ref lectio ns

on why i decided to co-formu late

the chthon ic/aur anian branch of ordo tem pli orientis
by alobar greywa lker
(who was once known as bill sieber t)

pref ace to intro

this littl e essa y is far fro m comp leate. it took me

near ly 20 years to get this far, so i don’t expect i’ll
fini sh it up thi s year , or probabl y not even this decade.
cons ider it a work-in- progre ss. this little history
need s to get out - for my own sens e of complet ion, even
if nobody else cares to read it. it is proba bly rife
with error s. i am not real good at kee ping all the
date s/plac es/peo ple neatly compart mental ized in my head
and i do not hav e time time/ energy to go back and re-read
my magicka l reco rd. but with all these flaws and in-
comp letedn ess, i am posting it to the web. the tale will
be revised from time to time . not mate rial added on to
the end, but new mater ial inserted in place. and old
para graphs revis ed and /or deleted. the revi sion
hist ory is noted at the very end.

intr oducti on

when i beg an con templa te an outlin e for this

docu ment, i ran into compute r prob lems and my window s-xp
part ition got trashed. gon na tak e me a week at lea st to
sort thru it all . thi s is not the first (or even the
20th time) compu ter problems have made me stop and think
abou t some proje ct i have been wri ting. gett ing omens
from the univers e is the eas y part . interpre ting them,
is what takes effort.

so i began to think about this pro ject (while i also

bega n to figure out how best to save as much informa tion
and settin gs as possib le, before i began the work of
movi ng fil es, formatti ng my win- xp parti tion, and re-
buil ding my alte r-ego) . the mor e i thought about this
proj ect, the vas ter it becam e.

jaso n had asked me to deline ate some of my rea sons

for leavin g the typhon ian oto and my rea sons for hel ping
foun d the chthon ic/aur anian oto. i had been plannin g to
do a simpl e 5- 10 parag raph outline of my reaso ns. but
afte r a one-day medita tion on the projec t, i realize d
that i was being all too has ty and short -sight ed in my
appr oach. in the mann er out lined by unc le al in lib er
this rab (sp?), i reali zed the poin t in time i had planned
to begin speakin g of my diff iculti es wit h the typhon ian
oto (early 1980' s) wou ld hav e left the reader with far
too many very erroneou s impr ession s. so i mentally
roll ed bac k the clock. aga in, there were far too many
thin gs lef t un- explain ed. after about 36 hour s of
this rab- like reg ressio ns, i now realize that there really
is no star ting place and no matter what i writ e and no
matt er how far back i go to begin, impor tant threads and
curr ents will of neces sity be left out or glos sed over.

apol ogies to jas on who asked to see a simple write-

up of my reasoni ng. this text is far far lon ger and far
more compl ex tha n jaso n ever wante d. i suspe ct he may
be able to use 5% of it (if that!) in the arti cle on the
hist ory of the c/a-oto he is writi ng. hopeful ly he can
cond ense things better than i can. i feel the need to
expl ain all sort s of things which many of my readers may
not be int ereste d in. i leave it to you, my reader s, to
sort thru what i write . i hope you fin d my meander ings
inte restin g and/ or use ful.

ded icatio n

pil grim- talk

o you that set out upon the path , fals e is the
phanto m that you seek. when you has t it
you shalt know all bitte rness, thy teeth fixed in
the sodom- apple.
thus has t you been lured along that path, whose
terror else had driven you far away.
o you that str idest upon the mid dle of the path, no
phanto ms moc k you. for the stride's sake you
stride st.
thus art you lured along that path, whose fascina-
tion else had driv en you far away.
o you that dra west toward the end of the pat h,
effort is no more. fast er and faste r dos you fall;
thy wearines s is changed into ineffa ble rest.
for ther e is not you upon that path: you has t
become the way.

from the book of lies

which is also falsely called breaks

the wanderings or falsifications

of the one thought of
frater perdurabo
(aleister crowley)

which thought is itself untrue

sett ing out on the pat h

i begin this tale in 1966, when i first began exploring the

huge collection of magic, witchcraft, and occult philosophy texts
at the cornell university libraries. one of the earliest texts
which leapt out at me (figuratively speaking) was the sacred
magic of abramelin the mage. i did not know what to make of
that book. is it real and literal? is it a hoax? is it
meant to be taken allegorically?

i went to a science fiction convention that year and met

richard pero, who became a very large influence in my magickal
development over the next dozen or so years. one night at the
convention, i began talking to richard of the abramelin book.
richard knew of the book and asked me to share my thoughts on it
with him. being somewhat drunk at the time, i told him of all my
mis-givings and quandaries. richard smiled and said i should
"read crowley". i had no idea who this crowley person was, and
no inkling that richard's simple admonition to read crowley would
inexorably change my life.

the following spring (1967), while at another science

fiction convention in nyc, richard took me to weiser's bookstore
(which was vastly different than the more modern re-incarnation
of that book shop). i had some small amount of money set-aside
for my expedition to nyc and richard made suggestions (book of
lies, magick in theory and practice, my first tarot deck (rider
waite -- which i soon came to hate), and the book of thoth). i
purchased everything richard recommended even though it was far
more than my budget allowed. i read. i was totally lost.

i went back to the libraries at cornell and read even more

in the hopes of understanding crowley. i learned qabalah from
dione fortune and her students. i read regardie's golden dawn
(all four volumes -- cover to cover). i read the garden of
pomegranates and the all else by regardie i could locate.
eventually, i discovered the rare books room at cornell, and
began reading the equinox (the original editions with yellowed
pages and the ancient smell of old books). as i was unable to
take the equinox out of the rare books room, i paid the library
to make photocopies of whatever i could afford, but i was
severely limited by my budget. at the time i was making $60 a
week and cornell charged 25¢ a page. so it was very slowly that
i began to build my out of print snippets from the equinox.

every week i went back to the rare books room and asked for
3 or 4 volumes (based upon research at home with the photocopies
of indices copied in previous weeks). i had once asked for
volume 3 #1, the blue equinox, but i was told the library no
longer had that volume. i had read elsewhere (maybe in theory
and practice) that liber lxv (in the blue equinox) was to be
given to all who were accepted as probationers into the a.'.a.'.
i very much lusted after liber lxv, but it was not in print
anywhere i could locate. while i sometimes envy those who grew
up in the internet age and their free access to much of crowley's
writing, i also feel there is something to be gained from the
discipline of spending most (if not all) of one's discretionary
income in pursuit of arcane lore.

the more i read the equinox, the more i became convinced

that i needed to locate the a.'.a.'. and join up! somewheres
along the way, i had purchased a copy of the thoth tarot deck
(what a relief to be rid of the rider-waite deck!) which listed a
contact p.o box for the oto in california. i wrote to the
address, but never received any response -- which i now feel to
be a real turning-point in my personal history.

i felt totally on my own. i knew of no active thelemic

groups and no people to talk magick with in any deep sort of way
other than richard. i came to feel richard was my "secret"
contact in the a.'.a.'. in much the way crowley considered his
mountain climbing teacher -- eckenstein, if memory serves me
correctly -- his superior in the a.'.a.'.).

i formally accepted the law of thelema on july 6th, 1972

(e.v.), and i swore (as only a young zealot with a highly charged
poetic imagination can swear) that i would pursue the great work
on my own, attain kandc of hga, as i continued to seek the order
out in the world. and if i if could not locate the order on the
outer, i further vowed that would cross the abyss to attain the
fountainhead of the order, then come back to malkuth and spend my
life and my fortune to do my best to re-manifest the order on the
outer, slowly build a complete catena from malkuth to kether, and
promulgate the law of thelema within the realms of politics,
government, and the social fabrics of the earth. as i said
above -- i was young and zealous. looking back, i am quite glad
i made those vows. but i also freely admit that my vows and my
mindset were so very full of hubris.

