Outer Head of Ordo Templi Orientis, Theodor Reuss (1855–1923). (photo credit 11.3)
Parallel with these activities, Reuss also had an abiding interest in the occult. He states that he joined the TS in London in 1885, knew H. P. Blavatsky, and was at Avenue Road in May 1891 when her ashes were put into a casket.15 In 1894, Reuss published the article “Pranatherapie” in the German Theosophical journal Sphinx.16 In 1895 he joined Leopold Engel’s (1858–1931) attempt to revive the Bavarian Illuminati.17 Significantly, around 1898 he met Austrian industrial chemist Carl Kellner (1851–1905), who sought to establish an Academia Masonica within which the various degrees of high-grade Freemasonry could be conferred in German-speaking nations. While the Blue Lodge or first three degrees of Freemasonry—Entered Apprentice (1°), Fellow Craft (2°), and Master Mason (3°)—are universal, a number of optional, pendant rites proliferated at this time, claiming to provide greater insight into the three Blue Lodge degrees and offering numbered degrees beyond the third. These attracted many Master Masons (a requirement of admission to any of the higher degrees) who sincerely desired greater insight into the craft. Over the years, these rites were juggled and combined until a few standards emerged, such as the Royal Arch, Cryptic Rite, Knights Templar, and Scottish Rite. Many other systems—including those cultivated by Kellner and his colleagues—were eventually regarded as something between quaintly outdated to patently fraudulent (the vehemence of denunciation corresponding to how closely the rite in question resembled the legitimate degrees).
“Kellner was, of course, the reconstructor of the O.T.O.,” Crowley wrote. “Reuss always spoke of him as quite a hors ligne.”18 However, because Kellner disapproved of the Illuminati, the idea lay dormant until Reuss apparently broke with Engel. Thereupon, Kellner and Reuss began collaborating with like-minded people like Franz Hartmann and Henry Klein.
Dr. Franz Hartmann (1838–1912) was a German physician, Theosophist, and Rosicrucian who, like Reuss, was a contributor to Sphinx. He had been at Adyar in 1885 doing damage control when the controversial Hodgson Report to the Society for Psychical Research proclaimed Blavatsky a fraud, and he later published his own Theosophical journal, Lotusblüten (1893–1900). Hartmann was prolific with articles and books like Magic, White and Black and Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians.19 Hartmann knew Kellner professionally.20
Henry Klein (c. 1843–1913) was a Bavarian-born naturalized British subject.21 Although initiated into Freemasonry at the same German-English Pilgrim Lodge No. 238 as Reuss, he resigned two years before Reuss joined.22 Despite being partially deaf, he worked as a composer, arranger, publisher, and distributor of popular sheet music through his business, Henry Klein & Co. Significantly, he was secretary to the New Philharmonic Society and later to the Popular Wagner Concerts Society, for whom Reuss sang early in his career;23 this may have been the vehicle through which Klein and Reuss first met. Klein became a concert manager and impresario in 1885,24 some two years before Reuss followed suit, and one wonders if Klein may have mentored him. By the time Reuss met Kellner, Klein had branched out into importing and wholesaling pianos, organs, polyphons, phonographs, and other musical devices. He retired in 1906; his business was acquired by the New Polyphon Supply Company, and Klein and Co. continued to operate through 1909.25
Together, Kellner, Reuss, Hartmann, and Klein acquired authority to operate various esoteric rites, such as the Swedenborgian Rite (from William Wynn Westcott), the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Mizraim (from John Yarker), the Martinist Order (from Gérard Encausse),26 and a form of the Scottish Rite deriving from the controversial Joseph Cerneau. Many Masons considered these rites to be clandestine or spurious; however, they were popular amongst the esoterically minded Masonic fringe. Reuss began publishing the Oriflamme in 190227 as the official organ of these collected rites.28
At some point after Kellner’s death in 1905, Reuss combined the various rites into one system that would become Ordo Templi Orientis, establishing ten grades or degrees numbered O to IX.29 Degrees O–VII reputedly concentrated all the teachings of Freemasonry; indeed, the similarity was so great that OTO at one time allowed Freemasons to affiliate as members up to the corresponding OTO degree. Beyond the VII° awaited what was called, under Kellner’s tenure, the “Inner Triangle.” This was where members learned esoteric teachings originating outside Freemasonry. Because few of Kellner’s writings survive, the nature of these teachings has been the source of some controversy: some have argued that it involved yoga, in which Kellner was clearly knowledgable. Others claim that it taught sacred sexuality, since this became the central secret of OTO under Reuss. Because both sexes were necessary to practice this great secret, OTO also differed significantly from traditional Masonry in admitting both men and women as members.
