The “Caliphate” Inquisition Transcript

DRThe loo is at the top of the stairs as you have now discovered, and the rest of the house is our private space.

BFFine

BFWell, I mean, you're already aware, we're all aware of the context in which I'm here, it's been appointed by Clive, acting Grand Inquisitor Commander, in this capacity I'll be reporting to Clive, as lodge master of albion lodge and as the "Caliph"'s representative in this country.

DRYou mean you are reporting to Clive as the "Caliph"'s representative?

BFYes Clive's the "Caliph"'s representative.

DRJust to have that clear.

BFThis is to give you an opportunity to have your say and to have that clearly communicated back to the powers that be..and also an opportunity for them to find out what's going on.

DR(to IFR) May I speak on our behalves for the sake of efficiency, so that we don't keep repeating ourselves.?

IFRYou may speak for both of us.

DRNow before we come to various accusations, statements and what-have-you, it's true to say and I have no hesitation of saying it on the record, that Br Ben and ourselves have not always been the best of friends.

BFWe've had conflicts.

DRWe've had conflicts and what I want to do, already at the beginning of this meeting is to try to get some kind of comprehension in the minds of those others present as to exactly why we have a certain, let us say for the sake of politeness, a certain degree of scepticism towards the way in which things in this connection have been conducted so far and also to clarify certain points in that connection. When Br. Clive Harper first mooted this inquiry, as he himself can confirm, we welcomed it, that was our exact expression, we welcome it. Let's have it all up front. We even at that time, were prepared to accept that Br. Ben was the person to carry out this investigation; what we expected at that time was a degree of professionalism in that carrying out that would show the intention to give an objective picture, we haven't seen it! We are aware from Br. Harper and otherwise, that prior to his being commissioned to undertake this investigation, Br. Fernee had on his own initiative and in correspondence with the secretary general already mooted an opinion, which I assume, since he bothered to write it at all he had the hope would be acted upon that we i.e. Sister Irene and myself, should be excluded from the Order. Now whilst we would defend to the death, we would defend to the death Br. Ben's right to hold whatever damned opinions he likes it hardly inspires to confidence that when given the task of investigating our activities, he would approach this with any degree of objectivity soever. We had hoped that we would be wrong. We are aware that no person currently associated with us and to be supposed positively inclined towards us has been approached at all, to express their opinion concerning our activities, none soever, during the what is it, 8 to 10 weeks of this investigation?

BFI'm not sure off he top of my head.

DRWell it's somewhere between 8 and 10 weeks since this was mooted. As a second example to things which have undermined our confidence in this investigation, we cite Br. Fernee's approach to Mr. Louis Malloy, tattooist of Middleton. For the record Louis Malloy was Sr. Irene's original teacher in the arts of tattooing, the history between them was not fortunate. She having been systematically misled and lied to by Malloy with regard to his intents and finally pushed to the point of abandoning her apprenticeship with him and setting up her own business. Since which time Louis Malloy has made it a very large part of his activities by rumour, innuendo and possibly by more direct means to sabotage the trade of Sr Irene's business, Tattooed Lady Body Art. As an example, probably not included in the evidence taken by Br. Ben, the rumour spread through mutual customers: "Oh, she's probably off somewhere fucking cats and dogs and casting spells on people".

IFRThe reason that I lost the apprenticeship was that I was a member of Ordo Templi Orientis.

DRYes. The final, as Sr Irene has remarked, the final element in Malloy forcing her into breaking with him was his paranoia concerning her membership of Ordo Templi Orientis, the which had been brought to his notice by third parties, most likely the proprietor of a shop called Isis on the Corn Exchange. Now, to get to the point here, nobody is questioning Br Ben's right to approach Mr Malloy in the course of his investigations, but the manner in which that approach was carried out, has enabled Mr Malloy, to reinforce his already rich circulating nexus of rumour with the rumour that we and Sr Irene in particular are so perverse and so wicked, so disgusting, that even the black magickal order to which we belong is now in the process of throwing us out for being too extreme! There's no point in anybody ringing Malloy up and complaining about this, he'll lie his head off, he always does. The point here is that there are two interpretations on this unfortunate circumstance. The one is that when Br Ben approached Mr Malloy, (which we know about by the way through Mr Christopher Kelly, in the first instance), when Br Ben approached Mr Malloy, he must have expressed himself in a way that allowed Malloy to use that approach as he has, question is, was that maladroitness on Br Ben's part, in his handling of that situation, or was it ingenuous malice? Another example, Br Ben's taking contact with my good friend Ralph Tegtmeier, on the basis of some information that Tegtmeier and ourselves had become unfriends and that we had been excluded from some organisational context in which Tegtmeier had some authority over us. All of which is arrant nonsense. From conversations with Tegtmeier subsequently, it seems very clear that in conversation with him Br Ben managed to convey the impression, which we will allow, could perhaps be erroneous, but the impression was none the less conveyed, that had it not been for the fact that there was reason to suppose that Tegtmeier would have something negative to say about us he would not have been contacted at all. Now we have given our promise to Br Clive that we will keep this meeting civilised and we have every intention to do so. However, from what I have said, and before we come to any accusations concerning ourselves, from what I have said it should be obvious why we have doubts as to the objectivity of the process to which we are being subjected. As I understood it from Br Clive Harper, Br Ben's role as Inquisitor should be to provide the Order, in this case represented by the person of Br Harper, with an objective basis to determine our activities, in so far as they concern the Order. What we feel has happened is that an inquiry has through omission or commision turned into a prosecution and I would like to make it very plain, here and now, that subject to evidence to the contrary, we are considering making a complaint to the said Br Harper concerning the manner in which Br Fernee has discharged his commision, which we experience as being tantamount to a Witchhunt. We are however open to be convinced to the contratry. End of statement.

BFOne thing is, I feel, clear. In the first instance, I'm not here to enter into argument. I'm here to act as an agent of the "Caliph" and the "Caliph"'s representative. I think it might be an idea that after I've asked some questions that you have the opportunity again if you wish, to say anything that can then be communicated back to the powers that be. So you have the full opportunity to have your say. I think now if we could maybe press on with some questions.

DRIn other words, you are assuming that your acting under orders as it were, relieves you of any responsibility to convince us of your integrity in the discharge of your commision that would actually make us feel inclined to talk to you about these matters at all.

BFNo, I take full responsibility for that which I do. It's a question of priorities. In the first instance I'm here to present questions on behalf of the powers that be. If we get through that we can then move to other matters.

IFRHave you not heard what Br David has said?

BFVery carefully.

IFRHave you comprehended it?

BFI have comprehended it and you will have the opportunity to say again and to comment on what else proceeds at this meeting, and that will be communicated directly back to Clive and the "Caliph".

IFRSo convince...

DRAnd the "Caliph" via Clive or from you.

BFBoth together I would say.

IFRSo convince us about your objectivity.

BFAahm, I'm not here to argue my position, I'm not here to argue full stop. I'm not here to justify what I'm doing, I don't need to do that.

DRBecause you are backed by authority?

BFYah. Because this is why I'm here to ask questions, to ask questions. Aahm, I mean.

IFRMay I ask a question? Why did you not come and ask these questions 10 weeks ago.

BFIn the first instance I wanted to get an idea of the complaints that had been made. Now Clive actually suggested to me, passing on a suggestion from you, that it would be good if I talked to people who did support you. Now when Clive mentioned this it seemed to me, and the exact phrase I used, "Well it seems a bit half arsed to talk to other people, wouldn't it be better if I went and spoke directly to David and Irene?", it just seemed to be the obvious thing to do at this stage. Here I am.

IFRAfter 10 weeks

BFWell, yeah ahh, I have a business and things to do as well. So I mean, can we move on now?

DRNot quite. When we spoke on the phone recently, this is Br Ben and myself. You seemed surprised that we would require to have present other people, live people not just the tape to minute this meeting and in response to the presence of Sr Susanne and Br Adrian who are keeping record of this meeting, both written and taped, you have chosen to bring with you a second person Br Bruce here, in exactly what capacity has not been clarified yet, but I assume as a record keeper.

BFYeah, working the machine.

DRYou are aware I take it Br Ben, since you are of sufficient academic standing to take part in international sociological conferences and various, that to use a phrase from R. D. Laing "All data is captor". What we say to you is mediated by you to a third party, through your perceptions, and I repeat, it is not a delaying tactic on our part here, it is not irrelevant to establish whether or not there is an intent on your part to objectivity or whether in your mind, in your heart, we are already guilty as charged and that the collection of evidence has been slanted by that.

BFWell, I can say this, and I don't want to get distracted to argument, but I can say this, I'm not really here to make statements, it's partly the beauty of the tape that your words are communicated directly to the "Caliph" and Clive without me commenting upon them, not through me as a filter. I mean, I am open minded about one of the crucial allegations. When I first heard it I didn't believe it. And I communicated to you under my Bonds of Third Degree.

DRThis is the accusation from Malloy that Sr Irene had had our 9 year old daughter entertaining customers in the studio by masturbating.

BFThat's right, and I did't believe it, and I communicated that allegation to you under the Bonds of my Third Degree.

IFROnly after having been asked to do so.

BFNo that's not true. That's untrue. I did that on my own before anyone had suggested to me. That's just not the case.

DRWell, we hear the words.

BFThat is not the case. I told Clive that I'd heard it and when I told Clive that I'd heard it I also said I've already, and I had done, posted a letter to you. You know, I mean, I talked about it to Clive after I'd communicated a letter to you, that's just not true that anyone suggested to me that I aught to do this. My first response was " I do not believe this", and I acted accordingly. So you know that was my first response when I heard this.

DRWell we reserve what we have said concerning the integrity of this investigation. Let that be recorded.

BFThat's recorded and I'm very anxious that at the end of when I've asked some questions, that you again have the opportunity to say anything that you want to be heard in this context. Very anxious about that. Right, can I ask some questions?

DRAsk away.

BFI mean, one thing I wanted to start is to get an idea about how the recruitment into what you call the AA, how this works in the context of OTO and EGC.

DRFirst part of an answer there, we see if it remains the whole of the answer is : What authority have you or the authorities from whom your authority as acting inquisitor derives, to ask that question at all?

BFI think you'll find that where OTO people are being recruited into another magickal order in an OTO context, I think you'll find that the powers that be do consider that their business. And I think also if the activities of that other magickal order should bring the OTO into disrepute they will especially consider it a matter of their interest. I would also point out that these rights are embodied in the degrees, in the undertakings of the degrees, especially in the undertakings of 5th degree. The written undertaking before you take the degree recognises that the OTO has an interest in this.

ABMay I make a comment?

DRIf you so wish, from our side...

ABIt's written in Crowley's own writing that any person soever who takes the Oath of a Master of the Temple has the full right to claim that Grade. It is also written that any person possesing that grade has the right to establish whatever school of teaching they so wish to communicate those particular mysteries after their own will and fashion. It therefore follows that anybody who has undergone those two simple and straightforward steps has every right consecrated as it is by the writings of the Prophet to establish whatever school of AA they desire, and that the OTO can therefore firstly have no jurisdiction in those areas, and secondly can hardly recognise or unrecognise as unlawful a constituted structure of AA the formula for the formation of which is outlined clearly enough in One Star in Sight in Magick In Theory and Practice. That would be an absolute contradiction in terms.

DRLet it be noted for the record that that is Br Adrian's comment and not ours.

ABYes

DRMay I enquire, what you are referring to Br Ben is the obligation of a 5th not to enter into any kind of Magickal interaction, for the sake of shortness, with any person or organisations not approved by the Grand Master, is that what you are referring to?

BFYes

DRI see. Right. Let it be said, for the record, that my Work, me here being Br David, as far as it concerns AA Work, and following Brother Ben's usage. We'll use that term for a designation.

BFWe all know what we mean here.