[it just shows what can develop from an impressionable naive

young man spending long hours reading crowley late into the night
instead of going out on dates and getting drunk like his peers!
[christian zealots spend far too much time worrying about sex and
drugs -- it is libraries they should fear.]

the next time i went to the rare books library, the

librarian told me not to bother asking for specific books of the
equinox. he told me to sit at one of the reading tables and he
would bring all of them out to me. i sat (being lost in my own
thoughts) and did not notice the clerk walking towards me. he
stumbled, and books went flying everywhere. most landed on the
(rather large) reading table i was sitting at. the volume which
fell right in front of me (startling me out of my reverie) was
the blue equinox (which i had previously been informed that the
library no longer owned). the book had flown open when the
librarian stumbled. as i looked down the first thing i saw was
the seal of the a.'a.'. (none of the a.'.a.'. instructions in the
previous 10 books of the equinox were published with the a.'.a.'.
seal) on the left page and the beginning text of liber cordis
cincti serpente on the right page. i looked up at the librarian
with my jaw agape and said "i thought this volume was missing
from the library!" the librarian saw that i was very freaked
out and he smiled at me with a grin which was fraught with hidden
meanings to my young impressionable self and stated simply "maybe
it's magic!"

given my impressionable state, the fact that i had

heretofore been unable to obtain the text before me, my recent
acceptance of the law of thelema and my pledge (outlined in
paragraphs above), and my belief that liber lxv (now open before
me!) was to be given to newly accepted probationers of the
a.'.a.'., i went into a kind of trance as i read the text of the
liber. i had no words for what i felt back then. since then
i have gotten into very intense magickal/mystical states, and
talked a lot about various mystical states with many seekers from
many traditions. looking back, it now seems to me that i was
experiencing my kundalini rise. i felt hot and my face flushed.
my breathing alternated from rapid and shallow to slow and deep
and back again to rapid and shallow. there was an incredible head
rush like i was having an orgasm, only it was not momentary like
an orgasm, but on-going. i had this tingling feeling shooting up
my body. the hairs on the back of my neck and head stood up --
i became very dizzy and had to hold on the the edge of the table
to prevent myself from falling over. but there was no mind
chatter until much later. i nodded to the librarian, then
turned back to the book. i have no idea how long the librarian
stood there or if he said anything more to me. there was nothing
in the world i was aware of except the book in front of me and
the heat/feelings in my own body (and even my awareness of my
body went away after a time). as i read the text of liber lxv,
i heard the words being spoken aloud as i read them -- with
echoes like tinkling bells and a roar like the rush of my own
blood which one hears when holding a seashell up to one's ear.
the tingling and feeling in my neck and head increased. then i
fell into the words i was reading/hearing and everything went
away except my experience of the words:

i am the heart; and the snake is entwined

about the invisible core of the mind.
rise, o my snake! it is now is the hour
of the hooded and holy ineffable flower.
rise, o my snake, into brilliance of bloom
on the corpse of osiris afloat in the tomb!
 o heart of my mother, my sister, mine own,
you are given to nile, to the terror typhon!
ah me! but the glory of ravening storm
enswathes you and wraps you in frenzy of form.
be still, o my soul! that the spell may dissolve
as the wands are upraised, and the æons revolve.
behold! in my beauty how joyous you art,
o snake that caresses the crown of mine heart!
behold! we are one, and the tempest of years
goes down to the dusk, and the beetle appears.
o beetle! the drone of thy dolorous note
be ever the trance of this tremulous throat!
i await the awaking! the summons on high
from the lord adonai, from the lord adonai!

when i came back down from my little kundalini adventure,

gathered myself together, and got back home, i thought on it
endlessly for a long time. as i said earlier -- omens come
easily to me, but interpretation of the omens is not something i
felt comfortable with. on the one hand, it seemed perfectly
clear that i had obviously been accepted as a probationer into
the a.'.a.'. on the other hand, i had to laugh at my own hubris
and my belief in such nonsense. so i told no one and continued
reading all i could and practicing magic as much as i had time to
do without neglecting my obligations to my job and the anti-war
political movement which i served.

[at a later point when i had probationed in the typhonian oto

(see below) and needed an order name, i chose otz ptn-690,
meaning the serpent on the tree of life. i also created a glyph
representing myself as the hooded kundalini serpent (a cobra)
entwined about the middle pillar of the tree of life, with the
hood of the cobra opened behind the supernals (my head). this
glyph is a representation of how i felt that day in the rare
books room when liber lxv dropped to my desktop unexpectedly.]

inti mation s of the one true order

some years passed. i continued the great work as best i

knew how, as i continued searching for the a.'.a.'. i was in a
small bookstore in toronto with richard (at another science
fiction convention) and he showed me an occult magazine i had
never seen before called gnostica news. i bought a copy. back
in the hotel room, i was looking thru the classified ads and came
upon one which read "the oto is alive and well in florida"). i
mentioned the ad to richard, who was reading something he had
just purchased at the con. he replied (somewhat distractedly) "i
wonder which oto they are talking about?"

talking with richard was very frustrating at times. he knew a

lot about the many things which interested me, but said very
little unless i asked him a clear question. at that time i was
sure he was connected to the order, but not letting on. richard
briefly outlined modern oto history and the major players --
metzger in switzerland, grant in england, motta in brazil, and
mcmurty (the one mentioned on the thoth deck card) in california.
i no longer believe richard was a member of the order or even a
thelemite, but to me he represented a link to that which i was
seeking -- so he was for a number of years my "secret superior"
in the a.'.a.'.

typh onian connec tions

so i wrote to the florida address in gnostica, contacting

frater iadnamad, and thus began the next stage of my adventure.
the oto which iadnamad was connected with was the typhonian oto,
headed by kenneth grant. through iadnamad i began
corresponding with soror tanith in buffalo. as i was quite
obsessed with the idea of ix° sex magick, i focused on getting to
know tanith on the off-chance she would find me interesting in
that way.

