Agape Lodge
The Agape Lodge was an American chapter of Ordo Templi Orientis founded in California in 1935 by Wilfred Talbot Smith. Following World War II, it was the sole surviving O.T.O. organization. The O.T.O. itself traced its origins back to Carl Kellner and underwent leadership changes until Aleister Crowley took over in 1925. In 1935, Smith established the Agape Lodge No. 2 in Hollywood, attracting initiates through advertising and hosting regular meetings, lectures, and social events, including a Gnostic Mass open to the public.
The lodge faced challenges in 1936 when Smith and another member faced consequences at their workplace due to their involvement, leading to a temporary shutdown of private ritual activities. The lodge experienced growth in 1939 with the initiation of Jack Parsons, a jet fuel engineer, and his wife Helen. However, tensions arose within the lodge, including a murder accusation in 1939, leading to negative publicity.
In 1941, conflicts intensified with the entry of Helen's sister Sara Northrup, who had an affair with Jack Parsons, causing a rift between sisters and further disrupting the lodge's harmony. The lodge moved to Pasadena in 1942 and faced scrutiny from law enforcement agencies due to allegations of a "black magic cult." Crowley and Karl Germer criticized Smith's leadership, leading to Jack Parsons taking over as the head of the lodge in 1942.
In 1945, L. Ron Hubbard became involved with the lodge, and a controversial business venture ensued in 1946, resulting in financial loss and legal disputes. Parsons, facing personal and financial turmoil, ultimately sold the Parsonage, and the Agape Lodge ceased regular meetings in 1949.
Background
The original O.T.O. was founded by the wealthy Austrian industrialist Carl Kellner. After Kellner's death in 1905, Theodor Reuss became Outer Head of the Order. After Reuss's death in 1923, Aleister Crowley was elected Head of the Order in 1925.In 1915, the lesser-known Agapé Lodge No. 1 of Vancouver, B.C. was established.
Hollywood: 1935 to 1936
In 1935, Wilfred Talbot Smith founded the Agape Lodge No. 2, based at his Hollywood home at 1746 Winona Boulevard, and brought in seven initiates to the Minerval level in September 1935. Smith advertised the foundation of his group through an advert in American Astrology magazine and printed a pamphlet explaining what the O.T.O. was. The Agape Lodge held regular meetings, lectures, and study classes, as well as social events and a weekly Gnostic Mass open to the public.In February 1936, the lodge held a Mass in honour of New Thought leader Wayne Walker who ran a group called "The Voice of Healing"; The Agape Lodge members hoped to attract Walker and his supporters to Thelema, but they were put off by the Lodge's sexual openness. Later in 1936, Smith and Jacobi's employer, the Southern California Gas Company, discovered their involvement in the Lodge, demoting Smith to bookkeeper and firing Jacobi. Angered, Jacobi left the Lodge altogether, while Smith shut down the group's private ritual activities for the next three years. As a result, the public attendance of the Gnostic Mass plummeted.
Hollywood: 1939 to March 1940
In 1939, the group initiated Jack Parsons, a jet fuel engineer, and his wife Helen, who had become interested in the O.T.O. through attending the Gnostic Mass. Smith wrote to Crowley that Parsons was "a really excellent man ... He has an excellent mind and much better intellect than myself ... JP is going to be very valuable". The Parsons would help bring new members into the group Grady McMurtry and his fiancée Claire Palmer, and Helen's sister Sara Northrup.; February 1939
In February 1939, a young college student who had attended the mass, Ayna Sosoyena, was murdered; although police drew no connection to the Lodge, sensationalist local tabloids connected the two, although were unaware that the Lodge was involved with Crowley or Thelema. A sympathetic local radio reporter allowed Smith to explain the purpose of the Mass to allay fears of the group, but the interview was never aired in an agreement with local press that they would drop the story.
Crowley appointed Karl Germer, a German Thelemite recently arrived in the US, to be his representative on the continent, and instructed Germer to oversee the payment of dues to himself. He also specified that it would now be Germer, and not Smith, who was his chosen successor.
Regina Kahl, who worked as a drama teacher, brought three of her interested students into the group, among them Phyllis Seckler, and other individuals also joined the group, among them Louis T. Culling and Roy Leffingwell.
The Lodge again ceased its private activities from March 1940 to March 1941.
