Path: shell.portal.com!svc.portal.com!sdd.hp.com!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!nntp.crl.com!pacbell.com!well!heidrick From: heidrick@well.sf.ca.us (Bill Heidrick) Newsgroups: alt.magick Subject: Re: AMORC & O.T.O. (was Re: FINALLY! The TRUE R+C ORDER!) Date: 27 Sep 1995 15:24:40 GMT Organization: The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA Lines: 53 Message-ID: <44bqbo$35a@nkosi.well.com> References: <43i8nd$9be@newsbf02.news.aol.com> <442pon$s7q@puzzle.palace.net> <4447si$30t@sake.wwa.com> <445a8n$bsi@crl7.crl.com> <446j1h$pfl@nkosi.well.com> <74722@toad.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: well.com X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #1 (NOV) 93, tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney) writes: >heidrick@well.sf.ca.us (Bill Heidrick) writes: >> Lewis had started AMORC well before any contact with OTO, although >>there is some reason to suspect that his inadequately described encounter >>with R+C earlier on had something to do with our people under Papus in >>France. His charter from OTO was a gage of amity with permission to >>operate initiations up to a certain point, signed by Th. Reuss in 1921 e.v., >>before Crowley became Reuss' successor as head of OTO. >Not a correction, just an additional point of general interest: >Lewis had quite a few of these gauges of amity, honorary degrees, and >such like from Freemasonic, Gnostic, and esoteric groups all over the >world. His connection with the O.T.O. was by no means unique or >unusual. This can be verified by obtaining the collection entitled, if >I recall correctly, "Rosicrucian Documents" from the AMORC bookstore in >San Jose. (My copy seems to have gone walkabout.) >I'm sure you already know this, Bill: I'm just mentioning this for the >benefit of those who have argued on the network that since there was >any contact at all between AMORC and O.T.O., then obviously AMORC is >nothing but a bowdlerized version of Thelema. I've seen no evidence of >any strong influence from Crowley to Lewis. If you know of some, of >course, I'd be interested to hear about it, but your message seemed >to indicate that the contact was tangential. Perhaps it would be better to say that AMORC is largely a bowdlerized version of practically everything in sight from 1900 to 1940 e.v., including popular fads and books of the time. Lewis did good work in setting the thing up as an interface for people to get near, if not into, many different areas of study. The claims of authority and such are mostly bosh, but more than one of them do connect to OTO and it's merged/affiliated groups and precursors. The 12th degree AMORC monographs do revise and present Crowley material. AMORC has considerable value, but it's in line with the sort of thing one goes through after early adulthood -- some people settle for an official sounding worldview developed out of highschool non-college prep stuff. Some go further to do it. Regardless, there comes a point when you have to realize that a lot of what you have been told is BS. That's true no matter what your affiliation or progress. Most people just decide to let it go and stop thinking about anything like that that's a bother. Some take responsibility and proceed to work without a security blanket. AMORC brings you to the jumping off place, but it's up to you to either jump or settle down there. All this is a parallel metaphor to the crossing of the Abyss -- or perhaps the latter is a metaphor for this? 93 93/93 Bill Heidrick