DRWe all know what we mean here. Derives, although without paper to prove it, from certain matters which passed between myself and the late Grady McMurtry. Not in his Hymaneus Alpha "Caliph" hat, but during the time that I spent together with Grady during his first European tour, well his only European tour in fact. Let it be stated for the record, that I had never claimed, nor as one initially taught by me, has Sr Irene ever claimed any formal authority, in an AA context. In that context I teach to the best of my ability and according to the scope of my Attainment in fulfillment of a promise given by me to the late Grady McMurtry, under circumstances personal to himself and myself which I do not consider it proper to discuss in this context. No claim of authority in the formal sense to my knowledge has ever been in respect of her own work in teaching by the Sister Irene. The degree of authority in inverted commas, or not, the formal possession of a transmission or not, has always been quite clearly and explicitly stated by either or both of us at the beginnings of any persons pupilage in the context of what we call our AA Work. Now we are going to get into the realm of unprovables. My discharge of my promise to Grady McMurtry, I add that that promise was not given to him in that name but I do not feel it correct to go into deeper circumstances there, for the moment Grady McMurtry is a sufficient identifying label. Yes?

BFFine

DRMy discharge of that promise and obligaton has been built around my own personal Work which has centred upon, the operations of Enochian Magick and in particular, the working of the Thirty Aires. Whether what I am about to say is accepted and acceptable or not, will to an extent rest on the acceptance or not of the objectivity of the Spirits, Powers, whatever label one wants to give them, encountered and worked with jointly or seperatly, usually seperatly, by myself and/or Sr Irene and/or any person in pupilage with us. So to come now to the specific answer to the specific question posed by Br Ben, throughout all the time since I gave the promise I gave to the late Br McMurtry, and in particular since the working of the 30 Aires and its association with my taking the 8=3 Oath of AA in October 1985, no person has been approached either within OTO and/or EGC or without those organisations, for we have, both of us, pupils external to those organisations, no person has been approached without there having been clear and prior indication from the Spirits, who we normally refer to as The Powers but this could be confusing in this present conversation.

BFYeah, yeah, because I've used it in another way.

DRWithout prior indication from the Spirits. Indeed there have been persons who for one reason or another I personally would love to have had the opportunity of teaching, and I have been specifically denied that by the said Spirits, in as much as that person's Path leads them in a direction differing from and incompatible with my own in that context. In other words, whom we have approached, I have approached, Sr Irene has approached, or indeed some of our more senior personal pupils have approached in these matters, has not been, we contend, an arbitrary process. But the acceptence of the contention that it is not an arbitrary process, really depends on whether there is an acceptence of the objective status of what I call the Powers and am here designating the Spirits to avoid confusion. If one takes the philospohically fully defensible position that these entities are no more than some form of extention of my or Sr Irene's personal psyche, then clearly one will interpret the choice to offer a particular person NN a personal pupilage as being something that in the final instance is our choice, therefore subject to our whims our desires, likes, dislikes. If one accepts the alternative and equally legitimate philosophical position, that the Spirits are objective, and including one's own Holy Guardian Angel, although the HGA has a different quality from any other class of Spirit. If one accepts the objectivity of these, and I would suggest, at least as far as the mature Crowley is concerned, his position was to accept their objectivity, I refer here to the Crowley of 'Magick without Tears' rather than the Crowley of the preface to the Goetia who seemed to be some kind of central state materialist. If one accepts the objectivity of the Spirits, then a different colouration, if you like, is put on our recruiting or not of any given individual into this work. If it not only us that is on trial here, it is a whole approach to quite fundamental questions underlying the practice of Magick, and I will go a little bit further here if I may.

BFGo ahead

DRThis question pertains not only to recruitment but to the exact manner in which I or Sr Irene, although we do not use those names in that context but for the sake of clarity, blah blah, the manner in which either of us at any given time teaches a particular person beyond the fundamental core which is the syllabus. The published syllabus, and no pupil of ours gets away without having 'do the syllabus work' drummed into their ears until they're sick of it. The manner of teaching, the manner of interaction, what happens between us and them at any given time, the changes in what happens between us and them at any given time is a matter of quite a complex assessment between our evaluations, and again information deriving from sources whose objectivity is open to ontological question. This has been the case for as long as I've been involved in this, which is getting on now for slightly in excess of a decade in terms of interacting with pupils and slightly in excess of two decades in terms of my own personal work which was in process before I ever met McMurtry. And what is germaine here is that those people who have entered into pupilage, who have loyally and diligently stuck to the syllabus, who have done the work, who have interacted with us in any way soever in the basis of the information given by us or obtained by them from these subtle forces. Those who stayed with it are not the ones who raised the complaints. Those who stayed with it and who are also within the OTO are, and for obvious reasons I am not willing to name names at this stage, because their private work is their private prerogative, are however amongst those who most loyally and dillegently have carried out and do carry out the work of OTO and of EGC within the context of the area where we have any kind of contact with people at all. Those who in spite of our admonitions have thought themselves better than the need to do the syllabus work, those, who in spite of our admonitions have chosen to experiment in a variety of ways with techniques not deriving from any Thelemic source, and in particular, those who have gone dabbling with various forms of Chaos magic, where there's as little grasp of Chaos magick as they seem to have of Thelema, they are the ones who in spite of every effort of ours have failed to continue in the Work, and without exception, when somebody drops out of the Work, they look for some means of justifying themselves to themselves for doing it. Who are you gonna blame? And it is distressing to see the total lack of imagination...

IFRYES

DRwith which that blame is constructed..

IFRIt becomes boring.

DRThe same goddamned silly stories that have been circulating about one or other person since Betty May first wrote silly stories about Crowley in the yellow press. They turn up again and again. The same willful misrepresentation of various interactions of one sort or another. We are aware, we are painfully aware, and have been for as long as we have been involved in this, of the risk that we take in taking on anybody, knowing that there's a more than even chance, given the demands of the Work, that they will reach a stage where they are not willing to take responsibility for their own action, where they are not willing to take on the burden of paying the price of the lunch. whatever that may be. and it varies from person to person; and knowing full well that when that happens, we are going to get blamed, we are going to get slagged off in public, we are going to be misrepresented, and we still go on and do it.

BFRight

DRAnd we still go on and do it for the simple reason that we feel that we are under an obligation so to do. But I can give you my deepest and most sincere assurance, which I am sure the sister will echo, that we would much rather not have anything to do with it at all, because it is a total pain in the arse. End of second statement.

BFSo when AA activities that are aside from the published syllabus of the AA take place, that is a result of information from disincarnate entities...

DRIf you want to put it like that...

BFSpirits...

DRThose of our pupils, there's an additional point here, who in dint of natural ability and or hard work and attainment have their own direct channel to such information are always required not to rely on us as a source of information, they are always required to either get independant confirmation through their own workings, or in some cases to get the information themselves without our invovlement at all. It has happened, and does happen. What is interesting here is, and again I think you can confirm this, as long as people are actually doing the work, as long as they are doing the syllabus work as well as anything else, as long as they are actually sticking to what they've sworn themselves to in the first place, and I'll come back to that in a second, there never seems to be any confusion in their minds between the various contexts. It's only after they've fallen off one or other aspect of the work that they begin to mix the contexts together into the Magickal equivalent of mushy peas, in their own minds and in their own self justification. We've seen it time and time again. It's always equally distressing but it seems to be a general case.

IFRWe always stress very very clearly if they shall make the confusion, make the distinction between the contexts... [DR: (to SW) Light out!

DRWe actually have a tape, we can actually copy, see what the quality of that is like, copy straight across.]

DRThis really what I'm saying now is a background to our answers to any question.

IFRAs long as they are our pupils...it is always expressed very very clearly again and again the distinction between the contexts. This, this, this has nothing to do with the OTO, it is not in an OTO context. It is as Br. David said first after this confusion seems to occur in their own minds.

DRI would contend actually that more have succeeded than have failed. That's again reliant on evidence that I'm not prepared to give without the specific permission of the people concerned. For obvious reasons. I will point out that during the stay in Wales when I took my 5th degree, I did actually discuss my AA work with the "Caliph" at some length, the result of which was him at that point communicating to me the Equinoctial Word which he had received from his then teacher, now deceased. The teacher, not the "Caliph"! So, I mean there are more questions at stake here than our behaviour. There are two things I would like to add here; one is the manner in which anybody starts this particular aspect of the work under our auspices, is having had it rammed down their throats that there's no formal authority here that you can get bits of paper off, they are asked to make an act of self-dedication so that the contract if you like is not between them and us, it's between them and themselves, and them and the Powers of the Universe if you like, which means, in a sense, that their work is completely independant of us, or can become so at any time soever. The other thing here, which colours a little bit our reactions when things like this investigation occur, is the peculiar way in which in particular my work in the AA context has been viewed in certain quarters and the lengths people will go to. One has heard now by various and dubious routes, it may be a Chinese whisper, it may not, that the real reason that my OTO Charters were pulled was because Bill Heidrick was convinced that I having taken the 8=3 Oath of AA, had failed, and that my failure was responsible pretty much from all the problems the Order was facing in Europe. A misunderstanding concerning the retaining of certain monies in Manchester between myself and Br. Clive was then totally, illegitimately blown up and misrepresented as "financial irregularity" on my part, and used as a vicarious excuse for pulling Charters, by the way another reason for us not having too much trust towards yourself Br. Ben was the way that the pulling of my Charter was used by you in a meeting in Rochdale.

BFSay your piece.

DRIt was referred to in a meeting where quite honestly it was not relevant by you in a "Oh dear, I've let cat cat out of the bag!" manner.

BFWell, I'm not here to argue.

DRYeah, but again it's not the sort of thing that makes people trust people. Now, I would make one last point concerning our AA work. There are people who we teach towards whom I have absolutely no personal liking whatsoever.

BFFine.

DRBut that isn't the point. Do you see what I mean here, we're on to somewhat difficult territory here because there are underlying ontological questions here...

BFYes, I do, I do, and ...they're important.

DRThey are.

BFThey're important.

DRThey are indeed because the whole question of the legitimacy of what we do, in the final instance hinges on how you interpret the statement I've just made really.

BFAbsolutely. I'm interested as well... I feel this is partly where the problems be, is in some of the non-published AA activities, non-published syllabus AA activities, so I mean, have there been instances where the Spirits, being the word we are using here, have given information that people should engage in a series of Magickal Operations during which one or some of the participants have felt uncomfortable with those Magickal Operations? Or the act involved in those magickal operations, has this been the situation?

DRI've never felt comfortable with a Magickal Operation in my life.

IFRNeither have I.

DRI'd rather not do anything than most of the things I have done.

IFRBut how can one teach if the only concern in one's own learning and in teaching is one's comfort?

BFYes, but let's not get hung up about the word comfort. What I'm thinking really of is where...

DRHas anybody ever been forced into any sort of sexual activity is what you're thinking of.

BFThat's, that's the area...

DRSo why don't you say that.

BFYes, that's the area, where sex acts have been part of the Magickal Operations, you know, have there been situations where people have been informed that the Spirits have said a series of sexual acts in a Magickal context should take place?

DRSuch situation occur, yes, and I' ve already covered that point in one sense by saying that nothing is ever done without there being some kind of confirmatory work. Even if it's "Do a divination yourself". There has never been any question of force, never, ever.

IFRAnd always "If this is your Will so to do, you can say yes or you can say no."

DRAnd people have said no, and that has always been respected.

IFRAlways respected.

BFRight.

DRLet me just go on here. I suggest we continue until half past and then we take a break for a further coffee.

BFOK, yeah.

DRMy brain requires caffeine, I don't know about yours.

BFAh, yeah, it was an early start.

DRRight, OK. What I would add there is that there have also been occasions more I would hasten in the connection with Sr Irene than in connection with myself because she's a damn sight prettier than I am, that was a facetious comment but not only, there have also been occasions when the clear sexual desire towards her on the part of one or other pupil male or female, has deliberatly been explicitly pointed out and then thwarted.

