Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Please find below an author's profile for Dr. Richard Kaczynski, NOTOCON presenter and author. You can find the complete description of his talk here.
"What will you be presenting at NOTOCON VIII?"
My presentation is titled "The Forgotten Founder: Henry Klein and the Early History of O.T.O." Whenever someone talks about the founding of O.T.O., it usually begins "A charter was given to Theodor Reuss, Franz Hartmann and some other guy." I'm going to look at the life of that "other guy," the events leading up to those three getting their famous charter, and what happened in the following eleven years...up to and including Aleister Crowley forming M.M.M. and becoming the UK Grand Master.
"What inspired you to take on this subject?"
Having completely rewritten my O.T.O. capsule history for the revised edition of "Perdurabo," it bugged me that I had birth and death dates plus a brief bio for Theodor Reuss and Franz Hartmann, but nothing at all for Henry Klein. As I dug around, I discovered that, basically, nobody knows anything about him. And this is a big piece of our history! I mean, he's a charter member of O.T.O.; he remained Grand Registrar General until the day he died; and he co-signed Aleister Crowley's certificates. His story needed to be recovered from the depths of time.
Once I started digging, I found *way* more than I could put into "Perdurabo." And the more I dug, the more I found. I quickly realized that I can't talk about Klein's role in O.T.O. without also talking about its origins; and once I started digging there, I discovered how much of *that* story has never been told, either. The "monograph" in my presentation's description has since turned into a full-fledged, two-part book.
"Where did your research travels take you?"
Since this project has been 99% original research, it meant tracking down primary source materials. Most of these exist in only one library, archive or other institution in the entire world...and unfortunately they're not all in the *same* library or archive! On top of that, much of O.T.O.'s early history is not recorded in English-language literature. So I've had to dig up documents from as far away as Germany, France, Italy, England and even Australia. I've hit up American institutions from California to Michigan to Massachusetts to D.C. From government agencies to Masonic museums to commercial data warehouses to private archives, I've been very fortunate to find people who are very helpful and friendly to academic researchers.
"What was your greatest "aha" moment?"
It was a really big deal for me to discover how Henry Klein and Theodor Reuss knew each other. It wasn't through esoteric Freemasonry, and what it *was* subsequently had an interesting connection to Aleister Crowley, too. If you want to know the rest, you'll have to come to my talk. ;o)
"What is the one thing you want people to take away from your presentation?"
Since everyone in the audience will be an O.T.O. member, I hope they come away with an appreciation of where we came from; how Henry Klein fits into that story, how Aleister Crowley fits into that story, and maybe even how *they* fit into it.
"What are you working on now?"
In addition to wrapping up the Klein project, I'm working on a collection of early poetry and essays by J.F.C. Fuller and Victor Neuburg, and an annotated edition of Crowley's "Sword of Song." I have two different novel ideas that I'm dying to get to. And I still plan to write a history of 19th century Western Esotericism...provided it doesn't turn into a series of books!
"What books are you reading right now?"
Gerald Yorke's "Aleister Crowley, The Golden Dawn and Buddhism." Phil Baker's "Austin Osman Spare." Maria de Naglowska's "The Light of Sex." Daniel Schulke's "Lux Haeresis." Darcy Kuntz's new edition of "Hermetic Arcanum of Penes Nos Unda Tagi. 1623." Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule's "Coagula." Boris Karloff's "Tales of Mystery" #33. I'm also looking forward to receiving my copies of Austin Spare's "Book of Pleasure" and David Beth's "Atua."
Love is the law, love under will.
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