BY BRO. ELLICHOWE AND PROF. HELMUT MOLLER (GOTTINGEN)AQC (16 February1978)
1. PREFACE
Albert Karl Theodor Reuss (June 28, 1855 – October 28, 1923) was an Anglo-German tantric occultist, freemason and head of Ordo Templi Orientis.IN ORDER TOintroduce Theodor Reuss we can do no better than to quote what his erstwhile but nowdisillusioned friend August Weinholtz wrote about him in the French masonic periodical L’Acaciain 1907:
This man’s cleverness and extraordinary activities, his sophistries, his knowledge oflanguages, his ability to play no matter what role, make him a real international menace.In some respects he reminds one of Cagliostro, themost brilliant of all masonic charlatans, who successfully contrived to dupe hiscontemporaries … Reuss uses more up to date methods to make people believe in his connections with powerful masonic bodies and, in accordance with the spirit of our age,places sexuality in the foreground … From a journalistic point of view Reuss is ratheran interesting figure.In him we encounter the kind of adventurer portrayed by 17th- and 18th-century writers. But he is a child of our time and socialconditions. What is lamentable is that at thethreshold of the 20th century it is necessary for the Masonic world to be warned anewagainst a Cagliostro, also that there are men who publicly dare to defend such a person.[1]
Itis necessary to explain why the authors of this paper decided to investigate Reuss.In relation to the history of ideas we have bothspecialized in the study of so-called ‘underground movements’, i.e. the multifarious sectswhich have proliferated in Europe since the era of the Renaissance.In the case of Reuss we were aware that he hadbeen active as a promoter of irregular or pseudo-masonic rites in Germany during the early1900s, also that vestigial survivals of some of his foundations still exist today inGermany, Switzerland, Great Britain and the United States of America.Reuss, however, cannot be easily fitted into anyof the sectarian patterns with which we have become increasingly familiar.His fields of activity were so varied that wecannot identify him as a typical promoter of irregular masonic rites, typical member ofrevolutionary socialist circles (in London during the 1880s), typical concert promoter,Prussian police spy, journalist, occultist, protagonist of women’s liberation, gnostic
‘Bishop’ and so on.
There would be no veryurgent reason for spending time examining Reuss’s career except for the fact that thereare a fair number of references to his activities in Masonic literature and that many ofthem are inaccurate, so a biographical sketch may not be superfluous.It remains to add that the text printed below is aconsideration of a book-length preliminary study and many details have been omitted.
2. EARLYYEARS, 1855-85
Albert KarlTheodor Reuss, the son of Franz Xaver Reuss, an inn-keeper, was born at Augsburg on 28June 1855. He was educated locally andattended a school which equipped youngsters for modest careers in commerce.For a period after 1872 (at. 17) he was possiblyemployed in a druggist’s shop.He was inLondon three months after his 21st birthday in 1876 and was initiated on 8 November 1876in the Pilgrim Lodge No. 238.Its memberswere of exclusively German origin and, then as now, it worked in the German language.According to the minute book he was a‘businessman from Augsburg’.
He was passed to the degree of Fellow Craft on 8 May 1877 andraised on 9 January 1878.No furtherattendances at lodge meetings are recorded and he ceased to be a member on 1 October 1880when he was excluded, probably because he had not paid his subscription.It is possible that he had been proposed formembership by Heinrich Klein, a dealer in sheet music at 3 High Holbom, who had become ajoining member in 1872 and was Director of Ceremonies in 1872-3.He was to become involved in Reuss’s later masonicactivities.
In his youthReuss must have had a reasonably good bass voice.Heclaimed to have met Richard Wagner for the first time in 1873 (at. 18)[2].He was a professional singer, mainly in Germany, during the early 1880s.He claimed to have taken part in Angelo Neumann’sEnglish tour in 1882 and to have sung the role of the god Donner in Das Rheingold and tohave subsequently performed at Amsterdam, Munich and Quedlinburg.Reuss wrote that he began his career under theauspices of the late Richard Wagner, who selected him while still a student to take partin the first performance of Parsifal at Bayreuth [in 1882]’.[3] He may have sung in the chorus. He was in London again early in 1885 and active both as asinger and a journalist. He now appears on acurious political stage.
3.MEMEBERSHIP OFTHE SOCIALIST LEAGUE[4]
William Morristogether with Edward Avering and his common law wife Eleanor (Karl Marx’s daughter“Tussy’) broke away from the Social Democratic Federation after a quarrel with H. M.Hyndman at the end of 1884 and founded the Socialist League.This was fifteen years before Keir Hardie and J.Ramsay Macdonald founded the Independent Labour Party. The League was in contact with anumber of emigre German social democrats, anarchists and communists who had found asylumin London from the unwelcome attentions of the Prussian political police, Reuss, who usedthe pseudonym Charles Theodore, joined the Socialist League soon after he arrived inLondon in February or March 1885.He gainedadmittance by falsely stating that he was a member of the International Workers’ EducationAssociation, and to the latter by claiming that he was already a member of the SocialistLeague.In the Socialist League he wasforthwith appointed ‘Lessons Secretary’ and in that capacity taught the German comradesEnglish. Thus he cultivated the acquaintance of men who were deeply involved in theactivitlc of extreme left-wing groups. He had close contacts with professed anarchists.
The latter, with their connections with colleagues in Belgium who smuggled subversiveliterature and explosives into Germany, were naturally of particular interest to thePrussian political police.
Later, when Reusswas no longer active in the Socialist League milieu, individuals who had encountered himin 1885-6 recorded their recollections of him.MaxNettlau, for instance, recalled his ‘harsh voice and hasty, pushing manner’; Josef Peukertcharacterized him as ‘a platonic socialist, like so many liberal bourgeois’, while VictorDave wrote that he ‘appeared to enjoy a sort of half-digested bourgeois culture’.Another remembered that ‘in the opinion of ‘mostof the comrades he was a rich chap who had a lot of money and wasn’t stingy when he wasasked to support revolutionary propaganda’.Reusssaid that his money was provided by a well-endowed wife. While he may have married in London in 1885 nothing is known about the lady. Many years later it emerged that she bore him ason. With hindsight, many of his formersocialist and anarchist connections had come to the conclusion that he was an unreliableperson.
During 1885-6 hecombined his activities in the Socialist League and International Workers’ Associationwith his career as a singer. According to apublicity leaflet which he had printed in 1885 he appeared at a concert given by theLiterary and Artistic Society at which he sang arias from the Magic Flute. He also sang at a Ballad and Operatic Concert atthe St James’s Hall and the Musical Review critic predicted that he would have ‘a goodcareer in this country’. Tussey Aveling, on the other hand , had a low opinion of his artistic taste and complained bitterlyabout the vulgarity of the songs sung at a Socialist League concert which Reuss hadorganized.[5]
His journalisticcareer may have begun in 1885. The editor of the Suddeutsche Presse at Munich wroteto him on 3 November to say that he would soon publish his ‘interesting and clear articleabout the state of the English political parties’ and would gratefully accept furthercontributions.[6]
If the MusicalReview critic’s assessment of Reuss’s prospects in England was sanguine, his optimism wasnot shared by the colleague who reported on a recital given by Reuss and his friend MadameSanderini at the Kurhaus at Aachen on 15 May 1886. Reuss’sadvance publicity had identified him as ‘the famous conductor of the Popular WagnerConcerts and basso at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London’.The local critic referred to his flat-sounding voice, his over-confidetnentrance and his peeved expression ‘which seemed to express his unfulfilled expectation offat financial receipts’.The writer advisedhim to seek his further fortune on the other side of the English Channel.Madame Sanderini’s voice was described as beingpast its best. His conclusion was that ‘the pair have little hope of enhancing thereputation of Her Majesty’s Theatre in Germany’.[7]
When Reuss was inLondon again a few days later he learned that, at a meeting of the Socialist League heldduring his absence,he had been expelled fromthe League on the grounds that he had ‘furnished information to a foreign government andthe bourgeois press’. In other words, it was supposed that he was working for the Prussianpolitical police. In this context the evidence against him was never better thancirc*mstantial and the present writers cannot prove that he was a police spy.On 5 October 1887 the London Evening Newspublished an article by him on the machinations of London anarchist circles which can onlyhave confirmed suspicions which were already current.On 7 January 1888 William Morris printed an extensive list of allegedPrussian police spies in The Commonweal.Reusswas described as ‘now Bismarck’s political agent on the Central News of London;contributor to the Suddeutsche Presse at Munich and the Berliner Zeitung atBerlin.’
