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Thelema Groups

To: thelema93-l@bitsy.hollyfeld.org
From: Bill Heidrick 
Subject: Re: Thelema Groups
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 10:56:19 -0800 (PST)

93,

> OTB Knights of Baphomet

This was conceived on car trip from Salt Lake City to Berkeley in the late
1970's by R.S. as an honor guard for OTO Caliph Hymenaeus Alpha.
Fr. H.A. started it off in my temple/library in San Anselmo by knighting
a couple of OTO members with my sword, on R.S.'s suggestion.  Some others
joined, notably Rusty Sporor who pretty much ran the thing after R.S went
back to Edmonton.  For a while it did ok; but Rusty took a sabbatical and
J.Harris, former ToS member and OTO member, took over most of the
correspondence.  Janice was murdered by an unknown assailant in LA, when
she went out to her car to go to work in the morning -- apparently a
random act, since no information has surfaced about the perpetrator.
OTB pretty much faded out in the early 1980's.  Rusty came back from his
sabbatical in 1984 e.v. and resumed direction of OTB.  In part due to
Rusty's and other OTB members' travels to do OTO initiations around the
world, OTB became wide-spread in the USA and Europe, including Eastern
Europe.  He contributed a regular column to the _Magical Link_, extolling
knightly virtue and the OTB.  In time, I began noticing reports of OTB
membership appearing in OTO initiation report booklets, necessitating
an occasional letter back to advise the people making the report that
OTB was not a matter of record for OTO Grand Lodge.  Later, instances
of OTB members in Europe demanding precidence at OTO occasions started
to come in, culminating in an instance of one OTB member in former Yugoslavia
making personal demands of obedience on other OTO members, including
sexual and financal favors.  He was also known for excessive claims related
to A.'.A.'. and rank in OTO, so that problem wasn't exclusively OTB in
nature.  OTO cut away OTB formal relations in consequence of these problems,
and I have heard little of it since Rusty's greater feast in 1993 e.v.
Although Rusty and Janice as well as others in OTB had done a very fine
job for OTO and separately with OTB, the severing of relations between
OTO and OTB effectively eliminated the original purpose of the latter.
It is still functioning on some level, but I know nothing else about the
present day OTB, assuming it is doing anything beyond conferring the
occasional additional set of initials to stick after an OTO degree.
I don't know if non OTO members were or are admitted to OTB.

93 93/93
Bill Heidrick, TG OTO

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