|
Correspondence from Karl Germer to Carl Heinz Peterson
Hampton N.J.
January 6, 1954.
Care Frater F.T.,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Yours of Dec. 24 received. I'll answer some of your paragraphs at once.
The 2 ReuB pamphlets came. Thanks!
The Reschke-Wahington money: don't worry overmuch. What is likely to make me mad at times is their unbusinesslike way. but that is not your fault.
Magick Without Tears, will, so God will, be ready for mailing in 2 weeks. It'll probably be 2 vols., one is too thick. That means $2.00 per volume, and $4.00 for the book. The binding will be better than cloth, but you'll see for yourself. (I could send you, if you needed them, a parcel of unbound sheets of a stated number of books.)
Translations:—I suggest you keep on working without lust of result. Events may be shaping in invisible spheres which may demand suddenly the availability of German texts. Martha Küntzel had the same problem. Suddenly a printer was found, Bernhard Sporn, Zeulnroda, a friend of mine, and we made that contract. Nobody could know that the Nazi-threat was so near.
At this time it is the Catholic Hierarchy. But beyond that it is the Old Aeon with whom we shall have to, and at this end are waging the most vicious, cruel, relentless war, the elements and methods of which I presume you have so far no notion. A.C. had been exposed to it for many decades. He knew their tricks. He warned me often when I showed ignorance, incredulity, scepticism. Now we know. Since 1942 every one of my telephones is tapped. The house in which we lived in New York was wired. Microphones had been installed in the walls. We left N.Y. But in this house it is the same. (It is, of course, an excellent magical training, in a way.) All activities of mine or my wife's are interfered with, and/or destroyed. Friends, partners, business clients become all sooner or later enemies, or worse, spies or traitors who report to the directing power which pays well, anything one has said or is doing. 3 weeks ago I had an appointment by telephone with a man from Europe. The meeting was in a hotel. Microphones had been installed and the conversation recorded. It had lasted 2 hours on matters of the Order. I got the evidence too late, woke up too late. —Morbid imagination? Only until you yourself become a victim of inexplicable happenings. For that reason I don't mind using our experiences as a lesson to others who are in the Work. What I have not yet found out is how the extremely clever agents succeed in persuading even good friends to become informer. Do not refer to this matter in a letter. Enough that I mention it once.
No further from Metzger [Hermann Metzger] about Liber Legis: no worry about financial difficulties. So I won't evoke them. Does he expect you to be responsible for the cash? I'd be very surprised!
Metzger's translations:—so they were from him! I expect you have meanwhile received the ones he sent to me with some corrections.—I agree with you that it is silly to operate the way he does. It should all be concentrated in your hands. I'll write to him, as he just sent me a book of 135 pages by airmail, cost 9 Franken, and a small parcel with Abramelin oil, also by air, which is clearly a waste of money, and it does not impress me, except that I respect the sentiment.
This book is
LEBENSKUNST IN YOGA UND MAGIE, by Dr. Henri Birven, Origoverlag, Zürich.
soeben erschienen. Ich weiß nicht ob Sie informiert über diesen Birven sind? Er haßt A.C. bis aus Blut, und wir werden noch manches von ihm hören. Ich rate Ihnen es zu lesen oder zu kaufen. Das Kapital über Träume besteht aus dem Abdruck der betr. Kapital des Liber Aleph. Das Kapital "Wie A. Crowley seine magische Berufung begründet" ist lediglich Abdruck einiger Stellen aus den "Confessions" [The Confessions of Aleister Crowley].
Money transfer: Don't worry about this point either. This would only arise if an Order or Lodge on a solid foundation were flourishing. To answer your positive question: the bigger need is at this phase to get things started and done in Germany. You would have to use any fees or contributions for your part of the Work.
I have obtained the release of a number of sets of the Collected Works (3 vols. paper cover). I suppose you have this, otherwise I could get some to you.
I cannot answer your question: "Why give the title Sacred Magic of A.[bramelin] the Mage" to the last 4 vols. of the Confessions? I suggest this: that operation loomed as the decisive in A.C.'s mind from the beginning. There is no end to this operation. The higher you rise the more it, the object of the apparent goal, recedes. These Confessions, or records, end in 1923. After that we have nothing except letters, diaries which have then become very brief and sketchy. Some day somebody will have to search all the material we have (here or in London) and write a sequel to A.C.'s personal work. If I publish these 4 vols. I may well stick to the title "Confessions" and add the present as sub-title.
Add to the list of A.C.'s works you sent (I use arabic numbers)
623, 106, were published in "The International"; all we have to do is to get them copied. I have only one copy.
73, The Urn, all we have is what is in the last vols. of the Confessions (material which you don't have. We get the complete record of this work, which so far is lost; if we do, it shall be published.)
60, The Lost Continent is lost; I may know one copy which still exists. It is not too important. I had read it when we still had it. I'm surprised Martha K[üntzel] had no copy?
66, The Beast. Your query: No!! It does not survive.
265 ditto
1264 Was never written.
49 I have this, one copy only. I have with it some further Yi King (or, as Wilhelm writes, I Ging, material. I have asked if a sister would be prepared to type it. Do you know this Yi King? Do you use it?
After you have received all or most of the Lekve [Friedrich Lekve] material, I suggest you make up a complete list: books, Typescripts, English, German, and translations, and send me.—I'll then see what else I can send.
Lekve:—Yes, let me bury the matter for the time. It is my habit before I do so, to condense the salient facts and points of a case into a statement. Once this is done I have a record, and I can forget the case.
O.T.O. You must have realised that my heart and soul are not very deeply in this. A.C. knew this. He suggested to me that after his death I may either drop this form or system of working, or devise my own entirely independent method.