When Reussrealized that the quality of his voice would not qualify him to pursue a career as asinger he turned to a combination of journalism and managerial and publicity activities inthe theatrical and operatic worlds in order to earn a living.He seems to have remained in London until 1889when he moved to Berlin in his capacity as the Central News agency’s representative there.This connection lasted until 1897. He alsorepresented the London Daily Chronicle at Berlin.However,he was in London from time to time.Forinstance in 1891 he devised and produced the ‘Germania’ feature at the Earls CourtExhibition.This involved tableaux vivantsillustrating scenes from German history and required a cast of six hundred and a hundredanimals.He was present in a journalisticcapacity at the Chicago International Exhibition in 1894, covered the Bayreuth Wagnerseason for the United Press in 1896 and was a regular chronicler of the festivals whichwere held at Friedrichsruh in celebration of Bismarck’s birthday after 1894.He reported on the Imperial Manoeuvres for anumber of years after 1896 and in the spring of 1897 went to Greece and Turkey on behalfof the Berlin Das Kleine journal to report on the current hostilities between thosecountries.Thus on 23 February 1898 theBavarian Minister in Berlin wrote to inform him that H.R.H. the Prince Regent of Bavariahad no objection to his accepting and wearing the ‘silver war medal awarded to you by HisMajesty the Sultan as a memento of the Turkish Greek campaign’.In 1902 Reuss described himself as a ‘Knight ofthe Imperial Ottoman Medjidie Order.'[8]
Reuss’s firstknown literary production was published in 1887. This was an eight-page pamphlet with thetitle The Matrimonial Question from an Anarchistic Point of View[9].According to Reuss: ‘With the reorganisation of society, with the social revolution, withthe establishment of communism, which we advocate, woman will be really free and man’ssocial equal.’ More than half of this brief text consists of a literal translation from achapter in Max Nordau’s The Conventional Lies of our Civilisation, which was arecent best-seller in Germany.
While we know afair amount about Reuss’s life between November 1876, when he was initiated in the PilgrimLodge, and his encounter with Leopold Engel in Berlin in 1895 to which we shallimmediately refer, there is no evidence which points to any interest in Freemasonry duringthat period of close on twenty years.
4. CONTACTSWITH OCCULTISM
An article byReuss on ‘Pranatherapie’ will be found in the June 1894 issue of the occult periodical Sphinx.It was published under the pseudonym TheodorRegens.In it he described how he had curedan old lady’s insomnia by applying his hands to her head.The article’s title suggests a familiarity with Theosophical terminology.In 1914 he told A. E. Waite that he had knownHelena Petrovna Blavatsky well and had once held high office in the German branch of theTheosophical Society[10].Again, in his pot-boiler Was ist Okkultismusund wie erlangt man okkulte Krafte? (What is Occultism and how does one developoccult powers?), published under the pseudonym Hans Merlin at Berlin in 1903, hereferred to his friendship with Madame Blavatsky and mentioned that he had been present ata memorial ceremony at her house in Avenue Road a few days after her death in May 1891[11].As an ‘occultist’ Reuss seems to have been mainly interested in yoga and the theoretical-connections between certain chakras (nerve centres) and sexuality.
At this timeduring the mid-1890s he was meeting various people who were preoccupied with variousaspects of occultism.They were all to becomeinvolved in his later masonic operations.Oneof them was Dr Karl Kellner (1850-1905), an Austrian paper chemist and industrialist whohad profitably exploited a number of patents connected with paper-making processes.He was one of the few contemporary Europeans witha detailed knowledge of yoga theories and techniques and in 1896 distributed aprivately-printed paper on ‘Yoga: a summary of its psycho-physiological connections’to those who attended the Third International Congress for Psychology held at Munich in1896[12].
Reuss regardedKellner as an Adept and in the 1912 (jubilee) number of Oriflamme wrote:
In the course ofhis many and extensive travels in Europe, America and the Near East, Bro.Kellner came into contact with an organisationwhich called itself ‘The Hermetic Brotherhood of Light’.The stimulus which he received through his association with this body, aswell as other circ*mstances which cannot be mentioned here, gave rise to Bro.Kellner’s wish to found a sort of ‘AcademiaMasonics’ which would make it possible for questing brethren to become acquainted with allthe existing Masonic degrees and systems.Inthe year 1895 Bro.Kellner had longdiscussions with Bro. Reuss in Berlin about how this idea of his could be realised.In the course of talks with Bro.Reuss he abandoned the proposed title ‘AcademiaMasonics’ and produced reasons and documents for the adoption of the name ‘OrientalTemplars’.At that time in 1895 thesedeliberations did not lead to any positive result because Bro. Reuss was then busy withhis revived Order of the Illuminati and Bro. Kellner had no sympathy for this organisationor for the people who were active in it with Bro. Kellner.
So there was DrKellner wanting to found ‘a sort of “Academia Masonics” ‘. According to the onlypublished record of his alleged membership of the Craft he was initiated in the HumanitasLodge at Neuhausl in Austria.Recentenquiries have revealed that this lodge cannot be traced.He called himself ‘Herr Doktor Kellner’ but we have not been able toestablish when and where he obtained his doctorate.Noacademic title is mentioned in the Osterreichisches Biographisches Lexikon,1815-1950 (1965).
In our opinion itwould be a waste of time to try to investigate the importance or otherwise of the HermeticBrotherhood of Light.Nor is it greatlysignificant that Reuss claimed to have talked about ‘Oriental Templars’ as early as 1895.However, we must take note of the fact that he was‘then busy with his revived Order of the Illuminati’, also that Dr Kellner had no use forthe Order or the people who were then associated with Reuss.
Adam Weishaupt’soriginal Order of the Illuminati – it was not masonic although it infiltrated Freemasonry– had been banned in Bavaria in 1784. Reussclaimed in 1914 that he had actually revived the Order at Munich in 1880 but nothing isknown about this[13]. Now we discover that he was repeating theexperiment at Berlin in 1895. There are nocontemporary documents but we can identify three of Reuss’s contemporary associates:August Weinholtz, Max Rahn and Leopold Engel. Allof them were occultists and according to Reuss, it was Engel whom Dr Kellner particularlydisliked.
Weinboltz andRahn were both at Berlin; Engel lived at Dresden.Rahnhad a job at the Borse (stock exchange) and Weinholtz owned a business which suppliedequipment for horse-drawn carriages. Engelwas an itinerant actor who practiced hypnotism and alleged naturopathic healing on theside.
In 1896 they wereprominent members of the Verband Deutscher Okkultisten (League of German Occultists).Rahn and Engel were its joint secretaries andWeinholtz its treasurer[14].Rahn and Weinholtz were respectively the editorand publisher of the periodical Die Ubersinnliche Welt (The Supernatural World)which was mainly concerned with alleged psychic phenomena, animal magnetism and similarsubjects.In his turn Leopold Engel editedand published a tedious little periodical, Das Wort (No. I, 1894), which reflectedits proprietor’s vague esoteric preoccupations.Finally,in 1897-8 Rahn and Engel edited and published an ‘International Directory of Seekersafter Truth’ for the benefit of the occult fraternity.
5. LEOPOLDENGEL
Leopold Engel wasborn at St Petersburg on 19 April 1858. Hisfather, Karl Dietrich Engel (1824-1913) was a violinist and in 1846 became Konzertmeister(leader) of the orchestra of the Imperial Russian Theatre.When he returned to Germany he eventually settled at Dresden and wroteextensively on the Faust legend. More importantly in the present context he was a followerof Jakob Lorber (1800-64), also a musician, who ‘heard voices’ and accordingly producedhis own Gospel according to St. John in ten volumes and similar inspirational works by aprocess of automatic writing.In 1891 LeopoldEngel heard an inner voice which commanded him to go to his desk and write and accordinglyrecorded the text of an eleventh volume. Manyyears later (in 1922) he was to commemorate his own father’s utterances from beyond thegrave but forty-four pages rather than eleven volumes were sufficient for this purpose[15].
