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Karl Germer: Selected Letters 1928-1962
Karl Germer (1885-1962) was Aleister Crowley’s successor as head of the magical order A∴A∴ and Outer Head of Ordo Templi Orientis. His legacy, however, is mostly known through the work of his students and confidantes. Little has been published about the life, teachings, and spiritual experiences of this most dedicated Thelemite. In an effort to shed some light upon Germer's life’s work, the Temple of the Silver Star now makes available this selection from a lifetime of correspondence.
Selected Letters 1928-1962 includes letters exchanged between Karl Germer and such Thelemic luminaries as Jane Wolfe, Phyllis Seckler, Jack Parsons, Wilfred Talbot Smith, and others. The discussions range from the mundane to the mystical, including the politics and intrigues surrounding Agape Lodge of O.T.O., the publishing of various works of Aleister Crowley, the philosophy of Thelema, and the administration of A∴A∴. Scholars, historians, and students of Thelema alike should find much of interest in this collection as it begins to fill a significant gap within the history of Thelema.
Selected Letters 1928-1962 includes letters exchanged between Karl Germer and such Thelemic luminaries as Jane Wolfe, Phyllis Seckler, Jack Parsons, Wilfred Talbot Smith, and others. The discussions range from the mundane to the mystical, including the politics and intrigues surrounding Agape Lodge of O.T.O., the publishing of various works of Aleister Crowley, the philosophy of Thelema, and the administration of A∴A∴. Scholars, historians, and students of Thelema alike should find much of interest in this collection as it begins to fill a significant gap within the history of Thelema.
- GenresThelema
416 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 6, 2016
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January 29, 2022
Karl Johannes Germer (1885-1962) was a German-American Thelemite who succeeded Aleister Crowley as Outer Head of the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.H.O. of the O.T.O.), an irregular Masonic association based on Crowley’s spiritual philosophy which he denominated “Thelema,” as well as the Visible Head of the Order of the Silver Star (Argentium Astrum or A∴A∴). Karl Germer: Selected Letters is a selection of correspondence between Germer and several prominent members of the O.T.O., including Jane Wolfe, Wilfred T. Smith, Roy Leffingwell, Jack Parsons, Meeka Aldrich, Phyllis Seckler, and Marcelo Ramos Motta, selected and published by the Temple of the Silver Star, founded by Phyllis Seckler. Germer was Crowley’s number two choice as successor. He had originally selected Wilfred T. Smith when Crowley was seriously ill and thought he might die in 1932, but subsequently revoked this appointment as a result of his dissatisfaction with Smith’s management of the O.T.O. In his only letter to Smith, Germer accuses Smith of back stabbing, power mongering, divisiveness, financial mismanagement, ineffectiveness, arrogance, argumentativeness, secretiveness, jealousy, vicious attacks, bad manners, and misrepresenting his spiritual attainment.
Unfortunately, the foregoing state of affairs seems to have been typical of the Agape Lodge, the Californian chapter of the O.T.O. and the sole surviving O.T.O. group after World War II. Agape was eventually disbanded by Germer in 1949 until it was revived without proper authorization by Grady Louis McMurtry in 1969. Interestingly, Germer describes McMurtry as self-indulgent, bourgeois, and complacent, even hinting that he was being controlled by demonic forces, noting that “I have grave doubts about his magico-spiritual status, and am wondering whether he can be ‘saved.’ … He has a long way to go, I’m afraid.” This does not sound like approval to me, without which McMurtry’s much vaunted credentials have no force or authority.
