Tell Me Why I'm Still in the OTO: My Memoirs of Being in Ordo Templi Orientis Between 1993 and 1996

With Tell Me Why I'm Still in the OTO, J. Edward Cornelius continues his much-needed memoir series about being a member of Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). Rather than leaving Thelemic history to be told by propagandists who obfuscate facts and mutate their stories as needed, Cornelius writes as one of the few movers-and-shakers in OTO who also kept good records! These Memoirs cover the period from 1993 to 1996, the years directly following the period of 1989 to 1993 which are detailed in his previous volume, The Changing of the Guard. The volume discloses that the Bay Area problems are not rooted in the man of Earth degrees as it seemed during the time period covered in the previous volume. Rather, it is coming from within the Fifth Degree ranks, most of whom Bill Breeze has appointed. In so many ways, Breeze gutted Grady's OTO after he took over and he rapidly appointed Fifths to make up the newly formed Electoral College. Breeze handed out Rose Croix charters regardless whether the recipients had demonstrated that they understood the secrets of the degree.All in all, Tell Me Why I'm Still in the OTO is J. Edward remembering a time in the Order's history in which the new leadership was working hard to project a squeaky-clean, Masonic image and to establish worldwide domination of Thelema (both OTO and A.'.A.'.). The bulk of the Order's efforts were spent on the façade, little on the quality of the interactions, rituals, and relationships of its members. It was a time when, if you didn't conform, you were expelled or pushed out of the Order. Finally, J. Edward also learned that Bill Breeze and others did not know the truth behind the Caliphate and why Aleister Crowley created it, nor did they know that Grady Louis McMurtry had signed the original OTO Charter as a Magus 9=2 and so they discarded the title of Caliph from the OTO. At this point J. Edward began examining Scriven's leadership under microscope, and the image wasn't good.