6. THE REVIVALOF THE ORDER OF THE ILLUMINATI IN 1895
Reuss claimedthat he first met Leopold Engel in 1895, the year in which he revived his Order of theIlluminati at Berlin, and that Engel joined the Order on 9 November 1896.But then ‘in 1897 Engel founded his own Order ofthe Illuminati at Dresden but it was united with my Order in 1899′[16].
It is unlikely that the Reuss-Engel ‘Illuminati’ managed to recruit many members so inorder to make the Order more attractive its chiefs resolved to give it a masoniccomplexion.With the exception of Reuss thereis no evidence that any of those concerned had ever been initiated in a regularfreemasons’ lodge.Indeed, Reuss himself doesnot appear to have been involved in any regular Masonic activity since he had joined thePilgrim Lodge in London in 1876.
Thus on 12 March1901 ‘the Illuminati Theodor Reuss, Leopold Engel, August Weinholtz, Max Rahn and SiegmundMiller, who were joined by Max Heilbronner and Georg Gierloff ‘ met at Reuss’s home in theBelle Alliancestrasse at Berlin ‘and resolved to re-open the (Ludwig) Lodge which had beenfounded at Munich in 1880′[17].
According to the minutes the dormant Ludwig Lodge was ‘ancient and accepted’, which infersan ignorance of Masonic terminology.In anyevent, whatever the Ludwig Lodge at Munich may or may not have been, it was certainlynever regular.The following officers werethen unanimously elected.
Master:
TheodorReuss (‘initiated in the Pilgrim Lodge, London, on 9 November 1876’).
Senior Warden:
August Weinholtz (‘of Germania Lodge No. I’ which cannot be identified in Bro.
Ernst-Gunther Geppert’s Stammbuch der Freimaurer-Logen Deutschlands 1737-1972 (1974)).
Junior Warden:
Max Rahn.
Senior Deacon:
Leopold Engel (‘Orient St Petersburg’! Since Engel appears to have returned from Russia
when Leopold was still a boy this was an extraordinary claim.In 1914 Reuss claimed that he himself made Leopold
Engel a freemason).
Junior Deacon.-
Georg Gierloff (Reuss’s future brother-in-law. He married Gierloff’s sister a few months
later).
Treasurer: Max
Heilbronner (described as ‘Orient Paris’, whatever that may mean).
Since it appearednecessary to have a warrant the brethren had one printed by Seydel & Co., at Berlin.It was issued by the Order of the Illuminati andreferred to the Order’s specific authority to form masonic lodges.Reuss was now accorded the sole right to found andconsecrate masonic lodges according to the Order’s ‘lodge regulations’.All masonic documents were to be signed and sealedat the Order’s office at Dresden. For someunknown reason this document was backdated to 1 January 1900.
There was yetanother warrant or its equivalent.Accordingto Leopold Engel it had been given to Adam Weishaupt when the latter was at Regensburg on19 November 1786 by ‘the Prince of Rose-Croix Bro.Louis-GabrielLebauche of Bazeille, near Sedan.It hadalways been in the possession of Illuminati and is now in the custody of the LudwigLodge.'[18]
The foundation ofthe Ludwig Lodge was duly announced in the Rahn-Weinholtz periodical Die UbersinnlicheWelt, where it was stated that ‘the Order of the Illuminati founds and warrantsmasonic lodges. However, only master masonscan be accepted in the high degrees or found freemasons’ lodges…. The Order has closeconnections with Freemasons in France, England, and America.’ It was also emphasized thatthe lodge was masonically regular and worked a recognized ritual based upon an old andgenuine English exemplar. Apart from thethree craft degrees, there was also a fourth St Andrew’s degree.’Master Masons who are in possession of the StAndrew’s degree and wish to pursue occult studies can be received into the Rosicruciandegree . . .’
The brethren soonbegan to hear objections that the Ludwig Lodge was nothing more than an offshoot of theOrder of the Illuminati and not masonic’.Asolution was easily found.On 3 July 1901 thelodge ceased to have any official connection with the Order.[19]
In the meantimeReuss had fished around and netted some additional lodges so that by the end of 1901 inadditional to the Ludwig Lodge his new ‘Obedience’ included:
Adam zur Weisheit
(Dresden)
Phonix zur
Wahreit (Hamburg)
Zur hellen
Morgenrote (Kattowirz.)
Zur aufbluhenden
Rose der Bestandigkeit (Zittau)
Katharine zum
stehenden Lowen (Rudolstadt)
None of them wasrecognized by any of the regular German Grand Lodges.The Hamburg and Kattowitz lodges had previously been affiliated to theAllgemeine Burgerloge at Berlin.The latterwas a ‘pseudo Grand Lodge’ operated at Berlin by O. Hemfler, a bookseller who sold masonicpins and badges to the gullible. Some of the ABL lodges only had one or two members.[20]
7. REUSS ANDTHE RITE OF SWEDENBORG
Reuss soonrealized that the Grosse Freimaurer Loge fur Deutschland would never be recognized by theold-established German Grand Lodges.However,it was supposed that the new Grand Lodge’s position would be stronger if it could claimaffiliation with a masonic body which was not considered as irregular.The necessary link was contrived in a curiouslyoblique manner.At an unknown date in 1901 helearned that Dr Gerard Encausse who, under the pseudonym ‘Papus’, was the most prominentFrench occultist, had received permission from England to work the Rite of Swedenborg inFrance. Encausse was the head of theMartinist Order which was not masonic.Norwas he a regular freemason. Indeed the French masonic authorities regarded him withsuspicion.
Encausse’sauthority to establish the Rite of Swedenborg in France derived from John Yarker(1833-1913) of Manchester, who had imported it from Canada in 1876[21].It has been generally supposed that Yarker conducted his various masonic enterprises – ofthese the Antient and Primitive Rite of Memphis and Misraim was the most notorious – forhis own financial benefit.The availableinformation suggests that this theory is incorrect.Hewas merely an irascible eccentric who liked to run his own show.The United Grand Lodge of England could hardlyobject if he chose to call himself Grand Master of this or that because he was carefulnever to infringe the latter’s exclusive control of the Craft and Royal Arch degrees.
The Rite ofSwedenborg with six degrees – the first three were never worked in any EnglishSwedenborgian lodge – had never been popular in England.A year after Yarker received his Canadian warrant in 1876 there were tenlodges and two more were established in 1879.LodgeNo. 13 (‘Eri’) was founded at Limerick in 1886. Therewere no further developments until c. 1900 when Yarker gave Encausse permission to foundI.N.R.I. Lodge No. 14 at Paris.The inferenceis that Encausse had told Yarker that he was not a Grand Orient freemason but had failedto reveal that he had never been regularly initiated.
Reuss knew about Encausse’s Swedenborgian venture and wrote to him to ask for further information.In due course Encausse replied in an undatedletter and told his T.’.C.’.F.’. (Tres Cher Frere) that he had been in touch with the‘Messieurs’ of the Swedenborgian Rite with regard to ‘representation in Berlin’.He advised Reuss to write in English to Dr WilliamWynn Westcott, the moribund Rite’s Supreme Grand Secretary[22]. (A. E. Waite remarked inhis ‘Annus Mirabilis Redivivus’ MS. diary on 10 October 1902 that Westcott ‘is a man whomyou may ask by chance concerning some almost nameless Rite and it will prove very shortlythat he is either its British custodian or the holder of some high office therein’).
