Thanks Felicia, very useful; I would add that Grant himself has published a
lot on his time with AC, the most accessible (and perhaps cheapest in
financial terms) being his "Remembering Aleister Crowley" which reproduces
both in facsimile and notation a lot of letters from AC to various people
Grant is a huge fan of Lugosi, so Grady's comparison may have picked out
some deliberate attempt on KG's part to model his appearance ;)
Dave e
----- Original Message -----
From: "Felicia" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2008 7:02 PM
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Legal Entity OTO
> On Feb 4, 2008, at 11:19 PM, D E wrote:
>
>> something I've never heard much about, and would be v interested in, is
>> the brief meetings between Kenneth Grant and Grady McMurty in Britain in
>> 1944 and possibly 1945, when they were both visiting Crowley, for
>> example, and how they viewed the control of the OTO at that point
>
> As far as I've been able to discern where Grant and McMurtry were
> concerned, Crowley was the undisputed head of OTO.
> Grady's only comment regarding those meetings was that Kenneth Grant
> looked like an unhealthy Bella Lugosi. Grady made no other comment other
> than he wasn't certain Kenneth Grant was a member of OTO. There is
> nothing in the records to indicate that they either shook hands or said
> two words to one another although presumably something of the kind took
> place. The only thing Crowley had to say regarding Kenneth Grant from
> that time was an obscene limerick. Crowley seems to have been fond of
> assassinating people's character by attributing his own behavior to them.
>
>> can we really say that other OTOs are not, or were not, also OTOs? I just
>> wonder, after the death of a charismatic leader (Aleister Crowley), isn't
>> it quite common for groups to splinter like that, for other charismatic
>> types to claim lineage - whether on paper or not. How un-OTO does one of
>> these groups have to be to be "not OTO"? I mean is the Typhonian OTO
>> considered not OTO - at all? Obviously a lot of people think that
>> non-Caliphate OTOs are OTO... Isn't it a bit like Wicca in its growth out
>> from an original model?
>>
>> ~Caroline Tully.
>
> There is a fundamental difference:
> Gardner presented Wicca as a re-emergence from a widely dispersed but
> existent religious phenomena of great antiquity. Gardner claimed not to
> have coined the term 'Wicca" or "wicce". He claimed that what he was
> doing was part of a continuity, one of many. Whether this is true or not,
> that was the claim. In other words, he presented his Wicca as being one
> fish from a lake. Ostensibly, other fish exist in that lake, may be
> pulled from it, and may be called "Wicca". Hence, for instance, Bill
> Heidrick can legitimately claim that he is a family trad witch by virtue
> of the fact that his great-grandmother kept a book of recipes for cures,
> one of which was for a powder to take when a man or a horse is bewitched.
> Others claim such, why not Bill, too? However, Bill, not being an
> initiate of Gardnerian Wicca, cannot validly claim to be Gardnerian since
> Gardnerians ostensibly keep very careful records of initiates so that
> validity of claims can be verified from that particular line.
>
> In the case of the OTO, one man created it - Theodor Reuss. It is a work
> of art, unique, created by one man. Theodor Reuss promulgated a manifesto
> defining the OTO. The way the OTO is and was structured requires a paper
> trail if one is claiming continuity from OTO. Kenneth Grant at one time
> had an OTO charter from Germer (the OHO of the OTO) but Germer
> subsequently expelled Grant from the OTO in the 1950s. Being expelled,
> Grant lost any claim of affiliation with or authority in the OTO.
> Therefore what Grant later created had no affiliation with the OTO and
> could not be considered a direct continuation of the OTO. As such, it
> cannot, therefore, be referred to as a schism since the narrow and concise
> usage of the term applies only to current members, not to former, expelled
> members. Otoh, what Grant innovated after being expelled from the OTO
> can be appropriately referred to as having been inspired by the OTO or by
> Crowley but Typhonianism was not a continuation or branch of the OTO as it
> was under Crowley or Reuss.
>
> Motta "borrowed" terms for something he created in order to flesh out that
> creation. Since Motta paid for the new roof on Germer's house and paid
> for the publication of some Crowley material, Germer mentored Motta in the
> A.'.A.'. work. However, Motta was never a member/initiate of the OTO
> though Germer offered more than once. Motta then made claims that he was
> he was the Head of OTO and Thelema, worldwide. He failed to prove these
> claims in court although he brought the court case to Maine with that
> intention. There is a difference between inspiration and deception.
> Motta stated, in open court in San Francisco, that he started using the
> initials SOTO when he discovered that Crowley's will named the OTO owner
> of Crowley's copyrights. The court found more in the direction of
> deception than in the direction of inspiration.
>
> Bertiaux never produced evidence in support of his claims. Bertiaux quit
> his claims shortly after Motta lost the court case.
>
> On Feb 5, 2008, at 1:54 AM, Mandrake wrote:
>
>> Can you say more about Motta's trajectory and why, if he did, he
>> developed in the way he did.
>> Over the years I've always found the post Motta OTO leadership very
>> helpful -
>> and he seemed to have worked his way through all the Crowley material and
>> the current
>> leadship seem to have some common ground with the Typhonians - is that
>> your impression??
>
> Mogg
>
> Since Motta paid to re-roof Germer's house, Germer saw fit to give Motta
> access to a good deal of Crowley material;
> but, Motta doesn't seem to have either digested it or comprehended it.
> His errors are legion and he seems, rather than to have
> been inspired by Crowley's writings, to have gone off on a tangent.
>
> You don't seem to be saying you find common ground between Motta's
> material and Grant's material.
> What I'm reading instead is that you are finding common ground between
> what those who currently refer to themselves
> as Typhonians promulgate and what those who refer to themselves as...
> Motta's followers (SOTO?) promulgate.
> But, that could easily be explained. They read each others emails,
> websites, and publications, don't they?
>
> Could you be more specific?
>
> Thank you,
> Felicia
>
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