BFRight, right, yeah.

DRIt's not unknown under such circumstances, for an ex-pupil whose desire to get into her knickers has never been allowed, to have created a whole mythology about all the things they are supposed to have done together as well. Particularly those who would have loved to have taken part in some of the work that she engages in on the fetish and leather scene, associated with her business.

BFRight, right.

DRand have never had the opportunity...

BFRight, yeah.

DRNow, there's also...

IFRI think it's important to state that when a pupil is first engaged in pupilage, it is a contract, you can't...."Let everything be done well, and with business way". You can not teach without a contract. It is a contract between teacher and pupil which the pupil can accept or not accept. If you say "Yes, I want to be taught", then you have accepted the contract.

DRLet me give an example without naming names here. The hindrance to development for most people is the ability by one means or another to overcome their own, what shall we call them, "hang-ups".

BFYeah.

DRSometimes, in order, as it were for the central syllabus based work to progress, some kind of a hang-up has to be exploded.

BFRight.

DRNow. There's another point here, as well, which distinguishes something like the one- to-one kind of work that an AA thing has from what are essentially collective Orders like the OTO, and that is that in something like the OTO the very structure of the Order does not allow for what the psycho-analysts call the "problem of transference".

BFUmm. Hmm.

DRBut when you're teaching on a one-to-one basis in any context, and particularly in a Magickal context, then the problem of transference is sitting there.

BFThis being feelings by the pupil for the teacher that are inappropriate.

DRYeah, and the transfer of feelings towards themselves onto the teacher.

BFRight.

DRAs teacher, one is just as much demon as angel. And at varying stages of any kind of pupil/teacher interaction. How far I am the Great White Whatsit, or how far I am the Demon David, is gonna vary quite dramatically, from time to time. Those who come through the Demon David phase tend to feel terribly embarrassed about it afterwards, but I mean.. And those who don't, add to the mythology.

BFRight, right.

DRWe have also, or at least I have also experienced on occasions, though not for many years, problems with the misrepresentation of my Work here, by people who for one reason or another have become aware of it, who desperately wanted to be a part of it, and who've been told "Sorry, I can't take you on".

BFUmm. Hmm.

DRA lot of the problems that I had with Gerald [Suster], to a certain extent were that he having decided that I was the most accomplished Magician he'd met after Regardie, this was after Regardie died, he was sort of in one sense or another angling for my approval and recognition. he didn't get it, and turned singularly nasty, and this is germaine here because one of the effects of that was Gerald having by diverse and peculiar means of his own, certainly not deriving from any information by me, having decided that I'd taken the 8=3 Oath, presenting a very warped representation of what that was in all sorts of contexts and sundries. It was an attempt by me to limit the damage being done by that action of his that resulted in my re-affirming that oath, in a meeting, which having been an OTO meeting, had none the less been closed at that point of time, but which then got misrepresented back again as me taking the 8=3 Oath in an OTO meeting, and then feeding it to Heidrick's paranoia. So there's a whole sort of domino sequence here that goes back a good few years.

BFRight, Right.

DRBut, Gerald's spreading weird versions of what it was I was supposed to have sworn myself to, in a variety of more or less public contexts, including "The Society" in London, and a few other bits and pieces, and this was quite simply down to the fact that he wanted to be taught. He wanted a new guru after Regardie died, and I wouldn't play. Because it had been made very explicit to me by the Sources that I work with and that I respect that I was not to take him on. And I told him that, but he wouldn't accept that. Only his Spirits were objective. Everybody else's were to do with their psychology and therefore because I'm a nasty warped person I wouldn't play with him. And I mean we've had other examples of this as well. And again, anybody who's a "wanna-be" and has been rejected seems to contribute to the mythology as well.

BFUmm. Hmm.

DR...in one way or another.

BFShall we stop for a coffee break now.

DRYes.

BFAnd then come back to a point which has been made.

IFRYep.

DROK.

BFYeah, cause I want to return, cause I think this is an area of sensitivity.

DRAh hah.

BFWhere we have Spirits communicating information for non-standard syllabus, non- published syllabus AA activities. Umm, now you mentioned um the contract that people enter into when they become pupils. If perhaps you want to talk a bit more about the nature of that contract.

IFRIt is, goes like, that I offer the pupilage, take it or leave it, yes or no, if it's yes, it's a contract.

BFIt's a contract.

IFRAs in any teaching institution, university or whatever, it is a teaching contract between the teaching institution and the pupil, even some college and universities...

DRNot a written contract.

IFRYou have no written contract. There's no written contract here, it's not a written contract.

BFNot a written one, it's. it's. it's.

IFRNo.

BFIt's a verbal contract. So what does the pupil contract to do, undertake?

IFRTo be taught.

BFTo be taught.

IFRYes.

BFWhat does the pupil undertake to do in relation to Magickal Operations?

DRNothing specific.

IFRNothing specific.

BFBut that is understood to be part of the contract?

DRWhatever is necessary to learn what needs to be learned.

IFRYes.

BFAnd an element of this may be loosing inhibitions?

DRThe element of it may be all sorts of things, whatever they're most frightened of, in a way, yeah?

BFWell.

DRI was going to give an example of one former pupil of mine, unbeknownst to me because one is reliant on people providing information, we don't go putting them on the rack to get it, unless that might be what they might enjoy, and then it's a different context and they would have to pay for it. That's a JOKE! For anybody who may not realise it. Right, one former pupil of mine had unbeknownst to me great trouble with the fact that he in fact is a transvestite, and has never ever come to terms with that. This leading to a number of problems between himself and his lady friend, the which problems were then exploited by other persons, not us, leading to various troubles. If he'd told me I could have helped him to deal with it. He didn't, as it was, it all ended in tears one way and another, in spite of the fact that the one day for months when we didn't actually give up our time, for one or another person's neccessities, which is also a point here.

IFRWe had said "This one day ...

DRNew Year's Eve.

IFR... is for us ..."

DRWe ended up mediating between him and his ladyfriend after he'd spent half an hour on the phone to me in a phone box in tears. All of which subsequently got edited out of the story. Whether or not I'll put a name on that particular story depends on whether or not he's listed among the complainants.

BFDon't think so.

DRYou don't know. It's also the case that the gentleman in question had used vast amounts of notes kept by himself from discussions he'd had with me, notes more or less verbatim of my words, to create first his BA thesis, and then his MA thesis.

BFUmm. Hmm.

DRWhich although, I in the one case and we in the other case got a small acknowledgment at the beginning, the degree of assistance has never ever been revealed. But it just ruddy well might be if I'm pushed far enough. But it has to do with people's integrity. I don't mind being slagged off Ben but I do object to being ripped off. Slagged off I can eventually cope with, ripped off, I will wait years. Old Klingon Proverb "Revenge is a dish best eaten cold". So.

BFSo, eh the contract, uhm.

DRThe contract is one of mutual trust.

IFRYeah, and confidentiality.

DRAnd confidentiality within the teaching relationship, the which confidentiality is always kept as long as people are on track and doing the syllabus work and thereby having the basis to comprehend what is otherwise happening to them, and which goes straight out the window as soon as they don't do that. I mean, the key here to who stays and who goes is not whether they indulge in bizarre sexual acts with us, either or both, or donkeys or whatever, is not whether we set them vicious and horrible tasks to do, they key element in whether or not they stay in this or not, has been, is, always will be, whether they listen to what we say to them and buckle down and do the syllabus work. Because if they do the syllabus work: 1) they inevitably acquire the ability to get their own information, by one means and another, be it scrying, divinations or whatever, and eventually by contact with their HGA; 2) they acquire a certain fundamental personal stability, which they don't otherwise acquire, the which feeds back into their OTO by in a certain sense counteracting the destabilising effect of those chakra-based intiations; 3) they in any case broaden their education and are therefore in a better position to judge the exact nature... the gentleman I mentioned who liked to dress up in his girlfriends frocks, wrote his thesis on Tantra. When confronted by us with a full Tantric meal, he nearly freaked. When asked to go and sit in a graveyard for 10 minutes, he couldn't do it, due to residual superstitions from his own cultural background.

BFRight. Right.

DRThe discovery that the person who'd been his teacher for nearly 18 months, and his teacher's partner, might just be the exact kind of people he'd spent the last two years writing about shook him to his little roots. These kind of things only work if people take the unwritten contract seriously, the contract is to do the Work, the Work here defined as being the syllabus and the contract being to learn through those experiences which are constructed for them to have.

BFRight, right. And part of that construction...

DRCould be anything.

BFCould be anything.

DRIt could be a night of wild pleasure with one of us, or it could be spending 10 hours lying on a bed of nettles in freezing cold and rain on the Yorkshire Moors. It depends what that person particularly needs to overcome in order to be able to draw out...

BFLiberate themselves.

DRYeah but also to be able to, there's a sort of ...cycle here between the learning in the syllabus and having something to apply that learning to, so they can interpret and then feed that interpretation back to enrich the learning.

BFRight. Right.

DRWe teach through experiential method. Because unfortunatley that happens to be the only way that we can teach.

BFRight. Right.

DROther people teach differently. And it's horses for courses. I mentioned earlier the fact that I have had people I would have loved to have taught and I've been told "Hands Off!"

BFRight, so you've done that.

DRAnd I've done that. But the point was that particular person did eventually find a person they needed to teach what they needed to learn, and it couldn't have been me for the simple reason, that what they needed to learn required a totally different method of teaching than the experiential one.

BFRight. Right.

DRYou know, my method of teaching, her method of teaching, we're essentially Situationalists if you like.

BFRight. Right. So.

DRI mean, and you have to make a judgement.

BFUmm. Hmm.

DRIn what you're doing. in the situation you create...

IFRAnd always weigh the risks.

DRTo take an example from another context.

BFOK.

DRRight. The late lamented side pocket of the OTO, the Knights of Baphomet, in the days when I was still making Knights, which I don't do any longer obviously, since that thing has gone into obeyance, yeah?

BFUmm. Hmm.

DRYou will remember the clobbering I gave you when I gave you your first buffet, I nearly dislocated your jaw, I seem to remember. Other people, I would give a very light tap, you make a judgement as to what is the best thing to do in the circumstances, now when you make a judgement, sorry am I going too fast...

SWEhh, slightly. AB: Just a tad.

DRWhen you make a judgement you always accept as part of the contract between you and the universe that your judgement might be wrong.

BFRight.

DRAnd, even if one had Understanding, even if one had Wisdom, even if one were beyond even that and I certainly wouldn't claim any of these things, in any sense which is complete. You here now in the piece of meat you live in, are still gonna have to take that risk every time you make a judgement.

BFRight. Yes. Yeah.

DRYeah?

BFUmm. Hmm.

DRI have criticised, on record, your way of conducting this investigation up to now, but that has been based on your decisions as to how to do something. I happen to think that you've done it in a way which is not particularly useful, but you're the one who is gonna have to stand for that. You have made decisions and you will have to take the consequences of them being right or wrong.

BFYeah. Yeah.

DRSometimes you end up with a medal, sometimes you end up with egg on your face, sometimes you end up with a damn sight worse. It's the same here.

BFUmm. Hmm. Umm. Hmm. Right. Right.

DRNow, let's not get hung up in a particular act or sequence of acts, it's the same damn thing, regardless of what is done, you make a judgement on the basis of the fullest and best information, particularly the fullest information you can get. I do it, you do it, everybody does it, every day.

BFUmm. Hmm.

DRWe, and I think I can speak for both of us here, have no regret soever, about anything which we have done.

IFRConfirmed.

DRIn this context that we are discussing. Totally unrepentant, sorry.

BFFine.

DRWe do have regrets about the way, when people in one way or another have fallen off the lorry, they have then chosen to act subsequently, but that's the risk we take. It's the risk we have always taken in doing this at all, and it's the main reason why quite frankly I would rather not do it. I don't feel I have the choice not to do it.

