By 1985 O.T.O., by its own report, had more than seven hundred members in several different countries. groups in many other areas in the United States and internationally. McMurtry, and other initiators chartered by him, established O.T.O. Many initiations were performed, and a weekly celebration of the Gnostic Mass was soon established in the San Francisco Bay area. In October 1977 McMurtry founded Thelema Lodge in Berkeley to serve as the headquarters of his resuscitated O.T.O. were enabled by court order to claim the still considerable archives. Germer's widow died in 1975, and in 1976 the surviving members of O.T.O. In 1974 McMurtry and Seckler separated, and he moved to Berkeley, California. In 1961 he moved to Washington, D.C., where he soon became completely out of touch with other O.T.O. McMurtry unwillingly complied with the order, and he was disillusioned enough by this turn of events that he ended his direct involvement with O.T.O. This order was reiterated in writing in November 1960. Gabriel Montenegro (Germer's representative) 'ordered' McMurtry to cease his efforts. members in California to lobby Germer to change his policy, but the situation came to a head at a meeting in 1959 in which Dr. McMurtry planned to start a lodge in Northern California, but his deteriorating relationship with Karl Germer (based on Germer's refusal to initiate new members) put an end to his plans. body in the world was Agape Lodge in Southern California, which was headed for a time by McMurtry's friend Jack Parsons. At the time the only functioning Thelemic O.T.O. He noted his opposition to Richard Nixon's Middle East policies and characterized himself as 'a poet who happened to fight in two wars.' Ĭrowley died in December 1947, and Germer was recognized as the head of O.T.O. In a 1970 conversation with Jacques Vallée (who was flummoxed by McMurtry's lengthy military career), McMurtry identified as a political liberal. His thesis for the latter degree examined the parallels between magic and Marxism. He continued his academic studies as a civilian between tours of duty at the University of California, Berkeley, where he completed his A.B. Six months prior to completing 30 years of Reserve service, he was mustered out as a lieutenant colonel during a RIF (Reduction In Force) and lost what would have been an earned pension. He was recalled again for another tour of duty in Korea in the early 1960s. He was recalled to active duty to serve in the Korean War, eventually reaching the rank of major. He took part in the invasion of Normandy, the liberation of France and Belgium, and the occupation of Germany. In February 1942, two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, McMurtry's entire Reserve Officers Training Corps class was called to active duty, and he served as an officer in Ordnance.
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