[remember: this is back in the days when there was very little
occult community outside of larger us cities. i hardly ever met
anyone who knew what magick was, or had heard of aleister crowley
or the ix°. once, when i lit some candles in my bedroom for a
romantic mood, my lover, penny, freaked out and accused me of
trying to involve her in a black mass. i say this merely to put
my "interest" in tanith into perspective.]

i obtained and read grant's magical revival. i thought

very hard about the oto. i had been looking for the a.'.a.'. ,
which i could not locate anywhere. i perceived the oto as a
masonic outer order of the a.'.a.'. (as i also perceived the
oto's sister current, wicca), and (therefore) of lesser interest
to my long-term goals than my quest for the inner order -- the
a.'.a.'. but (on the other hand), frater aossic aiwass--718
( kenneth grant) seemed to be running his oto a lot more like the
a.'.a.' than like the g.'.d.'. , crowley's oto, or any other
rosicrucian/masonic order i had read about. i had hopes that the
inner grades of the typhonian oto (the sovereign sanctuary of the
gnosis, or s'.'s'.') might hold keys to crossing the abyss as
well as opportunities for initiation into and continued practice
of the ix°.

because of my oaths of self-initiation made back in 1972

to work to realize kandc of my hga, then cross the abyss , i
considered myself within the a.'.a.'., but upon the very
dangerous path of self-initiation -- dangerous, because i was so
warned by most every occultist i met during that period. i
figured out liber samekh was a key to attaining kandc of hga.
liber a'ash seemed to me to be the analogous formula for crossing
the abyss. one star in sight indicated that i once i crossed the
abyss, i would then be able to establish an order along the lines
of the a.'.a.'. upon malkuth.

i knew i was not quite ready to perceive any/all phenomena

as a direct communication between the universe and my soul, but i
was working on it. i knew (as much as anyone can *know*
anything) that richard was not really my superior in the
a.'.a.'., but i also felt very strongly that if i acted upon the
strange synchronicities which surrounded meetings with richard
and letters from him that it was *as though* he really was my
superior in the a.'.a.'. so i viewed my interactions with him as
an occult window into the abyss. i worked to make that window
less occult, then open that window, stick my head out, and then
(once i had the courage to do so) climb thru the window to become
a babe of the abyss.

i found over time that there were many such occult windows.
at various times and places, people (many of whom were strangers)
would speak to me and interact with me in such a way that i was
able to let go of rational skepticism and accept them as
messengers of the a.'.a.'. self-initiation (as i began to
figure out) is (from my perspective) an ever moving path which
balances between the two strange attractors of skepticism and
insanity without any absolute referents that one can implicitly
trust. before i opened myself up to trusting myself and trusting
the process of self-initiation, i feared madness and self-
delusion. i learned (slowly over time) to simply accept the
possibility of both madness and self-delusion without fearing
either -- as i accept the possibility of serious injury or death
in a car wreck every time i drive my car or ride in any other
car, bus, or taxicab. but, back then, i fervently yearned to
contact the a.'.a.'. to help guide my path and remove the
terrifying responsibilities from me!

one of the rules of probationing in the typhonian oto was

that i had to break all ties with organizations which had not
accepted the law of thelema. the only organization i was
involved with was the shadow a.'.a.'. of self initiation. and
as the a.'.a.'. is decidedly a thelemic organization, i was all
set to proceed with no mental reservations or hindrances. with
very high and hidden expectations, i probationed in the typhonian
oto under soror tanith potnia therion --789, vii°. i continued
to correspond with iadnamad, but that began to fall off as i
began to focus on my letter writing relationship with tanith.
somewhere along the way (chronology uncertain) i was given an
address to write to 718 and i began corresponding with him.

i found exchanging letters with 718 to be very frustrating.

i realized i had 718 on a high pedestal (718 being the o.h.o. of
the oto, writer of serious occult texts, heir to crowley, and all
that). so i wrote 718 to explain the probem i was having. i
assumed 718 would put my mind at ease and lessen the tension
between us. 718 never responded to that portion of my letter.
over the years, 718 never responded to many portions of most of
my letters. it seemed to me that he was avoiding all questions
i had which pertained to anything personal, dealing with emotions
(mine or his), or any matter which troubled me in any way. 718
was a very cold and distant father figure. unapproachable.
being very provincial, i assumed a lot of the problems i was
experiencing stemmed from 718 being english and me being
american. i continued to work to bridge the gap in
communication, but i must admit i felt hurt by 718's behavior.
on the one hand, i chalked it up to "english reserve", but, on
the other hand, i could not help but feel he was closed,
unapproachable, and he was hiding things from me -- and i did not
understand why. 718 seemed about as thelemic in his
relationship to me as the pope, or a victorian headmaster.

i did not discover until years later (from tanith) that 718
regularly wrote of me to tanith and complained about me. he
told her to put me back into line. tanith never acted on his
instructions to me, other than to inquire more deeply into what i
was doing and thinking. based upon what she learned, she would
kick me in the butt for foolish notions while encouraging me to
further explorations. i have always had difficulty with low
personal self image. my relationship with 718 made me angry and
my relationship with tanith made me try harder. neither is (imo)
psychologically balanced or thelemically healthy. it took me a
long time to figure out that my feelings and my path are not the
responsibility of other parties. frustrating as my typhonian
relationships were at times, both 718 and tanith had a strong
influence on my personal evolution.

at one time (not sure when) 718 told tanith to expel me

from the oto. she did not tell me of this until the ixaxaar
period (see below) when tanith and i was assisting her in her
contemplation of the formulation of an american oto (ixaxaar
templum oto) grounded in tanith's x° sovereignty over north
america which she (at that time) held within the typhonian oto.

[unbeknownst to me until the ixaxaar period, tanith had (before i

started corresponding with her) been lovers with peter arnold of
buffalo, whom 718 did not like (for reasons never explained to
me). 718 had ordered tanith to expel peter and she did so. that
(needless to say) ended her sexual relationship with peter, and
also their friendship. peter went on to join the caliphate oto.
when i met peter back around 1986, he was deeply involved in
pyramid lodge of the caliphate oto in buffalo, and
(understandably) resentful of the typhonian oto.]

because of her expelling peter from the typhonian oto,

tanith refused to go along with 718's wishes with regards
expelling me. tanth told me that she had written 718 to tell
him that if he wanted me expelled, he would have to do so
himself. by this time tanith was ix° and head of the typhonian
oto in north america. i did not find out about 718 wanting me
expelled until the ixaxaar period (again, see below).

even though i did not know any of the details between

tanith and 718 for several years, it was plain to me that my
relationship with 718 was very strained, and that tanith was very
close (magickally and personally) with 718. 718 (to use
psychological terminology) was the distant father figure to me,
whereas tanith was the stern but approachable mother figure.