BFRight.

DRAnd, for my own part here, and you can speak for yourself here, one of the reasons, saving your grace, that I get so furious when this whole situation occurs.

BFUmm. Hmm.

DRIs I do not want to see the situation arise where I have to make the choice between two sorts of authority, both of whom I respect and both of whom I have dedicated considerable periods of my life to the service of. But in the final analysis, if you take an objectivist view of the subtle members of the congregation of the universe, if I have to make a choice between Bill Breeze's authority, and the authority of my Holy Guardian Angel and the Powers, here designated the Spirits, a choice I simply do not want to have to make.

BFRight.

DRI would have to make that choice on the basis of who I personally feel my prime loyalty must be to, now I'm not saying which way that would jump, but I'm gonna lose anyway, if the choice is forced on me in one sense or another, we are both now in a no- win situation.

BFWell.

DRIf the choice is forced.

BFUmm. Hmm. Well, that's not for me...

DRThat's not for you, but I'm saying, here, now on record, if the choice is forced, in one sense or another we will lose, each of us and both of us a very considerable part of what we have dedicated our lives to. Because we do not make any seperation between any part of our lives and our Magickal Work.

BFRight. Absolutely.

DRYeah? Irene's business is a Magickal Operation, and suffers for it. Up until now, my involvement in Magick has cost me a marriage, the love of two children, it has cost me a job, it has cost me a business. Now, I'm sort of putting up the "Poor me I'm a great martyr" thing, but what I'm saying is, I have a little tattoo on my arm of a Vulture... He is above a scroll on which is inscribed the word " Tanstaafl ". Those of you who have read Heinlein's "The moon is a harsh mistress", will recognise that as the motto in Lunar Colony. "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch". well I've paid my dues, right the way down the line and I find it very, very very hurtful that the will to take the risk is not being respected, not being respected by those who don't dare any longer or never did and who therefore feel themselves entitled in one way or another to denigrate that which they once most desired to be a part of by willful, gross malicious misrepresentation. End of statement.

DRDo you want to add or do you want to confirm what I've just said, you're your own voice, not mine.

IFRI agree with every word you have said.

BFBecause I do want to kind of clarify the process which is operating. We are touching upon the sensitive stuff now, we are starting to enter into this. Correct me if I'm wrong, please correct me if I'm wrong. You're operating the AA syllabus, as published, with the adjunct of creating experiences that work out, reinforce, and help in that. Now those operations that are the adjunct, the complement of the published syllabus, now the information for what these are comes from the Spirits and come from your judgement of what the person requires, what would be the best...

DROn the basis of the total information available at that time. Can I just add something. I'm trying to formulate this so that it is in some sense comprehensible. The syllabus as it is published, and this really pertains more to the sister's work than it does to mine, so perhaps she should say it rather than me but I'll formulate it and if she doesn't like what I'm saying, she can disagree or add. The syllabus as it is published is not a Class A document, it is the product of a late Victorian male mind. There are whole areas of Magickal experience which are excluded from the syllabus because it is the product of a late Victorian male mind, however Illuminated. It has its own historicity. Up to a certain point, clearly, the same things are central, in the tuition of both a male or a female pupil, I hasten to add, I do not have any female pupils, the only female pupil I've actually ever had is sitting beside me here and I share most of my life with her, yeah? Namely Irene. There are whole areas pertaining to female Magick, women's mysteries or whatever, which, and particularly the dark side of that, in its, not in the sanitised, the sort of fashion for Dark Goddessy things at the moment...

BFI know, yeah.

DRWe'll ignore that, I'm talking about.

BFThe sort of books I used to sell in the old shop, I know.

DRI'm not talking about that, I'm talking about the real thing. And to an extent then, I as a male teaching males primarily, have the luxury of having it all set up for me. To properly teach a female as female as an adjunct to the necessary common ground if you like, which is what the syllabus is, she has to go off into territories that neither you or I or any sensible male would dare to enter and take her pupil with her. Now, that in itself means that to a certain extent they operate in much scarier territory than any man would ever dare go into. And therefore with a greater risk of failure through loss of nerve in a way. Also, because so much of that tradition is neither verbal nor verbally communicable. It operates through totally other means. Through dance, through, through whatever, but not the verbal conceptual intellectual claptrap that we men tend to indulge in.

ABMay I make a quotation at this stage if I may be permitted to do so?

DRYeah.

ABA propos the published syllabus and sorry to quote Crowley again as if he was scripture but the point is germaine. He makes the point that it is spiritual experience alone which counts, the rest is but method. The notion being that you cannot publish a recipe of Magickal Practice which is going to work the same way for everybody. It is a skeleton, it is not intended to be taken as gospel. But merely as groundwork to begin with and not the be-all and end-all of the whole thing, and at some point if that system were to be practiced you would have to depart from what is published, that is only the bare framework for what can be common to all.

DRIt is also the stabilising factor. Now again, both male and female, there are certain stages in that work which are extremely frightening. Particularly, the, what I would call the ante-chambers to those stages, the last step. As can be seen from various published writings, as can be seen from Liber Samekh, below Tiphareth in the inner, the HGA is the Opponent.

BFRight. Yes.

DRJacob met Satan and wrestled with him 'til dawn, whereupon he found him to be the Angel of the Presence of the Lord. Yeah?

BFUmm. Hmm.

DRNow one of the places... I'm not saying this is the case for all those who having departed from that aspect of the work are concerned to bring us down... but one of the saddest cases of all that I have seen, there was a particular ex-pupil of mine, not the same one I referred to before, again I will mention the name if and only if he is listed by name amongst our accusers, who from his own record was within what I would call spitting distance of the first true extensive contact with that being who is his Holy Guardian Angel, whatever that might be, I again hold an objectivist viewpoint of that on the basis of my own experience. Other people would prefer to treat as if it was esoteric psychology. Whatever it is, he was on the verge of really meeting it, in its true form for the first time, and he bottled. He was not prepared to take the responsibility for the changes in his life that passing from my tutelage to the direct tutelage of his Angel would involve. So he went out of his way to create situations where everything in his life would fall to bits. His marriage, his studies, whatever, his commitment to Thelema, which he would then exchange left, right and centre for "Let's try and get into the IOT; let's try and be a Discordian; what day of the week is it? Oh I'll be Golden Dawn today." Yeah? And has become one of the worst sources of continual misrepresentation concerning ourselves. Judging from certain correspondance we've had from him since, its part of a deliberate, supposedly in his mind Discordian process. Well that's as may be. I call it making a cheap excuse and finding someone else to blame for your own failures. But the fact of the matter is that there was never any bone of contention between him and ourselves before he had that experience and lost his bottle. And he was on his\own when he had it, doing workings of his own devising, because the for one, the syllabus has this peculiar feature. It has two major steps to which there are no recipes. That is attaining to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, and Crossing The Abyss. The rest of it is, what's the English word for it, scaffolding, its there to prop up the edifice. but he devised his own workings, he carried them out over months, he nearly got his result and he bottled, and after that we've had nothing but trouble from that source.

BFCause one area that I think there is concern about, is where people have entered into the contract to be taught, to endeavour with expeience, with the experiences required, that during that process, during a series of Workings they have felt "This isn't right". Now what happens if that arises, what happens if somebody feels, "These sexual acts are not right for me"?

DRThat depends on whether they open their mouths and say so or not, doesn't it.

IFRYes.

BFWhat if they say so?

DRThen it stops.

IFRAnd it is respected.

DRAlways, without exception.

BFRight. Right.

IFROr they might not take place in the first place.

DROr they might not take place in the first place.

DRWe may find other ways.

BFWould it be pointed out to them that the Spirits have communicated that this series should go ahead or that this is the series of acts that have been, that the Spirits have uuh, have communicated should be done.

DRWe are not religious. We are Magicians. We do not take in that sense orders from the Spirits. They counsel. Now it is my contention that we if you like, we humans, we are the generalists. We are if you like central to the whole process because we can do a bit of everything reasonably. The other persons who fill this universe, they are the specialists, about their own area, their own field, they know infinately more than any of us ever can, regardless of achievement.

BFBut they're exclusive.

DRBut they are narrow.

BFYeah. Yeah.

DRTheir whole existence is within one Sphere of the Tree if you like, whereas we are everything, at least potentially. Therefore, from them, as Magicians, we receive counsel, we can act on that information and if we don't they can and do say "We told you so". Or words to that effect, but in the same way, and allowing for the fact that people don't listen to what you say to them, if we are communicating to a pupil that such and such has been counselled by the powers, we make a point of explaining what that means and what it doesn't mean. there is never a "You Must", there is never a "Thus saith the lord and therefore you must." There is "It has been stated that such and such and such, is it your Will to accept this counsel and act on it or not?"

IFRWhat they might find frightening from time to time might be to take the responsibility for saying either yes or no, because both has consequences.

BFSorry, what... that the pupil might find.

IFRWhat the pupil might find frightening is to take the responsibility for the choices.

DRIt doesn't matter whether they say yes or no.

IFRBoth has consequences.

BFRight, right, and they hesitate...

IFRTo take the responsibility.

BFThey hesitate from taking that responsibility.

DRNow, if, if we can in the situation there, then clearly see that they are hesitating or that they are provaricating, or that they haven't understood what the hell we're talking about, nothing proceeds.

BFAnd you would confirm that?

IFRYes, I would confirm that.

DRBut that's there then, not back after. Did you get the distinction I'm making there?

BFYeah, yeah, I realise that.

DRBecause what we are dealing with here with a lot of the accusations with which we are confronted is retroactive reinterpretation, but I will here and now, and you can confirm this seperately for your own part after, say, quite categorically, that if there is the slightest doubt that in the situation at that moment it is anybody's will to go ahead or not go ahead with a particular thing, because it's just as bad to not say no when you mean no as it is to say yes when you don't mean it, if we have the slightest doubt that in a situation of saying yes or no the said person in front of us is not actually going to take the responsibility for that yes or that no, then we don't go any further before that point is clarified, and sometimes that may take months or years, or we may never get any further. But that's there then, and that is the difficulty here.

BFRight. Yes.

DRThis reminds me a little bit of a lecturer in Statistics I had at Aston University, he used to write with both hands and he'd walk across the board writing with both hands and then he'd rub it out going the other way, and he'd mumble to the blackboard. He was absolutely brilliant but I didn't discover that until two years later when I bought his book. I learned absolutely nothing in his lectures.

IFRThere have been situations where I have chosen not to engage a pupil and have to carry the burden and the consequences and the responsibility for that. Again, weighing the risk against the risk between somebody engaging in something ...

DRthat they're not wholeheartedly with...

IFRYeah, that they're not wholeheartedly with; then I'd rather not.

BFRight, you've avoided that situation.

IFRYes. Yeah.

DRAlways, but again, it's there then, and it changes in retrospect.

BFAnd these Magickal Operations that are complementing the published syllabus of AA, these may involve tattoos...

IFRThat's a bit of an odd question, can you specify actually what you mean?

BFThat the Magickal Operations that are complementing the published syllabus of the AA, the experiential, do these maybe involve receiving a tattoo? Is that something that's happened?

DRThis is the "Us forcing people into having tattoos and piercings for our own profit".

BFI have to ask.

DRYeah. Yeah.

BFTo clear the air.

IFRMost of the tattoos and piercings which I have done on pupils, have been required by them and asked for by them, and sometimes if the tattoo or piercing is not necessary or essential for the Work they have paid for it by commercial prices. If it has been essential for the Work I have not charged for it.

DREven if it's been uncertain as to its being essential, but if its arisen out of the context of the Work you haven't charged for it. If NN comes along and says "I want such and such" because I happen to like the idea, then OK they are a customer.

IFRYeah.

DRThey pay for it at 45 pounds per hour same as any bastard else.

BFRight.

DRIf however in the process of so and so in their own Work getting some inspiration, information, or whatever, that they need a particular image as a part of that stage of what they are doing, and if that person is her pupil, because if they're someone else's pupil then it's a different game, yeah?

