I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net

swathing himself in the reputations of the Great (or at least famous) Adepts
of the past. Reuss, in a bid to sell permissions to open lodges under his aegis,
suggested that his Memphis and Misraim Rite was a revival of the
mountebank Cagliostro's Egyptian Rite, founded in Paris. And if that wasn't
impressive enough, he also claimed a link to the celebrated Adam Weishaupt,
founder of the fabled Illuminati. Before he conceived the O.T.O. angle, one
of Reuss's less successful enterprises was an Order of the Illuminati, which
he shamelessly presented as the authentic resurfacing of that legendary
eighteenth century cabal. These entirely bogus connections to Cagliostro,
Weishaupt and the Illuminati – figments of Reuss's febrile imagination –
were carried over into his myth of the O.T.O., and are still cited today by the
ingenuous as proof of the O.T.O's illustrious lineage.
Yet another Reussian Order, this one drawing on the potent myth of
Rosicrucianism, was the Fraternitas Lucis Hermeticae. Some modern authors
have assumed that it must have been connected to Paschal Beverly
Randolph's similarly named lodge, the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor,
operating in Paris. Indeed, a 1912 constitution drafted by Reuss establishes
that the O.T.O "is an organisation, known previously as "Hermetic
Brotherhood of Light", newly organized and newly constituted." Even if
there is no direct connection between the Randolph and Reuss vehicles, the
influence of Randolph's sex magical theories on Reuss – and subsequently on
the later versions of the O.T.O. – seems clear enough.
If the reader is having trouble keeping up with Reuss's many vaguely
defined Orders, imagine Reuss' own difficulties. He was faced with the
challenge of keeping The Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis and
Misraim, The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, The Order of Illuminati,
and several other Rosicrucian-themed fraternities of his devise somehow
distinct from each other. This bewildering aggregation of Orders was in
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permanent fluctuation – the border between one Reuss Order and another was
so unclear that even the "most worshipful brothers" who joined them weren't
exactly sure to which one they belonged. Reuss's mania for constantly
dreaming up ever loftier names for these ambiguous fellowships only added
to the confusion. What was needed, he seems to have decided, was a central
umbrella Order to incorporate his vast phantom empire under one roof.
There was a more pressing impetus for the construction of a new,
hopefully more coherent (and lucrative) super-Order. Reuss had been
consistently losing money on his Masonic ventures since the resignation of
several members from Reuss's reconstituted Illuminati. These disgruntled exmembers
brought Reuss to court, exposing the sham nature of the many
paper organizations he touted to the tightly-knit Masonic community.
Thus it was that Reuss, who could already proudly proclaim himself
Illustrious Brother, Expert Master Mason, Secret Master, Perfect Master,
Grand Elect Knight Kadosh, 30°, Grand Inquisitor Commander, 31°, Prince
of the Royal Secret, and Sovereign Grand Inspector General 33° ad Vitam of
the Orders of the United Rites of Scottish, Memphis and Misraim
Freemasons in and for the German Reich, added the resplendent title of
Outer Head of Ordo Templi Orientis, the Sovereign Sanctuary of the Gnosis,
to his ever-expanding roster of imposing epithets.
Although Reuss and later embellishers of the O.T.O myth stated that
it was officially formed as early as 1896 or 1902, its actual founding date was
almost certainly much later. No mention of it appears until 1904, and it
doesn't seem to have been much more than yet another empty name on
Reuss's letterhead until as late as 1912.
In 1906, Reuss, with an eye on publicity, sent a letter to the then wellknown
esoteric teacher Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Anthrosophical
movement, duly granting him the honor of the 33° and 95° in the O.T.O. No
doubt this came as a surprise to the puritanical Steiner, who later was