at some point i stopped trying to correspond with 718 and

focused all my letter writing into correspondence with tanith.
this strange tension between myself and 718 was a stalemate i
found frustrating, but of no significant import until tanith left
the order and her successor (frater kephra-ma-ast) -- with whom
i had bad blood (see below) -- used his office (i assume with
718's blessing) to destroy any hope i had of ever being accepted
into the s'.'s'.' of the typhonian oto. again -- see below.
if i were to point to one single event which led to my co-
formulating the c/a-oto, it would have to be frater kma's
treatment of myself and other members of the typhonian oto.
while i was very angered by kma at the time, i am now very
thankful that he precipitated my leaving the typhonian oto
because i do not think my remaining in the typhonian oto was
healthy for me, good for the typhonian oto, or served the long-
term interests of the order as a whole.

the secret socie ty and learn ing who to trust

when i told richard of my probationing in the typhonian

oto, he mailed me a cryptic little essay entitled the secret
society by jean ferry (which patrick --whom i did not meet until
some years later -- has placed on his website at
http://www.io.com/~patrik/secret.html ). this little essay is
one of those initiatory keys which changed my life forever. i
had a lot of mis-givings about my path of self-initiation within
the shadow a.'.a.'. -- fears of madness and/or self-delusion. i
had a lot of faith that being in a real order would solve my
problems as to where to place my trust. the secret society
dissolved my self-delusory trust in formal manifest orders. not
that formal manifest orders were of necessity corrupt or flawed
-- just that they were no guarantee against grand delusion. the
secret society crystallized for me the niggling doubt that no
matter which path i chose (self-initiation or advancing within a
formal order), i was left with the same dangers of madness and
self-delusion.

it was a short time later that i came upon a question whose

answer proved to be a key to the riddle of the secret society and
also a key to allow me to fully open up that little window into
the abyss. it somewhat surprises me that i can no longer
remember from whence or whom i first heard the question in
time s of difficu lty and dang er in whom do you place your
trus t? on the one hand, i suspect it was from some book
(francis king's secret rituals of the oto springs to mind) or in
a late night telephone conversation with richard. but whomever
posed the question of crowley's to me, i instantly realized i had
best figure out the answer before continuing either with my path
of self-initiation in the shadow a.'.a.'. or getting much more
deeply involved in any group claiming to represent the oto.

i did figure out the answer (which i will not divulge here)
and came to realize i was now (as i ever would be) ready to open
myself up to the oath of the master of the temple.

[looking back inside my memory, i come upon a strange aspect of

my narrative. in this little retrospective, i mention the
shadow a.'.a.'. on many occasions, and i speak clearly of self-
initiation. but at the time, i never voiced (or wrote in my
diary) either term. i spoke of mega polist omancy (a term from
the pale brown thing by friz leiber given to me by richard (of
course!!!), and the shadow knights who were a personal mythic
embodiment of strange mystical encounters (sometimes real and
sometimes just in my imagination) while wandering through nyc on
the highly accessible drug of sleep depravation looking for
occult adventure. it is only in retrospect that i am able to
perceive and acknowledge self initiation into the a.'.a.'.
through the means of opening myself up gradually into the oath of
the abyss. it would be years in the future (mid-1980's) that i
realized that i had never aspired to become master of the temple
whose seat was at binah, but a different sort of master,
altogether -- mast er of forbid den alchemie s whose seat is at
daät h.

i do not know if i am usual or un-usual in this, but i kept

looking (for much of my life) for external verification -- not
only in magick, but in all i did. it is only over the past
dozen or so years that my obsessive need for external
verification has slowly given way to internal self-reliance. the
answer to in whom do you place your trust? did not sink in and
become real to me all at once. oh, the answer was obvious to me
after less than one night's meditation, but the manifest reality
of trusting the answer completely and utterly was not something i
could reify in a day, a week, a year, or even a decade. it has
been an on-going recursive process (much like crossing the abyss
has been) which is part of the life-time (perhaps many lifetimes
long) process of accomplishing the great work.]

the magic ring(s )

[my chronology may not be perfect here. i could consult my
diaries, but if i start reading them, i will never finish this
little essay by the time jason needs to my input to finish
writing his history of the c/a-oto, so am am doing my best to
recollect as best i can.]

it was somewhen in the mid to late 1970s, but i cannot pin

down the month or even the year. i was in syracuse visiting
richard. he took me to a small occult shop (as richard was wont
to do) i had never visited before. the name seventh ray comes to
mind but i may be mis-remembering the shop's name as i am not
real good at remembering names). i saw a notice in the window
about a local oto group. so i copied down the address, then
wrote to the syracuse address asking about the group. i stated
in my letter that i was in the typhonian oto (either member or
probationer -- as i am not sure of the time, i am therefore also
unsure of my rank within the typhonian oto at the time of my
letter) and asked which of the various oto's had placed the
notice in the shop window in syracuse.

i received letter back from mike ripple (whom i had never

heard of prior to his letter) informing me there was only one
oto, headed by the caliph and he (mike ripple) was in it. i did
not want a fight. but i could not just ignore ripple's petty
sectarianism. i wanted to connect with people in *all* oto
groups, and i could not do so wiyout exposing my deep seated
beliefs about the various branches of the order. so i gave the
letter a lot of thought before answering it. when i did so, i
recounted to him a legend (from memory) about a magic ring.

[before i recount that legend, a bit of a digression --

back in german class in highschool (circa 1962) i read a fable
(in german) by an author i do not remember. the fable had a
strong impact on me and is perhaps the seed from which has grown
my philosophy of looking beyond sectarian differences to accept
any many divergent sects as possible as being valid. raven tells
me that she is familiar with this tale from books of yiddish
folklore. i have no idea if she and i read the same version of
the tale. i suspect the version i sent off to mike ripple is
different than the one i laboriously translated in highschool
(german was not easy for me) as i wrote to ripple on a typewriter
(so no editing) from memory. what follows is my memory of what i
wrote to ripple (which may be different than what i wrote ~25
years ago). someplace i probably have a copy of the letter i
wrote to ripple, but (once again) if i go hunting for it, this
essay will take much more time than is feasible at present.
suffice to say that this little fable has become an important
part of my personal mythology and a cornerstone of how i came to
accept many independent manifestations of the order upon the
outer.]
the legend

back during the time of the crusades (the legend goes)

there was a time of truce between the crusaders and the moslems.
saladin hosted a dinner at which he invited both christian
knights and moslem warriors. saladin led the discussion around
to religion and as to which religion was the real one ordained by
god. tensions were high between the crusaders and the moslem
warriors. saladin played his audience well and tweaked the
polarities until all were nearing the point of drawing their
swords. at this point, saladin brought in an old and learned
rabbi.

the rabbi (who was totally ignorant of the conversation

prior to his arrival) was asked to give his opinions as to which
religion -- christianity, judaism, or islam -- were the real and
true religion. the other members of the feast were all ears.
they greatly liked having the rabbi put on the spot. if the
rabbi said the jews had the correct religion, he would be opening
up the jews to a bloody persecution no matter who ruled jerusalem
after the truce was over. but if the rabbi indicated that either
christianity or islam were the true religion, the rabbi knew he
would be expected to convert to that religion on the spot.

the rabbi did not answer the question directly. instead

he told a fable.