Sara Northrup joins, 1941
Sara Northrup joined the O.T.O. in 1941, at Parsons' urging, and was given the title of Soror Cassap. She soon rose to the rank of a second degree member, or "Magician", of the O.T.O.In June 1941, at the age of seventeen, Northrup began a passionate affair with Parsons while her sister Helen was away on vacation. She made a striking impression on the other lodgers.
When Helen returned, she found Northrup wearing Helen's own clothes and calling herself Parsons' "new wife." Such conduct was expressly permitted by the O.T.O., which followed Crowley's disdain of marriage as a "detestable institution" and accepted as commonplace the swapping of wives and partners between O.T.O. members.
Although both were committed O.T.O. members, Northrup's usurpation of Helen's role led to conflict between the two sisters. The reactions of Parsons and Helen towards Northrup were markedly different. Parsons told Helen to her face that he preferred Northrup sexually: "This is a fact that I can do nothing about. I am better suited to her temperamentally – we get on well. Your character is superior. You are a greater person. I doubt that she would face what you have with me – or support me as well." Some years later, addressing himself as "You", Parsons told himself that his affair with Northrup marked a key step in his growth as a practitioner of magick: "Betty served to affect a transference from Helen at a critical period... Your passion for Betty also gave you the magical force needed at the time, and the act of adultery tinged with incest, served as your magical confirmation in the law of Thelema." Conflicted in her feelings, Helen sought comfort in Smith and began a relationship with him that lasted for the rest of his life; the four remained friends.
Northrup's hostility towards other members of the O.T.O. caused further tensions in the house, which Aleister Crowley heard about from communications from her housemates. He dubbed her "the alley-cat" after an unnamed mutual acquaintance told him that Parsons's attraction to her was like "a yellow pup bumming around with his snout glued to the rump of an alley-cat." Concluding that she was a vampire, which he defined as "an elemental or demon in the form of a woman" who sought to "lure the Candidate to his destruction," he warned that Northrup was a grave danger to Parsons and to the "Great Work" which the O.T.O. was carrying out in California.
Similar concerns were expressed by other O.T.O. members. The O.T.O.'s US head, Karl Germer, labeled her "an ordeal sent by the gods". Her disruptive behavior appalled Fred Gwynn, a new O.T.O. member living in the commune at 1003 South Orange Blvd: "Betty went to almost fantastical lengths to disrupt the meetings that Jack did get together. If she could not break it up by making social engagements with key personnel she, and her gang, would go out to a bar and keep calling in asking for certain people to come to the telephone."
Relocation to Pasadena in June 1942
In June 1942, a number of other Thelemites moved to 1003 South Orange Grove Blvd, an American Craftsman-style mansion. They all contributed to the rent of $100 a month and lived communally in what replaced Winona Boulevard as the new base of the Agape Lodge, maintaining an allotment and slaughtering their own livestock for meat as well as blood rituals. Parsons decorated his new room with a copy of the Stele of Revealing, a statue of Pan, and his collection of swords and daggers. He converted the garage and laundry room into a chemical laboratory and often held science fiction discussion meetings in the kitchen, and entertained the children with hunts for fairies in the 25-acre garden.Parsons attracted controversy in Pasadena for his preferred clientele. Parsonage resident Alva Rogers recalled in a 1962 article for an occultist fanzine: "In the ads placed in the local paper Jack specified that only bohemians, artists, musicians, atheists, anarchists, or any other exotic types need to apply for rooms—any mundane soul would be unceremoniously rejected".
Some veteran Lodge members disliked Parsons' influence, concerned that it encouraged excessive sexual polyandry that was religiously detrimental, but his charismatic orations at Lodge meetings assured his popularity among the majority of followers. Parsons soon created the Thelemite journal Oriflamme, in which he published his own poetry, but Crowley was unimpressedparticularly due to Parsons' descriptions of drug useand the project was soon shelved.
Although there were arguments among the commune members, Parsons remained dedicated to Thelema. He gave almost all of his salary to the O.T.O. while actively seeking out new membersincluding Formanand financially supported Crowley in London through Germer. Parsons had begun a relationship with Sara Northrup, while Smith consoled Helen, who would become his partner for the rest of his life; nevertheless the four remained friends. Although they had ceased to publicly perform the Gnostic Mass, membership of the lodge continued to grow.
A number of prominent members however left, among them Regina Kahl and Phyllis Seckler.