In a message dated 7/21/00 6:54:18 AM Pacific Daylight Time, alice814@hotmail.com writes:

A little bird asked me to include the following language which was at the end of Soror Mera’l's letter (Scroll down to below):

—– Original Message —–
From: <Cornelius93@aol.com>
To: <jl.hoogeweij@quicknet.nl>
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2000 11:08 PM
Subject: (no subject)

93
To all whom it may concern,

The Following is the letter to Bill Breeze from Phyllis Seckler
dated June 22nd, 2000. Distribute freely,
————————-

Dear Bill,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

There is now quite a crisis in the O.T.O. and in my 61 years of membership this seems to be the worst one yet.
What has happened to you? You used to believe in religious freedom and now you are acting with religious intolerance and suppression.
Crowley wrote that the A*A* and the O.T.O. were two separate Orders. I enclose copies of this letters [These are not included in this epistle. - JEC] and remarks written to clarify matters.
These were printed in I.T.C. Vol I, No. 2. You seem to believe that  you should be the head of the A*A* as well as the head of the O.T.O. Why? I am inclined to ask where are your credentials?
The A*A* is guide by V.V.V.V.V. He wrote the tasks for each grade with George Cecil Jones. This is clear in LIBER 61.
V.V.V.V.V. is ever the head of the A*A* and there can be no other. He is still at work to guide his Order. He does not necessarily need a physical body to do this. Intelligences on the inner planes can  make use of all sorts of persons. One of their easiest vehicles is a person of unbalanced or insane mind. Why do you think you were the victim of a stalker? Would it not be good policy to heed what ill fortune besets you?
You have been showing that you can’t allow any divergence of view from you own. Why can’t you take criticism?
Thelemites should be able to express a diversity of opinion without fear of  reprisal. Perhaps if you had two revolutionaries to oppose your every decision and move you would not now be in so precarious a position.
The two revolutionaries were specified in Crowley’s original constitution and their function was to strengthen a Supreme and Holy King, causing him to review his character and behaviour so that he could remain well balanced and so that he did not become an ego-maniac. You have not benefited from this provision and it makes one wonder if you have been afraid of criticism and opposition all along.
According to all accounts, you behaved in an unfair manner when Jerry Cornelius criticized your behaviour in claiming head of the A*A*. Your actions seem to point to the fact that you wish to bring every A*A* person under your leadership and jurisdiction.
Actually he was correct in his views on this matter. Crowley’s instructions are clear enough for each grade of A*A* and presumably any person could accomplish a great deal in the work and studies on their own. The only catch is that when a person claims a grade in the Order, and there is no person in a higher grade to monitor his work and issue a paper upon completion, that his claims are hard to believe.
But you expelled Jerry for his opinion and also with some ferocity, for you gave him no chance to defend himself. This was unfair and also goes against O.T.O. procedures. Do what thou wilt means that one gives every other person a right to do what he/she wills without interference. Jerry was not hurting you in any way. He merely had an opinion. Is no opinion valid but your own? Have you forgotten LIBER OZ?

“3. Man has the right to think as he will:
to speak what he will
to write what he will —-”

You owe Jerry and apology and full reinstatement in the O.T.O.

You even threatened me with a lawsuit because I use the name of A*A* in my work. Do you think you should be the only one to use this name? That is, you and those of whom you approve?
I have been a part of V.V.V.V.V.’s A*A* since 1940 when Jane Wolfe inducted me into this Order and gave me a paper for Probationer. In her turn, she was inducted into this Order by Crowley while residing in Cefalu and studying under him.
Also, as everyone knows, Karl Germer was an 8°=3* in this Order due to Crowley’s knowledge and word of his true grade.
Before that, Karl achieved the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel while in a prison camp in Nazi Germany.
When Crowley knew of this attainment, he recognised Karl as 5°=6* of A*A* Germer later recognised my own experience with the H.G.A. and wrote to me and to Jane that I was 5°=6* A*A*  At the present with H.G.A. guidance I have founded a College of Thelema and one of my successors has founded the Temple of  Thelema under the College. We have classes and college work which aids a student to enter the more difficult work laid out in LIBER 185 (to be found in the last section of GEMS FROM THE EQUINOX.)