BFRight. Right.

DRIf they're someone else's pupil, as far as she is concerned, clearly it's still a commercial proposition, because they come to her then not as teacher but as tattooist. And this is a distinction that needs to be kept as well, yes?

BFRight. Right.

DRBut if, for example, somebody who is her pupil needs a particular image, in their judgement, then it is done, and I would estimate that over the last three years or so, you have probably done something in the region of 10 to 12 thousand pounds worth of free work on various people...

BFBecause that's been part of...

DRIn terms of tattooing, piercing, in one instance, scarification, which in view of the still undecided "Spanner" business is quite a risky undertaking to do in the studio, she's one of the few people who will actually take the risk to do it.

IFRI couldn't say an amount sort of off the top of my head.

DRWell, I'm working on the amount of hours, the amount of square inches, what you would normally have taken for work.

IFRTo say it like that. I gladly do a tattoo and do not have the, I mean it costs me money because I pay the material and my time.

DRExcuse me a minute, its actually more than that because there's a strange consistent experience that say for example somebody is coming in to the studio on a particular day for a clearly Magickal piece of tattooing...

BFSomebody else comes in... wanting to have a bit of commercial stuff...

DRWell, they don't get it for one thing, but also the somebody else doesn't come in.

BFOh right, oh right.

DRIf you want to kill a day stone dead as far as trade is concerned...

BFDo a Magickal one...

DRDo a Magickal one at the start of the day. Nothing else happens all day. And this is absolutetly consitant over months.

BFRight, right.

IFRI don't do it at the beginning of a day.

DRDo it at the end of a day. Or a Sunday which is appointment only.

BFSo...

IFRBut I have never ever forced any pupil to have any tattoo, piercing or any kind of body decoration ...

DROr even henna decoration or body paint.

IFRNo never, ever.

DRNot so much as a haircut.

BFRight.

IFRI only have the hard work and no money for it.

BFRight, so just thinking about the free ones. Because they are part of people's Work who are pupils of yours. Where does, is this, are they responding to communication from the Spirits that it's suggested to be their Work, you know, a step on their Path?

DRDo you mean communication through us? Sometimes. Sometimes direct to themselves, sometimes they just get an idea.

IFRI can not remember that any of my ex-pupils have had anything done to their bodies, that they haven't asked ME for, something they wanted, and then I have said ...

DRWe'll check it, we'll check it.

IFRWe'll check it. They have come to me. I think maybe once I have said "I think that might be a good idea, have a think about it" and... no, actually that was a commercial one, the one I'm thinking about particularly, no she actually came to me and said "I want a tattoo." I have never, ever ...

DRAnd I have actually once stopped a pupil of mine from having something done, which they had convinced themselves was absolutely essential.

IFRI have also done wedding tattoos, as a gift.

BFWhat tattoos, sorry?

IFRWedding tatoos, as a gift, as a wedding present. It was offered...

DRTwice you've done that...

IFRTwice I've done that. It was offered as a wedding gift, they said yes to the wedding gift, and I did it. No charge.

DRIn the one case the wedding lasted and they are still happy with their tattoos, in the other case it didn't.

IFROne did come and said "I would like a cover up job".

DRSorry, dejargonising, a cover is where...

BFI know...

DRYeah for those who may get this who have no idea, a cover is putting a new tattoo over an old one, which for one reason or another one wishes to get rid of.

IFRAnd I offered to do it for free. That tattoo never got finished.

DRIt probably wouldn't have gone with the frocks he wore.

IFRAll the others have been commercial tattoos, they have come and asked for, and I have treated them as customers. If somebody comes to my studio, and even before I had the studio, if they come and ask for a tattoo or a piercing they are treated as any other customer, paying for it or not. They are treated as a customer.

BFSo, people, I mean AA pupils, present AA pupils, and past AA pupils of yours, have the Spirits suggested that they should have a tattoo done?

IFRNo, not through us.

DRNot through us.

BFNot through you, not through you?

IFRAll those has come to me because they wanted it. I don't think it was from any Spirit what soever, they felt this would be right for me to have, I want suddenly to have 10 rings in my ears, or I want my labia pierced, or I want these Spare tattoos. they have come to me as a professioanl tattooist and body piercer, saying "I would like this work."

DRNow there have been, there have been some of our more advanced and still current pupils, who have their own communications with the Spirits, or dare I say it, with their own HGA's, who have come and said "In my work, so and so". be it their HGA or a particular Spirit "has counselled that I should have such and such" but this is their information obtained by them through their own Work, not being channelled through us.

IFRAnd it is on my discretion when I come, if it my own pupils I do not charge, and if it's somebody else's pupils its on my own discretion if I charge or not.

DROr if she charges a cost or if she charges a commercial rate.

BFSo.

DRAnd for a while after a particular occasion, when the story that she was overcharging people for magically forced tattoos was being spread, you actually kept a book, did you not where anybody having work, even in the OTO context as for example a couple of 5th Degree tattoos that she did, had to sign the book to say that I'm doing this of my own free will, this is my choice nobody's forcing me and I'm being charged either at cost, or free or whatever...

IFRActually, all those people...

DRSorry...

IFRAll those ex-pupils I think, have actually signed that book because that happened after accusation. To protect my own back, I had this book, they had to sign it, that ...

DRWhere it is, is another question...

IFRI can find it in a few minutes, yeah, I know where it is.

BFAnd, and have you advised either out of your own judgement or on the basis of information from the Spirits that the people are to have tattoos as part of their Magickal work?

DRNo, I have on some occasions confirmed their own...

ABEnquiry, was that specifically adressed...

DRTo me, to Br. David, yes...

DRI have confirmed inspirations or information of their own on occasions. I have as I said, dissuaded someone on one occaision, because the information was clearly coming from other areas than what one might call reliable or legitimate, to whit his own whims then disguised as...

BFYeah, as whatever...

DRDivine revelation or whatever. The gentleman subsequently took up heroin instead, so. But I have never, ever said to anybody "You are told or counselled by Spirits through me that you should have a tattoo, or you should have a piercing, or you should have a scarification".

BFOK.

IFRNeither have I, never, ever.

DRAnd there is a distinction between confirming something that somebody themselves has brought to you. Sometimes I won't even talk to the Spirits, sometimes I will pull out some suitable oracle.

BFDo it by divination.

DRDo it by divination. In fact most commonly I will do it by divination, and I always put up two alternatives. if this person does such and such what then, if they don't what then? There's your two alternatives, make your own sodding mind up.

IFRI would like to go back to where the accusation, the first accusation about tattooing arrives.

DRBr. Fitton.

IFRBr. Fitton, he wanted me to add something to a tattoo he had already...and...

DRDone by another tattooist.

IFRAnd he had to wait a few months because I didn't, until I had finished my apprenticeship and felt I could do the job to a professional standard. I gave him a price, which was the price I was taught by my, the tattooist who taught me, to charge. He thought that was too much because the tattooist he used to go to in Birmingham charged about half of the market price for tattooing in Manchester. They vary from city to city. Manchester has got little competition, in Birmingham we are talking about competition between maybe 18 tattooists.

DR18, one eight, whereas in Manchester you've got what, 5,6.

BFRight, right.

DRAnd obviously markets determine prices.

IFRI quoted him a price which would be relevant for Manchester. He said "I think that is too expensive, can I sell you a fridge instead?" And I said, "No I am not interested in a fridge, that is what the tatoo will cost", end of statement, and as far as I'm concerned end of that story.

DRBut I mean, nobody at any time said "You have to have it done here, you can't go back to Brimingham to do it."

IFRIf he wanted it cheap he could have gone back to Birmingham. But he particularly wnated me to do it and I had to let him wait three or four months before I said "Yes, I'm willing to do it."

DRI mean what we are talking about here is adding a statement in Arabic script to an already existing tattoo, a tattoo that was done by one of the best in the country, and ie therefore anything added to it would necessarily need to be of a quality where it didn't jar. Yeah?

BFYeah, yeah.

DRAnd this is a script, not the script normally written by the tattooist, a script in itself noted for its usage in decorative form. I mean we are talking about a caligraphic culture here. And where clearly one would need to be absolutely certain that what went on said what it was supposed to.

IFRResearch.

DRThat is the reason I would never have a Chinese ideogram tattooed on me unless I was certain what it said. Because I have this fear of walking through China town and all the Chinese falling over laughing.

IFRCan we please stop, I'm off to the loo.

DRJust then to add to the record a comment I made while the tape wasn't running. In one sense here we are answering the specific accusations by the more general argument that we're presenting here, because any particular accusation that is brought really, all we would say to it is what we're saying here, in the specific instance.

IFRYeah. Yeah.

BFUmm. Hmm.

DRPerhaps by doing it this way we keep it within the range of discourse within an investigation rather than accusation and counter-accusation in a more adversarial prosecution form.

BFI think we are covering more ground.

DRWe are covering more ground in a much shorter period of time and really, if we can continue in this vein for a little longer I think that we will have said what we have to say. And it will then be down to Br. Ben to judge each particular complaint that he has collected in the light of this general answer.

BFThe whole thing is passed on.

DRYeah. And if then it is requested that we should respond to any particular given accusation...

BFThen that can be...

DRThen that can be submitted to us in written form and replied to in written form, is that agreeable?

BFYeah, that's fine.

SWWoah, Woah, One sec, just let me get this last bit of agreement down here...

DRIf specifics are required to be answered that can be done in writing against a written copy of what's been said, exactly what's been said.

BFUmm. Hmm.

DRWhether that would prove fruitful or not...

BFUmm. Hmm.

DRI am very wary of this strange phenomenon of retroactive reconstruction.

IFRIf they had complained at the time...

DRIt is strange the way people react, it is strange what they don't tell you. One ex-pupil who subsequently proved troublesome had this idea, that as a priest of EGC he HAD to be promiscuous, it was his obligation, well, I mean, what's your excuse. And this partly took the form of him saying that the lady to whom he was married was his wife but he needed a mistress to represent the higher and darker forms of his worship of the feminine. And it became fairly clear that the woman he particularly chose to do that, he did because he thought and I quote: "For me she is very much like what it would be like to be with Irene."

BFUmm. Hmm.

DRSince I think in the case in question, Irene wouldn't have touched him with a three inch thick condom on a large spoon, unless specifically so instructed by her HGA as an Ordeal, it was quite an interesting observation on the person's state of mind, but it was only right at the very end of his time as my pupil that he actually put that into his Diary and told me about it. Because I don't go reading every detail in people's Magickal Diary, I haven't got the time to do it, haven't got the stomach for it quite honestly. What I do is when a pupil comes they bring their Diary and I say "Is there anything in your Diary that you want me to look at or want to tell me about?" I leave it up to them. This is usually a mistake, but it's the only practical way of doing it. If, if things had been otherwise, if, instead of the nebulous promise which started my formal activity in this context, I'd had a piece of paper from somebody or other and say, could issue people with a silly little chitty, saying that "I the great Kathumpit recognise you as 5=6" or whatever, which would be totally meaningless but some people like collecting pieces of paper, then obviously I would have had to have gone through the sheer horror of reading people's Diaries in great detail, page by page. But it's one of the few luxuries in working the way we do, that I don't actually have to do that. That I can leave it to them, to their integrity, to select what they want to tell me.

IFRApart from in the, for a new pupil...

DRUntil they get into the habit of keeping a Diary properly...

IFRI would choose to read the Diary, and often ask to do so, for the one purpose and the one purpose only that to guide them how to keep the Magickal Diary, to use the Method of Science. They're very uncertain and insecure what should go into the Magickal Diary and give them some advice on that. That is the information which is useful for you, the Magickal Diary, for you and for you alone, because you forget things over the years so you can go back and look in your Magickal Diary and look what has changed in your Magickal Work, the Diary is for you, it is not for me.