once upon a time there was a man who given a magic ring.
the ring granted him wisdom and from that wisdom grew prosperity.
his family flourished. just before he died, he called his
favorite son to him and gave him the ring. thus, the magic
ring was passed to the next generation. this pattern continued
for many generations. but at some point, the man who had the
magic ring had 3 favorite sons. he was unable to decide who to
give the ring to. so he made 2 counterfeit rings. and he gave
a ring to each favorite son in secret -- telling each of them not
to reveal the ring until after the old man had died.

when the old man died and the 3 sons all proclaimed
themselves as his magical heir, there was discord and anger.
none could tell the rings apart. there seemed no way to know
which ring was the real ring.

at this point the old rabbi presented the puzzle back to

the crusaders and saracens. they began to argue amongst
themselves. saladin (ever watchful lest a fight break the truce)
called for the rabbi to answer the question for his guests.

the rabbi smiled and said that the real magic ring bestowed
wisdom upon the owner of the ring. not all at once, but slowly
over time. and that that wisdom would breed prosperity. not
necessarily wealth, but true prosperity. to discover who had
the true magic ring, one would need to look (generation after
generation) into the 3 families which possessed one of the rings
to determine which family had most wisdom and which family
prospered most.

[next comes a part i am not certain if it was in the tale i

remembered from highschool, or if i added it from my own
imagination to demonstrate the point i was trying to make.]

the rabbi then introduced the idea that the because ring
was a magic ring, the old man was able to clone the ring and give
each of the 3 sons the "real" magic ring. [i probably did not
use the word clone as that word had not yet come into common
usage, but i cannot remember my exact words.]

ripp ling consequ ences

in my letter to ripple i stated that i felt the 3

manifestations of the oto (motta, grant, and mcmurty) all felt
they had received the "magic ring" from crowley, and only time
would tell which was the true magickal heir. i went on to say
that i felt crowley had given his blessing to each of them (each
in a different way), and that (from my perspective) all 3 were
indeed each crowley's magickal heir and therefore all 3
manifestations of the oto were valid emanations of the order.

[again, i am not certain of my exact words here. the concept of

applying the legend of the magic ring to the manifestation of the
oto has become a very important concept to me. i have been
refining my words and thinking this concept for about a quarter
century now. so i cannot say with any degree of certainty
exactly how clearly i presented my ideas to ripple in that
letter.]

ripple never answered me. instead, i received a letter

from another person in the caliphate oto (i believe it was bill
heidrick, but after all these years, i am not 100% certain if it
was from heidrick or someone else). the letter said that he (the
letter writer) had received a phonecall from mike ripple
informing him that ripple had received a letter from one of 718's
people (me) saying that the typhonians wanted back into the oto.
the letter went on to invite me to syracuse for a meeting with
the caliph to discuss the matter. looking back on the incident,
i have no way of knowing whether grady actually knew anything
about this scheme, or if it was something which the letter writer
cooked up on his own, or in concert with person(s) unknown.

i freaked out. i had no intention of representing the

typhonian oto. i was either a probationer or a ii° at the time
(my memory is not clear as to time, so i am likewise uncertain as
to the grade i held a that time). i could not (and still cannot)
understand how my letter had been misinterpreted that way. i
quickly sent a copy of the letter from the person mentioned in
the previous sentence, plus a copy of the letter i received from
ripple off to soror tanith, along with a poorly xeroxed copy of
my letter to ripple. i was not on easy terms with 718 (see
above) and was fearful that i had somehow managed to get
entangled in things which were way beyond my grade. i was
pissed at mike ripple for his idiocy in mis-interpreting my
letter in his phone conversation to his superiors, although
(looking back) it may well have been an error by other person(s)
unknown to me. by hindsight i am prone to suspect that there was
a person (or persons) who was/were looking for a way to get 718
(and the entire membership of the typhonian oto) back into the
fold of dues-paying caliphate membership. i suspect my letter
may have been misinterpreted because of the mindset of the
person(s) hearing a verbal recapitulation of my letter via
telephone.

tanith forwarded xeroxes of the material i sent her onto to

718. 718 was unable to read the poor copy of my letter to
ripple i had sent to tanith. 718 fired off a letter to me. 718
was ever the english gentleman, but i could tell he was very
pissed at me. he demanded a clearer copy of my letter to ripple
along with an explanation. my copy of that letter was very
ratty. it took several tries, but i managed to get a clear
readable copy which i then sent to 718. i feared i was gonna
get expelled because of the fuck-up in interpretation by the
caliphate of my letter to ripple.

in the meantime -- remember this is all happening in the

1970's, long before the instantaneousness of e-mail -- tanith
wrote to me saying she was planning to go to syracuse to meet the
caliph and see what transpired. she told me she had no
intention of asking anything about re-unification. tanith was
merely curious about exactly what they were offering. i was not
sure if i was invited to go with her or not. i was about to
write to tanith to find out if she would mind if i attended the
syracuse meeting along with her, but then 718's response to the
letter mentioned above arrived. 718 forbade me to meet with the
caliph or go to syracuse for any of the caliphate oto events,
whether the caliph was there or not. i later found out tanith
received similar instructions from 718.

718 was never clear about his feelings or his logic in any
of his letters to me on this matter (which is not surprising
given my previous experiences with him). i deduced that while
718 did not fault me for the letter i had written to ripple, he
was still pissed at me. it did not seem very thelemic of him to
order me to not attend caliphate functions in syracuse. but i
was enough of a newbie that i complied without question.
 over the following few years, heidrick and i exchanged
letters. heidrick likened our situation (him and i) to bishops
in the r.c. church during the middle ages when there were 2
different popes, and bishops under different popes kept in touch
informally. not to promote unification, exactly, but just to
keep lines of communication open in case sometime in the future
such lines of communication might prove useful. i realized that
718 would have a fit if he was informed of what i was doing. but
i also felt it might prove useful to the future of the order.
weighing my obligations both to the typhonian oto and to my
conception of the order as a whole, i chose the jailhouse lawyer
approach and decided that so long as i was not in direct
violation of 718's orders, i would continue to follow my internal
guidance system. and as i was not under any obligation to
inform 718 of my thoughts, plans, or action, i deliberately kept
718 in the dark while i corresponded with heidrick. whether
grady knew of heidrick's actions, or whether he was likewise
silent to his superior, i know not.

i began subscribing to the magickal link, organ of the

caliphate oto. i got to know grady a bit from his writings in
the link and liked what i read. grady seemed far less distant
than 718. i never met grady or exchanged letters with him, but
his thought-provoking articles in the magickal link caused me to
think.

while i never got close enough to heidrick to really know

him or call him friend, i did feel (during that time period) that
we respected one another and were both working towards similar
goals. after my brief sojourn within the caliphate, i came to
feel that heidrick's association with me had become an
embarrassment to him and/or he felt somehow betrayed by
something(s) i had done (or which he imagined i had done). while
i regret any bad blood which may be between us, i can say that i
never disrespected heidrick and never meant him any personal
embarrassment or harm.

