This posting appears to be an unemotional academic sharing. Thank you
Felicia,
Kathryn
----- Original Message -----
From: "Felicia" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2008 11:02 AM
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
|