Just before that however Crowley lived in the USA and among others made an attempted takeover of the A.M.O.R.C. a today still existing mail-order lesson, occult degree system. Crowley felt justified to do this because like Rudolf Steiner who bought a patent from Theodor Reuss for Austria, Crowley was given a similar patent including the fact that Reuss also elevated Crowley to be grandmaster of the O.T.O. (a group Steiner one should emphasise, was not a member of.).
It all started the Crowley sponsored ‘Agape Lodge’ in Los Angeles, and membership inquiries that ranged from Albert H. Friedel, an AMORC member who had been reprimanded for studying Crowley after opening up a correspondence with him, to Floyd M. Spann, who wished to ascertain he relationship between Dr. H. Spencer Lewis, Imperator of the AMORC, and the present-day O.T.O.
What he did not openly state was that he was a representative of Dr. Reuben Swinburne Clymer (1878-1966), Grand Master of the Fraternitas Rosae Crucis of Quakertown, Pennsylvania, and the long-time enemy of Lewis in their battle for Rosicrucian hegemony in the United States. Their war of words was being spread through a series of pamphlets attacking each other; in the summer of 1935, Crowley was anonymously sent a copy of Clymer's tract, Not under the Rosy Cross (ca. 1935) which prompted him to investigate the situation further by writing to Lewis on August 19.
Although thousands of pages were devoted to the disputations between Lewis and Clymer, the main arguments were relatively simple. Lewis maintained that Clymer had no Rosicrucian authority whatever. Clymer claimed that Lewis was a Fellowcraft Mason who had been blocked from further advancement and merely held a meaningless honorary masonic degree from the late Theodor Reuss, whose authority was now exercised by the notorious black magician Aleister Crowley.
Possession of this honorary degree did not a Rosicrucian make, since in Clymer's view, the "Despised Black Cult" of the O.T.O. was from the start a clandestine co-masonic order, and certainly not a Rosicrucian one. Neither of their asseverations were entirely fair or correct. Clymer had a Rosicrucian connection through the American Edward H. Brown, who was the heir to the tripartite "Rose Cross Order," "Temple of the Rosy Cross" and "Hierarchy of Eulis," all founded by P. B. Randolph.
Clymer had received the first two of the nine degrees in Randolph's Rosicrucian system before his literary piracy of the Randolph corpus aroused Brown's ire. Frater Eulis, as Brown was known, alleged that Clymer merely bought the books of Randolph from his widow and reprinted them to give credence to his claim to being a Rosicrucian Grand Master." Brown and George Winslow Plummer mutually recognized each other's Rosicrucian work as legitimate and formed an alliance in 1918 to allow cross-membership and to close the door on Clymer, who was not so easily bested. He used the power of his own press to strengthen his Rosicrucian claims while ceaselessly denigrating his rivals.
Lewis stated that his Rosicrucian credentials came through a French source. The charter he had received from the "French Rosicrucians in Toulouse" was written in such poor French that Crowley satirically suggested to Lewis that "if they had mastered all the secrets of Nature, those of the ele entary rules of French grammar still baffled them.There was however another claimed source of Rosicrucian authority, over which Crowley ultimately claimed control. Lewis had been given a honorary v i C membership diploma in the O.T.O., as a "Gage of Amity" to AMORC, by Theodor Reuss in 1921.
This honorary membership was granted to Lewis without Crowley's knowledge. It is not clear if Reuss knew that in 1918 Crowley had offered Lewis the same honorary degree in the O.T.O. In addition, he was prepared to accept Lewis as a Magister Templi if he would swear the oath of the grade and further offered him membership in the Order of Illuminati.
It is an extraordinary tender, of a kind Crowley never made to anyone else, before or after that date. Despite the less praiseworthy views he subsequently expressed, it is clear that, at the time of their encounter in 1918, Crowley thought highly enough of Lewis to grant him rights in every principality in his occult kingdom. And although Crowley admitted Lewis held only a honorary diploma from the late O.H.O., he still felt that he could be forced by law to hand over the property of the AMORC to the O.T.O.
Crowley and Lewis's correspondence from this period reveals that Clymer (an "ignorant swindler" in Crowley's words) had called on Crowley ca. 1914-15 and he had been shown the door after a few minutes. One need not speculate why the two of them would have been at odds immediately; Clymer's covert belief that he was the second coming of Christ under the name of "Manisis" would not have mixed well with Crowley, the Beast 666.
