We know it has often been remarked that Motta is unreasonable in stating that only he is a genuine Thelemite and everybody else is fake (Motta has never stated that, but this is besides the point here. Sane readers are requested to keep in mind that we are talking down to the poor in spirit). Persons who accuse Mr. Motta of this holier-than-thou stand will undoubtedly be happy to learn that the O.T.O. is finally suing Samuel Weiser Inc. for piracy and misrepresentation. Since Weiser has published and/or distributed all the people that Motta has stated in print are unholier than himself (we remind sane readers that Motta has never stated that), those people will finally have an opportunity to vindicate themselves and, if not to prove their holiness (a hard thing to prove anyway), at least to prove their legal right to publish Crowley. They can prove it in court.
In connection with the question of Motta's intransigence, it is amusing to recall that a certain Chicago bookseller, after accusing Mr. Motta of intolerance and greed, talking to a good customer who happened to be one of Mr. Motta's dupes (sane readers may perhaps prefer to read pupil here), ended by remarking, more or less as an afterthought: "Of course, we have made a lot of money out of Crowley around here."
They certainly have, and not just around there. Samuel Weiser Inc. is being sued for damages amounting to four hundred thousand dollars.
In connection with this problem of holiness, there is no question that Helen Parsons Smith must be a very holy woman. In 1978 e.v. she printed a pirated and imperfect edition of Amrita, a work that Mr. Germer had never intended for publication. We have had an opportunity to examine a copy of Ms. Smith's original request for copyright on this piece of Crowleyana. She claimed her right to publish as "sole survivor and widow".
This you see, is an even greater miracle than when Blavatsky gave Franz Hartmann, as a picture of herself in her incarnation as Cagliostro, a portrait of Stanislas Augustus, the last king of Poland (or so claimed Hartmann - perhaps he merely mistook incarnations. Helena was many things, but she was not an imbecile). It is a miracle on a level with the Roman Catholic "Immaculate Conception", for not only did Crowley never marry Helen Parsons Smith: he never even met her in the flesh.
The fact is not generally known, but at General Supervision Headquarters there is a file labelled "Crackpots" that daily increases in thickness and bathos. The latest arrival came referred to us by that old dodderer, Gerald Joseph Yorke, and from no one less than the ineffable Lee Heflin! It seems Mr. Heflin discovered the key to it ALL, you know, and wanted to share the wonderful secret with us. Unfortunately, we are not inclined to peruse the excreta of copyright thieves, and sent Mr. Heflin's brainwave to Frater Meithras(Martin Starrr) (the real one, not the McMurtry imitation). Frater Meithras informs us that, among other things, Lee Heflin claims to have discovered the "secret" of the XI O.T.O.: to this end, he picked totally out-of-context Crowley quotations that seemed to flatter his sexual preferences and stitched them together, pretending they were a "secret manuscript" of the Beast. The funniest part is that he seemed to think he could get away with this. Frater Meithras identified the sources of the fabrication and, being young, got very indignant with Heflin, but was appeased when we pointed out to him that Heflin had not underestimated our intelligence, he had merely overestimated his own. A letter has been sent to Gerald Joseph Yorke requesting formally that he stop telling thieves he encourages to get in touch with us, since this may lead them into the misguided belief the we will encourage them too.
One really wonders at someone like Yorke. At his age, he should have no need for masturbation anymore; but perhaps by now it has become such an automatic habit that it has gone to his brain. He had recently sent us an "initiated interpretation" of Liber Trigrammaton stating that, in his opinion, it was "magnificent". It was probably written by someone of the mental level of Lee Heflin, perhaps Joseph Metzger or Yorke himself: the "black brothers" are in reality, guess who? the lesbians and the gays! The kind of forgery the Vatican and the C.I.A. love to produce to confuse real masonic work. Frater Meithras, who was the original recipient of the "initiated masterpiece" in question, was indiscreet enough to write Yorke that I had said that Yorke is absolutely not qualified to gauge Initiated Writings, as his record clearly shows. So Yorke went on a peeve and informed us that he won't write us anymore. Except through people like Heflin, one supposes.
Update, December 1984 e.v.: After fencing for stolen Crowleyana for three decades and surreptitiously undermining the authority of the O.T.O. in three continents on behalf of Christism, the old fossil has finally done in body what he had already done in spirit. Let the dead bury their dead!
The world needs religion. The human being is so constituted that it aspires to the higher levels of its own self.
The worst enemy of religion is dogma. Those who reach a plateau in their own consciousness often try to keep their neighbors from climbing further than they did. Some do this with "good intentions", convinced that the partial truth they reached is universal and enough for all. Others do this because, blinded by vanity, they hate to admit in the privacy of their souls that their neighbors may have more endurance and more wind.
The Ordo Templi Orientis was organized to help its members to fulfil their spiritual natures without bowing to the tyranny of dogma. It is true that the O.T.O. is intimately linked with the legitimate Christian current, represented by the Holy Gnostic Catholic Church; but the aims of the Order are not in themselves religious: they are social. The vocation to belong to the Holy Gnostic Catholic Church is not required of those who want to join the O.T.O. The Order accepts members of any religion or none, and people of any philosophical or political persuasion as long as these swear, on their honor as members of our species, to strive to reformulate their original religious, philosophical or political dogmas in the light of Liber OZ.
It should be obvious that the O.T.O. accepts men and women of any race or social status. The Order works through a hierarchic structure similar to that of religious orders and fraternal associations. The purpose is to train members to apply, in their daily life, the knowledge acquired through initiatic rituals. Thus the members may test to their satisfaction the worth of those rituals.
There is no false mystery or fake occultism in the manner the Order works. Initiatic rituals are psychodramas, and their principal value is in the catharses they produce. The rituals must be kept "secret" in the sense that those who undergo them should not know beforehand what is going to be said or done; else the element of surprise is lost, and a true catharsis will not ensue on all levels of the soul. For this reason the Christist heresies, hindmost of which the Roman Catholic Church, have always tried to publish the rituals of true masonry. Recently a series of O.T.O. rituals was stolen and published in the United States. It was thus necessary to change the rituals. They will be changed again any time another theft occurs. We said there is no false secret in the Order, and we repeat it. There is, however, and there always will be, the right to privacy.
The rituals of the O.T.O. seek to instil in their participants the fundamental perception of the Law of Thelema: that every healthy man and every healthy woman is a psychically autonomous entity, and that any healthy society can never be more or less than the sum of its healthy membership.
The intellectual aim of the O.T.O. is to demonstrate that the progress of religion depends on the use of the scientific method to test the validity of religious experiences. To this purpose it is necessary to ensure total freedom of self-expression and forever abolish ideological persecution.
The moral aim of the O.T.O. is to encourage all human beings to find and do their true will.
The political aim of the O.T.O. is to prove that the absolute authority of the State can exist only as a function of the absolute individual freedom of each of its citizens.
From the individual point of view, the Great Work consists in learning to know and rule ourselves. From the social point of view the Great Work consists in ensuring to each of our neighbors the chance to learn to know and rule themselves.
All human beings of any sex, race, or country are hereby invited to cooperate with us in this task of social and spiritual evolution: the Great Work of the true Initiates of all times.
(This address is, of course, now out of date. Those interested in contact with the O.T.O. should write to: P.O. Box 59326 Pittsburgh, PA 15203).
You may write to us in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German or Italian; we will answer in English. Please write clearly and in ink if you write by hand, and always provide a S.A.S.E. or international postal coupons with your queries. Otherwise, we will not answer. If you write us from a country where the Roman Church or the C.I.A. controls the government, it may be wise to register your letter.
This is the news for this issue of THE ORIFLAMME.