DRAlso, because one of the points that we always make to people until they're sick of hearing it is not can you do it, but can you do it again.

BFUmm. Hmm.

DRI.e., that they have to be able to keep a record from which they can not only determine what was done at a particular moment but the conditions under which it was done, the intent with which it was done...

IFRYeah.

DRSo if subsequently, they repeat such an Operation and get a totally different result or no result at all, they are able to analyse from the changes in conditions etc., why possibly things operated differently, and thus build up a coterie of experience, a corpus, sorry, of experience on which they can judge their own work. Also because sooner or later, if you learn you have to teach. One of the few rewards of teaching in such a context, is like being a grandparent, is when the bastard takes on his own pupils and really starts to suffer... Everything you've been through with them, they go through as well. And you can sort of smile, you know, and say "Yes, isn't it?"

BFNow there is a matter: We'd better press ahead, because there is one element that we have to talk about. Now have your children been involved in any AA Magickal Working?

DRNO!

IFRNO !

ABCan we pause there and get that explicit?

DRAbsolutely, categorically... The only Magickal Workings in which they participate are the public and generally accepted ones such as the Gnostic Mass and other things to which they would normally have access.

BFRight.

DRIn spite of their age. Both of them being EGC members I hasten to add, of their own choice, but they have never been involved in any Working sexual or otherwise in the context to which we are now referring, they have never ever been involved in any sexual Working in any context.

SWWoah.

ABYes, please.

IFRAnd I repeat, never ever has that taken place.

BFAny sexual Magickal Working.

IFRNever, ever.

DRNor have they, have either of them ever been by us in any way used sexually for the entertainment of customers, bretheren, or anything like that. And I want it on record...

BFAh, well this is your opportunity.

DRI want it on record that I am quite prepared to do physical damage to any person, irrespective of whatever Magickal Oaths and promises I might be bound by who would dare to my face to suggest otherwise.

BFUmm. Hmm.

DRAny person, I do not care who they are, what office they hold, or what obligations I may have towards them in any context, I will personally tear limb from limb anybody who suggests, that we in any context whatsoever are guilty of any form of abuse of our children.

ABA pause please, its important.

DRBut I hasten to add... sorry are you caught up yet?

SWNot quite.

DRI hasten to add that nobody, and that includes Louis Malloy, and it includes Christopher Kelly in his new Discordian persona, who has either made such an accusation or mediated such an accusation, allegedly made by somebody else, not one of these persons has ever had the guts or the decency to confront us directly. They've trogged off and they've spoken to you or to other people but they have never ever had the decency or the guts to confront us directly, and when asked...

IFRTo make a statement.

DRTo make a statement, Mr Kelly wrote us a very silly letter in which he avoided the issue entirely, and sort of under the motto "All Hail Discordia!".

IFROn such a serious accusation, a silly letter.

DRNo.

BFHow do you think this rumour might have arisen?

IFROut of somebody's sick mind or willful malice...

DROr both.

IFROr both. I don't have a mind who could create something like that, myself.

DRLook, as far as for example, Molloy is concerned, I mean, not only here but also the chicken fucking accusation...

BFOh I know, that...

IFRCats and dogs...

DRCats and dogs and chickens, "She is off somewhere" the quote was, to somebody who's... I gave it earlier. I don't think....

IFRI want to say something...

DRLet me just finish please....that you as a bookseller, have the experience of a branch of commerce which is as brutal and as vicious as the tattooing world or the piercing world. You've got to remember that tattooing grew out of a world occupied by sailors and bikers. The old method was, if somebody opened a tattoo studio nearer to your studio than you liked, you broke their hands with a lump hammer and smashed their studio up. Well this is no longer the practice but the attitude is still there. As far as the piercing world is concerned it did, however much it has now gone mainstream, initially grow out of the "modern primitive" movement, who took it over from the old S&M milieu, which let's face it, is full of vicious queens, not to out too fine a point on it. Some of them are good friends of ours but they are still vicious queens. And, the problem here is, that in that world people will not hesitate to go to extreme lengths to blacken each other's names or even to physically attack each other's studios. Irene's studio was burgled not last Sunday but the Sunday before. From the manner of what was damaged and what wasn't, what was taken and what wasn't, it is very easy to deduce that this is also a message, and although we are not in possession of evidence that would stand up in a court of law, we are in possesion of evidence which indicates a chain of events, that tattooist Malloy calls in a favour from tattooist Rambo of Manchester, who's on the rough end of the scale, who pays a couple of lads 23 quid each and whatever they can get for what they take, provided they do it in a certain way, to break into the studio, as a piece of intimidation. well it didn't bloody work. We moved heaven and earth and replaced the grand's worth of equipment that was taken, mopped up where they pissed on the floor and pissed in the filing cabinet, got rid of the bag of bush they'd left behind, etc, etc... And the only things that are damaged are in the actual studio workspace itself, where the hygiene matters, they're all about the ability to communicate, like the phone and fax. All to do with the atmosphere of the studio. I mean, I don't think that you or anybody outside that world could really comprehend how vicious a world the tattooing and piercing circuit is.

IFRAnd I'm a...

DRAnd she's a woman, one of very few, in a very tough, primarily, maccho, male world. Malloy has never forgiven her for walking out on him, even if he spent a year mucking about. And we know that he will go to great lengths to cause her damage.

IFRWhat is essential here is that he knows that I am the only real commercial competition he has...

DRIn Manchester.

IFRIn this city. He knows that he can't touch me professionally in my skills as a tattooist and a body piercer. The only weapon he thinks he has is that it had been put to his attention that I was a member of a Magickal Order. And to spread rumours and all the superstition that goes with that and in that way commercially destroy me.

BFI mean, right, just to be...

DRSo that's ONE source. Then as we have been speaking of, there are all those who one way or another at one point or another have been connected with certain sides of our Work who for one reason or another have fallen away from that, and in self-justification or in justification to each other, cause some of them exist in nice little, ethnically determined knots, will tell stories. Then you have those, and I will name names here, like Chris Kelly, who seem to have taken upon themselves the role of "I am a Discordian now, so now I'm going to cause as much trouble as possible, and I will lead by the nose, whoever I can lead by the nose." But I'll tell you straight up Ben. He'll laugh behind your back just as much.

BFRight.

DRI will say this now, and I will say on the record : Remember the Tyburn Blessing.

BFYou'll have to remind me.

DRIt was traditional, when people were about to be hung, in public, on Tyburn Tree in London, that they would turn to the crowd, and they would say: "Bless you me boys, me today, you tomorrow".

BFI mean here, I'm just, just, just putting forward something that may be in other people's minds. Just the kind of Devil's advocate. Giving you the opportunity, I mean, cause, cause, people might think: Well Louis Malloy, he started teaching you, knowing that you were going to practice in Manchester.

IFRNo, he did not know, that is one of the things he holds against me, that he mean that I should have informed him when I started as an apprentice, that I was a member of a Magickal Order. The relationship between Louis Malloy and myself has always been professional, and commercial over my side, his lying and...

DRBut what you have to remember here, is that initially, Louis took her on as an apprentice because he intended to move to the US, and he wanted to train up someone who could continue his studio in Manchester with the same quality. He then got himself a new lady, didn't go to the States, and was stuck with training up someone who he really otherwise probably would never have dreamed of taking on as an apprentice at all.

IFRYeah.

BFRight. Right.

IFRAnd his lady friend didn't like him having a female apprentice...

DRCause she's pathologically jealous. But what it comes down to, is that there was never any original intent for Irene to be Louis' commercial rival in Manchester. The original intent from both sides was that she would become "The successor of Louis Malloy at Middleton Tattoo Studio". whilst he opened up a new pratice in California, or wherever he thought he was going to.

IFRNot California, somewhere else.

DRWell, somewhere in the States. Yeah, over there somewhere.

BFRight. Right.

DRYeah? So that when it became clear that...

IFRAnd it did take him three months before he actually told me that he was not going to the States.

BFRight, right.

DRI mean, the man's whole way of dealing with that matter was so radically dishonest, in many respects, even to the point that he had a second apprentice on the dally.

IFRAll the time, he still has.

BFA second apprentice.

DRWell, sort of, being held in the background on strings, that "If it doesn't work out with her, you can have a go, chummy."

BFRight, right.

DRNow that second apprentice, was at that time good friends with a number of the people who were then living in the Rochdale area. And who are OTO people. He has also himself occasionally sort of dabbled a bit in, you know, drawing Trees of Life and things, yeah?

BFRight.

DRAnd he was obviously one source of information for Louis.

IFRIn fact he used him...

DRNow there's another way, older way, going back a bit. And this goes back to the reasons why, at one time certain monies were retained in Manchester with all the misunderstandings around that. All this has been detailed in a letter that was sent to the OTO, handed to the Grand Secretary when you lot were in Aachen.

IFRBy hand.

DRAnd to which I've never to this day's date had a reply, but I think you'll remember a friend of ours called Pete Service who was involved in blowing the whistle on a lot of sort of paedophile circles and what have you.

BFI remember what you're talking about.

DRWe haven't seen him for a great number of months now and we believe that the cancer finally caught up with him. But, at that time, one of the people who became associated with us was a lady called Lyn Weir. Long chain of events but Lyn, essentially, was blackmailed by certain other parties, in Manchester, who'd themselves been involved in spreading all sorts of rumours about me when I ran Scorpion's Nest, which resulted in a number of things including the closure of that business, in the end. Cause I lost custom, important custom, because of rumour mongering. I mean I've been down this route as well. But, Weir was blackmailed by threats made against the children of her lesbian partner, into acting on certain people's behalf. She stole certain documentation from this house whilst a guest in this house, which she was because she was basically in considerable physical danger from certain people at that time and we gave her shelter. And subsequently, used, under pressure from the people who were threatening her lover's children, misrepresented bits of information, which she spread round all the bloody tarot lines in Manchester concerning us.Going round the same circuit and making a few things clear, Pete Service and I managed to knock that on the head. But certain parts of that remained as it were, in certain people's knowledge. One of whom was a gentleman called Mike who ran a shop and still runs a shop, and who intended to branch into tattooing...

IFRand piercing.

DRAnd piercing, which he never did. Some of this eighteen month old, two year old distorted information, through him, is fed back to Louis Malloy, along with a load of stuff about sort of...

IFRTo put me out of business.

DRSort of "News of the Worldy" stuff about what the OTO... all the, what's his names, the Grand Satanist, the guy who had a hundred thousand members, and Enoch Powell was one of the bosses.

BFOh, not, Ray Boggard.

DRNo, no, he was a con man.

BFOh, I know who you mean.

DRYeah right, right. All sort of bits of press cuttings from that time again, all comes to Louis Malloy. Woman runs, there's another woman runs Manchester Piercing Studios, name of Anna Kai. Who was at one point supposed to become Irene's business partner, stiched her up something shocking, has been one of her main rivals on the piercing front since, and again has been responsible for spreading odd rumours. Some of which derived from a gay friend of Anna's who has contacts in the fetish world, spreading bits and pieces about some of Irene's activities vis-a-vis that world, which are a natural adjunct of her business.

IFRAnd public.

DRAnd quite public.

BFRight.

DRThese then get mangled up, chewed up, splat out, re-processed, and spread around by Anna's associates. At the same time, Anna is getting assistance, all of a sudden, from Louis Malloy. Then, there's Pam and Jonathan. These are some people who were originally resident in the Orkneys, and to whom we gave a great deal of friendship and assistance at one time when they needed it. Unfortunately, she is mentally unstable, I mean she's got papers to prove it and everything, you know, lithium and the whole shebang. But she's also an exotic dancer, whatever that means, and was at one point of time supposed to be getting extensive tattooing from Irene. In fact she went to Luois, and during the course of her time as Louis' client, fed him all sorts of weird mythology about us. About me being a sorcerer and how she'd witnessed all kinds of sort of physical manifestations that made me sound like bloody Sai Barber.

