Hi Felicia, OK, OTO may have been invented by one man, but from recently reading Heinrik Bogdan's "Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation" I discovered that it was (is) quite common in Masonic-style secret societies for people to "hive off' (not in the Wiccan sense) and claim their own (better, truer) versions of the lineage. I just thought it was interesting that this keeps happening, despite whoever has the actual paperwork of the lineage. I wonder if these secret societies can really be kept contained?
~Caroline Tully.
---- Felicia <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On Feb 4, 2008, at 11:19 PM, D E wrote:
>
> 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.
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