When a student enters the A*A*, we work with strict compliance to the guidelines set out in LIBER 185. No one gets a paper from us for each grade unless they have completed the tasks set forth. If any one of our students is ever challenged, the papers show good, solid work which is overseen and checked by those of  higher grades and by adepts if need be. According to Crowley’s instructions, only Neophytes or those of higher grades may take on a student but if anything goes wrong, there is always help from our adepts. The work is private and secret and should remain thus as that is the way the A*A* is supposed to operate. With us there are no imaginary or false claims as to grades, no lies, no pretense and no frauds in all of this work, whether of C.O.T. or of the A*A* In our studies at all levels we give a background in Psychology and Astrology so that each person can know the self and can guide his work and choices according to his true nature.
Agreed, this is a difficult time, but as a IX* O.T.O. I would like to ask; does the O.T.O. intend to sue any publisher in the world who publishes Crowley writings, either in English or in translations?
The present suit seems also to very nearly impoverish the O.T.O.
Are all such lawsuits in the best interests of the spread of Thelema?
The O.T.O. is supposed to aid in the spread of Thelema world wide, but copyright restrictions could work thoroughly against this aim.
I am also concerned about this policy of lawsuits, as I think Crowley’s work will not get a wide enough distribution due to publishers being afraid to publish. There is a good deal of merit in Jim Graeb’s work on this matter. I do not see his exploration of other options as a threat to the final settlement of the Naylor, et al lawsuit.
A vast majority of lawsuits are settled out of court. By mutual agreement neither Naylor nor O.T.O. is to be affected by this preliminary exploration.
But you can’t seem to view this effort in a balanced way and you want Graeb expelled immediately. How do you know how the lawsuit will turn out? What if O.T.O. should lose? Would not Graeb’s suggestions then have been a better course to follow? You don’t even wait to find out if he was right after all.
Jim Graeb is also fighting for religious and personal freedom and tolerance supposed to be taught in the higher grades of O.T.O.
But you are exhibiting intolerance and suppression of the freedom of  religion of an A*A* person. Graeb is doing the work of a revolutionary and you react with haste and fear. Of what are you afraid? Your behaviour makes many others in O.T.O. wonder who will be expelled next. This leads to a lack of independent action on the part of others who hold high positions.
Are you intent on making them rubber stamps of yourself?
Yes, you really do need the ideas, the votes and the independent thoughts and work of the IX* O.T.O. and also of the VIII*. They must act so that the O.T.O. does not become a petty dictatorship.
In our telephone conversation of May 21, I told you that what you and others did with the A*A* was none of my business and that I hoped for the same courtesy from you. But when you offered to sue me instead because I work with the name of A*A*, I replied that if you interfered with me, I would have to fight. This is part of my fight.

1. As a IX* of O.T.O., I request you to reinstate Jerry in the O.T.O. with his full degree restored.
2. As a IX* of O.T.O., I request that you allow Jim Graeb to act as the present revolutionary without fear of retribution.
3. As an A*A* I request that you do not sue either me or my successors over the use of the name of the AA

If you intend to remedy your present actions with suggestions 1 and 2, please let me know by July 15. As for request No. 3, I request a written statement that you will not sue us over the name of A*A* This signed paper should be in my hands by July 15.
Of course you may ignore these requests and say nothing. But in that case, copies of this letter shall have a wider distribution.
It is my policy to give a copy of any letter which I write of a serious nature in which I have mentioned a person’s name.
Therefore both Jerry and Jim Graeb shall have a copy and I ask that they exert extreme discretion in not showing it or reading from it to anyone else. Since your actions also included the Secretary and Treasurer, a copy goes to Marcus Jungkurth and Bill Heidrick. Finally, a copy of this letter shall go to David Scriven because he is head of the U.S.A.  O.T.O. and should know of anything that goes on.
Finally, I have always praised you for your fine work with the publications. Also you have done a great deal of good work with the O.T.O. When you were elected to the headship of O.T.O., we believed in you and we would again like to believe in your intelligence, you spirit of fair play and your tolerance. Dear brother, please reconsider some of you present actions.

