Correspondence from Karl Germer to Jane Wolfe

[9 August 1953]

Thank you for your letter, your money order and your expression of loyalty! It is hard for me to convey to you my disgust with the report of the abject treachery that is going on, and the plans that have evidently been concocted for some time! I have written a long letter to Georgia [Georgia Schneider], but feel I'll have to repeat most of it; I could have saved myself time by making an extra copy for you. I'll condense the main points:—

(1) It is childish for Louis C. [Louis Culling] and W.T.S. [Wilfred Talbot Smith] to think they have a right to incorporate the O.T.O. as an Order as: (a) I have the sole authority in the very widest sense from 666, with right  to depose everybody, appoint, etc., etc. (b) W.T.S. still keeps that charter that A.C. in a panic, when in Jan. 1932 we had that severe fight, and he thought all was lost, wrote appointing W.T.S. He regretted it deeply, withdrew it, kicked W.T.S. out, and was happy it was accomplished. (c) I. am O.T.O. head for the O.T.O. as an Order; WTS and Louis C. have not even the most vital and secret· papers; they do not even have all the Rituals of the O.T.O. They have no contact with Grand Masters in other lands; theirs could just be a local, parochial, lodge and, as you rightly say, based on "ambition, lust of power, and money grabbing". I have never made any claim or used that authority, but will do so now!

(2) That Church of Thelema statute, which I have here, is absurd; it established a monarchy with WTS as its head, and his sole right to appoint an heir and successor. Thus establishes a Dynasty. It is not even like the Catholic Church, because the new Pope is elected, never appointed! Louis C. to say what you report, is plain comical!

(3) What shocks me most is that under-handed treachery. When I say that WTS stuck to Thelema and to A.C. and 666, I thought, I'll give him a try. I allowed you to see him again; I overlooked the visit of the B's [Ray and Mildred Burlingame], Phyllis [Phyllis Seckler], etc. on the occasion of Jack's [Jack Parsons] death and ceremony. But Georgia who knew WTS personally, warned that only evil could come from it. WTS thanked me volubly that I had stretched out a hand and called him Care Frater. But he is like the nigger to whom you give the little finger out of friendliness; soon he takes, grabs the whole hand! Here it is even worse. It is plotting behind my back.

I see from your letter that Meeka [Meeka Aldrich], Louis, Maria Prescott have decided for the WTS camp. All right: good riddance. We have to test those that pledge to remain loyal. I shall soon send a Circular letter to be signed by each. Who refuses, or hedges about, or wants to remain on the fence or with one leg in each camp—out he goes! I trust Phyllis, as well as Monty [Gabriel Montenegro], the B's—and who else? I wonder about Ero [Ero Sihvonen] and Jean [Jean Sihvonen]. I'm sure they saw WTS several times. They report nothing of what happened. Which I don't like. If they waver, if there is the slightest doubt, I shall have to get the Multilith shipped back here and have the printing done here. Please tell me any observation you have made. I shall not condone any more of Culling's so-called independence: "nobody can tell me what I must do or mustn't do!"

Please ask Georgia to see you after she has received my letter, I'm mailing it with this. I may have to take the service of a solicitor to take legal action, or issue an injunction, or whatever is required. Her lawyer might be the man to do it as he knows me by this time. You can provide her with the facts and knowledge which you have not put into your letters, and you two could discuss a fuller report to me, or the best action to take, I mean, what you advise.

Should you have given to any of the separatists, WTS, Culling, Maria Prescott, Meeka, etc. any MSS., TSS., documents, books, etc. on loan, get them back! none of them will receive further publications in the future. None of them will have the right to buy a copy of any of our published books. They can buy from the trade.

I think I have touched what is important. Please show this letter to Monty and Phyllis to whom I wrote yesterday without knowing yet. Pending a formal injunction, which I shall have to issue, I suggest you warn the truthful not to see WTS or Louis C. or anyone else who is in their camp. The firmer this stand is taken, the more effectful.

Lastly! tell Mildred and Ray how deeply I congratulate them for their steadfastness and their loyalty! I have too many letters to write and cannot write them now.

In closing I wish you'd give me as full a report of what you have not told me so far as· possible. Before taking decisive action I want to have all the data possible.

I felt that something was brewing for some time, especially when WTS saw every former member personally and began corresponding with Jean and Ero when they were still here, and when he began writing me in a cryptic way and Louis C. stopped altogether.

If I authorize registering of the Order, it would have to be a real Order, in which duties come first; privileges a long way after. What was so objectionable in the handling of Agape Lodge to all serious people who reported to A.C., as also to authorities such as the FBI and the like, was that it was just the opposite. It seemed to them a sort of Mixed, General Fucking Corp., Unlimited, with no duties, except to its head. Dues were hardly ever paid.

Another point was that the VI°? (in which a member has to vest some real property) was never practiced. A.C. stressed this point to me in his later years very strongly. He said that outside of himself and me, no one in California had fulfilled that grade. Many claimed the IX° without having fulfilled the preceding conditions, This means, of course, that none of them is of 'good standing', and have no right or privileges.

(The naiveté of thinking about this point came out rather forcibly when Jean, Ero, Joe came here; Jean, in particular, behaved as if this H.Q. was her part property, and was disgusted when nobody understood her claim to her 'rights and privileges'. The others were influenced by her gossipy tongue: the house was dubbed "Sascha's [Sascha Germer] country house"! with corresponding results.) I can't blame them too much, I heard Roy [Roy Leffingwell] talk in a similar way; those ideas had been floating around in California. When Grady [Grady McMurtry]  came here, he considered himself as a co-owner, behaved in a strange manner to say the least, ordered Sascha away "for he wanted to take measurements", showed utter disregard of ordinary forms of tact as a guest of Sascha's which he was. How this way of thinking has ever grown beats me, for they all have the official papers, printed in Equ. III [Equinox, Vol. III No. 1], A.C. instructed me either to establish the O.T.O. with the strictest  observance of the various clauses, or set up a form of initiation and organisation of my own.

Who has, for instance, fulfilled the VI° condition, apart from A.C. and myself (as he wrote)? I can't think of anyone except Joe [Joe Miller], and Georgia (I hope), I place you ahead of all others; then the B's; Max [Max Schneider], and for a short period, Mellinger [Frederic Mellinger] for the persistent paying of dues, support of the Work; possibly Mary Green, too; then Reea [Reea Leffingwell], perhaps (though she has to carry the heavy burden of the results of Roy's dishonesty,) Louis C, at one time did an act which may have come close, but I don't know enough and he refuses to pay the dues anyway, says he is a member of IX° in his own right and needs no one to teach HIM! If WTS would vest that house (his? or hers?) in the Grand Treasurer General of the Order, he can pay his past dues to some extent and begin to exercise Privileges.

Dues would have to be paid on the dot, and regularly; in cases of need, help from the Order will always be forthcoming. Default of several months may lead to expulsion. It must not be a slipshod Body.

The Order, if I'd have to have any part in it, would have to be a militant, or a military Order, with discipline, cleanliness, observance of the rules: no exceptions made, as is being done all around where one can buy Privileges with Money or Cunt. Beyond this, my O.T.O. or other Order, would have to stand ready to fight the war of R.H.K. [Ra Hoor Khuit] as its prime instrument; HE has no use for flabbiness, for a mollusc, or lechery.

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