Marcelo Ramos Motta - Sociedade Ordo Templi Orientis no Brasil (original) (raw)
Sociedade Novo Aeon
Fundação A.·. A.·. e O.T.O.
Euclydes Lacerda de Almeida
Oséas Saturnino de Almeida
William Robert Barden, Daniel Ben Stone, Claudia Canuto de Menezes, David L. Bersson
By Peter-R. Koenig
The situation in Brazil is a good example of the confusion that the application of Crowley's Law of Thelema leaves in its wake. How can Freemasonry, the O.T.O., and the A.·. A.·. be combined? How is it that members of the A.·. A.·. can apparently work together in harmony, yet the very same people are at daggers drawn in their capacity as O.T.O. members? One reason might be because ordinary Freemasonry initiates physically, the O.T.O. to initiate the soul, while the A.·. A.·. is the supreme spiritual initiation.
In Brazil, Arnoldo Krumm-Heller's direct successor Duval Ernani de Paula (who was also a "comendador e chefe da Igreja Gnostica") expunged most of the Thelemic references from the Fraternitas Rosicruciana Antiqua (F.R.A.) version of the Gnostic Mass in 1960; this was why Marcelo Ramos Motta, who had been a member of the F.R.A. since August 19 1948, began founding Thelemic groups, and made contact with Karl Germer.
Euclydes Lacerda de Almeida was one of Motta's earliest disciples (from 1961) but when there was a coup in Brazil in 1964, and the military established a dictatorship in the country, Motta was a cadet at the Military Academy in Rio de Janeiro — and all occult activity had to come to a stop. Lacerda only managed to get back in touch with Motta in 1969, and the two eventually set up a small O.T.O. group called the 'Sociedade Novo Aeon' — it was founded in 1974, and legally incorporated as an association in 1975.
[From Noch Mehr Materialien Zum O.T.O.]
Read Motta's letter to Lacerda dated 1973.
Euclydes Lacerda de Almeida
Emails from Lacerda.
Lacerda was raised to the office of X° of the O.T.O. in Brazil on November 3 1974, but shortly afterwards Motta suspended him from the O.T.O. for five years. During Lacerda's brief reign as X°, Motta had started another O.T.O. group called FAAOTO (Fundação A.·. A.·. e O.T.O.) together with Oséas Saturnino de Almeida at São Paulo in 1975. In 1978, Kenneth Grant of the English 'Typhonian' O.T.O. chartered Lacerda with the VII° of that group, and later furnished him with a 'Typhonian' IX° in 1989 (which was actually a confirmation of the IX° Lacerda had received from Motta on March 25 1974).
[From Noch Mehr Materialien Zum O.T.O.]
In 1979, the FAAOTO died with Saturnino, and eventually Motta founded yet another group, called the 'Nuit Lodge of the O.T.O.' Motta's 'Sociedade Ordo Templi Orientis no Brasil' was a legally incorporated association, and also registered the O.T.O. lamen as a trade-mark in Brazil.
[From Materialien zum O.T.O.]
Marcelo Ramos Motta
[Colored with AI]
The rival claims by Grady Louis McMurty and Marcelo Ramos Motta for leadership of the (American) O.T.O. ended in a court case and as a result McMurtry rid himself of Motta and his claims to be the Outer Head of the Order (OHO).
A detailed overview of the dispute with the 'Caliphate' can be found in the History of a Whitewash.
Lawyers, Historians and the 'Caliphate'.
Background information by one Goat of Mendes and others.
The opportunists from Motta's entourage immediately sided with their former opponent. From now on, they form the hard core in the 'Caliphate' and its Argenteum Astrum, which shows what a good nose Motta had in the selection of his thelemites.
[From Materialien zum O.T.O.]
On the night of August 26-27 1987, Motta died of "mycordial infarction and pulmonary oedema". He was buried in the city of Petropolis, which is in a hilly region near Rio de Janeiro; his bones were interred in an ossuary underneath a Roman Catholic chapel in the cemetery there.
Pics provided by Gregory von Seewald.
His Last Will and Testament (dated October 15 1984) named William Robert Barden, Claudia Canuto de Menezes, and Daniel Ben Stone as his heirs with responsibility for continuing his version of the O.T.O.
[From Noch Mehr Materialien Zum O.T.O.]
Motta's death caused a number of schisms. In December 1987 de Menezes parted company from both Barden and from Stone.
[From Noch Mehr Materialien Zum O.T.O.]