Much of Selected Letters chronicles the conflicted, misdirected, and gossipy character of the members of the Agape Lodge, and Germer’s hand wringing concerning the machinations of various members, as well as the financial difficulties that Germer and others faced in keeping the lodge running, funding an ambitious publishing program of Crowley’s works, as well as Crowley’s ongoing ill health and constant demands for money and the need to finance the education of Crowley’s only son, Aleister Ataturk, after Crowley’s death in 1947, when Ataturk was only ten. Agape Lodge was also under police investigation, and Germer himself had his phone line tapped and his activities monitored by the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover, as a result of which he had to change his address frequently. Nevertheless, for those willing to spend the time wading through the banal superficies of the lives of its subjects, Selected Letters provides an interesting and even valuable glimpse into a group of occultists who were sincerely trying to work out the practice of the Law of Thelema, individually and communally, through a period that included Germer’s spending time in two Nazi concentration camps, World War II, Crowley’s retirement to Netherwood and eventual death, the closure of Agape Lodge and thus the end of the O.T.O. in the outer, the FBI’s ongoing surveillance of Germer himself, and the violent death of Jack Parsons, head of the Agape Lodge, in an industrial accident at his home that (it was speculated) might actually have been suicide or murder, as well as a serious accident suffered by Germer himself, the senility and death of Jane Wolfe, and finally Germer’s own death in October 1962, just four months after a particularly nasty exchange of letters between Germer and the Brazilian Marcelo Ramos Motta, described by Martin Starr as “paranoid” and “psychotic.” Germer also mentions film maker Kenneth Anger, whose Crowley-influenced avant-garde films are still highly regarded.
The spiritual life of the Thelemites seemed to revolve around astrology, sex, the evocation of elementals, dream interpretation, and a rather strange occult experiment, obliquely referred to by Germer in his letters, initiated by Jack Parsons, who was fascinated by witchcraft and Voodoo, to incarnate a fourth-dimensional being known as a “moonchild,” punctuated by frequent “magical attacks” by “demonic” forces hostile to Thelema. Parsons, who was a rocket scientist and a founder of M.I.T., and who was honoured after his death by having a crater on the moon named after him (on the “dark side” of course), would preface every rocket launch with an invocation of Pan, the Greek god of chaos. Germer also discusses The Comment, Crowley’s last revealed “holy book,” in which the study and discussion of the Book of the Law is prohibited upon pain of shunning, insisting that the violation of this dictum would lead to catastrophe, but then in other letters both he and others freely quote and discuss the meaning of various passages in the Book – interestingly, I counted 31 violations, all subsequent to Crowley’s death, for which Germer and others should have been shunned – McMurtry too, who discusses the Book of the Law in a radio interview with Margot Adler! The superficially absurd and self-contradictory Comment has always been a bugaboo for Thelemites, since you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t: “That blasted Book is so terribly dangerous and tests its students a thousand times, in a thousand subtle ways; ‘deeper and deeper’ do its demons that run with it try to seduce the few worthy with every manner or means to bring them to fall.”
In fact, shunning appears to have been used in the Agape Lodge as a means of control, especially in the matter of Charles Stansfeld Jones and Wilfred T. Smith, without much success it appears. As noted by Israel Regardie, ego inflation, paranoid ideation, or psychotic delusions are not uncommon amongst those who undertake the Great Work in Crowley’s system. Many members seemed to adhere to a fairly literal, exoteric, fundamentalist view of the Book of the Law along Social Darwinian lines, a point of view that was very popular between the wars, before the rise of Nazism revealed just where that view leads. Jane Wolfe even suggested to Germer that the Judaeo-fascist scribbler, Ayn Rand, was a Thelemite and even sent her a copy of the Book of the Law, which must have given the arch rationalist materialist Rand a big laugh!
Germer gives some valuable information concerning his own spiritual work in the A∴A∴. According to his own account, he attained to the Knowledge and Conversation (K. & C.) of his “Holy Guardian Angel” (H.G.A.) in 1927, after visiting Crowley at the Abbey of Thelema in 1926; the grade of Exempt Adept in 1931; the Babe of the Abyss in 1935; and recognition as a Master of the Temple by Crowley in 1938 (not on his death bed as reported by someone decades ago). Strangely, however, Germer only realized he had attained the H.G.A. in 1946 or 1947, when Crowley reminded him in a letter that he was a Master of the Temple! It is unclear to me whether Germer went through the grades of the A∴A∴ in the regular way, since he frequently declares how limited and inexperienced he is in several important tasks of the lower grades, including astral projection, proper to the grade of Zelator; Qabalah and geomancy, proper to the grade of Practicus; and ritual, proper to the grade of Dominus Liminis. He also says he has no experience of or expertise in meditation, whereas meditation is fundamental to the work of the Outer Order, especially Zelator through Dominus Liminis.
