Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Since we are on the subject of the Law: the vagaries of human law are interesting. Take for instance, the difference between a criminal and a civil offense in the United States of America. If a person dips into someone else's cash to the tune of, say 5,000 dollars, this is a felony, the person is a criminal, and will be sent to jail. But if an unscrupulous publisher prints work to which he has no rights, pays no one royalties on it, and makes upwards of 500,000 dollars from it, this is a civil offense, the publisher is a civil offender, and in order to get his work back the author (or his representative) must put together enough money to go to court against the publisher; at least thirty thousand dollars. The case may drag five or more years, and until it is decided the publisher may keep on making money at the author's expense. My lawyers do not want me to call Mr. Donald Weiser a thief in public. Perhaps they won't frown if I call him an atypical millionaire. If he is atypical.
It is nice to live in the Land of the Free. If you have money.
The Law is for all. Does any of our readers still wonder why we want to establish it? Or that we get so little help to this end from moneyed people?
Since we are on the subject of money: the whole world knows by now that Grady McMurtry got two official documents from Aleister Crowley (unhappily for McMurtry, conditioned to approval by Karl Johannes Germer, Frater SATURNUS). But very few people know that McMurtry extracted two other official documents from Crowley!! The latter pair so beautifully illustrate McMurtry's character that we decided to reproduce them here. This is the first one: (Note in the Book that they are produced as a scanned photo)
I promise to pay to Lieut. Grady L. McMurtry on demand the sum of Ten Pounds Sterling (£10.00) on the following dates: March 1, 1944 e.v., June 1, Sept 1, Dec 1, 1944 e.v. March 1 and June 1, 1945 e.v. For Value Received.
In the event of my death or disability these obligations are to be discharged by the then Grand Treasurer General of the O.T.O.
Royal, don't you think? Please visualize the situation: 1943 e.v., London being bombed, Crowley seventy years old and totally penniless. McMurtry loans him the princely sum of 50 pounds (about one hundred and twenty dollars at today's rates) and demands an official receipt, 20% interest, and guarantees!!! The Grand Treasurer General, of course, was Mr. Karl Johannes Germer, who was sending that much to Crowley every month and asking for no receipts, no guarantees, and no returns.
We would not be in possession of this further "Caliphate document" if McMurtry had not been witless enough to have it sent to Donald Weiser, thinking it would help Weiser's case against the O.T.O.
Marvellous isn't it? Unable to repay the "fortune" McMurtry had loaned him (as could be expected of a seventy-one, almost seventy-two-year-old man who did not have where to fall dead), Crowley was forced, in face of the "dedicated" disciple's demands, to attest in writing that McMurtry was "a fully paid-up member of the IX° " (a delicious joke, if you are a true member of the IX°), and to offer him an interest in the copyrights of Magick Without Tears PLUS an interest in the sales of The Book of Thoth!!!
This document, also, was sent to Donald Weiser as evidence of McMurtry's "importance" in the O.T.O. However, two years later Crowley wrote his Last Will and Testament, revoking all previous bequests and literary grants (as one of my lawyers commented, he was not totally stupid), and McMurtry's name is conspicuously absent from it. Karl Johannes Germer's, however, isn't.
The stupendous largesse of McMurtry's O.T.O. "contributions" throughout the years can only be equalled to the width and scope of his mind. It is small wonder that both Mr. Germer and his literary executor held McMurtry in such contempt that the man has been able to produce only two letters from Mr. Germer to him that do not express this contempt openly, and no letters from Mr. Germer's literary executor at all. This in a period of time covering twenty-five years!
Since we are on the subject of letters and McMurtry: it has come to our attention through several corresponents (including some members of his own con-game) that the "Caliph" has allegedly been for years xeroxing Marcelo Motta's private letters to Mr. Germer and sending them out to his faithful, to prove what a filthy dog Motta is. Some of the correspondents have stated they were told the letters had been written to McMurtry himself; but perhaps they heard or read wrongly.
At any rate, since Motta kept no copies of his letters to Mr. Germer, and since those letters are of some magickal and historical interest, the O.T.O. would appreciate it very much if any recipients of these alleged "Motta letters" who may by now be disenchanted with McMurtry's holiness should be so kind as to mail copies of their copies to us; and if they be so upright as to provide an affidavit as to when and under what circumstances they became privy to Motta's personal correspondence, alleged or otherwise, our gratitude might even extend to the point of forgetting the kind of company they have been keeping.
This offer does not include Mesdames Helen Parsons Smith and Phyllis (ex?) McMurtry.
Back on the subject of human law: Mr. J.C. Ellis, our ex-English representative, is now in jail. It seems he had a stroke of genius and, in a country beset by the Roman Catholic I.R.A.'s electronic explosive devices, decided to build incendiary electronic bombs to burn up the Grant books in Routledge & Kegan Paul's warehouse... He wrote us a letter from jail, very proud of himself - and he had not even managed to set any of his devices off before being nabbed! His ex-Superior pointed out to him that, considering the rate at which Grant's books have been selling, he would have done the pirating publishers a service, had he managed to burn their books up: they would have collected the insurance and printed someone more profitable - like Aleister Crowley, for instance. Mr. Ellis did not seem happy with the O.T.O.'s reaction to his exploits. But then nobody ever is, it seems.
During Marcelo Motta's deposition in Portland, Maine, Donald Weiser tried, naturally, to implicate the O.T.O. in Ellis' stupidity. It must have been a bitter disappointment to him to learn that the young man had been requested to resign from the Order six months before he was arrested. Copies of the Supervisor General's letter accepting Mr. Ellis' resignation had been sent to nine different people, registered, with receipt notices. One tries to learn from the mistakes of one's predecessors.
We wonder what and when we will be hearing or reading about Mr. Brian Ferguson? Or some others we could mention.
It is probably mere coincidence that we should mention Mr. Jelks Henry Cabaniss III right after the last sentence. But Mr. Cabaniss has been target of many feelers from many sources, and one might as well try to relieve his burden.
Mr. Cabaniss is a I° O.T.O. member, by his own choice. He is neither empowered nor qualified to speak for the O.T.O., albeit he is an articulate (put articulate in this!) and likeable young person. He yearns to please and hates to hurt anyone's feelings (except his Superiors': he thinks they are obligated to put up with his slights; and, to a certain extent, they are). But, although his wife often says that he can be very hard at need, this quality, up to now, has unhappily not extended to his spine. Not in Service, at any rate. His last exploit on our behalf - letting Abrahadabra appear spelt Abrahabadra in his edition of Liber AL - effectively blew any tendency the O.T.O. might have had to entrust further responsibility to him. (He might argue that "Spelling is defunct"; but this is not how we interpret it.)
So, leave the boy alone, if you can. You are wasting your time - and his - going after him.
Which brings us to the last section of this installment of O.T.O. News, our final message: If you can't or won't help us, at least try not to bug us. Don't write us "experimental" or "testing" letters. Don't write us under a false name. If you were once an Aspirant, or pretended to be one, strayed, or goofed off - don't try to come back. We have little time and little money: our efforts must be concentrated on real students, not fakes like yourselves. Don't try to lie to us. Don't try to con us. You will be caught. Sooner or later, you will be caught. And once you are caught, YOU ARE BARRED FOREVER. To the day you die, and after. If there is an after.
On the other hand, if you are a real Aspirant, we need your money and/or your sweat. Preferably both. However, don't try to get away with just offering money without sweat if you can offer both. It won't work. If you doubt us, ask Mr. Cabaniss.