So Reuss wrote toWestcott and in due course became aware that, apart from controlling the Rite ofSwedenborg, Yarker was also Sovereign Grand Master of the combined Rites of Memphis andMisraim, also of the Cernau ‘Scottish’ Rite of 33 degree. As far as Reuss was concernedthese were a great deal more attractive than the Rite of Swedenborg because if he couldget hold of them he would be able to offer ‘high grade’ Freemasonry, which was unknown inGermany. He asked Westcott to apply to Yarkerfor a warrant for Memphis & Mismaim, etc., but Westcott was unwilling to cooperate. While the Rites were tolerated in England themasonic establishment and, in particular, the Supreme Council 33 degree of the Ancient andAccepted Rite, regarded them as unwelcome aberrations. However, he was willing to help Reuss as far as the ostensibly innocuousRite of Swedenborg was concerned.
Reuss went toLondon in December 1901 and saw Westcott, whom he had already met in Theosophical Societycircles a decade earlier[23]. Westcott wrote to him on 31 January 1902: ‘I am incorrespondence with Bro. Yarker G[rand] Master on your subject and will get you what youwant from him if possible soon’ – meaning a warrant for the Rite of Swedenborg. However, there was a snag: ‘Some of your GermanMasons are hostile: some German Masonic journalist is trying to attack you and suggeststhat you want to “make Masons clandestinely” – that is underhand – he haswritten to an Official of the Grand Lodge of England for information.’
Anticipating thereceipt of the Swedenborgian warrant Reuss and his friends thereupon dissolved the GrosseFreimaurer Loge von Deutschland because they had prospectively no further use for it. TheLudwig Lodge now became the ‘Grand Mother Lodge Ludwig’.Westcott wroteagain on 14 February 1902 and implied that Yarker would allow Reuss to form a Swedenborglodge, the Holy Grail No.15, at Berlin. Bro. Yarker is entirely within his rights to give you, a known Master Mason of England, aWarrant for a Lodge but hesitates to give authority for 6 Lodges, which your [Masonicperiodical] Latomia says are not regular”[24]. I had got his permission tomake a Prov.Grd. Lodge of Germania for you,but now he hesitates – because he does not want to have half the German Masonic worldcondemning him – as half the English one would condemn him for the A(ntient) &P(rimitive) Rite.
A copy of thewarrant, in Westcott’s handwriting, dated 21 February 1902, indicates that Reuss was nowauthorized to found the Swedenborg Lodge of the Holy Grail No. 15 at Berlin, ‘and to foundsubordinate Lodges at his discretion’.Accordingto the warrant: ‘The following “Swedenborgian Lodges” in Germania to includeapproved Master Masons are now desirable for constitution’.In addition to ‘Ludwig im O[rient] Berlin’ he listed the five lodges whichReuss had already ‘captured’ and added that they were ‘accepted under the guarantee ofBro.Theodor Reuss’.
Reuss wasProvincial Grand Master and most of the ‘Illuminati’ already mentioned (but not Max Rahn)were appointed Grand Officers.
For good measureon 24 February, 1902 Westcott also authorized Reuss to form a High Council in Germania ofthe Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, with Reuss as its Magus and Engel as Magus DelegatusPrimus.The S.R. in Germania never had morethan a handful of members and the High Council in London declared it extinct on 11 July1907.
Reuss and Engelfinally parted company during the summer of 1902. On3 July, according to Reuss, the officers of the Grand Mother Lodge Ludwig resolved toexpel Engel and his friend Siegmund Miller on account of certain alleged misdemeanours andthey were accordingly banished[25].
In 1906 Engelbitterly recalled his earlier association with Reuss who, he wrote, had falsely claimedthat he possessed the necessary authority to revive the Order of the Illuminati and statedthat he had already recruited an impressive number of worthy individuals. According to Engel it was all a sham, ‘because allthat was available was what second-hand booksellers could provide’ and the worthy individuals only existed on paper[26]. The Order of the Illuminaticontinued to exist under Engel’s direction and in due course developed its own irregularMasonic affiliations.
Reuss’speriodical Oriflamme commenced publication, initially as a monthly, with the issuedated January 1902 although it cannot have been published until a month later.According to its subtitle it was then the ‘Organof the German High-grade Freemasons of the Swedenborg Rite and the Order of theRosicrucians’, i.e. the Societas Rosicruciana in Germania.The majority of the articles printed in Oriflamme are completelywithout interest but it is a useful although seldom complete source of information aboutReuss’s activities.
8. REUSS ANDTHE RITE OF MEMPHIS AND MISRAIN
Reuss soonrealized that the Rite of Swedenborg would not be a success in Germany, probably becausethe rituals for its three higher degrees created as little interest as they had in Englandduring the 1870s.Alternatively, they werenever translated or worked.As a ProvincialGrand Master of the Rite he was now able to deal with Yarker without using Westcott as anintermediary and during the summer of 1902 applied to him for a warrant for the Rite ofMemphis and Mismaim.
The Rite of emphis and Mismaim was but one item in the extraordinary collection of rites upon whichYarker metaphorically sat at Manchester.Memphisand Mismaim already had a long and chequered history in France and the before Yarkeracquired it from a doubtful American source in 1872.In the November 1884 issue of his periodical The Kneph he announcedthat he had just obtained ‘the authority of the Cernau Councils of the Ancient andAccepted Rite’.This news can hardly havepleased the Supreme Council 33 degree[27].
Yarker waswilling to give Reuss a warrant for the Antient and Primitive Rite of Memphis and Mismaim,also for the Cerneau (New York, 1807) version of the Ancient and Accepted Rite.In connection with his prospective ‘high grade’operation Reuss recruited two gentlemen who had not previously been associated with hismasonic manoeuvres in Germany. They were hisold friend Heinrich Klein and Dr Franz Hartmann.Inorder to give them the necessary status in or about September 1902 Yarker appointed all three of them to high office in his Sovereign Sanctuary, the body which ostensibly controlled all the variegated high-grade rites in his possession.The warrant, dated 24 September, followedimmediately.It authorized Reuss (asSovereign Grand Master General), Hartmann (as Grand Administrator General) and Klein (asGrand Keeper of the Golden Book) to establish a Sovereign Sanctuary in Berlin and, indeed,to do a great many other things.
According toReuss in the December 1902 issue of Oriflanime: ‘Thus the Sovereign Sanctuary for theGerman Reich [i.e. for the M & M Rite] and the Grand Orient in Germany [i.e. for theCerneau 33º Rite] is entitled to found, accept and consecrate Masonic lodges in the wholeof Germany and to work the collective degrees from the first (1 degree) to the last, thedegree of Grand Inspector General (33º – 95º), and to accept candidates (i.e. forinitiation] and advance them.’ The important factor was that Reuss now claimed authorityto initiate freemasons and work the craft degrees in Germany.As might be expected the German Grand Lodges whowere members of the Grosslogenbund (Union of Grand Lodges) did not recognize either Reussor his rites.
Reuss took theobligation as Grand Master General at a ceremony held at Berlin on 11 November 1902. Once again there was one of those changes ofcourse which make this story so confusing. Heannounced that the Grand Mother Lodge Ludwig and its handful of associated Swedenborgianlodges had now ceased to exist. The newSovereign Sanctuary proceeded to found new lodges but these were simply the successors of the old ones. At Berlin, however, the LodgeZur siegenden Sonne was the former Ludwig Lodge under a new name.
Reuss was alsoable to report that the Sovereign Sanctuary had already exchanged representatives withvarious Sovereign Sanctuaries, Grand Orients, etc., in Italy, Spain, Rumania and theArgentine.A few months later he was able toadd Cuba and Egypt to the list.Needless tosay, none of these bodies exchanged representatives with the United Grand Lodge of Englandor the German Grand Lodges.In this contextwe encounter a curious ‘Memphis and Misraim’ underworld.
According to theSovereign Sanctuary’s Constitution, published in Oriflamme (December 1902), itscraft lodges were to use the Pilgrim Lodge’s by-laws and the ‘Hamburg (Schroeder) ritualas adopted by the Pilgrim Lodge in 1852’.
