To: alt.magick
From: bheidrick@aol.com (B Heidrick)
Subject: OTO, Religion, Fraternity (9408.oto-egc.bh)
Date: 49940826
Quoting: |jap@cb1focus.cb.att.com (45354-James Parker) 

|To what extent and in what manner is the O.T.O., itself a religious
|organzation?  I had thought that the O.T.O. itself was not religious,
|but was affiliated with the E.C.G. was the "religious arm".

That was "Plan A".  This is "Plan B".  (No connection to Fr.HA or Fr.HB)

When we incorporated OTO, we were under the impression that it had to be
as a fraternal organization.  Accordingly, we also separately incorporated
the EGC, without removing EGC from OTO --- just set up a separate one that
did not require membership in OTO.  After a little, we (we=OTO principal
officers and the IXth degrees) learned that OTO itself qualifies as a
religious organization under US law.  One amendment to the Articles of
Incorporation later, and we had it straight.  Life can be complicated when
you can't afford a lawyer.  In the USA, all you need to be legally classed
as a religion is people, a belief and some religious teachings and
services with those people about that belief.  We had all that from back
in the 20's.  The separate EGC corporation failed a few years after Fr.
H.A.'s Greater Feast.  People in O.T.O. could get the EGC just as well in
O.T.O., so duplication of function resulted in diminishment and fade out
of the separate EGC.  I've always missed it.

93 93/93
Bill Heidrick (an original incorporator of both EGC and OTO ='s one of the
folks in the papers originally signed and submitted.)