Germer’s main spiritual practice appears to have been the memorization and daily recitation of the Holy Books of Thelema, which he also practised in Esterwegen concentration camp. Germer constantly emphasizes his limitations, including his slowness, dullness, lack of intelligence, imagination, etc., and appears in the letters as something of a fundamentalist exotericist, even a theist! He seems to take Crowley’s description of the “Holy Guardian Angel” in Magick Without Tears as a completely objective being literally, and refers to him hanging around the aspirant, rather like a spirit or a ghost, and communicating with him by various means, ranging from subtle to gross, according to the capacity of his charge, despite the rather clear declaration in Liber LXV, III, 64: “ Glorious, glorious, glorious art Thou, O my lover supernal, O Self of myself.” Taking a page out of Crowley’s playbook, he even compares the K. & C. to sodomy! Interestingly, Germer also said that the Beast 666 is not dead, but continued to communicate with him and his wife, Sascha, as the lord of the planetary initiation called by Thelemites the Aeon of Horus!
Unfortunately, the foregoing state of affairs seems to have been typical of the Agape Lodge, the Californian chapter of the O.T.O. and the sole surviving O.T.O. group after World War II. Agape was eventually disbanded by Germer in 1949 until it was revived without proper authorization by Grady Louis McMurtry in 1969. Interestingly, Germer describes McMurtry as self-indulgent, bourgeois, and complacent, even hinting that he was being controlled by demonic forces, noting that “I have grave doubts about his magico-spiritual status, and am wondering whether he can be ‘saved.’ … He has a long way to go, I’m afraid.” This does not sound like approval to me, without which McMurtry’s much vaunted credentials have no force or authority.
Much of Selected Letters chronicles the conflicted, misdirected, and gossipy character of the members of the Agape Lodge, and Germer’s hand wringing concerning the machinations of various members, as well as the financial difficulties that Germer and others faced in keeping the lodge running, funding an ambitious publishing program of Crowley’s works, as well as Crowley’s ongoing ill health and constant demands for money and the need to finance the education of Crowley’s only son, Aleister Ataturk, after Crowley’s death in 1947, when Ataturk was only ten. Agape Lodge was also under police investigation, and Germer himself had his phone line tapped and his activities monitored by the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover, as a result of which he had to change his address frequently. Nevertheless, for those willing to spend the time wading through the banal superficies of the lives of its subjects, Selected Letters provides an interesting and even valuable glimpse into a group of occultists who were sincerely trying to work out the practice of the Law of Thelema, individually and communally, through a period that included Germer’s spending time in two Nazi concentration camps, World War II, Crowley’s retirement to Netherwood and eventual death, the closure of Agape Lodge and thus the end of the O.T.O. in the outer, the FBI’s ongoing surveillance of Germer himself, and the violent death of Jack Parsons, head of the Agape Lodge, in an industrial accident at his home that (it was speculated) might actually have been suicide or murder, as well as a serious accident suffered by Germer himself, the senility and death of Jane Wolfe, and finally Germer’s own death in October 1962, just four months after a particularly nasty exchange of letters between Germer and the Brazilian Marcelo Ramos Motta, described by Martin Starr as “paranoid” and “psychotic.” Germer also mentions film maker Kenneth Anger, whose Crowley-influenced avant-garde films are still highly regarded.
