Mr.

What is Freemasonry?

An Excerpt on the

Reconstituted O.T.O.

from his Confessions

What follows is Crowley's own account of his motivations and methods

in reconstructing the O.T.O. and its rituals. It is excerpted from The

Confessions of Aleister Crowley, pp. 700-n-704. In this excerpt

Crowley discusses his revision of the ``Oasis'' initiation rituals of

OÐ"Ñ'-n-IIIÐ"Ñ'. His explanatory introduction to these revised rituals, as

presented to then-Frater Superior Merlin Peregrinus XÐ"Ñ' when the

reforms were proposed, appears elsewhere in this issue.--H.B.

``WHAT IS FREEMASONRY?'' I collated the rituals and their secrets,

much as I had done the religions of the world, with their magical and

mystical bases. As in that case, I decided to neglect what it too

often actually was. It would be absurd to judge Protestantism by the

political acts of Henry VIII. In the same was, I could not judge

masonry by the fact that it had denounced the Concordat. I proposed to

define freemasonry as a system of communicating truth--religious,

philosophical, magical and mystical; and indicating the proper means

of developing human faculty by means of a peculiar language whose

alphabet is the symbolism of ritual. Universal brotherhood and the

great moral principles, independent of personal, racial, climatic and

other prejudices, naturally formed a background which would assure

individual security and social stability for each and all.

The question then arose, ``What truths should be communicated and by

what means promulgated?'' My first object was to eliminate from the

hundreds of rituals at my disposal all exoteric elements. Many degrees

contain statements (usually inaccurate) of matters well known to

modern schoolboys, through they may have been important when the

rituals were written. I may mention one degree in which the candidate

is portentiously informed that there are other religions in the world

besides Christianity and that there is some truth in all of them.

Their tenets are explained in many cases with egregious error. The

description of Buddha as a god is typical. I saw no point in

overloading the system with superfluous information.

Another essential point was to reduce the unwieldly mass of material

to a compact and coherent system. I thought that everything worth

preserving could and should be presented in not more than a dozen

ceremonies, and that it should be brought well within the capacity of

any officer to learn by heart his part during the leisure time at his

disposal, in a month at most.

The eighteenth-century Rosicrucians, so-called in Austria, had already

endeavoured to unite the various branches of Continental freemasonry

and its superstructures; in the nineteenth century, principally owing

to the energy and ability of a wealthy iron master named Karl Kellner,

a reconstruction and consolidation of traditional truth had been

attempted. A body was formed under the name O.T.O. (Ordo Templi

Orientis) which purported to achieve this result. It is purported to

communicate the secrets, not only of freemasonry (with its Rites of

3Ð"Ñ', 7Ð"Ñ', 33Ð"Ñ', 90Ð"Ñ', 97Ð"Ñ', etc.,) but of the Gnostic Catholic Church, the

Martinists, the Sat Bhai, the Rosicrucians, the Knights of the Holy

Ghost and so on, in nine degrees, with a tenth of an honorary

character to distinguish the ``Supreme and Holy King''of the Order in

each country where it was established. Chief of these kings is the

O.H.O. (Outer Head of the Order, or Frater Superior), who is an

absolute autocrat. This position was at this time occupied by Theodor

Reuss, the Supreme and Holy King of Germany, who resigned the office

in 1922 in my favour.

The O.H.O. put the rituals of this Order at my disposal. I found them

of the utmost value as to the central secret, but otherwise very

inferior. They were dramatically worthless, but the prose was unequal,

they lacked philosophical unity, their information was incomplete and

unsystematic. Their general idea was, however, of the right kind; and

I was able to take them as a model.

The main objects of the instruction were two. It was firstly necessary

to explain the universe and the relations of human life therewith.

Secondly, to instruct every man how best to adapt his life to the

cosmos and to develop