A STATEMENT ABOUT A STATEMENT

The bitter fruits of the Wasteland

Five years ago, I documented my harrowing experiences inside Ordo Templi Orientis. In the intervening years, it became one of the go-to articles people find and read online when researching the trail of abuses and cover-ups perpetrated by this organisation.

While most of the article focuses on the ultra-reactionary influences inside the organisation, it starts with recounting the sexual abuse suffered by a young woman, newly initiated into the group, by one of her “Brothers”.

Five years later today, the same woman recanted her accusations. According to her own words, she lied about it. All of it, it was just her own fabrication.

UPDATE: as of October 2023, the author of the statement I am replying to here, and that it is linked above, has decided to delete it from her website. She offered no explanation as to why, and has been deleting every comment regarding this matter on her social media accounts.

I was one of those she lied to about it. And the one who stuck out my neck for her, championing her cause inside the Order first and then outside it. Because of it, I got ostracised, harassed, and ridiculed, and in time, I even received death threats from my once-Brethren.

Today, while asking for forgiveness for her lies, she seems unable to stop doing so. In her statement, she tries to characterise me as the one who convinced her to go on with the accusations. She even ultimately makes up a story about me having a “personal and magical rivalry” with this person when the reality is that this man was often seen as the village idiot in the Lodge I belonged to. That’s not something that can amount to any sort of rivalry.

It should be noted that this is also the very same narrative that O.T.O. officers tried to spin as the whole debacle unfolded five years ago. That she was a mentally ill alcoholic manipulated by someone hellbent on destroying the Order from the inside — me, who at the time was busy calling out James Wasserman and his alt-right cronies.

Again, lies.

The last time I saw or spoke in person with her was in the Autumn of 2018. At the time, it became evident that she wasn’t who she pretended to be — personally and on a magical level. Her online rhetoric was one of intense misandry that I could not get behind anymore, so I cut my ties with her. I stated this publicly several times, and recently, I got accused of misogyny for doing so.

I briefly contacted her in October 2022 via Facebook Messenger to ask her why her articles were gone from the Thelemic Union website and to inform her that her (alleged) abuser was once again organising events for the public here in the UK.

In the exchange, of which a screenshot exists but I cannot post here due to Medium’s policies, she states that she had no idea why the articles were removed (a lie: on her Facebook page, she stated she removed them on the request of the other person) and that she had no desire to deny or change the story of all that happened.

My involvement in this situation happened for one reason and one reason: I decided to “believe women”, the slogan of the #metoo movement. The lesson I learned is that I will never be able to do so again enough to act upon it, not without severe proof and the involvement of the proper authorities, not the made-up ones of occult orders.

And this is a crucial point because, as she knows but fails to add to her statement, she wasn’t the only one who came up with similar claims. But, like her, none of these other women ever went to the police with theirs, making it impossible to call them to testify now. And after all, five years later, it’s only right they keep their own peace. Something she thinks should belong only to herself.

To the person who stood accused by her, I only say that I am glad to hear he’s not a rapist and that I am sorry for the part I played in his own ordeal. And I genuinely hope she is now telling the truth. It would be atrocious to have her u-turn again in another five years’ time.

So here I am, left with the horrendous suspicion that I’ve been played for a fool, all this time and through all the abuse I have been subjected to. Lesson learned.

Now that everyone has said their piece, including deranged nonsense from the very same guy who has been pushing conspiracy theories and dangerous anti-scientific ideas for the past few years, I am going to wrap this up for good in a concise way.

1. I genuinely trusted what she told me. As it became public now, we were in a relationship at the time. If your partner comes to tell you a story of sexual abuse, visibly shaken, you believe them.
2. I didn’t force any narrative on her. It didn’t coerce, browbeat, or impose my will on her. I offered support, and at first, I also genuinely thought that addressing the issue via the internal “O.T.O. Police”, the Grand Tribunal, was the right thing to do. I was obviously dead wrong about it.
3. I tried to convince her of the need to go with the real-world authorities, too. I was told that it’s pointless because women who do so are re-traumatised, never believed, and she didn’t need any of that. In retrospect, while this is sadly true, I was wrong in thinking a different approach could still work in getting justice. But given how now I know she lied about it all, maybe the silver lining is that we didn’t bring even more grievances to the alleged abuser.
4. I didn’t gain ANYTHING from any of this. As I said in my previous statement, ever since I tried to put the spotlight on the abuses perpetrated (still to this day) by O.T.O. I have been ostracised, harassed, stalked, and abused, and I even received death threats — the latest, just a few hours ago. My rise to prominence (where?!) didn’t begin because of my coming to support my then-partner. There is NO rise to any sort of prominence here, only infamy. To be perfectly clear here, I lost dozens of business and personal opportunities over the past few years for even having my name linked with this story. People do not want to be associated with drama, and I can’t fault them for it.
5. I never had any sort of envy for the person who turned out to be the victim of false accusations. To even suggest it is ridiculous to anyone who actually knows us both. I didn’t want to destroy him or what he built. I had been a supporter of his Occult Conference for years and was a regular attendee.
6. I did have only contempt for him and his antics, especially towards women. And I wasn’t the only one, either. No matter what people will want you to believe now in the kangaroo courts of the internet, he was not the beloved and respected figure his current supporters paint him to be.
7. Still, I fully recognise that it was wrong for him to be slandered and libelled as a rapist. As I said in my statement, I really do hope she won’t change her tune again in time. For what it’s worth now, I am sorry for the part I played in this tragedy.
8. I have no idea why her story has changed now. I have not been in touch with her for years, and our relationship ended very shortly after the story originally unfolded. She was looking for a father for her child, and that person wasn’t me. For my part, I didn’t like the way she started to use her supposed Babalon enlightenment to spread misandrist ideas. As with most other folks now, I am completely appalled at her current attempt at shifting blame. She is the only one responsible for writing her screeds, even long after we broke up.
9. There have been calls to return all of this matter to the private sphere, in the very same breath as repeating the lie I coerced her to do what she did. This obviously cannot stand. And if this lie continues, then legal action will be taken. After all, this time, it’s all very well documented, as opposed to presenting opinions as facts.
10. Finally — thank you to all of those who reached out with supportive messages. I am not the victim here; far from me to suggest so. But to realise there are still people who won’t crucify you because an occult influencer tells his audience to do so it’s refreshing.

Many also exhorted me not to give up the fight, and to keep speaking out against the systemic abuse of hierarchical occult orders.

I think my fighting days are over. To realise I had made such a huge mistake in this instance was my call to move on. And frankly, nothing of what I did made any difference. As soon as the lockdown years ended, people went back to looking to join O.T.O. or similar organisations because they craved community over anything else.

Lambs to the slaughter, but it’s not my problem anymore.