It would be anexaggeration to suggest that there was a rush of applicants for Reuss’s motley collectionof high degrees.A year after the receipt ofYarker’s warrant the total membership of the Sovereign Sanctuary’s lodges and chaptersamounted to no more than 132 brethren[28].However, at least a few of them were members oflodges which belonged to recognized German jurisdictions.Thus when August Weinholtz went to Dr Robert Gross’s thermal establishmentat Bad Finneck as ‘Director of the Baths’ in the autumn of 1903, a certain Bro.Uhlmann, who had been initiated thirty yearsearlier in the Lodge Zur den drei Kleeblattern (Grosse Landesloge) acted as Deputy Masterof the Lodge Zur siegenden Sonne.Dr. phil.Gustav Diercks, who was a member of a ‘ThreeGlobes’ lodge, was briefly the Sovereign Sanctuary’s Grand Secretary General for ForeignCorrespondence in 1903-4[29].
The list of theSovereign Sanctuary’s Grand Officers, published in Oriflamme, December 1902,identifies the people who were then associated with Grand Master General Reuss:
Deputy GrandCommander General: Bro. Franz Hartmann, Privatgelehrter [‘private scholar’], proprietor ofthe Ligno-sulphite works at Hallein, temporarily at Villa Maria, Florence'[30].Hartmann was one of the most prolific writers of his generation on Theosophy, magic, andoccultism.
Grand KeeperGeneral of the Golden Book: Bro.Henry Klein,Proprietor of the Polyphon [gramophone] Works at Leipzig and London. (According to theLondon P.O. Directory for 1904 Henry Klein & Co., of 84 Oxford Street, were ‘musicalinstrument makers, dealers and repairers; suppliers of polyphons, phonographs and allkinds of talking machines, organettes, billiard tables.’)
Grand ExpertGeneral: Bro. Robert Gross, physician and proprietor of the Stahlbad Finneck. (He wasformerly a member of the Order of the Illuminati and a founder member of the Ludwig Lodge,Berlin in 1901.He was above all anoccultist.)[31]
Grand Director ofCeremonies General: Br. Rudolf Barth, director of the municipal gas works at Rudolstadt.
Grand Treasurer
General: Bro.Max Heilbronner (he was theproprietor of an antiquarian bookshop (‘by Royal Appointment’) at Berlin with a branch inParis).Formerly a member of the Order of theIlluminati and a founder member of the Ludwig Lodge at Berlin.
Grand Chancellor
General: Bro.Reinhold Augsburg, a businessmanat Berlin.
GrandRepresentative General: Bro.August Weinholtz (see above) and Bro.Franz Held, director ofthe Pomril factory at Hamburg and master of the Lodge Phonix zur Wahrheit there.
Whether there wasalready an ‘Inner Occult Circle’ at this time is not known, although it existed in 1905.Nevertheless the Sovereign Sanctuary had anofficial Patron in the person of Reuss’s friend Dr Karl Kellner, who was a dedicated occultist.
9.THE REGULARIZATION OF THE GROSSE FREIMAURER LOGE VON DEUTSCHLAND (GRAND FREEMASONS’ LODGEOF GERMANY) IN 1904
It was typical ofReuss’s persuasiveness that in the spring of 1904 he was able to stage-manage the allegedregularization of an unrecognized masonic body which had a far larger membership than hisown. This was the Grosse Freimaurer Loge vonDeutschland which had about thirty daughter lodges and 700 members. Its headquarters wereat Leipzig[32].
The GFLvD had itsorigins in the irregular Allgemeine Burgerloge which was founded at Berlin in 1896.A number of ABL lodges broke away in April 1899and founded an independent ABL at Leipzig. Thelatter, with twenty-one lodges, changed its name to the Matthai Logenbund in July 1900.There was another change of title in July 1903when the MLB became the GFLvD.By 1904 itsaims and the work of its lodges appears to have been regular in everything but name.
In 1914 A. P.Eberhardt, the GFLvD’s Grand Master, explained why he and his colleagues had approachedReuss. There had been frequent resignationsby individuals who had realized that they were not ‘proper freemasons’. Reuss offered asolution. For a fee of 800 Marks on 12 May 1904 he’rectified’ the Grosse Freimaurer Logevon Deutschland and twenty-nine daughter lodges with 702 members and declared them to be‘regular’.A week later he wrote to theGrosslogenbund to the effect that the Sovereign Sanctuary and Grand Orient of the UnitedScottish and Memphis and Misraim Rites in Germany now included thirty-five craft lodgesand 845 members. This communication did notattract even an acknowledgment. However, asimple mathematical calculation indicates that Reuss’s masonic empire had previouslyconsisted of six lodges with a total of 143 members.
10. THE OCCULTCIRCLE AND DR KELLNER’S DEATH
In 1904 Reusspublished a 32-page pamphlet with the title Historische Ausgabe der Oriflamme (‘HistoricalEdition of the Oriflamme’).It wasaddressed to ‘all who want to learn the truth and real facts of Masonic historicalresearch’.His intention was to demonstratethe historical authenticity of his collection of rites on the basis of documentaryevidence. We now learn of a direct connectionwith the original Knights Templer. In thiscontext, according to Reuss, no documents could be published because the initiated werewell aware that Masonic bodies which cultivated the Templer and Rosicrucian traditions hadbeen forbidden to make written records.’Proofsof our connection with the Templers are available,’ he wrote, ‘but they are not of adocumentary nature.They are onlycommunicated to the initiated.’ Finally: ‘Our Order not only provided the opportunity foracquiring a knowledge of all existing Masonic systems but also of the secret knowledge andcults of all ages.’ He included an article on ‘the Secrets of the Occult High Degrees ofour Order’ but did not reveal anything.
The fact thatthere was an inner occult group was announced in the November 1904 issue of Oriflamme.
Tothe Pupils of the Occult Circle
Our belovedleader Frater Karl Kellner is severely ill and hopes for his recovery are small. All the Fratres of the Occult Circle are thusasked to unite with us in their daily meditations in the wish that our leader will on thisearthly plane! AUM! Vienna, 4 November 1904 E.V.
TheInner TriangleIn March 1905 itwas reported that Dr. Kellner was in Egypt and that his convalescence was progressingsatisfactorily. However, he died at Vienna on7 June. According to the certificate, hisdeath was due to blood poisoning but his medical advisers could not establish what causedit. Later various lurid rumours about hisillness and death were circulated, e.g. that in the course of his arcane occult exerciseshe had attracted malignant forces[33]. Dr. Franz Hartmann succeededhim as Honorary Grand Master General in October 1905.
11. CRACKS INTHE FABRIC OF THE SOVEREIGN SANCTUARY
In August 1905Reuss intended to go to London and remain there for an apparently indefinite period. In the event, his departure was delayed until 8January 1906[34].In view of his impending absence a number of important decisions were taken at anExtraordinary General Meeting of ‘Sovereign Sanctuary of the Order of Ancient TemplarFreemasons of the Scottish, Memphis and Misraim Rites for the German Reich’ held at Berlinon 27 August 1905. The designation ‘Templar’now appears for the first time in connection with Reuss’s activities.
The main outlinesof the scheme of reorganization arranged in August 1905 were roughly as follows. The Sovereign Sanctuary (i.e. Reuss) was toreceive specific fees for granting the ‘high degrees’ but otherwise the day to day runningof the Order was to be delegated to the Grand Orient of the Ancient and Accepted ScottishRite which had its headquarters at Hamburg and the Symbolical Grand Lodge of the ScottishRite for Germany at Leipzig. The latter wasthe former Grosse Freimaurer Loge von Deutschland which Reuss had rectified in 1904.
The Hamburgorganization, with Franz Held as Grand Commander General, had two subsidiary GrandCouncils: one at Hamburg under Held and another at Munich under Maximilian Dotzler.The Hamburg Grand Orient was granted virtualautonomy as far as the control of four chapters and seven craft lodges were concerned.The Sovereign Sanctuary (i.e. Reuss) no longerreceived a capitation fee but was to charge 40 Marks for an individual member’s first‘high degree’ certificate and 10 Marks for all subsequent certificates up to 300.The ratification of these new arrangements wasmade conditional upon the Hamburg and Munich branches’ refunding certain funds which hadpreviously been advanced by Reuss.
However, theMunich members refused to pay the 2,079 Marks which Reuss claimed was due to him. Furthermore, the heads of the Grand Councils atHamburg and Munich (Franz Held and Maximilian Dotzler) were at loggerheads. The Hamburg branch dissolved itself in December1905 (only four months after it was formed).Manyof its members found their way into regular lodges under the Obediences of the Grand Lodgeof Hamburg and the ‘Old Prussian’ Grosse Landesloge at Berlin.Their path in the direction of regularity had beendistinctly tortuous.