IFR...flying around the room.

DRPlates manifesting out of thin air etc. etc.

BFOh God.

IFRThat's the level it is at.

DRWhat you gotta remember about Malloy, he would never admit to it because he's now so sort of upmarket in his own view. Malloy's father is an Irish tinker. Now's there's nothing wrong with that but in the background of Malloy's reactions is a whole culture of superstition.

IFRAnd is he superstitious.

DRAnd is he superstitious. Yes he is, something shocking. Now obviously, you out this all together and there'a all sorts of bits flying round yeah?

BFRight, right.

DRWhich is a very nice standing raw material for any person of ill will to conjure out of nowhere, as it were, and put together as a new variation on the same story.

IFRAlso I mean, they would deliberatly and by malice aforethought do create rumours only to damage, with the only purpose to destroy me comercially. That is what it is about, it's a commercial war. And that is the weapon he think he has.

DRI mean, I don't think, I would like to think, that even those who are lodging complaints against us in reference to things we are supposed to have done to, with or at them, of earstwhile bretheren and ex-bretheren, that none of them have stooped so low as to involve the question of the children, with the exception of Chris Kelly.

BFAh, I mean again...

DRWho is doing it second hand.

IFRWe don't know that do we?

BFI mean again, one thing that I do have a bit of knowledge about...

SWCould you just...hang on one sec...

DRArms are falling off here.

SWArms are falling off.

ABGoing a bit rapidly.

SWBe with you in a second...

IFRNot to say what it costs parents to go through such things.

BFYeah. Oh yes.

DRAnd with all respect, unless you are one, you really can't believe...

BFNo I realise that.

DRI mean, may I just say here, we are not the only people to have suffered that. Evan and Becki have got both their children on the "At Risk" list.

BFWhy's that?

DRBecause somebody maliciously informed the social that they were keeping their children in unhygienic conditions and they were into Magick. And that somebody, I can't prove but I believe was most likely Br Fitton after he fell out with them, and if I could prove it, he would not be walking now. But the timing was so exact, it's a pity, I say this, but I do say it. He is one of the two most likely people to have maliciously have informed on them and produced a situation where their eldest son, our Godson, is on the "At Risk" list and the babe was put on the "At Risk" list at birth.

BFRight.

IFRSo much for brethren.

BFWell, now...

DRI mean...

BFIf I can just say... OK.

DRWhat I'm saying is that we're not the only people...if you are a parent, you are extremely vulnerable.

BFRight. I realise that.

DRThat's another risk that we take for the sake of what we consider to be our Obligations to the Work.

BFNow, I would just say two things.

DRYeah.

BFNow this is not really why I'm here...

DRYeah.

BFNot really why I'm here but I just feel it would be useful for me to just say two things. One thing, you know, cause I obviously explained what I'm doing here, and it's not really part of it... but one thing is with Chris, his reaction when he heard that particular allegation about Tanith, was Louis Malloy about going to the press, or, yeah the press, or the police, Chris actually counselled him to do neither, and then spoke to people who he trusted in the OTO.

IFRDo you have any information what so ever where that rumour could have started?

BFI don't know. I do not know. My...

DRSo why couldn't Chris have the decency to say that to us.

BFWell, thats....

DRInstead of writing us a stupid letter.

BF...not for me. That's for Chris. I'm just passing that bit of information on. That he actually, he said to Louis Malloy "Don't...

DRHave you had that confirmed?

BFUhhmm, it does fit in, I've had conversations with Louis Malloy...

DRSo what was Chris doing at Louis', having his tattoo removed or altered I assume.

BFI don't know. No idea. Uhhmm.

IFRCould I ask for information please?

BFYou can certainly ask.

IFR...Of the content of your conversation with Louis Malloy.

BFThey were quite long conversatiosn, quite long conversations. You know. Basically, I mean these allegations were made and that's, you know, that was the source...

IFRThat one in particular about Tanith.

BFYes.

IFRAnything else?

BFThat was basically what I spoke to Louis Malloy about. That was the pressing thing with Louis Malloy. The other thing I would, was just the other thing I wanted to say, now at that time I was very much in contact with Barry.

DRYeah, yeah.

BFThe thing you talked about with Ev and... I don't know exactly when it was, I don't remember exactly when it was. But I was very much inn contact with Barry.

DRIt was shortly...

BFAnd I mean I don't think he did that. I really, my judgement...

IFRThat's your judgement.

BFYeah, it's my judgement, that I mean I'm saying this without any masks.

IFRYeah, sure.

DRYeah.

IFRI believe you.

BFI really don't think he did that.

DRWe believe it's his judgement.

IFRYes.

DRLet's be clear on that.

IFRI believe it is your judgement, yes.

BFBut let's press on, I mean that's not really why I'm here. The, I mean there is something that we have touched upon, Peter Service, that I think we could take this opportunity to clarify because it looks like OTO operations, the Strict Observance Oasis, the activities of that were closed down because somebody else was being prosecuted for the possession of paedophiliac material.

DRNo, this is not the case.

BFPlease clarify.

ABCould we go slowly here please.

BFYeah. This is the opportunity to clarify.

IFRNever heard anyhting like it.

SWSo "Looks like OTO operations and to whit Strict Observance was closed down...

BFBecause.

ABSomebody else was being prosecuted...

BFProsecuted because of possession of paedophiliac material.

IFRMay I say something here?

BFPlease.

DRThat is a gross misrepresentation.

IFRA year before Strict Observance Oasis was closed, the then master of the Oasis Fr. Azrael.

DRMe.

IFROtherwise, Br David, said " In one year I will close this Oasis".

BFRight.

IFRYou've got one year.

DRTo build a foundation.

ABWitnessed.

IFRTo build a foundation. And a year and a day after that statement.

DRWe stopped work.

IFRThat Oasis was closed.

DRNow in the meantime there was an hiatus in the work.

BFThat's what I mean, the hiatus, carry on.

DRRight, now that ties in with what was going on, with the business with Weir and this nonsense that we mentioned.

BFAhhh.

DRI mean, people having battery acid thrown at them, it was getting physically dangerous.

IFRAnd she came here.

DRAnd that was why I requested from Clive that we should retain certain monies in Manchester as basically an emergency fund if we needed to get anybody or their kids out of the city quickly, and he agree to that but in a certain... one way or another there was a certain misunderstading between him and me about the official status of that retention. As soon as that was clear what was the case, the monies were dispatched to the States, they were in a closed account, in Manchester, the whole bloody time, their never was any "financial irregularity".

BFThis is your opportunity to say.

DRWell I've said it. I've said this in a very long letter. The letter I referred to, where the whole business of the situation in Manchester around the question of the closure of Strict Observance Oasis and the pause in its work.

BFYeah, the pause in it's work, that was mainly...

DRAll that is specified in a very long letter I wrote, six pages typed up, twelve pages hand-written, which I sent specifically to the Order, and not trusting the mails, it was entrusted to the sister here who put it into the hands of Sr Helena.

IFRWho had to sign for it.

DRWho had to sign for it, that she'd received it. That receipt we still have and that is the only reply I have ever received to that letter. And anybody now saying the version you have been putting forward...

BFWell.

DRMust be doing so in total ignorance of information which the Order has been in possession of now, for what two years...?

IFRThree years, almost...

DRThree years. And that letter, a copy went to Clive, and I've got the original letter in my handwriting and ...

IFRTyped.

DRA typed up transcipt of that, for those who can't decipher my handwriting, which is ninety-nine point nine percent of the population, available, on file.

BFCuz, just, cuz, cuz, cuz, to clarify, there was the hiatus, there was the break that you told. you came over for third degrees in York.

DRYeah, yeah.

BFAnd you told me that you were closing down the operations, not closing down the Oasis.

DRWe went quiet, because we were being targetted.

BFBecause you were being targetted.

DRWe were being targetted by the people who were threatened by the work that Pete was doing and assumed, and there's a lot of the sort of various clergy and diverse who've fallen since that, that I know for a fact, that that's based on information he left behind him. But it was assumed, because of the association that he had with me, through the shop and otherwise, that he was being supported in this by the OTO operation in Manchester. And people began to feel nervous. I mean, the first step in conning Weir into what she did was that somebody threw battery acid at her, which missed her by about a foot. After which we got her out of Manchester for four days, until she felt secure to come back again.

BFRight, right.

DRI mean, when people start threatening other people's lover's children with physical harm, when people start slinging battery acid around, and we're talking Hulme, Moss Side, here. I mean, people don't fart arse around here, they don't play with pea shooters, you're talking AK-47's, you know, this is not our paranoia here. There were bits of Manchester that were twinned with Beirut at the time. The only thing we could do that was secure, was to go into silence for a few months and see where the land lay.

BFAnd Peter Service, he was going through a court case at the time?

DRNo, he was at that time beginning the work of exposing the information which he had spent ten years collecting, since his own daughter was killed, whilst he was in prison.

BFHe was in prison.

DRYeah, the story about Pete is quite simply this. He was at one time, one of the best cracksmen in England. He was, what the hell's the term, well I'll say pardoned, but that's not quite the right term, out of Wormwood Scrubs in the middle of a fifteen year sentence and went to work for that which is now GCHQ as an information acquirer.

BFBecause of the skill.

DRYeah, exactly. He was given a new identity, Peter Service, which is not his name, Peter being a safe and Service because that's what he was doing them, and he worked for them for about seven years including acquiring some of the information about that boy's home in Northern Ireland.

BFKincorror.

DRYeah, the Kincorror thing, and a few other bits and pieces. Now, he made the mistake of getting itchy fingers and doing a bit of private work on the side, and ended up in Strangeways. Whilst he was in Strangeways, his daughter, who he was raising on his own at the time, and who was then I think six, seven.

IFRSix, Seven.

DRWas abducted from her foster home, and was tortured to death by the really bad end of the paedophile scene, possibly on film.

IFRThirty years.

DRYeah, this was thirty years prior to us closing the Oasis activity down. Peter was eventually paroled out of Wormwood Scr...out of Strangeways, and went back to work for his old bosses, until he finally retired and took up as a sort of New Age Therapist and other kind of charlaton and confidence kind of trickster on the legitimate circuit for those kinds of persons.

BFMade a living doing that.

DRMaking a living doing that. Yeah. But for the whole time after he came out of Strangeways, his one real driving force was to find out who was responsible for his daughter's death. And to basically take out them and anybody like them, not by his old methods, of direct GBH, but by the method of exposing the whole network and organisation and all the rest of it. Over the period he insured his own continued existance by making sure that all his information was seperately deposited safely with a friend of his in Germany with the instructions that one year and one day after his death by anything other than natural causes that information was to be made public. And it was also arranged that that information was gently and quietly fed into certain offical sources who have subsequently begun to deal with various politicians, eccesiastics, high-ranking policemen and others along the road whose prosecutions, have depended in part on information coming from that source.

BFRight, right.

DRBut the assumed assistance that we were giving was enough to put us under threat.

BFSo you closed down activities.

DRWe closed down activities.

BFWhen that situation.

DRWas, was up and running at its worst.

BFAnd he wasn't being prosecuted.

DRHe was not being prosecuted, no.

SWHe was the prosecutor.

DRHe was in fact involved in providing evidence for a number of prosecutions that were then in the offing. But he was not being prosecuted.

BFRight, right, right, that clears that up.

DRAnd all that is very, very clear in the letter which the Order has had in its possession for three years.

BFRight, right.

DRWhich is one of the reasons I really do seriously resent this constant implication of financial irregularity on my part.

BFRight.

DRBecause there was a misunderstanding, I mean it was my fault in the sense that I did not put it in writing the agreement I made with Clive, and he didn't remember the verbal agreement we'd made. It was as simple as that, so that when push came to shove, it opened up for misrepresentation, which seems to have been used as a vicarious motive for other things, huh?

BFRight.

