Liber Astarte, Liber Thisharb, Liber VII, X, LVX, XC,
CCXXXI] are omitted indicates the actual problem with presenting Thelema
as a religion and attempting to get Thelema sanctioned by the government
or approved by the public: Thelema is ultimately in contrast to and
transgressive of normative society. Thelema rejects the morals and
values of normative society and acts to transgress and violate these
norms. From the inclusion of intoxicants in ritual, to the positive view
of sexuality, which frequently is seen as promoting promiscuity, to the
pro-authoritarian and Nietzschean aspects of Thelema, normative society
has much to reject in Thelema and conversely, Thelema encourages its
adherents to reject most aspects of normative society.”
