Katon Shual & Expulsion From Typhonian Oto

I posted an old review of Kenneth Grant's Ninth Arch - which was fairly positive and has been widely circulated elsewhere, which prompted Jhon to ask whether I was ever a member. I was a member for some years until my expulsion in early 1980s Jhon : Yes that is what I thought, maybe I was reading the wrong review, but from your review of The Ninth Arch, one would not suppose that you were. Were you also involved in The Brotherhood of Set ? Many of the articles on their (tribute) page are written by you, that is why I ask. I have read of the details concerning your expulsion and heard other peoples sides, if you are willing I am very interested to hear yours also. If you are willing to share please write me personally through here. Yesterday at 9:14pm Mogg: I'd be interested to know about the Brotherhood of Set* - lost touch with them years back and if its the same thing i remember - if you have url would be fun. But yes i dont think i have ever been hostile to typhonian current or KG - although cant always say the feeling is mutual : ) I'd be interested to know what's in the rumour mill anyways will copy this to a note and add some more . . . It's difficult to be precise as to the reasons for my expulsion - it was all a bit irregular that's why I'm interested to know the rumours. At the time I thought it was maybe I was a bit too radical a person for what turned out to be quite conservative organisations. BTW the Typhonian OTO seems recently to have changed its badge to "The Typhonian Order" - in order to avoid the clutches of its litigious "sister" - but that's another story and sadly quite common drama amongst small esoteric groups. But OK I'm reminded that the ostensive reason was tied with a "catholic" thelemic fanzine called Nuit Isis that I founded with a couple of mates. We were one of first to publish some of P R Koenig's early research. Actually, looking at it, (Nuit Isis first issue) maybe it isn't PRKoenig but someone called Fr Zaedoz* - the problem would be that it shows Grady McMurtry, Kenneth Grant, Joseph Metzger and Marcello Motta as direct successors from Karl Germer although McMurtry position is indicated as more central or mainstream. There is a caveat that the interesting details of the flowchart are for discussion only. We knew it would be controversial but were trying to stimulate debate about issues that weren't that well known back then, not in UK anyways. Subsequent research has shown pretty conclusively that Marcello Motta was Germer's primary choice as successor - and most of the others were persona non grata as far as he was concerned. KG got a bit annoyed about this flow chart of Thelemic lineages that he felt undermined his position as _undisputed_ head of the OTO. Wow how differently things have come to look since then and he has embraced PRKoenig as some sort of savour, principally because Koenig has been so hostile to the revived American "Caliphate" (post McMurtry). At the time KG just couldn’t see it and "ordered" us to publish something by way of a retraction - in fact a long diatribe about how the Typhonian came from Atlantis etc etc - not in any way a clear refutation of the offending "flowchart". We did publish a short

extract from a longer piece appearing in the first issue of a new magazine called Starfire - basically it says: "In 1955 another English occultist, Kenneth Grant, assumed leadership of the Order, dissolving its masonic structure, although not its masonic affiliations and realigned it with the Stella(r) Wisdom Tradition that originally infused it." (NI No 2). Ironically the second issue of Starfire (the then official organ of the OTO) did use the "controversy" to try to argue for KGs supremacy although little of what was said is relevant now. Even so it was the kind of article we would have be hoping to publish in our independent fanzine - but the editors preferred to snipe at us instead. I guess many nowadays would be happy with the kind of status quo alluded to in offending flowchart. Thinking back I have to remind myself that back in the early 1980s, a magazine like Nuit Isis was an attempt to build bridges – thus I took a more Typhonian perspective and other editors came at it from a different OTO affiliations. Same with the Thelemic Symposium, the idea was to represent all points of view, included those who weren’t aligned or weren’t interested in Orders etc. I’m not sure if this idea was ever put to Kenneth Grant or other “senior” members of the Typhonian OTO. They just knew I was a member of their Order and assumed they could order me to “represent” their view and no other. I have to say that since then things have become even more sectarian. So the wheels rolled on and given that it wasn't possible at the time to find anyone of sufficient seniority to countersign my expulsion in UK they asked American OHO Jeff Evans to rubber stamp it, which he did even though he didn’t really know me or the background. Think he may also have gone his own way now. Recently I began to wonder if maybe I got caught in the crossfire between Kenneth Grant & AMOOKOS? Like many at the time back in the early 1980s I was partly turned on to AMOOKOS by the stuff in KGs “Aleister Crowley & the Hidden God”. Mike Magee was at the time the most adept and senior member of the Typhonian but he also found a new vocation in AMOOKOS. Perhaps some of the things said at the time caused some bad feeling and KG and his loyal lieutenants were on a witchhunt looking for “disloyalty”? *The Brotherhood of Set - As I remember they were a more libertarian alternative to the Temple of Set. The Brotherhood focussed more on the gender varient/ambigious anarchistic elements within the Sethian mythos - something that I'd channelled a little of back in 1988 with material in the book "Sexual Magick". There are maybe aspects of this interpretation of the sexual gnosis that may also have put me out of step with the then Typhonian interpretation - and the book was rarely mentioned in those circles. *Fr Zaedoz, Zardox etc (1954-2008) was at around this time also expelled from the American OTO, allegedly for leading them into a possible copyright infringement brought by some of its celebrity members unhappy about his publication of a rare piece of musick, the unused Jimmy Page soundtrack for Kenneth Anger’s film “Lucifer Rising”.