Although Clymer does not mention having met Crowley in the two volumes of The Rosicrucian Fraternity in America ( ca. 1935-1937). Lewis was a "rascally Rosicrucian” with whom Crowley took greater pains to establish a relationship. They seem to have been first brought into contact during the summer of 1918, when Crowley was resident in New York.
Lewis had been arrested there on June 17, 1918, on the charge of larceny of money through the sale of bonds which represented AMORC as a recognized branch of an international organization; seized during his arrest was a French charter purporting to be issued by the Rosicrucians of Toulouse to Lewis. After having been charged, Lewis denied that AMORC held any authority from a foreign country. Crowley repeatedly stated that, even though he disapproved of Lewis (an "ignorant charlatan7) and his methods, at the time of his arrest he offered to go to bail for him, believing him to have been framed . The charges against Lewis were subsequently dropped.
Lewis did not allow Crowley's good deed to go unpunished. Jones later reported to Reuss on attending a lecture in Rubys company given by Lewis in Chicago on August 28, 1922. In the year prior Reuss had informed Jones of the former's contact with Lewis and welcomed him to open up relations between them. This suggestion was declined, since Jones had met Lewis in company with Crowley at the time of his arrest, and he did not believe any good could come from his association with the O.T.O. Following the Chicago lecture was a question and answer period; Lewis was asked, in the wake of the extensive sensational publicity in the Hearst papers, if the AMORC had any relation to the O.T.O.
The question unnerved him: He said: If you mean that filthy, immoral outfit run by Crowley and Jones etc., etc... But I do hold Honorary High Degrees from the Head of the Order from which C. and J. never have had and never will have any authority etc., etc. My wife who is well-known here, objected to this filthy attack and told Mr. Lewis in no uncertain words, saying that she was a member of the Order and proud to be such, that Mr. Lewis had no right whatever to throw dirt at a perfectly clean Order to which he himself professed to belong.
In a letter to Lewis, Crowley presented the transition from the purely masonic activities of Yarker to Reuss's amalgam of Masonry and Rosicrucianism to his own work as a justification of the original ideals of the Rosicrucians, without his ever openly naming them as his source-to claim one was a Rosicrucian was a violation of the tradition. The 0.10. was the fulfillment of the plans of the ancient Brethren, now put forth by Crowley on a scientific basis, and its central secret of the ix' was the reason for its existence. Its predecessor organizations like the extinct Antient & Primitive Rite he was content to allow to fade into the past:
“My point is that it does not matter who claims to be the Head of an Order which has no existence in fact. The only Rituals workable under modern conditions are those of the O.T.O., written by me at the instigation, and under the supervision, of Reuss.
The only thing that matters is the ultimate secret of the O.T.O., which is not disclosed below W. That secret is important because its possession confers real powers. I do not know whether you yourself are in possession of it, as you have not claimed any degree beyond the VIIe.
You deny very emphatically that the Scottish Rite and the Rites of Memphis and Mizraim are any factor in your claim. Yet the only document on which you base your claim is devoted to these Rites, as concentrated in the O.TO. (which is printed in big type right across the Diploma) and nothing whatever is said about Rosicrucians. Furthermore, my own private Seal is at the foot of the document.”
Crowley proposed that the next logical step was for one of the leading members of the Agape Lodge to file a claim on Crowleys behalf to ownership of the property of the AMORC. Clymer had published adequate proof, in the eyes of the Beast, to Show that Lewis had been claiming to operate under the jurisdiction of the O.TO., whose assets were vested basis. None of them lost their jobs in the affair; Crowley opined that Jacobi was frightened, and blamed Smith for his panic reaction.
In the midst
of these multiple exchanges, Crowley sought further opinions on the merits
of ‘Frater 132’(a member of his Lodge) . Even though he doubted that
the matter could be cleared up by correspondence-he urged to
send money for his trip to Los Angeles where he would "make the fur fly'.
But notting came of this and soon Crowley would move on to the south of
Italy and then back to England as soon WWII threaten to break out, soon
claiming Hitler was a magician, wrote his book about the Tarot.
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