The spiritual life of the Thelemites seemed to revolve around astrology, sex, the evocation of elementals, dream interpretation, and a rather strange occult experiment, obliquely referred to by Germer in his letters, initiated by Jack Parsons, who was fascinated by witchcraft and Voodoo, to incarnate a fourth-dimensional being known as a “moonchild,” punctuated by frequent “magical attacks” by “demonic” forces hostile to Thelema. Parsons, who was a rocket scientist and a founder of M.I.T., and who was honoured after his death by having a crater on the moon named after him (on the “dark side” of course), would preface every rocket launch with an invocation of Pan, the Greek god of chaos. Germer also discusses The Comment, Crowley’s last revealed “holy book,” in which the study and discussion of the Book of the Law is prohibited upon pain of shunning, insisting that the violation of this dictum would lead to catastrophe, but then in other letters both he and others freely quote and discuss the meaning of various passages in the Book – interestingly, I counted 31 violations, all subsequent to Crowley’s death, for which Germer and others should have been shunned – McMurtry too, who discusses the Book of the Law in a radio interview with Margot Adler! The superficially absurd and self-contradictory Comment has always been a bugaboo for Thelemites, since you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t: “That blasted Book is so terribly dangerous and tests its students a thousand times, in a thousand subtle ways; ‘deeper and deeper’ do its demons that run with it try to seduce the few worthy with every manner or means to bring them to fall.”
In fact, shunning appears to have been used in the Agape Lodge as a means of control, especially in the matter of Charles Stansfeld Jones and Wilfred T. Smith, without much success it appears. As noted by Israel Regardie, ego inflation, paranoid ideation, or psychotic delusions are not uncommon amongst those who undertake the Great Work in Crowley’s system. Many members seemed to adhere to a fairly literal, exoteric, fundamentalist view of the Book of the Law along Social Darwinian lines, a point of view that was very popular between the wars, before the rise of Nazism revealed just where that view leads. Jane Wolfe even suggested to Germer that the Judaeo-fascist scribbler, Ayn Rand, was a Thelemite and even sent her a copy of the Book of the Law, which must have given the arch rationalist materialist Rand a big laugh!
Germer gives some valuable information concerning his own spiritual work in the A∴A∴. According to his own account, he attained to the Knowledge and Conversation (K. & C.) of his “Holy Guardian Angel” (H.G.A.) in 1927, after visiting Crowley at the Abbey of Thelema in 1926; the grade of Exempt Adept in 1931; the Babe of the Abyss in 1935; and recognition as a Master of the Temple by Crowley in 1938 (not on his death bed as reported by someone decades ago). Strangely, however, Germer only realized he had attained the H.G.A. in 1946 or 1947, when Crowley reminded him in a letter that he was a Master of the Temple! It is unclear to me whether Germer went through the grades of the A∴A∴ in the regular way, since he frequently declares how limited and inexperienced he is in several important tasks of the lower grades, including astral projection, proper to the grade of Zelator; Qabalah and geomancy, proper to the grade of Practicus; and ritual, proper to the grade of Dominus Liminis. He also says he has no experience of or expertise in meditation, whereas meditation is fundamental to the work of the Outer Order, especially Zelator through Dominus Liminis.
Germer’s main spiritual practice appears to have been the memorization and daily recitation of the Holy Books of Thelema, which he also practised in Esterwegen concentration camp. Germer constantly emphasizes his limitations, including his slowness, dullness, lack of intelligence, imagination, etc., and appears in the letters as something of a fundamentalist exotericist, even a theist! He seems to take Crowley’s description of the “Holy Guardian Angel” in Magick Without Tears as a completely objective being literally, and refers to him hanging around the aspirant, rather like a spirit or a ghost, and communicating with him by various means, ranging from subtle to gross, according to the capacity of his charge, despite the rather clear declaration in Liber LXV, III, 64: “ Glorious, glorious, glorious art Thou, O my lover supernal, O Self of myself.” Taking a page out of Crowley’s playbook, he even compares the K. & C. to sodomy! Interestingly, Germer also said that the Beast 666 is not dead, but continued to communicate with him and his wife, Sascha, as the lord of the planetary initiation called by Thelemites the Aeon of Horus!
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