This is quite bad news, you came up with, I simply hope it's untrue!

What would it matter here, at the Aleister Crowley Society? The Swiss O.T.O.'s charter was never under Crowley's authority, and likewise, they don't/didn't use Crowley's 1926 revised initiation rituals, which are rather points of some importance, yes?

Might be true, that the information isn't quite Crowley-related, also the O.T.O. Antiqua, is not quite really Crowley-related but I think some people visiting this site are also interested in that.

Perhaps, but mostly, it seems, to pretend that there's another horse in the race besides the M.M.M. (Caliphate) O.T.O.

93, Walter.

I can't comment on any succession or legacy issues here and I don't think we should open up that can of worms. But I am convinced that these news are quite interesting for The Aleister Crowley Society, at least from a historical point of view. In the fifties, when Crowley was more or less forgotten, and the O.T.O. even more so, they published some very fine books when nobody else did (Symonds excepted). They held the Martha Kuentzel archives, without which the Confessions might have not survived, and whose translations of Crowley texts predated even some of the originals. And if I am informed correctly (as I said, these are mere rumours) there are still some unpublished Kuentzel texts, some say of Crowley stuff unavailable elsewhere. And there were people - at least until recently - who took the "Swiss O.T.O." pretty seriously. So yes, I think this is totally related to the site and hope somebody can shed some light on the actual state of the "Swiss O.T.O.". Mr. Koenig maybe?

Love=Law
Lutz

Whilst the news is somewhat sad -- if true -- nevertheless after the death of Frau. Aeschbach it does not seem surprising. I never saw the OTO question as anything other than a question of ideas, of the Crowley tradition; and as far as the Swiss OTO were concerned, whilst they had a possibly legitimate claim to legal status, they seemed content to go their own way and were happy to be inconspicuous. In a sense, therefore, the rumoured closure of their Lodge would be a natural termination of their involvement with a very interesting, though highly controversial, part of 20th century history. I expect that they will wish their involvement not to be discussed -- they were a very private group -- but as more distance is travelled between Crowley and now, we may find time to assess their legacy without bringing up all the old battles. And I have no horse in that race, just a sense of people trying their best to find Liberty, Love, Light and Life. And these ideas matter now, as much as ever: I wish they would be remembered.

Officially non-existent you say?
I am living in Switzerland and since i'm not a member of any non-cyberspace-orders, i have no idea how bad this really is.
..but i admit, it deeply interferes with my (infinished and secret) plans about taking it over from within the internets.
however, if "officially non-existent" is indeed true, i might aswell just write a declaration for claiming it's new ownership.
(in order to re-reform the rituals by 2012.)

let www.lashtal.com be my witness and poo on the queen, if she dares to disrecognize the authority of my nickname:

DECLARATION:
Given the condition, that the "Swiss O.T.O" is now officially non-existent,
i hereby claim new ownership of the "Swiss O.T.O".

- Signed with Pixels
13.4.2010, Alkwin_K

I'll have to check out Peter Koenig's excellent, impartial, and unmatched compendium of O.T.O. lore in cyberspace to see his definitively-informed angle on this too over coming weeks.

Horses for courses, my friend. Depends which race you're in.

😀

93!

This is from
http://user.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/sunrise/thelema.htm

Quoted with permission.

Metzger died on 14th July, 1990, of a pulmonary embolism “after lengthy sufferings and great misfortunes.” He left a power vacuum out of which emerged two concurring camps within the Swiss O.T.O.. One was led by Markus Kumer, who made an unsuccessful bid to open the group to the public again with a “Society for Humanitarian Research” (doubtless adapting it to the prevailing ‘New Age’ zeitgeist). The opposing group was led by a teacher called Olaf Raederer; both Raederer and Kumer were then resident in Austria. But Annemarie Aeschbach, who had supported the Swiss O.T.O. financially since the early 1950s, rose to the occasion and assumed leadership for the time being, since Metzger had named his successor neither verbally nor in his Will. She transferred (with two removal lorries) all her household furniture and goods from Zuerich to Stein. The printing presses were dismantled and the “Aeschbach-Stiftung” was founded on 21st November, 1995.

In 1999, Breeze sent a letter for Fraeulein Aeschbach to sign, which acknowledged him as O.H.O.. Of course, Fraeulein Aeschbach had no intention of signing such a document and a month or so later she rewrote the letter, removing all mentions of the O.H.O., but agreeing not to pursue any copyright claims [...]
Fraeulein Aeschbach duly signed the revised version on 08th April, 1999. She died in April 2008.

This is from
http://user.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/white.htm
Quoted with permission.

The Gnostic Catholic Church’s Crowleyan Masses are performed, without a break, as usual, on alternate Sundays. The museum and library remain active, as do Order operations. The finances have been merged with those of the Aeschbach-Stiftung,[381] which is overseen by the cantonal authorities and run by a Foundation Committee, headed by Ernst Graf and Adalbert Schmid: The latter looks after the library[382] and the estate business. Besides being the new president of the Psychosophische Gesellschaft, Graf is also its vice-president. A financial cushion results from the sale of the Haus Schedlern, where Fraeulein Aeschbach used to live; this also overcame any financial hurdles that might have thwarted the Society’s successful continuation. New members were also taken on.

Footnotes:
[381] moneyhouse.ch/u/aeschbach-stiftung_CH-300.7.013.007-4.htm; swissguide.ch/de/Beratungen/Stein-AR/618848_aeschbachstiftung.html; help.ch/shabinfo.cfm?key=221086; help.ch/googlesuche.cfm?such
[382] The huge library of the Swiss O.T.O. is currently being catalogued by the library service of Appenzell Canton, and will eventually be opened to the public.