In the course ofwinding up his affairs in Germany Reuss also had to deal with an unpleasant financialproblem at Munich. When the SovereignSanctuary met at Berlin on 25 September 1904 it was briefly reported that a certain Bro.Hugo Hoffman had made the Order a gift of some real estate at Munich.No further information about this generous actionwas published until a year later. Reuss wasin Munich on 4-5 September 1905 and discovered that the house which Bro. Hoffmann had sokindly presented was worth 173,000 Marks but saddled with a mortgage which would cost atleast 241,000 Marks to redeem. Thus Reuss wasobliged to take legal action to renounce the gift and avoid paying interest on themortgage.
12. THEEMERGENCE OF THE ORDER OF THE TEMPLE OF THE ORIENT
Reuss moved toLondon in January 1906. He was now employedby the Central Press news agency and appears to have been in charge of its German wireservice. Although he scarcely acknowledgedthe fact in Oriflame it is evident that his masonic operation had been a failure. Furthermore, he had quarrelled with many of hisfollowers. However, in 1906 when his masonicempire had practically ceased to exist he grandiloquently described himself as ‘SovereignGrand Master General ad vitam of the United Orders of the Scottish, Memphis and MismaimFreemasons in and for the German Reich, Sovereign Grand Commander, Absolute GrandSovereign, Sovereign Pontiff, Sovereign Grand Master of the O.T.O. Freemasons, SupremeMagus Soc. Frat. R.C., S I 33º, Termaximus Regens I.O. etc.'[35]
The AbsoluteSovereign Grand Master, was able to publish only two numbers of Oriflamme during1906.Their contents are not of greatinterest although they throw light upon his disputes with his former disciples.They also indicate that he was now anxious toadmit women to Memphis & Misraim, that he was preoccupiedwith ‘sexual yoga’ (for want of a better expression), and that his Order of the Templar ofthe Orient (O.T.O.) would in due course take the place of his other rites.
He issued awarrant for a ‘mixed’ Memphis & Misraim Lodge in the spring of 1906. The recipient was Dr. Rudolf Steiner who had beenSecretary General of the German branch of the Theosophical Society since 1902. Steiner was never a Theosophist in theBlavatsky-Adyar tradition and was already on uneasy terms with Annie Besant. He and many of his followers broke away from theTheosophical Society in 1912 when he founded the subsequently influential AnthroposophicalSociety. According to the announcement in Oriflamme:[36]
Bro. Dr Rudolph Steiner, 33º, 95º, of Berlin and theBrothers and Sisters associated with him have been granted permission to form a Chapterand Grand Council under the title ‘Mystica Aeterna’ in Berlin. Dr Steiner has been appointed Deputy Grand Masterwith jurisdiction over members already received or to be received by him. Sister Marie von Sievers (later Steiner’s wife)has been appointed General Grand Secretary for the Lodges of Adoption.
(In hisposthumous autobiography (The Story of my Life, 1928) Steiner went to great lengths tominimize the significance of his previous connection with Reuss and claimed that ‘thissymbolic-cultural section of the anthroposophical movement came to an end in the middle of1914.’)
In the same issueof Oriflamme he published a letter from Maximilian Dotzler of Munich who abjectlyapologized for slandering him. The extent towhich contemporary readers understood the background is uncertain and Reuss himself didnot offer an explanation until 1914. It isevident that Dotzler was responsible for disseminating an unsavoury legend about Reusswhich was remembered in German and Swiss masonic circles many years later. The gist of the story was that Reuss had shownDotzler a peculiar yoga exercise – according to the widely-known version there was aphallic element – at the Hotel Metropole at Munich in 1906. In 1914 Reuss stated that he had given Dotzler some instructions relating toquite ordinary Hatha yoga techniques in 1903 (and not at Munich at the Hotel Metropole)and that the ‘traditional legend’ was completely untrue.There is no reason to disbelieve this statement.
The same issuecontained a long article by Reuss on ‘The Marriage Question, Sexual Reform and Women’sLodges’.While it might have surprised somecontemporary readers it would hardly cause a raised eyebrow today.The only unusual feature was its publication in aperiodical which was allegedly masonic.
The next issue(July-December 1906) included a lengthy prepublication review under the heading Lingam-Yonior the Mystery of Sexual Religion of Reuss’s latest book.Lingam – Yoni by ‘Pendragon’ (i.e. Reuss) waspublished in 1906 by the Verlag Willsson, Berlin and London.’Willsson’ was Reuss! According to the title-page, its author used ‘old and secret documents of an Order’ but the book was hardly more than atranslation of Phallism: A Description of the Worship of Lingam-Yoni . . . and otherSymbols connected with the Mysteries of Sex Worship, privately printed at London in1889.
We cannotunderstand what induced Reuss to publish this tedious book but suppose that its contentsmay have had some connection with the so-called ‘inner teachings’ of the Order of theTemplars of the Orient. Much connected withthe early history of the O.T.O. is obscure. Reussstated in 1914 that ‘the constitution of the reorganised O.T.O. dates from January 1906’,also that there had been an engraved brass plate with the inscription ‘Sovereign Sanctuaryof the Order of the Templars of the Orient’ outside the street level door of his home inthe Belle Alliancestrasse, Berlin, in December 1905. He also explained (in 1914) that the O.T.O. was Dr. Kellner’s projected‘Academia Masonica’ although the ‘organisation’ never had any connection with Freemasonry[37].It seems unlikely that the O.T.O. was in any sense active as early as 1905-6 and webelieve that it was not effectively launched until 1912 when Aleister Crowley becameinvolved.
The Oriflammedid not appear at all during 1907 but two issues were published in 1908 (January andJuly). The latter contained a report of theInternational Masonic Conference held in Paris on 9 June 1908.It was organized by Dr Gerard Encausse (‘Papus’),who was not even a Grand Orient Freemason. Inthe course of a lengthy discussion, it was established to the satisfaction of those present– they were all of French nationality with the exception of Reuss – that neither theUnited Grand Lodge of England nor the Grand Orient could prove their masonic regularity.Papus & Co. then decided to constitute aSupreme Grand Council and Grand Orient of the Antient and Primitive Rite of Memphis andMisraim in France and happily accepted a warrant supplied by Reuss.
In the meantime, we have lost sight of the Grosse Freimaurer Loge von Deutschland which, having paid 800Marks for its ‘rectification’ in May 1904 had pursued an independent existence. According to its Grand Master, Paul Eberhardt,even then there were some who had their doubts about the authenticity of any warrantsupplied by Reuss and it was decided to achieve an even greater measure of independence. This was effected on 24 June 1905. It involved a further payment of 600 Marks and achange of name.Thus the GFLvD now becamethe Symbolical Grand Lodge of the Scottish Rite in Germany, Orient of Leipzig. On 24 June 1909 Reuss canceled its warrant andtransferred it to a Dr Carl Lauer, of Ludwigshafen am Rhein. After lengthy discussions the former GFLvDliquidated its affairs on 31 March 1911 and many of its members found their way intorecognized German lodges[38].
The contents ofthe 1912 ‘Jubilee edition’ of Oriflamme were almost entirely devoted to the O.T.O.Indeed, it was described as the ‘Official Organ of the Order of the Oriental Templars andthe Sovereign Sanctuary of Ancient Freemasons in Germany’. From this we learn that about 500 members had been recruited in Germany,Austria and Switzerland and that two National Grand Lodges had been constituted ‘ on 1June 1912: one for Great Britain and Ireland and the other for ‘the Slav countries’.The Head of the O.T.O. for England was ‘the MostHoly, Most Illustrious, Most Illuminated, and Most Puissant Baphomet, X degree, Rex SummusSanctissimus 33 degree, 90 degree, 96 degree, Past Grand Master of the United States ofAmerica, Grand Master of Ireland, Iona, etc.’ who could be contacted at 33 Avenue Studios,76 Fulham Road, Kensington, London, SW. TheMost Holy, Illustrious and Illuminated gentleman was none other than Aleister Crowley[39].