Kellner reputedly had discovered this great secret from three teachers while traveling in the East. Certainly, Kellner learned yoga from three teachers commonly identified with him—yogi Sri Agamya Paramahamsa (with whom Crowley was acquainted) and fakirs Soliman ben Aissa and Bheema Sena Pratapa originally hailed from the Middle East and Far East and knew Kellner in Europe—but there is no evidence that any of them practiced sexual mysticism.30 Indeed, the system ultimately promoted by Reuss appears to draw on American mystic Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825–1875), who introduced sex magic to America and Europe through his societies Fraternitas Rosae Crucis (the first Rosicrucian order in America) and the Fellowship of Eulis, as well as books from The Grand Secret to Eulis.31 Randolph was arrested and tried in 1872 for publishing explicitly sexual materials, but his teachings were incorporated by other groups. One of these was the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor (or of Light), another school whose mysteries OTO claimed to assimilate.32
Under Reuss, the order soon claimed several hundred members, although a series of dissensions and controversies effectively decimated that number. Some have suggested that OTO existed only on paper prior to Reuss joining forces with Crowley; prior to that time, Reuss primarily operated the individual rites in which he had authority. A case in point is the membership of Austrian esotericist Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), later founder of the Anthroposophical Society and on whose philosophy the Waldorf Schools are based. Because of the uncertainty over precisely when the Academia Masonica of Kellner became the Ordo Templi Orientis of Reuss, Steiner has been erroneously called a member of OTO; indeed, even Crowley quipped that “Rudolf Steiner discovered what the secret of the IX° did actually mean and took flight.”33 The truth is that Reuss chartered Steiner to operate a Memphis-Mizraim lodge called Mystica Aeterna. This he did from 1906 to 1914, but he ultimately decided to devote his attention to his own Anthroposophical Society.34
Reuss brought Crowley into his circle while preparing for the tenth anniversary or “jubilee” issue of The Oriflamme. The exact date is uncertain, as records do not survive and Crowley refers to two installation ceremonies, one taking place in Berlin and another in London. Crowley’s charter from Reuss is dated April 21, 1912, and is issued from Berlin and London. However, Crowley’s Constitution of Mysteria Mystica Maxima (MMM, the British section of OTO) gives the date of its foundation as June 1 in London.35 Crowley presumably received his charter in Berlin, but a formal installation ceremony later took place in London. In any case, AC received the X° title of “Supreme and Holy King of Ireland, Ionia and all the Britains within the Sanctuary of the Gnosis”—or, in plain English, administrative head of OTO for the United Kingdom. In this capacity, Crowley adopted the motto of “Baphomet” after the horned god the Templars were accused of worshiping when persecuted by the Catholic Church in 1307–1314.
Returning to London, Crowley worked on setting up MMM, printing up membership certificates, opening offices at 93 Regent Street—and later at 33 Avenue Studios and 76 Fulham Road in South Kensington—and recruiting initiates. Among the first members was Eugene “Bunco” Wieland, whose certificate from Reuss is dated August 18, 1912. George M. Cowie and Vittoria Cremers followed as the order’s secretary
and treasurer, respectively. On February 15, 1913, Crowley approved and signed the constitution of the MMM He also made good on his agreement to rewrite the OTO rituals; as he wrote:
John Yarker saw in 1911 and 1912 that his 33 degrees were themselves unworkable. He gave me a printed copy of the 30 rituals—4° to 33°—the first three, of course, the Craft degrees of Masonry. This devastating volume I took with me on one of my journeys across the Sahara desert, and from it extracted anything that seemed useful to preserve, and very little there was. The desert was left dry.
