How Aleister Crowley Came To Berkeley

In December of 1977, a now defunct newspaper called the Berkeley Barb released its
Joy of Sects issue (No.643 Dec.9-15th 1977) which was subtitled A Mystic Eye View
of Krishnas, Crowley & Guru Ma. On page 7 there was a full-page article which
interviewed Grady that was titled How Aleister Crowley Came To Berkeley. It was a
rather good article, very informative and gave the basic history of Crowley’s OTO
and who Grady Louis McMurtry was in relationship to the whole Thelemic world. In
this article it discussed Grady being the Caliph and it pointed out “since Crowley
considered himself a ‘prophet’ then naturally his successor would be a ‘Caliph’.”
The article ended with explaining the circumstances revolving around the recent
feast of Crowleymas held on October 12th and the signing of the official OTO
Charter stating, “Like a phoenix rising from the flames, Aleister Crowley’s Ordo
Templi Orientis appears to be reborn, thanks to Bay Area occult know-how and a
little divine help.”

How Aleister Crowley Came To Berkeley

“Thus it may be that I am at least to be considered as no mean authority on all the

wrong ways; and so perhaps, by a process of exclusion, on the right way!”
Aleister Crowley,
“The Soul of the Desert,” 1914 c.e.

by Phillip Jameson

The recent occult fad of the late Sixties and early Seventies was not the first to
sweep the western world. There were previous ones every 40 or 50 years in the 17th,
18th and 19th centuries, with dozens of alchemical, Masonic and Rosicrucian orders
starting up at the drop of a charter.

One of the more famous (or infamous) of these was the OTO or Ordo Templi Orientis
(Order of the Eastern Temple) which claimed to be descended from the original
Knights Templar. The Templars were an extremely wealthy and powerful religious
order of crusading knights, which was broken up by the Roman Catholic Church and
Phillip IV of France in 1307 amid charges of satanism, sorcery, homosexuality and
not giving the Pope or the King a big enough cut of the profits.
In 1913, an out-of-place-and-time hippie named Aleister Crowley published his gem
of metaphysical paradoxes, The Book of Lies. Of which he accidentaly revealed one
of the major sex magick secrets of the OTO (which he knew only to be a European
Masonic group). The then “Outer Head of the Order” (grand-high-mucky-muck) in
Germany, Theodore Reuss, contacted Crowley and insisted that he would have to be
initiated and sworn to secrecy. Swiftly the young genius rose through the ranks to
the “ninth degree” and soon was given a charter by Reuss to start up a British
branch of the Order, which he pretty much ran as he damned well pleased.

As a magical lodge the OTO as run by Crowley consisted of an overlay of Oriental

sex and drug mysticism on a base of standard Rosicrucian-Masonic ceremonial magic.
The goal was primarily a religious one: “the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy
Guardian Angel” (communication with one’s “higher self”) and the eventual
attainment of enlightenment. If Crowley had stuck with this, the other lodges of
the OTO probably would have remained friendlier. But then he came up with the “Law
of Thelema” (a Greek word meaning “will”).

In 1904, Crowley went through an intense three-day psychic experience during which
he “received” through automatic writing a document known as The Book of the Law,
supposedly dictated by various Egyptian deities. This extremely complicated
mystical work stated, among other things, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of
the Law” (one of the most misunderstood phrases in occult history) and “Love is the
law, love under will.” Gradually Crowley adapted the entire of the OTO to this
“Thelemite” doctrine of absolute metaphysical independence.

The Book of the Law has a number of harsh and complex passages which unfortunately
make it easy to twist in order to suit the purposes of fascists, Satanists and
other powertrippers, although Crowley himself seems to have been an Ayn Rand sort
of anarchist. A number of the OTO lodges split over the thorny question of whether
or not to “accept the law of Thelema.” Thus, even today, there are a handful of
legitimate OTO groups which will have nothing to do with Crowley if they can help
it.