Crowley proceededto issue a printed Manifesto of the M.’. M.’.M.’., in which he explained that ‘the M.’. M.’. M.’. (Mysteria Mystica Maxima) isthe name of the British section of the O.T.O.’, also that ‘the O.T.O. is a body ofinitiates in whose hands are concentrated the wisdom and the knowledge of the followingbodies’:
1. The GnosticCatholic Church
2. The Order ofthe Knights of the Holy Ghost
3. The Order ofthe Illuminati
4. The Order ofthe Temple (Knights Templar)
5. The Order ofthe Knights of St John
6. The Order ofthe Knights of Malta
7. The Order ofthe Knights of the Holy Sepulchre
8. The HiddenChurch of the Holy Grail
9. TheRosicrucian Order
10. The HolyOrder of the Rose Croix of Heredom
11. The Order ofthe Holy Royal Arch of Enoch
12. The Antientand Primitive Rite of Masonry (33 degrees)
13. The Rite ofMemphis (97 degrees)
14. The Rite ofMizraim (90 degrees)
15. The Ancientand Accepted Scottish Rite of Masonry (33 degrees)
16. TheSwedenborgian Rite of Masonry
17. The Order ofMartinists
18. The Order ofthe Sat Bhai
19. The HermeticBrotherhood of Light
20. The HermeticOrder of the Golden Dawn, and many other orders of equal merit, if of less fame.
We also read:‘The O.T.O., although an Academia Masonica, is not a Masonic Body so far as the craftdegrees are concerned in the sense in which that expression is usually understood inEngland, and therefore in no way conflicts with, or infringes the just privileges of theUnited Grand Lodge of England.’
Readers of Oriflamme(jubilee edition, 1912) were informed that ‘our Order is not a Masonic order, pure etsimple … but every member of our Order, man or woman … must proceed through the craftdegrees of Freemasonry, also those of high-grade Freemasonry, before they can beilluminated and initiated members of our Order.’
Now comes thegreat revelation: ‘Our Order possesses the KEY which embraces all Masonic and Hermeticsecrets. It relates to sexual magic and thisteaching completely explains all Masonic symbolism and religious teachings.’ Now the cat
was out of the bag!
13. THE FINALDECADE
Reuss left Londonat the last possible moment before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 andimmediately reported for service with the Red Cross at Berlin.After a brief period spent working for GermanCounter-intelligence on the Dutch border he moved to neutral territory at Basle where heworked as a newspaper correspondent and taught English at the local Berlitz School. He was now using a visiting card which described him as A. C. Theodor Reuss, ‘Honorary Professor at the High School for Applied MedicalScience (University of France)'[40]. This center for HigherLearning was probably founded by the egregious Dr. Encausse.
One of thestrangest features of his Swiss period, which lasted for six years, was the organizationof an international ‘Anti-National’ Congress under O.T.O. auspices at Henri Oedenkoven’sextraordinary establishment close to Ascona on Lake Maggiore.’Monte Verita’ had originally been founded duringthe early 1900s as the contemporary equivalent of a vegetarian ‘hippy’ commune and waspatronized by a typical clientele of ‘simple lifers’, Theosophists and others withso-called ‘progressive’ views. The Congresslasted for ten days during August 1917[41]. There is a reference to itin Gottfried zur Beek’s notorious Die Geheimnisse der Weisen von Zion (known in itsEnglish translation as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion) which was an immediatebest-seller when it was first published in Germany in 1919. Its author, whose real name was Muller von Hausen[42],quoted from a letter which Reuss was alleged to have written to an unidentifiedcorrespondent:
My secret aim forthis congress is to bring together land reformers [meaning people interested in ruralcommunal settlements], vegetarians, Theosophists, pacifists … from Spain, Italy,Holland, Russia, France, etc. and convert their hitherto poisonous anti-German sentimentsinto something more fair to Germany . . . The ‘Anti-Nationalist Cooperative Congress’ flagand the draft programme are naturally merely a camouflage… Germany should send twomasonic representatives who are men of the world and know the true (not the orthodox)history of Freemasonry and its secret political working[43].
According toRobert Landmann’s lively (but not always accurate) annals of the ‘Monte Verita’ phenomenon, Reuss’s Congress assumed almost orgiastic qualities. An O.T.O. lodge was founded, there were ‘initiations’ and Reuss pocketed themoney received from the sale of successively higher degrees[44].
In 1918 hepublished his translation of Crowley’s Gnostic Mass. This was issued under O.T.O. auspicesand copies of Ecclesiae Gnosticae Catholicae Canon Missae: Die Gnostische Messe could beobtained from Prof. T. Reuss-Willsson, P.O. Box 15268, Basle. The Professor was identified as the ‘head of theGnostic Neo-Christians and Oriental Templars: Carolus Alberrus Theodorus Peregrinus,Sovereign Patriarch and Primate of the Gnostic Catholic Church, Vicarius Solomonis etCaput Ordinis O.T.O.’ The source of the Patriarch’s ecclesiastical preferment is unknown[45].
In 1919-20 Reussresumed his former ‘masonic’ activities and on 25 May 1919 founded a ‘Swiss Grand Orientfor the Ancient and Accepted Scottish 33 degree Rite (Cerneau, New York 1807)’ at Zurich. Daughter lodges were soon constituted atBellinzona, Bern, Chiasso (two) and Mendrisio. AfterReuss’s departure, some of them were regularized[46].
Reuss was alsoinvolved in the Congress of the International Masonic Federation held at Zurich in July1920. It is unlikely that a single regularfreemason was present. The proceedings appearto have been dominated by the notorious Matthew McBlain Thomson, of Salt Lake City, U.S.A.[47]Two years later he was sentenced to a term of imprisonment for illegally using the U.S.mails for the sale of spurious masonic degrees.Thomsonsubsequently wrote a lively account of his visit to Zurich.It was published in his periodical The Universal Freemason (September 1920):
Ialso met Bro. Reuss – he is a typical German, wanting his own way or spoil things. I found thathe had a patent from Bro. Yarker, empowering him to establish the Rite in Germany,and on the strength of this had been charging a royalty on every candidate entered. He wanted me to endorse this way of doing things,and on my refusing, got mad and said he would allow no Englishman or Scotchman tointerfere with his private affairs. He thenwanted to have two bodies separately in Switzerland recognised as members of theFederation, viz.: The Grand Orient (from which he had been drawing a royalty), and what hewas pleased to call-the Sovereign Sanctuary of the Memphis Rite.As the latter consisted of himself, I said that wecould not recognise any body unless it had a regular organisation.
Reuss took nofurther part in the proceedings after the first day (17 July).The current story was that McBlain Thomson paidhim 3000 Swiss francs to stay away[48].
Reuss refurned toGermany in September 1921 and settled at Munich.Hedied on 28 October 1923. The deathcertificate described him as ‘Professor und Propaganderchef [sic]’.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wishto thank Bro. Fritz Bolle (Munich) for searching through old German masonic periodicalsfor references to Reuss, also Bro.Dr Karl R.H. Frick (Bochum) for supplying a photocopy of Oriflamme, July I914.