All of it, such as it is, is incorporated in the rituals of the O.T.O.36
Rites of Eleusis actress Ione de Forest (Jeanne Heyse) had become an art student and had gotten involved in the social circle of the New Freewoman,37 a feminist journal run by Dora Marsden (1882–1960) and Rebecca West (1892–1983), to which both Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington (1892–1962) were literary editors.38 In December 1911 she also married engraver Wilfred Merton (1888–1957), a Trinity College graduate and avid book collector credited with rescuing “the once-famous Chiswick Press,” who had printed Crowley’s early works.39 She nevertheless carried on an affair with Victor Neuburg; this resulted in Wilfred naming both Jeanne and Victor as respondents in a divorce complaint.40 Separating around early June pending their court date, her husband provided her with a £300 annual allowance, and she moved into a flat at Rosetti Studios, Flood Street, Chelsea. This, combined with the death of her father earlier in the year,41 made for a stressful situation.
During these events, Heyse’s art school peer Nina Hamnett (1890–1956) grew fascinated with Jeanne and Victor’s talk of the Rites. Despite rumors that Crowley was so clever and wicked that no young girl was safe alone with him, Nina, still a virgin, wanted to meet him. So they took her to his Victoria Street flat. “Extremely intelligent,” she noted after that first visit, “and not very bad.”
Crowley asked her to paint four panels for him, one for each element. This she did, noticing that the day she painted the fire panel, three blazes mysteriously broke out in the studio. On another occasion, while she painted, the secretary left on business. She was alone with Crowley, who was asleep on the rug by the fireplace. Nina pondered anew the rumors about AC, and feared for her safety. When the magician stirred, she held her breath. He sat up and stared at her. “Are you alone?”
Meekly, she replied, “Yes.”
At that, he lay back down and returned to sleep.42
On Thursday, August 1, Jeanne announced to Nina that she was leaving in the morning for a long time, possibly not returning. She offered Nina her clothes if she were to come by; an underfunded art student, Nina gratefully accepted. Arriving the next morning, she found pinned to the door an envelope containing the keys to the flat. Nina let herself in. She looked and called for her friend but received no reply. Then, drawing aside a long red curtain, she discovered her friend’s dead body.
Jeanne had shot herself through the heart with a pearl-handled revolver.
On a nearby table was a copy of her wedding certificate, her gun license, and a note addressed to the Coroner:
The last statement of Jeanne Merton, living under the professional name of Jeanne de Forest, being an art student. I hereby state that, although of sound mind, I intend to commit suicide to-night because of the intolerable position in which my extremely rash and unfortunate marriage has placed me. It is my wish that my body be cremated.
In retrospect, she had threatened suicide over the months to both her husband and her solicitor, E. S. P. Haynes, but no one had taken her seriously. The day she died, her solicitor received a letter saying “I cannot endure things any longer.” Her husband, meanwhile, received the note, “You have killed me.” An inquest ruled her death as “suicide during temporary insanity.”43 Griefstricken, Ezra Pound waited a year to write—and even longer to publish—the obituary poem, “Dead Iönè:”
Empty are the ways,
Empty are the ways of this land
And the flowers
Bend over with heavy heads.
They bend in vain.
Empty are the ways of this land
Where Ione
Walked once, and now does not walk
But seems like a person just gone.44
The eighth Equinox appeared that September as the joint organ of the AA and MMM. Fiction, poetry, and drama dominated the issue, which featured a violin piece by Leila titled “Thelema: A Tone-Testament,” “Three Poems” by Neuburg, and the play “Doctor Bob,” jointly penned by Desti and Crowley. AC’s vicious streak ran wild in attacks on A. E. Waite (“Waite’s Wet or the Backslider’s Return”) and his uncle Tom Bishop (“My Crapulous Contemporaries No. VI: An Obituary” … except he wasn’t dead). The supplement contained the issue’s only magical text, and it was a work of tremendous value: “Sepher Sephiroth” was a numerological dictionary of kabbalistic terms. The work, begun by Allan Bennett, benefitted from contributions by Crowley, Jones, Neuburg, and Gerald G. Rae Fraser (who joined the AA in 1910).45 This reference work represents one of Crowley’s most important contributions to occult literature.