paradox and the myth of linear time

linear chronology becomes a bit twisted here. many years

ago, i read that crowley had been invited into the oto because he
had printed the secret of the ix° in the book of lies. crowley
stated that there must have been a loop in time because the book
of lies had not yet been published at the time he was invited
into the oto. for years i was baffled by that paradox and
attempted to explain it away rationally as errors in record
keeping and/or bad memory on crowley's part. but now, i find
myself in a similar situation.

prior to the formulation of the c/a-oto, many different

events transpired which all influenced my decision to work with
sam and cliff to reify the c/a-oto. but looking back on that
time, i find myself realizing that the events all influenced each
other in non-chronological sequence. according to richard
feynman (nobel laureate in physics) quantum equations are
symmetrical in time. saying that the future creates the past (on
a quantum level) is just as valid as saying the past creates the
future. i am not saying (nor am i *not* saying) that magick is
necessarily a the summation of discrete quantum equations, but
magick does seem to (at least sometimes) operate according to
feynman's findings. likewise, every decision (again, on a
quantum level) causes a branch in time (schrödinger's cat
paradox). so we have an infinitely branching time net which
seems to create itself both from past to future, and from
probable future(s) to decision points in the past. nema spoke to
me of similar interactions of probably future contacting we in
the past who have not yet made that future real. [all this
sounds so science-fiction-y to me, but i have not yet figured out
a better way to explain what appears to me to be going on.]

it is very difficult for me to place various events of this

narrative on a timeline because it seems to me that many of the
events are in a mutually exclusive sequence. and the closer i
attempt to view the months leading up to the omega point (the
events at spiral at which the chthonic oto (now the
chthonic/auranian oto were reified), the more jumbled cause-and-
effect seem to become. saying that a strongly influenced b
which then caused c to occur seems to me to be no more valid than
other memories which indicate that c was somehow the genesis of
both a and b. but i am not speaking of just a, b, and c. there
are dozens of events which are enmeshed in paradox pertaining to
my reasons for deciding to help formulate the c/a-oto.

looking at cause-and-effect another way -- consider

observing a quiet pond as an analogy for being outside of linear
time. think of time as an imaginary axis moving from left (past)
to right (future). dropping a small stone into the pond causes
ripples which influence other events both left (past) and right
(future) of the event itself. compound this by dropping several
stones into the pond. the ripples caused from each stone
influence the ripples from all other ripples by all other stones.
normally, we live day to day with the illusion that time is
linear and proceeds at a fixed rate from past to future. but
linear time is but one illusion out of very many. it appears to
me that some events seem to influence decisions which precede the
event. not that i have clear pre-cognition. just that the
probability matrix is influenced which assists me to make certain
decisions. looking back, it appears to me as though i somehow
knew of certain events before they occurred. but i did not. i
simply behaved in much a way that it would appear (in hindsight)
like i actually was aware of the future. rather than pre-
cognition or pre-destination, i like the term pre-disposition.
th e i xax aar pe rio d
718 and i grew steadily more distant, while tanith and i
grew steadily more close. it seemed to me to be a classic
tetragrammaton formula. 718 was the old king. i was a young
prince. tanith was 718's queen. 718 feared me because i was a
potential threat to his throne and to the allegiance of his
queen. i later discovered 718 also prevented rob crosby from
probationing in the typhonian oto, so the tetragrammaton formula
was operating on many different levels within the typhonian oto.
when i could not get 718's approval, i sought (and received) the
approval of tanith. when tanith began to open up to me and
express her own mis-givings with 718 (i believe tanith was in
love with 718, alyough she never spoke to me that openly), i
encouraged her to follow her own will and path.

tanith and i had a sexual encounter at the second warrior

lord working during the first trip circle i hosted outside of
ithaca. if i had not had tanith on such a pedestal, we probably
would have become lovers beyond the trip circle and perhaps she
would have moved in with anne and i at the humm. but as it was,
i was so overly fraught with the concept of ix° initiation from
her, i missed completely that she was probably not intending to
confer initiation on me, but was just engaging in some plain-and-
simple down-home fucking with the possibility of a relationship
in her mind.

after our sexual encounter, we opened up to one another far

more than before. tanith shared with me her vision of ixaxaar
templum oto over several months. we spoke of the concept of
sovereignty in many ways over many exchanges of letters. there
was a science fiction story i read during that time period from
analog magazine. i do not remember either the title or author
after all these years. this story greatly influenced my concepts
of sovereignty. i sent a copy of the story on to tanith and
tanith shared with me how the concept of sovereignty operated
within the typhonian oto (which was decidedly beyond my grade to
have been given such information). we then discussed how
sovereignty would work within tanith's proposed ixaxaar templum
oto. later, i brought many of the ideas which tanith and i had
discussed to the founding of the c/a-oto. at that time, tanith
was x° for north america in the typhonian oto. she planned to
remain in the typhonian oto, and continue to accept 718 as o.h.o.
while manifesting the ixaxaar templum oto totally independent
from 718's conceptions of how to best encourage members under
her. tanith felt that she wanted to run the north american oto
very differently than 718 did. she felt that as a x° oto
sovereign she had that right.
 it was at this time tanith told me about peter arnold's
expulsion (but did not name him -- it was some years later i
found out peter's identity when i started hanging out with the
pyramid lodge folk from buffalo) and about how 718 had wanted me
expelled also. she told me that 718 had interfered in north
american oto affairs many times in many ways. she felt that 718
was very much micro-managing the north american order from a very
british perspective which just did not work with americans, and
that 718 was preventing her from doing the job he had appointed
her to do. so tanith was going to change all that by manifesting
ixaxaar templum oto in accord with her vision. she asked me for
input to help formulate ixaxaar templum. i do not know if she
had others on her advisory board or not. tanith spoke to me of
some of the difficulties which 718 had engendered within the
american typhonian oto:

718 had expelled someone (i think i remember his name being

michael james, but my memory is not clear on this point) from the
typhonian oto as he was about to enter the s'.'s'.' . he was
expelled for using a name other than the name he was born with --
alyough there was nothing in any order oaths i had ever seen
which prevented someone from using another name. 718 did not
understand the american mentality and the whole hippie movement
which was filled with people with self-chosen names.

in another instance, a group of typhonian oto members

formulated the horus/maat-lodge as an independent double-current
order. as they wanted to attract membership from outside the
typhonian oto, they clearly stated to 718 (and to me) that they
did not want the hml to be a cell of the typhonian oto, but an
autonomous order. 718 published info on the hml in one of his
books and named the hml as a cell of the typhonian oto. i was in
contact with several members of the hml and they were quite upset
at 718's statement. the hml planned to correct 718's statement
in print in their next newsletter. when 718 caught wind that the
founders of the hml were going to correct 718's mis-conception in
an hml newsletter, 718 threatened to expel soror noctua, one of
the co-founders of the hml.

in a third instance, nema (co-founder of the hml) did a

painting of an astral working depicting cthulhu. 718 liked the
painting and had it printed in one of his books ). 718 labeled
nema's painting as being not of cthulhu, but some other entity
(yog-sothoth, if memory serves me correctly). from what i heard
from nema (and independently from tanith), 718 just decided that
he knew what was going on far better than nema, who was actually
present at the invocation pictured in the painting.

