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his obsessive dislike of Breeze and the Caliphate, the letter did show up on his site, and
thus far has not said how he obtained either the image he posted or the original letter.
When I emailed him asking for further information all I got back was a rather unhelpful
response saying “if it is not on my website then it is not for release” followed by one of
those stupid smiley faces.
Another idea is that there was indeed such a letter, and Frieda Harris saw it but did
not have access to it, and so created a forgery. It might be interesting to compare her
handwriting with the supposed succession letter. Whether Grant has had possession of
this letter all along and only recently decided to test the water with it anonymously is
perhaps one of those things that time will reveal. The other alternative is that the letter
is perfectly genuine, and Crowley in his last days did in fact make Grant oho. For all
the criticism Grant receives for “perverting” Thelema and “polluting” it with Lovecraft
mythos occultism, he has at least spent the time since Crowley’s death engaged in
magical exploration, which is more than can be said for the Caliphate oto. [See Alan
Moore’s article “Beyond our Ken” in the Review section for a fond appreciation of
Kenneth Grant’s contribution to the world of occultism—Ed]
Ben Fernee, the Caliphate OTO, and the “Black
Magus of Manchester” affair
Ben Fernee made public his expulsion from the Caliphate oto in the spring of 1999 for
supposedly selling the Order’s secrets. Fernee, as a secondhand book dealer specialising
in occult books, had put together a book list announcing a number of rare Crowley
items from a private collection. Three items were singled out for special attention by
Bill Heidrick and Soror Helena of the Caliphate Supreme Council: a handwritten
variant by Crowley of De Natura Deorum (a secret sex magick instruction of the seventh
degree) significantly different from that found in Francis King’s Secret Rituals of the
OTO and in the original manuscript at the Warburg; Koenig’s book How to Make Your
Own OTO; and an early typescript version of the fourth degree (Lodge of Perfection)
with a handwritten note by Gerald Yorke saying this version of the ritual was abandoned
because of objections from freemasons that it was too close to their own Royal Arch
rite. On that last item, incidentally, it might be noted that the penalty in the published
4° ritual—“having my skull sawn off and my brains exposed to the searing rays of the
Sun”—is a direct rip-off from freemasonry. It is the explanation of the symbolism of
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