[1]L’Acacia,IX, Paris, 1907, pp. 387-8.[2] Hans von Schelling (pseud., i.e. Th.Reuss), Was muss man von Richard Wagner und seinen Tondramen wissen?, Berlin, 1903,p. 73[3] Herr Theodor Reuss: London Season 1885, printed leaflet atInternational Institute for Social History, Amsterdam.This contains the references to Angelo Neumann’s English tour, etc.[4] For Reuss’s membership of the Socialist League andconnection with anarchist circles in London see Andrew R. Carlson, Anarchism in Germany,Vol. I, ‘The Farly ‘Movement’, The Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, New Jersey, 1972; Karl Marx,Friedrich Engels Werke, Vols- 37-39, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, DDR, 1967-9.[5] Chushiki Tsusuki, The Life of Eleanor Marx, 1855-98, ASocialist Tragedy, Oxford, 1967, p. 123.[6] ForReuss’s journalistic career see the facsimile reprint of his four-page summary of testimonials in Vol. II of Lady Queenborough (Edith Starr Miller), Occult Theocracy, privately printed in France in 1933. (Her Ladyship was a disciple of Nesta Webster, the author of Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, 1924, and discovered aJewish-Bolshevik-Freemason under every bed.) For similar material about Reuss’s career as a journalist, etc., see also Oriflamme, July-Dec. 1906.The entries in Kurschners Deutscher Literatur-Kalender from 1895 onwards should also be consulted.[7] Echo der Gegenwart, Aachen, Tuesday 18 May 1886.[8] For all these activities see Lady Queenborough (see note 6above). For his ‘Knighthood’ see Oriflamme,I, 11-12, December 1902, where he also described himself as ‘Chief Editor at Berlin andPress Manager of the Prinz Regenten Theater at Munich’.[9] The only known copy is at the International Institute forSocial History at Amsterdam.The pamphlet waspublished by Henry Seymour, editor of The Anarchist: A Revolutionary Review.[10] A. E. Waite, ‘Ordo R.R. et A.C. The Testimonies of FraterFinem Respice [i.e. Dr R. W. Felkin], Imperator of the Templum Stella Matutina,transcribed in 1915’.Late Golden Dawn MS.in a private collection.[11] Was ist Okkultismus was one of seven or eight short bookswhich Reuss wrote for the Hugo Steinitz Verlag, Berlin, under various pseudonyms between1901 and 1904.They include Br. Peregrinus,Was muss man von der Freimauerei wissen?, 1901 (10th ed. 1931, 36th thousand!).[12] The text was published by J. F. Lehmanns Verlag at Munichin 1896.It was known to William James whor*ferred to it in a footnote on P. 401 of his famous book The Varieties of ReligiousExperience, 1902.[13] SeeOriflamme, July 1914, p. 9, where it is referred to as ‘the masonic lodge Ludwig’.See also Leopold Engel’s periodical Das Wort,January 1902, where he stated that the Ludwig Lodge was founded by ‘master masons and Illuminati’.[14] Seethe announcement in Uriarte: Die Magie des XIX Jahrhunderts als Kunst und als Geheimwissenschaft, 1896, pp. 175-7.[15] SeeIm Jenseits, Kundgabe eines Jenseitigen, Jakob Lorber Verlag, Bietigheim, 1922.[16]SeeOriflamme, July 1914, p. 7.[17] Ibid., pp. 7-10, where there is a reasonably detailedaccount of the contemporary transactions[18]SeeLeopold Engel’s periodical Das Wort, January 1902, P. 37.[19]SeeOriflamme, July 19I4, P. 10.[20] A. P. Eberhardt’s Von den Winkellogen Deutschlands …imletzten Vierteljahrhundert, Leipzig, 1914, provides a detailed account of all thecontemporary irregular German Grand Lodges. See also Bro.Ernst-Gunther Geppert’s useful article ‘Von der Winkelloge zur vollkommenen undgerechten Freimauerei’ in Quatuor-Coronate Hefte, No. 3, January 1966.[21] For the Rite of Swedenborg see Ellic Howe, ‘Fringe Masonryin England, 1870-85’, AQC 85, 1972.[22] Encausse’sletter and Westcott’s contemporary letters toReussare reproduced in facsimile in Lady Queenborough’s Occult Theocracy(see note 6 above). She mentioned that Brigadier R. B.D.Blakeney had supplied these documents.Itseems that MrGerald Yorke acquired them when he purchased F. L. Gardner’s‘GoldenDawn’ collection, which included many Westcott papers,afterGardner’s death.Mr. Yorke told E.H. in c.1969 that helentthe Westcott-Reuss letters to the Brigadier, who failed toreturn them.[23]Forthe source of this statement see note 10 above.[24] Nothingon these lines was published in Latontia in Jan.-Feb.1902.[25]Oriflamme,July 1914, p.10.[26] ”Leopold Engel, Geschichte des Illuminaten-Ordens Berlin,1906, P. 466.[27] “We cannot identify a reliable history (latercombined) Rites of Memphis and Misraim. References to them in Masonic encyclopedias areuntrustworthy because successive compilers have been content to repeat time-honoredresearch in the MS. department at the Bibliotheque Nationale is still necessary.John Yarker published a historical sketch inConstitution and General Statutes of the Sovereign Sanctuary of the Antient and PrimitiveRite of Mason 1875, but did not accurately identify his French sources.See-also J[ean] Bricaud Historiques sur le RiteAncien et Primitif de Memphis-Misraim, 1923, revised edition, Lyons, 1938 (16 pp.).[28]Oriflamme, Sept. 1903, P.83[29]Ibid.,p. 83[30] Thereference to Hartmann’s ‘Ligno-sulphite Works at Hallein isobscure.He supposed that the fumes of thesulphite wood-pulpusedfor papermaking relieved respiratory complaints and operatedsomekind of sanatorium close to Kellner’s industrial undertakingatHallein.Hartmann’s career is brieflydescribed in Ellic
Howe, Urania’sChildren,1967,pp.79-80.
[31] Reuss,who had quarrelled with Gross, later took care toemphasizethat the latter was a doctor juris and not a physician.See Oriflamme,January 1908, p. 1[32] Forthis transaction see Oriflamme, June 1904; and Eberhardt,Winkellogen, op. cit[33] Forthis story the principal source is Jean Pear, Weisse undSchwarzeMagie, C. 1920, P. 95.See also MaximilianDotzler’slongundated letter to Franz Held and Emil Adrianyi in Oriflamme,July-Dec. 1906, pp.58-64[34] Therewere rumours that Reuss had been obliged to leaveGermanyprecipitately because of an impending public scandal.Reussdenied them and provided a detailed account of hismovementsduring the last half of 1905 in Oriflamme, July-Dec.
1906. p 119.
[35]See Oriflamme, July-Dcc. 1906, pp. 49-50[36]Ibid.,Jan.-June 1906, pp 4-5[37]Ibid.,July 1914, pp. 15-16[38]SeeEberhardt, Winkellogen, op cit[39] ForCrowley’s association with Reuss at this time see hisConfessions, editedby John Symonds and Kenneth Grant, 1969[40] SeeM. Kully, Die Wahrheit uber die Theo-Anthroposophie alseine Kultur- Verfallserscheinung, Basle, 1926, pp. 260 ff.[41] TheLaban Archive, Addleston, Surrey, has a copy of theprogramme.[42] Theauthor was Captain Muller von Hausen. In 1925 he initiateda campaign to induce members of the National Union of GermanOfficers who were freemasons to resign from the Craft[43]DieGeheimnisse der Weisen von Zion, p. 165[44] SeeRobert Landmann (i.e. Werner Ackermann), Die GeschichteeinesBerges, 3rd ed., Ascona, 1934, P. 142 ff.Thisis not animpeccablehistorical source.See also Jakob Flach, Asconagestern und heute,Zurich-Stuttgart, 1971, P. 11[45] Reussis not mentioned in Peter F. Anson, Bishops at Large,1964,which is the best account in English of Episcopi Vagantes,norin F.-W. Haack, Die freibischoflichen Kirchen imdeutschprachigenRaum, Munich, 1976.There was probably an‘episcopal’ connection of some kind between Reuss and JeanBricaud,the author of the ‘Notes Historiques’ about the Antientand Primitive Ritementioned in note 27 above[46] ForReuss’s ‘masonic’ activities in Switzerland see FritzUhlmann,Leitfaden der Freimauererei (Bucherreihe der Allg.Freimauerer-LigaNo. 7d), Basle, 1933; Christian Schweizerkreuz(pseud.,i.e. Herbert von Bomsdorf-Bergen), Ein Welt-Betrug durchZeichen,Wort und Griff Zurich, pamphlet publication in twoparts, 1923-5.This is so-called ‘exposure’ material[47] Atthe commencement of the proceedings the Secretary read the minutesof the International Masonic Congress held at Paris in1908 (see p. 11above).[48] C.Schweizerkreuz, Ein Welt Betrug, I, 1923, P. 135 (see note46 above).
