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Correspondence from Gerald Yorke to R. Swinburne Clymer
5 Montague Square
28 Feb. 48.
Dr. R. Swinburne Clymer
Dear sir,
Aleister Crowley died some months ago and I have been helping his literary executor to sort his papers. The executor, John Symonds is writing a life of Crowley, and I am trying to see that his references to Crowley's G∴D∴ [Golden Dawn] and O.T.O. connections are accurate. Neither Symonds nor I are followers of A.C., though at one time I was a neophyte in his A∴A∴, but then fell out with him.
My object in writing is twofold, first to get some information from your records, second to correct some minor errors in your book The Rosicrucian Fraternity in America. In this connection let me say that I support your main thesis wholeheartedly, but think that if you ever issue a second edition it will be stronger if you incorporate the facts which I will give you. Moreover, on general grounds I would like to record the facts for Rosicrucian and Masonic records in general.
Reuss' [Theodor Reuss] charter to Crowley as X° O.T.O. has not survived among Crowley's papers, but a number of years ago, when it was temporarily in my possession, I allowed a friend to photograph it, and it is reproduced as an Appendix in vol. 2 of Occult Theocrasy by Lady Queensbrorough, privately printed in Paris, no date. The contents of these 2 volumes are valueless historically except for the documents reproduced in the appendices. Reuss' charter is dated 24 Apr. 1912 and is made out to Aleister St. Edward Crowley 33°90° 95° X°. It makes him National Grand Master General for Great Britain and Ireland of Mysteria Mystica Maxima (M.M.M.) and is signed "Theodore Reuss 33° 90° 96° X° Fra. Superior and Outer Head in Mundo of the Ancient Order of Oriental Templars" etc. In the same year Reuss made G.M. Cowie [George MacNie Cowie] VII°. Crowley then called his house at Boleskine a Profess house of the Order, and founded a lodge in London, while Cowie founded another in Edinburgh. Both lodges were closed by the police owing to the German connection with Reuss during the 1914 war. No lodge has operated subsequently in England.
IX° O.T.O. was sexual before A.C. joined the Order. In 7th Sep. 1914 he wrote to Cowie (the original is in my possession)
It was not until after Crowley was given the IX° secret by Reuss that he wrote and published "Energised Enthusiasm" in Equinox I, 9, "The Ship" in I, 10 and the "Gnostic Mass" in III, 1. By this time he had devised his private O.T.O. Seal of a dove descending and his Baphomet cock. He enthused Reuss with his "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" formula, and Reuss accepted it for the O.T.O. Reuss also published a garbled version of this Mass in German, as a result of which Bricaud quarrelled with him. Reuss in turn asked Crowley to put the extant O.T.O. rituals "in proper shape". A.C. writes "I did so. They incorporated in nine degrees the whole of Masonic knowledge, as well as that of other orders, but I found when I visited America that rituals thus prepared as far as degrees one to three were concerned were held by Masons to clash with their . . . rights . . . I prepared three new rituals which contained the knowledge but did not imply the symbolism to which objection was taken." These rituals were worked in England, South Africa, Australia and U.S.A. They are not being worked anywhere to my knowledge at the moment.
10 May 1921 Reuss as Peregrinus issued a charter to C. Stansfield Jones [Charles Stansfeld Jones] (at that time Fra. Achad in Crowley's A∴A∴) giving him as Parzival X°, and a charter covering the United States of North America. I have not actually seen the original, only references to it. This is prior to the document given to Lewis of which you reproduce a photograph. Crowley then sent Jones his rituals.
3 Sept. 21 Reuss issued a patent for Denmark to O.W. Hansen-Kadosh, who was succeeded by Grunddahl Sjallung (see 2nd edition of Hartman's Who's Who), but did not send him any of Crowley's rituals.
Crowley only rewrote the first six degrees in ritual form, the others being in the form of lections. The IX° in Crowley's series does however begin "Merlin by the Grace of God Triune, and by the favour and appointing of the Secret Master, called to the service of Mankind, and exalted among ye as the Outer Head of the Order, unto Baphomet, Summus Rex Sanctissimus X° O.T.O. of Ireland Ionae and all the Britains . . .". The key degree does therefore remain as written by Reuss but presumably translated (and possibly altered) by Crowley from the German.