93 93/93

Satire has, most definitely, rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.

Yes, that was my conclusion as well.

Hoping that someone willing to post here will be able to verify and report regarding this rumor.

What a concept!
A real (almost completely) secret society.
Imagine if all Thelemic lineages were nothing more than shadowy (occult?) archetypes and the candidate had to search throughout the world (Switzerland) to find the door, or the gate, or the guide, or the libation (usually given by the guide). Sort of like old (olde) times, eh?

On a similar note, but a different angle, I have found the scattered evidence about the founding of Switzerland by the remnants of the Knights Templar to be very interesting. Add Templar Banking System, and the "missing major treasure removed by Templars before they got busted by King Philip's CIA, and the Papal Banking System (that existed before the Templar's venture into commerce), and the ultimate fusion wherein Vatican City is guarded by the Swiss, and the Church has most of its bucks IN Switzerland, and so the Swiss and the Pope and the Templars(?) all get along just fine.
With all these legendary (secretive) Gnomes of Zurich running around (in secret), it seems Switzerland would be a great place to house your Templar-based secret society.

What would it matter here, at the Aleister Crowley Society? The Swiss O.T.O.'s charter was never under Crowley's authority, and likewise, they don't/didn't use Crowley's 1926 revised initiation rituals, which are rather points of some importance, yes?

In my view, I'm not sure that any OTO group has authority directly from Crowley.

michaelclarke18,

I think that really does not matter as long as the Order's continue to spread the Law of Thelema and evolve with the evoulution of the Current.

Whether or not any founder of the Swiss Order actually came into contact with Crowley seems totally irrelevant. If Thelema intends to propagate itself than it's going to have to be backed by internationally accesable organizations.

N.O.X., I think it might be worth considering michaelclarke18's comment a little further. It means that not every OTO branch had anything to do with Thelema, necessarily. The brand appears to have been up and running before Thelema was a twinkle in Uncle Aleister's eye.

AEternitas, I'm not sure that I agree (in fact, I surely disagree, quite strongly in fact) that a tradition such as Thelema requires "organisations" of any kind, whether international, national, local or otherwise. It needed none when it was delivered unto Mankind by Aiwass the messenger of the gods. Its scribe was member of no occult order at the time of its delivery, he was, in modern parlance, a 'solitary practitioner', albeit with training from former associations. To me, Thelema is primarily an individualistic spiritual paradigm and requires nothing more than individuals "doing" Thelema for it to be "propogated". In fact maybe it doesn't even need "propogation" (which to me implies prosetylisation, which to me, is mostly un-Thelema as a notion). Just application on an individual basis. When Crowley Thelemised the OTO with which he was in touch, he made it a social (and made an attempt at making it also an initiatory) vehicle for this paradigm. But Thelema certainly does not require the OTO or any other heirarchical artifice to either exist, or to be propogated.

If every single OTO member (or other "international organisation" which calls itself Thelemic) on Earth vanished forever tomorrow, Thelema would be still alive, healthy, and well, - in fact most non-members wouldn't even notice (and many would say, with some justification, that it would be much better off and purer), because Thelema was alive, healthy and well long before the OTO -or any other "international organisation"- had ever heard of it.

It's only by individual practise and experience of Thelemic principles that Thelema exists. Not organisations.

"All truth that springs from the individual is subversive"
- Terence McKenna

Well said Noctifer! 🙂

While 'groups' always want to brand themselves to provide the glue for their cohesion, and it's individual members look for a group ego identity which can 'take the weight' of responsibility away from their own individual ego's - Thelema is not a 'group brand' and can't be 'owned' by any organisation.

Eventually as more individuals practise Thelema, we shall want all such organisations as the OTO to fade into the background and not assume the identity of a Thelemic Church as the Roman Catholic church did with Christianity. For one - it's a very old Aeon way of doing things that we just don't need. For another - anyone who renounces their individual sovereignty to the 'groups think' is a slave, and the sociology of groups is well understood. While bodies like the OTO may try and practise a type of enlightened co-operative for a while, I'm afraid it's inevitable that it will fall into the usual patterns, and if it does it will have to be clearly recognised as either an enemy of Thelema or (at best) as groups of slaves that will serve. The promulgation of Thelema is not about increasing members of these bodies; - the Law is for All, not just members of the OTO.

It's very simple really - if your ego acknowledges your INTERNAL sovereignty then you are a good servant. However - if your ego acknowledges the EXTERNAL sovereignty of a so called 'Thelemic group' then you are a slave. You just have to ask 'where does the power lie'?

Being realistic however, I think bodies and organisations such as the OTO will run with Thelema for all it's worth, all the while tripping over it's loose shoe laces. There'll be lot's of OTO groups and slaves (as usual), and the servants will be 'few and secret'.

Subversive enough for you? 😉

Never!
🙂

93!

I don't intend to interrupt any interesting conversations, but I am afraid if this thread will take the direction of figuring out the Thelemic-ness of Thelemic organisations or the organizability of Thelema (or something like that), the main question - about news/rumours considering a specific organisation which played quite a substantial part in Thelemic history - will become obscured and probably will remain unanswered. So why not open up a new thread - one that is not in the "Requests" forum?

Just a guess...

Thanks & Cheers

Love=Law
Lutz

Over the last few months, has any information come to light as to whether or not the Swiss O.T.O. has ceased to be?

Best wishes,

Michael.

I would like to hear also more on this!