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Correspondence from Marcelo Motta to Karl Germer
Caixa Postal 15, Tijuca Rio de Janeiro Guanabara, Brasil
25 January 1962
Dear Karl:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I met Mr. Schlag [Oscar Schlag] last night, and supped with him after all. He spent most of the time trying to make me smoke some cigarettes of his, and when I finally did it seems to me that he felt some secret triumph (He would not smoke his own cigarettes, pretending he had made a vow or something. . . .).
It is my personal opinion that he feels a very strong attraction for Thelema, although it may present itself under the form of hatred for it. I would rather have Thelema hated than ignored, anyhow. He is, in a certain sense a sick man, hugging his own Ego, and suffers of a hard shell of spiritual pride. I told him so.
After fencing around with him for two thirds of the evening, I decided to open up with him—I fear that he thinks it was the effect of the alcohol. I told him I am the "new Beast." I also told him, out of sheer deviltry, I think, that I am "the child" (I kept my fingers crossed while telling him that! . . .).
Several times during the evening he mentioned the A∴A∴ as that non-existent fraternity. He thought I was "the head of the O.T.O. for Brasil," and I don't think he believes me even now, after I told him I am not.
I noticed, later in the evening, when I quite casually told him that the A∴A∴ does exist, that he did not like it at all. I do think he is most definitely spy for some group, and is perhaps connected both with American intelligence and the Vatican. He would not tell me who had given him my address, but I think the most likely explanation is that he got it through those Swiss "of yours." Once in the evening he mentioned he knows the names of about "fifty" "occultists" in South America, and looked hopefully at me while telling me so. He affected not to know your present address, and also affected not to know who your present wife [Sascha Germer] is. I told him your wife's name, but did not tell him your address, just in the —surprising, I think—case that he really does not know it.
At one time in the proceedings he told me that he felt "compelled" to get in touch with me, and he asked, "so Mr. Motta, what are we going to do now?"
Self (staring): We? ? ? Mr. Schlag, why would we do anything at all?
Schlag: Isn't there anything you want me to do?
Self: Yes. I want you to do your will. You will help me more than I can say that way.
Despite his spying and hostile activities, there is, as I said before a definite and strong link with Thelema there. In a way, he is rather pathetic. He is connected with some priestly psychological seminar in some German city—I don't remember which—and told me of some experiments one of the priests there made with split personality. The experiments were interesting in the sense that the priest produced changes of personality in himself by physiological stimuli—such as pressure on different regions of his abdomen with special belts. I asked him if he did not think this experimenter was hopelessly insane; he said very seriously that he did not think so. The theory, of course, and the motive was to discuss the theory of demonic possession with me—666 being the devil, and I the medium. You have sometimes seemed to me to labor under a similar conviction—only, you think a devil possesses me, not 666! . . . Oh, well. . . . I seem to be the only one around here who thinks it is both possible to be "the beast" and remain oneself—or one Self! . . .
I would say he is a "black brother"—but if that is what a "black brother" is, I am rather surprised. I expected something stronger. I do not doubt that he or other like him may have very great powers along some lines; but the man had no organized consciousness that one can speak of—that is, not a healthy one. He seemed to me at the same time both to wish desperately to expose me and to wish desperately that I be the "real McCoy". . . .
He having asked me what he should do, I told him to go to you and say that he accepted Aleister Crowley as the prophet of the Aeon, and Liber Legis as the bible of the next two thousand years. I think he was a bit taken aback at that. He was probably hoping that I would ask him for money, or that I would ask him to join my O.T.O. group in Brazil. . . . More and more I convince myself that the O.T.O. is a very unreliable instrument—a sword that was once broken cannot be mended, and must be dissolved, and a new one forged.
At any rate, the man is awfully naive if he really expected that I, having a group of O.T.O.s in Brazil, would take him on by his asking. Oh! Before I forget—he kept hammering on some manuscript of Liber Legis he has—and on the great to-do he produced upon a time he showed it you and Mrs. Germer. I think he was considerably surprised I paid no mind to it. Is the manuscript of Liber Legis really in his hands? If it is, I would say it is probably very safely kept. That poor fellow will hang on to it wit all his clutches—just as he hangs on to his ego.
More and more I am thankful that I belong to the A∴A∴—the real McCoy. I know there are Adepts somewhere—and I know the A∴A∴ exists. And it is a motive of great pride to me, may the Gods forgive my snobism, that all those little spies, and all the government intelligentsia in the world, will never, can never find out who the brethren are—or put them in jail! . . .
On the whole, I liked this Schlag person. His malice is really self-defeating I should say. He puts me in mind of that section of the Vision and the Voice that describes precisely the black brothers running about in circles. For this man, however, there is hope—and that is why I opened up with him—in the fact that he is hooked by Thelema. To dedicate one's life to running down Thelemites is to run a very great danger of becoming a Thelemite someday. . . . And I daresay that he would become just as useful to us as he is to "them"—or more—because with us he would be healthy. It is spiritual pride that holds him—a defect in his consciousness. He cannot give up the Ego, that is all. But BABALON triumphs over all, glory be to Her name, Our Lady, the beloved of us all.
I shall meet with Mr. Schlag yet once more—to return the dinner— and shall report on that meeting, too.
Love is the law, love under will.
Fraternally,
M.
P.S. How do you like the typewriter I am writing on? It is an Olympia electric.
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