Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO)

Ordo Templi Orientis (Order of the Temple of the East, or the Order of Oriental Templars) is an international fraternal and religious organization. It has accepted the Law of Thelema for its teachings and principles, which is expressed in essense as “Do what thou wilt is the whole of the Law.” Thelemites believe that this Law was established with the writing of the Book of the Law by Aleister Crowley in 1904 in Cairo, Egypt. It has roots in Freemasonry, with a series of graded initiations. The organization also includes the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica or Gnostic Catholic Church, which is the ecclesiastical arm of the Order. Its central rite, which is public, is called Liber XV, or the Gnostic Mass. OTO claims over 3,000 members in 58 countries; about half of these are in the United States.

The spiritual father and founder of Ordo Templi Orientis was Carl Kellner (1851-1905), a wealthy Austrian paper chemist. Kellner was a student of Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism and Eastern mysticism. He traveled extensively in Europe, America and Asia Minor. During his travels, he claims to have come into contact with three Adepts (a Sufi, Soliman ben Aifa, and two Hindu Tantrics, Bhima Sena Pratapa of Lahore and Sri Mahatma Agamya Paramahamsa). In addition to what he learned from these Adepts, the teachings of an organization called the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light served as a basis for the early OTO curriculum along with Kellner’s own “Key” to Masonic symbolism.

Philosophy of OTO

Ordo Templi Orientis was described by Crowley as the “first of the great Old Æon orders to accept The Book of the Law.” OTO was originally affiliated with European masonic organizations, although Crowley eventually cut all formal ties with Freemasonry—largely because of the integration of the Law of Thelema and the Order’s equal acceptance of women. Although some masonic symbolism and language is in use, their context is no longer that of Freemasonry, but of Thelema and its tenets. “The Order offers esoteric instruction through dramatic ritual, guidance in a system of illuminated ethics, and fellowship among aspirants to the Great Work of realizing the divine in the human.” OTO has two core areas of ritual activity: initiation into the Mysteries, and the celebration of Liber XV, the Gnostic Mass. In addition, the Order organizes lectures, classes, social events, theatrical productions, artistic exhibitions, publishes books and journals, and instruction in Hermetic science, yoga, and magick.

Crowley wrote in his Confessions, “the OTO is in possession of one supreme secret. The whole of its system [is] directed towards communicating to its members, by progressively plain hints, this all-important instruction.” Of the first set of initiations, “the main objects of the instruction [are] two. It [is] firstly necessary to explain the universe and the relations of human life therewith. Secondly, to instruct every man [and woman] how best to adapt his [or her] life to the cosmos and to develop his faculties to the utmost advantage. I accordingly constructed a series of rituals, Minerval, Man, Magician, Master-Magician, Perfect Magician and Perfect Initiate, which should illustrate the course of human life in its largest philosophical aspect.” The initiation rituals after the V° are such that “the candidate is instructed in the value of discretion, loyalty, independence, truthfulness, courage, self-control, indifference to circumstance, impartiality, scepticism, and other virtues, and at the same time assisted him to discover for himself the nature of [the supreme] secret, the proper object of its employment and the best means for insuring success for its use.”

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