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Dear All Had a quick look - but can't find it in the index of the MS book index so must have been somewhere else - maybe a private conversation or several - perhaps with Fred Lamond - but anyone , perhaps you can say whether this is a feasible hypothesis - subject to corroboration from various sets of corres: Gardner was for a short time involved with the OTO up to time of Crowley's Death - (hence the charter he bought for an enormous sum of money from Crowley (This I published in Nuit Isis Magazine way back) Gardner never followed up probably because AC died before providing all the paperwork and back up Kenneth Grant was involved with OTO at about same time and Crowley put him in touch with other active Thelemites - primarily those in the purple lodge in California - Alias Smith, Jones (and Parsons) I thought he might well have done the same for Gardner. But W Smith didn't reveal any of the new Thelemic rituals only the older (and less interesting) masonic stuff (that's what MS says) Even so there is a possible point of contact between Gardner and the Californian OTO Lodge - perhaps he met some in person. About this time Parsons became dissenchanted with the OTO as it was - he also wrote his piece / manifesto on Witchcraft. Crowley was also disenchanted with the OTO as a vehicle for the nu aeon and began to favour some sort of neo-pagan cult - perhap witchcraft - the order of thelemites etc. So the idea that it was Parsons who suggested to Gardner that he forget all this OTO stuff and get into the / his Witchcraft instead as the coming thing. That's what was suggested to me - not rocket science i know Any thoughts bb/93 mogg >