The fact is that there are 3 (possibly more) groups in the world who claim some sort of right to run the O.T.O. There is Tränker [Heinrich Tränker] in Germany who had a charter from Reuß [Theodor Reuss] which A.C. acknowledged. There several groups in Sweden or Denmark (Grundahl Sjallung, Copenhagen(; in Switzerland (as you know); in France, where at time Jean Bricaud was Grandmaster, now dead; there was a man in Italy, whose name I don't know at the moment; the Self-Realisation Fellowship, of whom you probably have heard from Metzger; and finally Frater Achad [Charles Stansfeld Jones] who had a charter from Reuß for North America. Then Spencer Lewis [H. Spencer Lewis] of the A.M.O.R.C. had an O.T.O. charter from Reuss.
It is true that Tränker and Achad elected and acclaimed 666 as O.H.O. [Outer Head of the Order], a position which, as you know from the O.T.O. international statutes (Verfassung) makes the O.H.O. Sovereign King, who cannot be deposed etc. But friction had developed and Reuß grew in the last years very skeptical about Thelema, which he had accepted for the O.T.O. to some extent, as you know from many translated publications in the Oriflamme. Reuß had some acid correspondence with A.C. around 1921 or 1922 where he denounced the Book of the Law; there was a conference in that year in Palermo where Reuß and A.C. met. We have no record of the result. A.C. maintained that Reuß appointed him as his successor after his death. We do not have any papers, documents, letters, or diaries of A.C.'s on this fact. The only fact that we know is that Reuß died and the above two elected A.C. as O.H.O. A.C. never good at organisation, kept no records, evidently never kept up with the brethren in France, and other countries.
After Reuß's death his widow kept the Golden Book with all the addresses, correspondence, etc. etc., Charters and what not. In 1922 (I think) Tränker went to München, saw Mrs. Reuß and extracted from her all this material. He lived in the house of Barth (Otto Wilhelm Barth Verlag). He stayed one day too long, for Mrs. Reuß got fright, obtained Tränker's address, rushed over, and succeeded in forcing Tränker to return the documents. In 1930 I was often with Krumm-Heller [Arnold Krumm-Heller] (father) who also held a charter from Reuß (though only for a limited degree). He knew Mrs. Reuß and we went to her one day to get the documents, but she wanted too much money and A.C. did not consider it worth it. Now the Self-Realisation Fellowship in California claims to have all those documents including the Golden Book. They sent a man to Europe, and the boss came even himself and claim rights as heads of the International O.T.O. Metzger told me they were very active; I obtained documents showing that they contacted all existing groups of O.T.O., checked their Charters, and, if approved by them, demanded confirmation for a ridiculously high fee in dollars. These are the facts as far as I know them.
We have nothing to compare or compete with them. We do not know to whom Reuß issued charters and for what grade. A.C. said right at the end of his life Reuß got panicky and issued charters right and left to whoever paid, worthy or not. This Self-Realisation Fellowship is a pure swindle, as are all this American occult societies, Orders, and what not. We have checked and evidently nobody has Incorporated (registered) the O.T.O., at least not in California. The plan was to Incorporate the O.T.O. there. And we may yet do this. (It was never done before, as the law requires in such a case annual, very complicated supervision, books, etc., as there is only a very small group at present.)
There are two other angles: Tränker has stated that he had the exclusive jurisdiction in Germany. Achad had his Charter from Reuß "ad vitam". He expected me after A.C.'s death to come pater peccavi and plead with him for transfer or for a new Charter—for a high fee, of course. (He himself had been converted to Romanism in 1931, and was leading in the U.B. [Universal Brotherhood], thus hostile to O.T.O. and had declared that he was not running the O.T.O. It is quite possible that, in order to get his money back that he probably paid Reuß for the Charter, he may have conferred a Charter to the Self-Realisation Fellowship, and helped them buy the documents from Mrs. Reuß, or somehow did so himself. (The link 666; Achad was completely broken since 1936.
You can see the state of utter confusion that exists in matters of organisation of the O.T.O. We have, of course, the papers, rituals, and the knowledge. But I have never been active in lodge work. For A.C. did not operate a lodge, not even during the period of the 3 years in Cefalù. There was only a lodge in California operating and the leading man was deposed by A.C.
With Metzger I took the stand that he had been in the O.T.O. through his old master Pinkus, so I viewed my authorisation only as a continuation of his previous O.T.O. work, with the exception that he had been working the old Reuß rituals (which did not accept the Law of Thelema), and that he now adopted our rituals.
In your case it would be an entirely new charter. I do not know that 2 Grandmasters can operate the O.T.O. at the same time in one country (Tränker still being alive), despite the fact that A.C. appointed as Grandmaster X° of all the German-Speaking peoples as far back as 1930 [?] or so. And A.C. as O.H.O. had evidently the power to override any claim of Tränker's. In 1941 A.C. appointed me as his successor after his death.
This is the situation. I thought I owe you an exposé of the facts in order to explain the situation in which I find myself. If in the face of this, you feel the will to build up something new in Germany, I think there is no hesitation on my part to give you a Charter. Think this over, and then let me know.
I have a hunch that new developments are in the breeding process, [illegible] such an idea for me to sell this house, and move either to California with all the material, or—believe it or not—of setting up Headquarters in Europe, Germany, Switzerland, or? All this is speculation for the present. Constant, calm, productive work under the present climate generally and personally, is not easy here.
I will now close this endless letter, and will only add that you will find much on O.T.O. matters when you received Magick Without Tears.
Love is the law, love under will.
Fraternally
|