718 did not want to encourage "fraternization" among

members (which i thought darkly humorous in a fraternity). so
when tanith outlined all these instances to me, i began to see my
own problems with 718 in a much larger context, which i had not
been fully aware of because each member was pretty much isolated
from most other members. tanith felt (my words, not hers) that
718 was unable to even perceive he was being heavy-handed towards
those members he disagreed with. likewise he was unable to
acknowledge that he was in any way improper in his handling of
the north american order as a whole, or the members within it.
both of which prompted tanith to want to bud-off a north american
oto -- ixaxaar templum oto. my discussions with tanith about
the future evolution of the oto seeded my fertile mind and
imagination. i had great hopes for ixaxaar templum oto, but
when the vision for ixaxaar templum oto did not manifest, i
continued to dwell on possible future evolution of the oto.

in my letter exchanges with tanith, i felt a great deal of

relief at hearing her plans. i had my own problems with 718,
and i was hoping very strongly that ixaxaar templum oto would
lift the cloak of censorship which covered much of my writings.
in one instance (a history of the order) 718 told me that if i
ever published the essay, i would be expelled from the oto
because (in 718's words) i was "using the oto as a thrusting
block with which to destroy itself." i published other essays,
but did not send 718 any copies. i did sent tanith copies of
all of my pamphlets and she never had any problem with any of
them.

i did not like going behind 718's back, but i saw no clean
choice at that time. i was not ready for a direct confrontation,
but neither did i feel it was 718's right to censor my writings.
i was eagerly anticipating the day when tanith would assert
control over north america and i would no longer have to choose
between being sneaky, or kow-towing to 718's control. my other
choices (leaving the oto altogether, or starting another branch
of the oto) were not things i contemplated or even perceived as
choices at that time.

early on in my discussions of ixaxaar templum oto with

tanith, i asked her why she felt 718 would acquiesce to her plan.
tanith told me that (according to the rules by which the oto
operated) once someone was in the sovereign sanctuary, they were
in for life and could not be expelled. she felt 718 would have
no choice but to ratify her plan. while i very much supported
her in her plan, i harbored serious doubts that 718 would allow
her to remain in the typhonian oto. i felt (and still feel) that
718 would have unilaterally passed whatever ex-post-facto
regulations he needed to retain absolute monolithic control.

but it never came to a test of wills between tanith and 718

(at least not that i was privy to). tanith and 718 grew more
distant as tanith and i concretized plans for ixaxaar templum
oto. i gather that steffi (718's wife) was very jealous of 718's
closeness to tanith and that caused friction between tanith and
718. i also suspect 718 was also placing more pressure on
tanith to expel me and/or certain oto members, which also caused
more tension between them. tanith resigned the x° and went back
to ix°. she ceased speaking of ixaxaar templum oto to me at
all. then (some months later) she left the typhonian oto
altogether. before she left, she asked me if there was anything
she could do for me in her official capacity before she gave up
her credentials.

cali phate sojour n

while all the talk with tanith about ixaxaar templum oto
was going on, i also received initiation into the caliphate oto
(hadit chapter in philadelphia) both to concretize connections i
had already made with caliphate oto members at the harriman
working, and to explore fraternity within the caliphate oto. by
this time, i had no real hunger after (but was still respectful
of) formal grade initiations. i was looking for magickal
family. i was looking for people to do magick with outside of
all formal order structure. i was looking for thelemites who
understood fraternity, how to improvise in potent magickally
transformative circle, and who were willing/eager to explore in
realms of altered consciousness.

kma decima tes the amer ican typhoni an oto

frater kephra-ma-ast took over tanith's position within the

typhonian oto. not her x° status, but her duties as supervisor
of american members. there was bad blood between me and kma.
kma and his lover (who were, i believe, both v° at the time), as
were myself and soror 0-maku(tz) (who was co-owner of the humm
with me) lived at math of the chrystal humm with 0-maku(tz) and
myself for a few seasons in 1981. kma and i came to disrespect
each other's magick and personal lives completely during the time
we all lived together. i won't go into any of the details here
because they have nothing to do with typhonian oto policy or
administration -- suffice to say when we parted company, neither
one of us had any intention of trying to re-kindle a friendship.
when kma and his lover left the humm, they did so in a fit of
anger. kma totally trashed their personal temple and left the
mess for me and 0-maku(tz) to clean up. they owed us quite a
bit of money (by our very poor standards of living in 1981) for
their share of unpaid bills. kma abandoned his kitten (which
revolted me in the extreme). when kma became my superior, i knew
there would be trouble.

tanith once likened "grade" within the typhonian oto to

climbing a ladder. the ladder has two uprights which support
the steps. the steps are the paper grades. one upright is
personal attainment which grows out of doing the practices
dictated by the typhonian oto and from having one's magickal
record judged by one's superior. the other rung is the
promulgation of thelema by bringing new members into the
typhonian oto, and over-seeing their progress. both personal
advancement and caring for the growth of the order are required
for grade advancement. before anyone was given an invitation to
join the sovereign sanctuary (vii° and higher) one must complete
certain magickal tasks to the satisfaction of one's superior, and
one had to have brought into the order at least two probationers
who each passed probation, and who were each active members (ii°
or higher) in the typhonian oto at the time one an invitation was
offered to the s'.'s'.' .

[another aside: i am fully aware that by speaking openly of

grade requirements within the typhonian oto i am breaking oaths i
took while a member. i am also aware that 718 would feel that
*any* mention of internal typhonian oto business or personal
relationships between he and any other member(s) of the typhonian
oto would also constitute a clear breach of order policy. i
learned from crowley that one's oaths to any order must be
tempered by doing what one feels to be the right thing. speaking
openly of typhonian oto matters with regard to the whys and
wherefores of how i came to decide i had no reasonable choice but
to connect directly into the fountainhead of the order beyond the
veil of daäth and reify (as best i knew how) a new branch of the
oto in the here-and-now supercedes (imo) all oaths of secrecy i
took insofar as i need to speak openly for the historical record.
if the order is to evolve, there can be no deep dark secrets
about how its branches operate. we learn from both the good
examples and (via the method of antimony) from the strange
twists, errors, and non-thelemic hierarchical bullshit which is
rife in any human institution. there are still secrets i
maintain -- e.g. specific magickal requirements for each grade,
number of members active in each grade at the time i was v°
(prince of the outer court), legal names of members, etc.]

kma was as much of an ass as i feared. kma did his best to

decimate all lineages within the north american branch of the
typhonian oto except for his own and those whom he actively
liked. it was a purge. it was a bloodless purge. but it was
a purge, nonetheless. kma demanded reports from members far
more regularly than tanith ever did. he demanded to review
magickal records. he took away the right of certain members to
read/review magickal records (myself included).

