The OTO is a real community of people getting together and doing things, and making sure we are not just doing rituals and empty gestures, that it has its effects, that it works.
People know OTO is the fraternity, but what they do not understand is that it is main function is to socially unite the thelemites. This might be a controversial point to bring up, but the truth is there are a number of Thelemites and OTO members that are not huge into rituals of their own, or thematic/occult themes. Some Thelemites are certainly drawn mostly by the philosophical and practical aspects that Thelema and OTO offer.
In short, Thelema is the system of religion-magic-philosophy that was established in 1904, when Aleister Crowley received The Book of the Law. In 1904, Aleister Crowley became The Prophet of a New Age and founder of a religious-magical-philosophical movement called Thelema, after receiving the Book of the Law, Liber AL vel Legis. In 1913, Crowley composed a Gnostic mass, whilst in Moscow, that he described as being the central ritual in its public and private celebrations.
During his tenure at OTO, the wizard Aleister Crowley experimented with various magical practices, wrote extensively, and composed a course of study, composed of his own books as well as a few other invaluable works of magic, for members from Germany. The Order became a primary vehicle by which the wizard Aleister Crowley propagated his specific philosophy on magic, which was based on a revelatory Book of the Law that he claimed to have received from an unembodied intelligence in 1904. The magic order, called O.T.O., in turn adopted the religion Thelema, developed by Aleister Crowley in the early 20th century.
The Order finds inspiration in the medieval Knights Templar, which were crushed throughout much of Europe during the 14th Century. The Order appears to have emerged from a group of Freemasons founded by Carl Keller and Theodor Reuss, and chartered in 1902 by British Freemason John Yarker. The order is said to hold keys to all Hermetic and Masonic secrets (i.e., Sex Magic).
The order was organized in the manner of the Craft, having a system of ten degrees, the advancement of which by degrees allowed members access to greater internal learning. Their chief duties were to learn and to practice the Theurgy and Thaumaturgy of the IXdeg, which consisted of the supreme secret of the order. To aid initiates in discovering and understanding certain lessons from their initiation, the William Blake Lodge issues self-study guides for particular degrees, which are given to members at the time of initiation into each degree by their local bodies.
William Blake Lodge, is a Maryland/DC/no VA chapter of the Ordo Templi Orientis (Order of Eastern Knights, or Order of Eastern Knights, or O.T.O. Ordo Templi Orientis USA is the US Grand Lodge (National Section) of Ordo Templi Orientis), a hierarchical, religious membership organization. Thelesis Oasis is the governing body of the magick order called the Ordo Templi Orientis, or Order of Eastern Templars. The Order of Eastern Temples, or Order of Eastern Templars), is an initiatory, mystical order founded in the early 20th century.
It means, in practice, a practice based on sexual torment, and, for high-ranking members of the Order of Eastern Templars, instructions on the secret techniques of masturbation, heterosexual, and homosexual sexuality. Over the years, a British edition has been sought by a number of prospective students of Aleister Crowley, who, for one reason or another, seek to discern the secrets of Ordo Templi Orientis without subordinating to its initiatory mysteries. The external head of the Order is an International Office, and the Aleister Crowley Ordo Templi Orientis is at present not organized in such a way as to meet the requirements of its constitution on that front. Grady McMurtry does not hold the office, saying in 1974, that There is currently no outer head of the Order for Aleister Crowleys Ordo Templi Orientis.
Many German members withdrew and continued to operate as the OTO before Crowley, though enough German members accepted the Magician Aleister Crowley that it was possible to count a German lodge within its branch of the Order. The church-like structure offered an Esoteric-like Mass written by Crowley which personified the Orders outlook in a public, ritualized, celebratory environment. Despite its rapid descent into chaos and dissension, Golden Dawn managed to establish a public platform for studying and practicing ceremonial magic, operating four temples in England and one in Paris.
It will be our impression from our contacts that the Ordo Templi Orientis initiatory system has slowly transformed individuals, making them more in tune with their thoughts, their existence, their reasons for existence.
Even those at higher degrees frequently regard the OTO as their most social, the time for getting together with one another and sharing stories and thoughts. There are not any true experts on the OTO as in other traditions, only individuals who spend significant amounts of time within the Order and perfecting their specific area of expertise. The spaces that you see are based on the means of the people involved, but also on their own experiences, their own interpretations of them. If you take the deterministic position, that doing as you please.
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