Nevertheless, AA recruitment continued to wind down, with only three new members joining since 1911: Vittoria Cremers, Olivia Haddon, and painter Leon Engers Kennedy. That December, Crowley reviewed the status of his AA probationers. Of some eighty-five students, only eight had advanced to Neophyte, with seven more “on the path.” Compared with the GD and OTO, these figures were disappointing. Clearly, his energy was better directed toward the MMM.
Author Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) first heard of Crowley through her friend, John Middleton Murry (1889–1957), who in turn had met AC around 1910 through his Oxford friend Frederick Goodyear (1887–1917).46 Little is known of Goodyear’s association with Crowley; however, Goodyear’s lead article “The New Thelema” for the first issue of Rhythm proclaimed:
Thelema lies in the future, not the never-never land of the theologian, but the ordinary human future that is perpetually transmuting itself into the past. These familiar to-morrows that keep breaking on the shore of the world throw up every time some priceless jetsam for its strengthening or decoration. No magic, no divine interference will affect the rise of Thelema. It will be independent of petty dynastic incidents such as the fall of Saturn, or the accession of Jove. The wrath of the Lord of Hosts is powerless to blast it. Men shall built it; this planet is its chosen site.47
While Goodyear may be alluding to Rabelais, his words also resonate with Crowley’s Thelema. Since the exact date of Goodyear’s meeting Crowley is unknown, this article may reflect their new acquaintance, or it may have captured Crowley’s notice and prompted their meeting. Regardless, Goodyear went on to introduce the editor of Rhythm, Murry, who in December 1911 sent Mansfield a copy of Neuburg’s The Triumph of Pan to review. Her review was far from glowing: while acknowledging that “He has something of the poet’s vision, delighting in simplicity and sensuality which is born of passionate admiration,” she dislikes his mysticism:
Mysticism is perverted sensuality; it is “passionate admiration” for that which has no reality at all. It leads to the annhilation of any true artistic effort. It is a paraphernalia of clichés. It is a mask through which the true expression of the poet can never be discerned. If he rejects this mask Mr. Neuburg may become a poet.48
Despite this review, she asked Murry for more information about the poet. Neuburg, he explained, was Crowley’s lover, but they’d quarreled and parted, and Crowley was now with some other fellow named Kennedy; Murry also referred to Crowley’s notorious works, The Daisy Chain and Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden as “the ne plus ultra of dirt.”49 While the facts were wrong—Crowley and Neuburg had not parted, and the first “notorious work” was White Stains—Mansfield’s interest was piqued.
In 1913 she and Gwen Otter cowrote a sketch called “Mimi and the Major,” the title characters played by Katherine and Gwen, respectively. After a performance at the Passmore Settlement, Gwen threw o
ne of her legendary parties, which Crowley and Leila attended. Katherine soon found herself and the group exploring their inner selves while under the influence (accounts vary as to whether it was hashish or Crowley’s favorite hallucinogen, Anhalonium lewinii). Accounts also vary as to what happened next. James Laver’s account is closest to firsthand, and it is the least fantastic:
“The stuff is beginning to work,” [Crowley] said. “She’s not going to be interesting; she’s only going to sleep.”
Katherine lay on the sofa and lit a cigarette. She threw the match on the floor and it lay crookedly on the carpet. This caused her such acute distress that Gwen put it straight. “That’s much better,” said K. M. “Pity that stuff had no effect.”50
According to Laver, she babbled a bit, remarked that she could do up the buttons on her nightgown “if we talk to them very gently,” and munched some biscuits, repeating at intervals her refrain, “Pity that stuff had no effect.”
Other versions say that, while her spirit rose to a “pink and paradisiacal” level, she passed the evening “arranging and rearranging with the greatest exactitude the matches from a box which she had in her hand, making patterns on the floor.”51 Then, as she came down, she saw “hundreds of parcels on shelves identically marked Jesus Wept.”52 Mansfield shortly thereafter encountered the writings of Gurdjieff and Alfred Orage, preferring them to Crowley, whom she considered “a pretentious and very dirty fellow.”53
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