DRAccording to information received, now again, allegedly, I'm not saying that Bill Heidrick has taken that line but it has been said, it has reached our ears that it has been said. Indirectly, with yourself named as one, with Bruce named as one source for that particular story, and Rodney named as another, but again we only have it third hand so, I use the term allegedly in the manner that "Private Eye" do. But there was never any question of Peter being under the investigation. There was a very strange episode where his... the house that he was living in in Wolverhampton was broken into and raided by the notorious West Midlands Serious Crime Squad who tried to do him for the possesion of a large amount of Royal Arch Masonic Regalia and other bits which they said were stolen. In fact he had them in trust from a friend of his who was a judge, which he was able to prove and the whole thing got quietly dropped and it was very embarrassing left, right and centre, but when the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad was eventually, subjected to dissolution, I think, a number of things in that context came round as well. I mean, all sort of weird... I mean, my shop, Scorpion's Nest, when I had it, was rumoured to be a front for the Manchester crime syndicate called the "Quality Street Gang". That rumour started because two very strange gentlemen called David and Martin, with Sicilian surnames, turned up and asked me if I would front the sale of a fourteen kilo white rhinocerous horn to certain Chinese gentlemen in Manchester. that particular sale didn't come off, which in some ways was a pity because I was on a ride for twenty-five grand commission. And in some ways is a damn good thing because I don't really think I wanted to be stuck between the Mafia and the Tong. But a whole load of weird rumours began to circulate after that.

ABCould you hang on a second.

DRTo circulate that I was operating a front for the Quality Street Gang and that my occult activities were a front for that. Which actually was used against me when I tried to shift to another locality because they wouldn't rent it to me.

BFRight, right.

DRIt's interesting that John Stalker has also been accused of being a front for the "Quality Street Gang".

BFJust keeping an eye for the time.

DRYeah, I mean, what I'm saying is there's a whole load of stuff going back a long way which is mine-able for weird David and Irene stories. Maybe it doesn't happen in smaller cities or maybe it doesn't happen in other cities but in Manchester it does.

BFNow kind of going over me notes with an eye to the time, pressing on. I am anxious, as I say to give you the opportunity to, when we're finshed, make any comments that can be communicated as well. Partly I have it in mind, just so that people away, away from Manchester can have an understanding of what the situation is, if you could maybe give an idea of the overlap of AA and OTO membership, you know, membership, say of Fires of Orc, Rosa Rubeae, and the other OTO bodies in this area, what overlap of the membership?

DRI'm not sure whether we can do that in a sense.

IFRNo, I don't think we can.

DRI mean, if we take someone into pupilage, there is an implicit confidentiality involved in that.

IFRWhich we would go and break.

DRBoth the bodies you have named are still pretty damned small in terms of numbers, even if they're large by OTO standards. If we we were to say "There's a 50% overlap" what does that result in, guessing games.

BFNo, not necassarily. I don't think that's the intent at all, and it wouldn't be the kind of, no one's going to come and do that really, it's just so that people can get an idea what the situation is, you know.

DRThe most pupils that we altogether have had at any given time is about 20, that's including several persons who are not, never have been, and most likely never will be members of OTO. The least pupils active we have ever had at any one time is about half a dozen. Ditto. Let us say that of our pupils then varying between forty and eighty percent have some kind of an OTO connection, and that they distribute themselves, by dint of geography, not only in Manchester, cause it's not just Mancunians that are involved here, over the various bodies of OTO which are scattered around in Great Britain. Not only in Manchester, so the answer is, that's the best answer we can give you at any particular point of time.

BFIs there ever any, uuhh, again, either from your judgement or from the Spirits, uuhm, influence upon OTO activities communicated to members of the AA? Things relevant to the OTO operations...

DRNo.

BFThat are communicated.

DRNO.

BFI'm getting at, what is the relationship.

IFRCan you... I didn't catch that, the question.

BFIs there ever a situation whether by your judgement as teachers...

DRDo we tell our AA pupils to do such, or to engineer such and such to come about within the OTO context.

IFRNO.

DRThat wasn't even the case when I was soley in charge of the whole sodding OTO- EGC operation in Manchester, when it would have been a damn sight easier for me to engineer it if I had wanted to, than it is now, with another bunch of wayward assholes. Saving your grace, running each their show on their own principles. We do not attend and we are not members of Fires of Orc, we do not attend and we are not members of Rosa Rubeae, we are not members of either of the current EGC temples although we do occasionally attend as guests, and we do not and we never have used any influence of ours to affect the operations of OTO in this city.

BFOr the OTO elsewhere.

DROr the OTO elsewhere. Never have done.

BFUmm. Hmm. Right.

DRAnd quite frankly, you know how fucking inefficient the OTO is...

BFOh yes, I know.

DRThe chance of influencing anything.

BFThe chance of the OTO influencing anything...

DRYes, right, so, fair enough. No, categorically, absolutely, hand on the book, NO. From both of us. You've said no already.

IFRI have said no.

DRThe only exception to that is on occasion, when people who have been our pupils or who are our pupils are so absolutely, completely, through and through, fed up, pissed off, cheesed off, about the way the OTO is, the way it operates, the relationship between the OTO in the States and the OTO in England, and all the rest of it that they have wanted to leave, and we have dissuaded them from doing so and said "Look, stay in there for the Work's sake. It isn't what it is that matters, it's what it could be that matters. Get in there and work for it." And that is the extent to which we have tried to influence anyone. So if we've done anything at all, it's probably to keep the show on the road behind the scenes by stopping most of the membership from buggering off out of sheer fatigue and disgust, and that can go on the record as well.

BFUmm. Hmm... I mean, how do you feel about the OTO nationally?

DRI can see a lot of things that would be run differently if I was doing it but I'm not. And it's the karma of the people that's doing it yeah? I'm a different school, I'm a different generation Ben. You know, in one sense I belong to the wild frontier, I'm a hairy, smelly person, and city folks has taken it over. In one sense, perhaps I don't fit in any more, in where it is and where it wants to go. I am not more in the way of it, Irene is not more in the way of it, than the people that are now running it make us in the way of it.

BFHow do you mean?

DRWell, to a certain extent I feel that we've been given the role of bogey men by the people in the top end of the OTO. To a certain extent, that's been the case ever since Arild and I wrote the famous letter to the Link that caused such a riot. It seems to me that what the great fear is, is not that we're doing some peculiar sorts of Work, the great fear is that we are using that, as your question indicates, as a power base to subvert the OTO. Well, it doesn't need subverting, it is quite capable of falling to bits on its own. By most showings, and I've already said, if we do anything at all, it's more likely to prop it up than to pull it down.

IFRMy answer to your question, Ben, is: I say nothing.

DRYeah, it is as it is and it will attract to itself the people who naturally gravitate towards what is has become. Like everything else, that's a historical phase. Today I'm the dinosaur, tomorrow, you'll be the dinosaur and a whole new generation will be making the same damned mistakes as we did, because nobody ever learns a fucking thing from history. I have been loyal to that Order ever since I first joined it. That was a pure contingency. Arild and I wrote off to all the OTO claimants and Grady was the only bugger who bothered to answer.

IFRSo have I.

BFSorry?

IFRI say : So have I.

BFYou wrote off to all the...

DRLoyal.

IFRI have been loyal.

BFRight, right.

DRWe have been loyal inspite of all that's been said to us, in spite of all that's been done in a sense, even when my Charters were pulled, I remained loyal. Other people wouldn't have done. On the record now right. There is a peculiar side loop in transmissions and the history thereof, going down through various people in the thirties and again in the fifties, with odd inter-relations with Paragranus and Gregorius, by which there's a sort of implicit situation where an Eighteenth Degree of the Fraturnitas Saturnii, of which there are very few at any given time, can form their own OTO on the basis of the working of the Pentalpha Grade, or their own branch of the OTO. And are therefore also free to pass that on to whomsoever they please. Tegtmeier and I have been close friends since we met when I was in Germany with Grady. We disagree on virtually ever point of Magickal theory you can possibly imagine, but we have managed in spite of that, being grown up, adult, and sophisticated persons, to remain close friends. One of the results of Ralph being sort of dragged into the current investigations of us, and he's a funny bastard, you can say what you like about him, but upset him about. if the thinks that one of his friends is being subjected to an unjust process, he can get quite strange. And on the basis of his experience, following your contact with him, and also on the basis of some weird interchanges between him and Heidrick over the Internet, and with Koenig in the background stirring a few things up by all accounts, Ralph basically said "Well alright, if they throw you out, I'll give you your own OTO" and I said "No, I have committed myself to a particular claimant to that name, I have been loyal to it, in spite of itself and in spite of everything it is, and in spite of everything it has done to me in the time I have been with it. So, I very much appreciate your offer, but this is not, if I go out of it, or if I'm driven out of it then I will have to decide where my future organisational development, organisational commitment lies "but no, I'm not going to accept my own and go off and take a large chunk of it with me."

BFVery interesting, very interesting.

DRI say that to you with Ralph's full agreement and permission, by the way, because I'm under no obligation to tell you that. I tell you that as an example of the fact that I am still, in spite of everything, loyal to this organisation. Not because I think it's perfect, because it isn't, not because I even like it very much, because I like it less amd less, but because I think that a certain organisational activity is necessary and because it probably has as good as or least no worse than anybody else's claim to legitimacy in terms of historical transmission.

BFRight, right.

DRAnd as far as I'm concerned the question of historical transmission is important.

BFUmm. Hmm... I agree.

DRI mean, I've always taken the view that real magicians don't join orders anyway, but given that at certain stages in one's career some kind of organisational connection is necessary, then for me personally, some kind of historical legitimacy is a requirement, but the "Caliphate" doesn't have the only claim, it may have the best claim to historical legitimacy. You ask me where I stand with regard to it. I stand where I have always stood. Before you were in it, and probably if I live longer than you do, after you've gone from it. I will not leave, partly because I'm damned if I'd give anybody that much satisfaction. If I go, it's because I've been slung. Now if they want to engineer excuses for doing that, that is their business and not mine.

IFRAnd their karma.

DRAnd their karma. Well, you can speak for yourself on that point.

IFRI don't have very much more to add.

BFBecause I have an eye for the time, is there anything else, anything that you want to take this opportunity to say.

DRWell, as I said earlier, in the event that what we have said today is not adequate to give you the basis to judge any specific accusations that have been made, in your report. In the event that you want us to answer any specific allegations, then providing that you give us written, clear statements of what those allegations are and from whence they come, we will answer them likewise, in written form, to the fullest of our abilities, but it will only be a specified variant of what we've said today, in one form or another.

BFWell, I feel we've covered a lot of ground today.

DRYeah, in spite of my natural inclinations I haven't strangled you either. I will say Ben, that part of the problem between you and me has to do with your manner and mine.

BFWell.

DRYou can come across as being incredibly supercilious and very condescending.

BFSay it. Say it.

DRWell, I've said it, I've said it.

BFSay it again.

DRWhether you mean to or not.

BFYeah. Umm. Hmm.

DRAnd you know, to me this is like a red rag to a bull. I'm sure a lot of things I do irritate you.

BFWell.

DRBut in spite of that we've manged to continue, we've managed to carry out this meeting. Now we're obviously not going to get time to duplicate the tapes.

BFWe'll duplicate and send you copies.

DRYou duplicate and send us copies of the tapes and we will send you copies of the minute which has been kept here. And then we can all compare so anything that's dissappeared on the one can be edited in. You...

BFAnything else.

DRYou have checked that that doesn't sound like Donald Duck as well have you?

BFYeah.

DRI mean you can call me a bull-buggering asshole from Manchester but I will not sound like Donald Duck on somebody's tapes. I have my pride.

BFRight.

DRAre we closing the meeting at...

BFIs there anything else that anybody wants to say, any comments, anything you feel has gone unsaid?

IFRNo thank you.

DRMeeting closed at six minutes to two.

BFRight we'll pack up.