This article is taken from the October 2023 issue of Fraternal Review titled, “Fringe Masonry 2”.
Aleister Crowley—the British occultist whom tabloids labeled the wickedest man in the world—isn’t often associated with Freemasonry. Yet, since his mid-twenties, Crowley had a Masonic connection…albeit through rites considered irregular, fringe or esoteric. In 1900, Don Jesus Medina-Sidonia quickly advanced twenty-four-year-old Crowley through the degrees up to 33°, in what John Hamill deemed a “miniscule irregular body” in Mexico City. Even Crowley questioned its authenticity, re-taking his Craft degrees at Anglo-Saxon Lodge 343 between October and December, 1904, while living in Paris.
Much to his chagrin, when looking to attend Lodge back in London, Crowley discovered his French initiations were not recognized. This experience left him with a dim view of jurisdiction and regularity. As he later recalled to William Bernard Crow:
“The Grand Lodge of France has a lodge in Paris called Anglo-Saxon 343 which was the headquarters of all visiting Masons, both from England and the U.S. Yet that Grand Lodge was not recognized by the Grand Lodge of England, although all its officers were high signatories of the Grand Lodge of England.” Similarly, writing as “A Past Grand Master” in the English Review, he lamented that “clandestine” is a term
“applied by any Mason to any other Mason with whom he is not officially allied; though the “Secrets,” Rituals, etc., may be identical. It is a question of jurisdiction; a sectarian squabble the rights and wrongs of which probably never existed, and are in any case lost in antiquity and confusion.”
Crowley would find “fringe” Masonic rites (as Ellic Howe dubbed them) more agreeable to his esoteric tastes. In 1910, the exposure of the Golden Dawn’s rituals in his semi-annual Equinox journal led to recognition of Crowley’s Masonic credentials by a host of fringe rites and mystical societies, with additional honorary degrees bestowed. As he recalled in his Confessions, “I lived in a perfect shower of diplomas, from Bucharest to Salt Lake City. I possess more exalted titles than I have ever been able to count. I am supposed to know more secret signs, tokens, passwords, grand-words, grips, and so on, than I could actually learn in a dozen lives.”
This ultimately led to his appointment as British head of Ordo Templi Orientis on June 1, 1912. O.T.O. was a reduced rite that emerged in Germany over the prior decade, conglomerating groups for which William Wynn Westcott and John Yarker had given them patents. These included the Swedenborgian Rite, Societas Rosicruciana in Germania, Cerneau Scottish Rite, and Antient and Primitive Rite of Memphis and Mizraim, plus a dash of Theodor Reuss’s attempted revival of the Illuminati. Upon his appointment as National Grand Master General, Crowley compiled a set of initiation rituals for his national section, which he called Mysteria Mystica Maxima (M⸫M⸫M⸫).
Crowley drew heavily on the Rite of Emulation, viewing Masonic ritual as a potent “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.” As he reflected in his Confessions, “My association with freemasonry was therefore destined to be more fertile than almost any other study, and that in a way despite itself.” He viewed his reworked rituals as preserving the vital core of the source material, while eschewing superfluous content. As he remarked to W. B. Crow about the APRMM rituals, “Who is going to commit to memory all these egregious discourses in present day conditions?” Crowley intended his O.T.O. rituals to be short, direct, and more appealing to modern sensibilities. At one point, he scolded rocket scientist Jack Parsons:
“I hear that in some cases officers have actually read their parts in the ritual, which is absolutely disgraceful. You have no idea how much time and trouble it gave me to cut down those rituals so that it would be reasonably possible for men to learn them by heart under modern conditions. If you compare these rituals with those of Freemasonry you should all be ashamed of yourselves.”
While living in New York in 1918, Crowley was visited by Detroit bookseller Albert W. Ryerson. A 32° Mason in business with his brethren, Ryerson wanted more than to carry Crowley’s books. He represented a group of Masons who were interested in bringing O.T.O. to the Motor City. As Crowley told Arnoldo Krumm-Heller:
“The accounts of the new Rite made a great impression; and in particular, attracted the attention of the Supreme Grand Council, Sovereign Grand Inspectors General of the 33rd and Last Degree of the Scottish Rite in the Valley of Detroit, Mich. This Council deputed two Princes of the Royal Secret from the Consistory dependent from their jurisdiction to interview me in New York.”
The bookstore also agreed to purchase and distribute a new book proposed by Crowley: a new volume of The Equinox, last published in 1913.
His travel to Detroit paid for, Crowley met everyone and arranged to form a Great Lakes Supreme Grand Council, the first U.S. body of O.T.O. Upon receiving the rituals, however, the prospective members balked. Despite being altered and abbreviated—with original elements, symbolism, and lessons from Crowley’s philosophy of Thelema added—the rituals were too close to Masonry for comfort.
As Ryerson recalled, “a Supreme Grand Council got together… and I think then it was formed, tentatively, if the ritual be re-written and if drafted and accepted.” Crowley confirmed this, writing to his deputy Charles Stansfeld Jones, “I am then determined to revise the rituals of the O.T.O. in such a sense that they will not conflict in any way with the Masonic ideals.” Despite surface similarity in ritual structure, the meaning of the revised ceremonies deviated significantly from the landmarks, characters and lessons of Masonry. Crowley would ultimately declare to Hugh George de Willmott Newman, “The 0° - III° rituals are not outwardly Masonic. No Solomon, nor Hiram, etc.”
Although these revisions were apparently acceptable, the Council never formed. As Ryerson recalled, the brethren argued bitterly over who would be seated on the Council, and who would be “the ‘supreme grand cheese’ of the organization.” Consequently, “No one was initiated, and no dues were paid.” Despite the Council never forming, Crowley’s revised rituals would serve as the basis for O.T.O.’s ceremonies worldwide going forward.
Works Cited:
A Past Grand Master [Aleister Crowley]. “The Crisis in Freemasonry.” English Review, August 1922, 35(2): 127–134.
Crowley, Aleister. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. Ed. John Symonds & Kenneth Grant. London: Jonathan Cape, 1969.
Howe, Ellic. “Fringe Masonry in England, 1870–85.” Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, 1972, 85: 242–95. Kaczynski, Richard. Forgotten Templars: The Untold Origins of Ordo Templi Orientis. N.p.: printed for the author, 2012.
Kaczynski, Richard. Panic in Detroit: The Magician and the Motor City. N.p.: privately printed, 2019.
Quiller Jr., A. [Aleister Crowley]. “Waite’s Wet: Or the Backslider’s Return.” The Equinox 1912, I(8): 233–242.
Starr, Martin P. “Aleister Crowley: Freemason!” Ars Quatuor Coronatorum 108 (1995): 150–161.
Starr, Martin P. The Unknown God: W. T. Smith and the Thelemites. Bolingbrook, IL: Teitan Press, 2003.
BIO: Richard Kaczynski has written and lectured on topics in Western esotericism for thirty-five years. His books include Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley (2010), Forgotten Templars: The Untold Origins of Ordo Templi Orientis, and a critical edition of Aleister Crowley’s The Sword of Song (2021). His book Friendship in Doubt: Aleister Crowley, J.F.C. Fuller, Victor B. Neuburg, and British Agnosticism is currently in production with Oxford University Press.