Stone was accused of having dug up Motta’s corpse and eventually having cremated it. [“Stone told me, at around 8.00 am on Friday, 18th September, in my hotel room, that he had violated the grave of Frater Parzival,” Barden to Paulo Roberto Manini, 20.1.1988. Barden to Stone, 28.2.88: “You have defiled the grave of our Master and Holy Guru [...] you are a liar, a slanderer, and a thief. You are a wealthy bully, an intriguer, a spy, and a coward. You are a Seckler, a Symonds, a Wasserman, a McMurtry, and a Grant.” Bardon in ‘Mezlim’ III,3, November 1991, p. 51: “My hatred for him was incredible.”
On the other hand, Stone had kept hold of Motta’s archive without consulting Canuto or Barden, and left a handwritten note (dated 17th September, 1978) in Motta’s empty house, which was found a day later by a surprised and infuriated Barden. Barden, in turn, expelled Stone (on 28th February, 1988) for his refusal to furnish details of Motta’s bank accounts. Bardon then established the ‘Foundation Parzival XI°’ in Australia for raising funds to produce publications by and for those associated with both the S.O.T.O. and the A.·. A.·.. [Founded on 12 August 1987, based on Article 18 of the S.O.T.O.’s Constitution. Bardon needed $50,000 to sue Stone.]
This annoyed the local ‘Caliphate’ membership to no end and they immediately sought to persecute Barden with the help of an attorney — but nothing came of it.
It is said that Barden died in early 2004.
Another former follower of Motta, and Claudia Canuto de Menezes' boyfriend, one David L. Bersson signed his first 'Oath and Task' in Motta's AA on January 14 1974, and his first S.O.T.O. 'Letter Patent' on Sepember 12 1977.
[From Noch Mehr Materialien Zum O.T.O.]
[Colored with AI]
Rubian (friend of David Bersson), "the first black woman on earth to accept the Law of Thelema"
[From Noch Mehr Materialien Zum O.T.O.]
Mr. Bersson stated in an e-mail of March 2000 that: "In conversation to me, and a few others, Marcelo Motta stated that the only successor that was worthy of following him was Claudia Canuto. And as you know, she withdrew into the silence. She never officially resigned from the Society O.T.O., however. But she left, never to be heard of again, stating she wanted to go live her own life. I am honest to say this, that I was never at any time considered for the succession from Marcelo Motta. Therefore, I can only do what I am presently doing. Exist as a lineage of AA and O.T.O. from my Superior. I certainly am one of the followers of Marcelo Motta as a pupil in good standing at the time of Mr. Motta death. But I have never claimed to be THE follower. He did name me for certain position(s) within the Order but this would turn out to be only a spiritual claim. How I am accepted with other brethren in my lineage isn't the question to are asking at all."
Meanwhile, an American Motta disciple called Ray Eales (b. 1953, in Texas) was concentrating his efforts on Motta’s A.·. A.·. (now active as H.O.O.R. group in the U.S. and the now independent "Gnostic Church of L.V.X"). [H.O.O.R. is a sort of outer temple to Motta’s Order of Thelema. David Bersson: “Mr. Marcelo Ramos Motta heir in the A.·. A.·. & O.T.O. is either Myself or Mr. Ray Eales. You are not permitted to know which or if We are both the heir,” letter dated 6 February 1992.]
It is notable that many within the leading circles in the 'Caliphate' variation of an O.T.O. were once pupils of Marcelo Ramos Motta. Even today, Motta's original X° appointee Euclydes is viewed as the "Senior Brother in the A.·. A.·." by many 'Caliphate' adherents. But Lacerda has now severed his links with every O.T.O. group (including the 'Typhonian' O.T.O.), since he considers the O.T.O. to be redundant, and is now the leader of his OTCT Thelemic Knight Templar Order, which uses Motta's rituals.
"I, Euclydes Lacerda da Almeida [...] on this eleventh day of September 1996, officially and forever disconnect myself from the so called Ordo Templi Orientis, in all its branches existing in the world, and, therefore, all patents and any other documents issued and signed by me, with reference to the order, until today, become null and void." [translated]
Euclydes Lacerda de Almeida has provided more than 280 documents for publication. A few are displayed here: Documentos 1966-1997.
He passed away on 24 June 2010.
© P.R. Koenig
This is an outline from the English "O.T.O. Rituals and Sexmagick" (1999). Translated by Mark Parry-Maddocks.
See also the Collection of 36 Re-Collections with more details.
| Marcelo Ramos Motta speaks about the O.T.O. rituals, about the A.·. A.·. and Kenneth Grant; in Portuguese, approx. 1973 (circa 620 KB). |  |
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