But old Uncle Al was not about to let a lot of small minded conservatives stop him
from declaring the Word of the New Aeon: Thelema! The Age of Horus (what current
occultists call the Age of Aquarius) was upon us all, and Crowley considered his
truth to be more important than his popularity.

Crowley’s OTO was fairly successful as such groups go, absorbing many of the
members (and a great deal of written material) from the Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dawn, which Crowley had previously joined just in time to be an active
participant in its political dismemberment. Eventually Reuss resigned as Outer Head
of the Order (“OHO”) in favor of Crowley, who went to town, chartering branches in
Canada, the United States, Australia, South America and elsewhere.

But as the fad dwindled, so did membership, and the German lodges were destroyed by
the Nazis (as part of their final solution to the uppity occultist problem). So by
the time Crowley died in 1947 hardly any of the OTO lodges, original or Thelemite,
continued to exist. Karl Germer, a ninth degree initiate from the Swiss OTO, then
took over as OHO and did almost nothing for the rest of his life, since he was
personally going in other spiritual directions.

Several years after Germer’s death in 1962, another ninth degree initiate from the
United States, Grady L. McMurtry, decided to activate his “emergency powers” as
Caliph of the OTO. The year before his death, Crowley had given McMurtry (who had
been with him through the war) papers appointing him as his Caliph (since Crowley
considered himself a “prophet” naturally his successor would be a “caliph”), in
order to investigate some problems with the collapsing lodges in America. These
made Grady second in command of the Order, under Germer.

Since nobody else in the late Sixties seemed to be doing anything, McMurtry decided
to declare himself OHO, and to take over what was left of the OTO until such a time
as the Order again had sufficient lodges and members to hold a proper international
election for an OHO. After knocking around the Bay Area for a few years, he finally
decided to try some “fairly heavy magick” last spring, opening up the Order to an
influx of psychic energy from the ancient Egyptian Gods worshipped by the Order.

KAPLOOIE!! The hippie-commie-pervert-weirdo-heathen occultists of Berserkely

descended upon him en masse, to check him out. They found a hard drinking, hard
thinking crusty old man, with one of the world’s greatest collections of humorous
Al Crowley stories.

Living with a priestess from the New Mexico desert, “Grady” found the living-room
of their house filled every week with increasing numbers of Crowley fans, eager to
join a serious (but not too serious) magical lodge based on his theories. One by
one, many of the best and most scholarly occultists in the Bay Area began to show
up to evaluate the “new” group, and quite a few of them seem to be sticking around
to help with the organizational work. Friendly links have been made with the
remnants of previous OTO lodges in the United States and a gradual unification
seems to be shaping up.

Something magical certainly seems to be going on with the OTO now that it’s
centered in Berkeley. Since April, over 80 new members have been initiated to the
“zero-ith” degree (for novices) and a half a dozen or so people have been initiated
to the first, second, and third degrees. (Thus, the hierarchy of the organizational
structure is slowly being filled up properly.) A newsletter with real occult meat
to it is being published quarterly, with subscribers and associate members from all
over the world gobbling up each issue. Regular classes in Cabala, Yoga, Ceremonial
Magic and Thelemic Metaphysics are being organized and the bi-weekly open meetings
are filled to overflowing – enough so that the Order is having to rent a hall.

Perhaps the greatest sign of the Divine Intervention is that the rampant sexism of
previous Crowley groups (a hangover from the 19th century) is fighting a losing
battle against the increasing number of strong women joining the Order. Ceremonies
are being edited and rules changed so as to allow full and equal participation for
all, regardless of race, color, gender or place of planetary origin.

On October 12, the Feast of Crowleymas (Uncle Al’s birthday), the “Thelema Lodge”
of the OTO was officially chartered as the grand lodge of the Order, just as the
sun came out of its eclipse. Like a phoenix rising from the flames, Aleister
Crowley’s Ordo Templi Orientis appears to be reborn, thanks to Bay Area occult
know-how and a little divine help.

The following article appeared in

Berkeley Barb, Issue 643, The Joy of Sects, Dec. 9-15, 1977, p. 7

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