Before leaving the subject of Crowley, he was never expelled from U.S.A. or refused admission to England. He was expelled from Sicily by Mussolini, and the French refused on one occasion to renew his permit de sejour ——— I possess the original document. He was never technically expelled from France. He was never in difficulties or trouble with the English Home Office. He did, however, die an undischarged bankrupt.
Now as to H. Spencer Lewis and his family. Crowley was unaware until your publication of the document issued by Reuss and published by you. He was surprised to find that one of the seals on this document was a copy of his private seal. He never met Lewis or corresponded with him. Lewis was not a disciple or even an acquaintance. He did, however, as you point out, plagiarise some of Crowley's work in his lectures.
On Reuss' death Jones (Parzival) as the Grand Master of the O.T.O. for the United States of North America, and the Grand Master for Germany (whose name and motto I do not know) met and concurred in proclaiming Crowley (Baphomet) as O.H.O. Crowley did not therefore succeed automatically as the only surviving X° as you state.
Now for Tränker (Recnartus) [Heinrich Tränker] and his Pansophia. From papers in my possession Recnartus was acting as some sort of agent for Crowley in Germany in July 1925. In 1924 Karl Germer, who was associated with A.C., financed the first numbers of Pansophia, and supplied German translations of the Crowley material which was used. Germer's association with Tränker went back to 1922. In 1926 A.C. stayed with the Tränkers and as a result of this stay and the financial transactions with Germer he broke off all connection with Tränker, writing (a copy is in my possession)
"I went to Germany at the Summer Solstice of 1926 at the urgent invitation of Tränker, who had somehow obtained credentials serious enough in their appearance to demand immediate investigation. I found this man ignorant even of the language of magic and mysticism . . I found further that in his dealings with other people he was mean unscrupulous and dishonest . . . His conduct was so outrageous that it was necessary to make a formal complaint to the police . . . He has now taken a list of some of the orders which I represent from a published volume of mine and proclaims himself to be the Grand Master . . . He cannot produce a single document of any kind in support of these absurd claims. I publicly challenge him for example to give me any of the signs of Recognition in the O.T.O. or Hermetic Society of the G∴D∴"
From the above I think you will agree that there was no direct relation between Crowley and Lewis, though the latter certainly obtained by bluff his document from Reuss in the Latter's old age. The sexual basis of the O.T.O. also antedates Crowley, but in his own words "the secret as at that time expressed by the Order was in a very crude and unscientific form and there was no explanation of the conditions which had to be brought about to get it to work. I spent many years of work finding out what those conditions were". He then rewrote the rituals and all the lections with the exception of the last for IX° , incorporating into many of them symbology and ethics from his highly questionable Book of the Law.
I have written the above partly in the interests of historical accuracy amongst Rosicrucian and Masonic circles, and partly in the hopes of obtaining the following information
1. Could you possibly have typed out and sent to me those parts of the 1906 Constitution of the O.T.O. which you do not reproduce in your facsimile reproductions Nos. 55 to 55G in volume 2 of your Rosicrucian Fraternity. I am particularly interested in finding these out so as to discover how much A.C. altered them when he published his own constitution.
2. If you can give me any information of the previous history before 1902 of IX° O.T.O., and its possible correlation with Weishaupt's and later Reuss's Illuminati, I shall be grateful. Can you give me any indication of the history prior to Kellner's [Carl Kellner] founding the O.T.O. of the sexual side incorporated in IX°? I can find no trace of it in the Scottish nor Memphis and Mizraim Rites of Masonry, nor in the Soc. Ros. in Anglia, nor in the Hermetic Society of the G∴D∴ Does this strain come in through Reuss' Illuminati with their presumable connection with Weishaupt, or through oriental theories brought in by Franz Hartmann through his connection with Madame Blavatsky [Helena Petrovna Blavatsky]?
Yours sincerely,
G. J. Yorke.
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