i cannot fault him for wanting to personally check into all

members to evaluate what they were each doing. as a new
supervisor, he was only doing his job. but his arrogant snotty
tone was offensive to many order members besides myself. kma ran
rough-shod over people who had been close to tanith. the 2
members whom i brought into the order both resigned because they
would not put up with kma's arrogance. so did several other
members. the ranks of the american typhonian oto were decimated.
several v° members (who had believed they were on the verge of
being asked into the s'.'s'.') realized they would not be issued
invitations at all in the foreseeable future. i felt (and still
feel) that i had no real future in the typhonian oto. i did not
resign only because i wanted 718 and kma to have to throw me out.

it was during this purge that tanith informed me she was

leaving the typhonian oto completely. she never told me the
exact reason. she no longer had any interest in formulating
ixaxaar templum oto. she asked me if there was any documents or
paperwork she could offer me while she still had the credentials
to confer them. during my probation and at several other times,
tanith had commented that there was material in my magickal
record she could not comment upon because i was doing viii° grade
work and she was not allowed to comment on such work to someone
of my grade. i jokingly asked her if my mr would be good enough
to pass the grade. she looked at me very seriously and said
"yes". so, when tanith made her offer, i asked her for an viii°
certificate and received it. because of my ecumenical work with
other branches of the oto and with other orders altogether (much
of which tanith knew about), i asked tanith for documentation
naming me an inter-order diplomat. she sent that to me also.

when i was formally kicked-out of the typhonian oto (for

not sending in reports and for not doing my assigned gradework) i
was told to return all documents, grade papers, oaths, etc.
pertaining to the typhonian oto to kma. i returned all the
material which 718 had issued and all the rules which he
promulgated. i did not return the documents penned by tanith
mentioned in the preceding paragraph because they do not pertain
to the typhonian oto but to acknowledgment of earned grade given
to me by soror tanith potnia therion, who was my superior over
many years, who read thru over a thousand pages of my diaries and
several hundred lengthy letters, and who took the time to comment
in depth on all that i wrote -- thus mentoring me more than any
other human has done in this lifetime. while i am not greatly
impressed by most paper grades, i am touched that tanith (who
knew me so well) was willing to validate my claims.

tanith's ceasing to be my superior within the typhonian

oto left a lacuna which her successor could never (imo) fill --
even if i had liked and respected him. as i neither liked nor
respected frater kephra-ma-ast, i did not allow him to even try.
i was done with the a.'.a.'.-like mentor/student relationship
which did me so well within the typhonian oto. i felt the time
was right for me to come together with close magickal family (sam
and cliff) to formulate the c/a-oto. my main goal in helping
formulate the c/a-oto the way i did was to encourage *fraternity*
and *magickal family* without the difficulties/hindrances to
brotherhood i had found inherent within the hierarchy/structures
of the typhonian and the caliphate branches of the oto. i am
not sure how much of my initial dream of order-wide family is
possible without a lot more regular personal contact than now
seems feasible within the c/a-oto. but i like to think both
personal evolution and group connectedness will remain in the
hearts, minds, and dreams of our members as we move thru the 21st
century.

reflections

looking back on my past, i see my younger self as being

much more naive and much more romantically enamoured with the
vision of our order than i see in people around me of a similar
age and interest. i was a very solitary child and a very very
shy young man. coupled with this, the world was very different
back then. no internet. very few occult books in regular
bookstores and very few occult bookshops. very few people to
talk with. in my years in high school and college i saw not one
tarot deck, magickal text, or knew of anyone on the path. i was
unable to have any meaningful conversations about magick with
anyone save richard for nearly a decade after beginning my
magickal journey.

i was a very emotional young man (and still am, alyough i am can
no longer call myself young) and drawn to something i could not
see in the world. when i read "the temple of solomon the king"
in the equinox volume i, #1, my hands shook. i could not finish
reading the text in the cornell rare books reading room for fear
of embarrassing myself by exposing my emotions. after paying the
huge sum of money (nearly $25, a full week's personal spend
money) to have the text xeroxed, i continued reading in my
apartment so while i alternately wept and laughed, i would not
fear exposing my emotions to strangers. i got hooked on crowley
from the very beginning. crowley's romantic and childlike
approach to the ineffable coupled with his sharp mind seemed so
like my own internal contrasts which i felt i could not share
with anyone around me.

i came to see both the typhonian, and the caliphate

branches of the oto (thru working within them) as being
hopelessly steeped in osirean pyramid thinking. i am not saying
either branch is unfit to call itself an oto. just saying i saw
that neither one seem to fit me (and others i knew) very well. i
saw many people leave the oto in disgust because of the
structure/rules which seemed to crimp their magickal growth. i
saw some people who left the oto throw away the baby with the
bathwater. they not only gave up on a particular magickal order,
but (from what i could see) on magick and thelema as well. for
some reason, i was never tempted to follow suit. maybe i have
done all this before. and maybe i was just strongly infected by
the young crowley's words in the equinox, the book of lies, and
magick in theory and practice when i was a very impressionable
young man.
 but, for whatever reason, i was just not willing to toss
out thelema or the order just because i was personally offended
by those who claimed to be thelemites while running rough-shod
over other thelemites in very osirean fashion. i kept
remembering something tanith told me long ago -- one cannot have
initiations taken away involuntarily, but one can cast
initiations away consciously or through ignorance.

the roots of western occult orders are buried deep in the

past. western occult orders arose within a milieu of european
feudalism, the papal power structure, and osirean philosophy.
western occult orders were (of necessity) secret societies and
those joining those secret orders were risking their lives and
their families to do so. and those already in any secret society
were at risk every time a new member was brought into their
ranks. so it does not surprise me that modern occult orders are
the way they are -- although i do disagree with the necessity
that they remain that way.

those who claim that the oto is a modern invention are

(imo) missing the point. whether there is any direct paper
trail of lineage or not, the patterns operable within the knights
templar, the rosicrucians, the masons, european feudal society,
and papal hierarchy are all operable in making the various
branches of the oto what they are today

isaac newton once said we stand so tall because we stand

upon the shoulders of giants. i learned how to see beyond the
material world (and then wrap words around what i saw) from the
magickal writings of crowley and grant (among many others), and i
learned how to understand myself from mentorship by tanith (as
well as magickal friendships developed over the past 2+ decades).
i also learned (thru the method of antimony) from personal
conflicts with 718, kma, and from the structure set up by 718 to
govern the typhonian oto. to a lesser extent (because of shorter
time exposure) i also learned both positive and negative lessons
from grady, the structure of the caliphate oto, and all the
caliphate members i was in contact with in those years prior to
reification of the c/a-oto. strange as it for me to write, what
i brought to the founding of the c/a-oto was also influenced
(both positively and negatively) by events which transpired after
the founding of the c/a-oto at spiral