Just a few comments on your post on Rosicrucianism which might assist to improve it.
Aleister Crowley was in the Ordo Templis Orientis and HS Lewis of AMORC was really only an honorary member.
Lewis received recognition from the leader of the group, Theodore Reuss, in 1921 or thereabouts. He never worked OTO rituals. (source Robert Vanloo)
Crowley prepared a charter giving Lewis full rights to work the system in 1918, an offer he never made to anyone else; FWIW this does support the idea that Lewis had real ‘occult’ power or abilities; though it does not seem that this charter was ever received by Lewis. (sources Vanloo, Milko Boogaard)
AMORC’s claim of ‘legitimacy’ does not mean much in any context outside the group’s own myth. You’re correct on that. Lewis derived his claim of links to the Rosicrucians of antiquity from his having made the acquaintance of some ‘Rosicrucians’ in Toulouse in 1909.
This story has always been controversial; Lewis certainly knew these individuals names, but he spelt them wrong and at one stage brandished an obviously false charter allegedly signed by them (it disappeared fast when Crowley pointed out that it was written in exceedingly bad French.) (sources Vanloo, Elias Ibrahim)
Calling yourself an ‘order’ means nothing in Rosicrucianism - indeed many commentators say you shouldn’t even use the name Rosy Cross at all !
RW Little was not connected to the Golden Dawn, though Wynn Westcott certainly was.
We (I’m a member of the SRIA) were not authorised by the ‘FUDOSFI’. SRIA has no connection with them at all.
‘FUDOSFI’ was set up by Reuben Swinburne Clymer (who claimed to carry PB Randolph’s mantle) and some Martinist orders around Lyon in France, as an opposing federation to the FUDOSI of AMORC and it only met a couple of times I think, around 1939.
My basis for commenting - I’m an SRIA member and a former member of AMORC. I am also a member of the CR+C which continues HS Lewis’ initiatic lineage.
I hope this assists.
Scaro