Love is the law, love under will

Fraternally with much love
Phyllis Seckler (Soror Meral)

The letter then goes on to quote:

SYSTEM O F THE O.T.O.

Cara Soror:

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

You inform me that the Earnest Inquirer of your ambit has been asking you to explain the difference between the A:.A:. and the OTO; and that although your own mind is perfectly clear about it, you find it impossible to induce a similar lucidity in his. You add that he is not (as one might at first suppose) a moron. And will I please do what I can about it?

Well, here’s the essential difference ab ovo usque ad mala: the A:.A:. concerns the individual, his development, his inititiation, his passage form “Student” to “Ipsissimus”; he has no contact of any kind with any other person except the Neophyte who introduces him and any Student or Students whom he may, after becoming a Neophyte, introduce.

The details of this “Pilgrim’s Progress” are very fully set forth in “One Star in Sight”‘; and I should indeed be stupid and presumptuous to try to do better than that. But it is true that with regard to the OTO there is no similar manuel of instruction. In the Manifesto and other Official Prounciamenti, there are, it is true, what ought to be adequate data; but I quite understand that they are not ordered and classified as one would wish; there is certainly room for a simple elementary account of the origins of the Order, of its principles, of its account of the origins of the Order, of its principles, of its methods, of its design, o fhte Virtue of its successive grades. This I will now try to supply, at least in brief outline.

Let us begin at the beginning. What is a Dramatic Ritual? It is a celebration of the Adventures of the God whom it is intended to invoke. (The Bacchae of Euripes is a perfect example of this). Now, in the OTO the object of the ceremonies being the Initiation of the Candidate, it is he whose Path in Eternity is displayed in dramatic form.

What is the Path?

1. The Ego is attracted to the Solar System
2. The Child experiences Birth
3. The Man experiences Life.
4. He experiences Death
5. He experiences the World beyond Death.
6. This entier cycle of Point-Events is withdrawn into Annhilation.

In the OTO these successive stages are represented as follows:

1. 0* (Minerval)
2. I* (Inititiation)
3. II* (Consecration)
4. III* (Devotion)
5. IV* (Perfection or Exaltation)
6. P.I. (Perfect Initiate)

Of these Events or Stations upon the Path all bud three (ii*) are single critical experiences. We, however, hare mostly concerned with the very varied experiences of Life.

All subsequent Degrees in the OTO are accordingly elaborations of the II*, since in a single ceremony it is hardly possible to sketch even in the briefest outline the Teaching of Initiates with regard to Life. The Rituals V* – IX* are then instructions to the candidate how he should conduct himself; and they may confer upon him, gradually, the Magical Secrets which make him Master of Life.

To return for a moment to that question of Secrecey; there is no rule to prevent you from quoting against me such of my brighter remarks such as “Mystery is the Enemy of Truth”; but for one thing, I am, and always have been, the leader of the Extreme Left in the Council Chamber of the City of the Pyramids, so that if I acquiesce at all in the system of the OTO so far as the “secret of secrets” of the IX* is concerned, it is really on a point of personal honour. My pleadge given to the late Frater Superior and OHO, Dr. Theodor Reuss. For all that, in this particular instance it is beyond questions a point of common prudence, both because the abuse of the
secret is, at least, on the surface, so easy and tempting, and because, if it became a matter of general knowledge the Order itself might be indanger of calumny and persecution; for the secret is even easier to misinterpret than to profane.

Lege! Judica! Tace!

Love is the law, love under will,

Fraternally,

666

There is also a letter from 666 to Karl Germer, but I am too tired typing to include it at this time. It is dated September 16, 1946. I will type it in under separate cover. – JTG.

——————————————

On Wednesday July12th, Bill Heidrick and Bill Breeze both visited Phyllis Seckler. I will not go into the details but I can say, Phyllis got her letter! It’s in Bill Breeze handwriting and is very brief. It simply say:

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

This is to affirm that neither the Ordo Templi Orientis, nor myself in any other capacity, will ever contest in a court of Law the use of the name or Lamen of the August Fraternity A*A*.

Love is the law, love under will.

Frater Hymenaeus Beta Frater Superior OTO.”
July 12th was the 15th Anniversary of Grady McMurtry’s death.

93 93/93 J. Edward Cornelius