Biography | Albert Karl Theodor Reuss

Theodor Reuss

Theodor Reuss, Audi Alteram Partem, 1935, 27.

June 28, 1855 – Oct. 28, 1923
Among other things Albert Karl Theodor Reuss was a singer, druggest, journalist and possibly a spy for the Prussian Police. He claimed to have used a charter supplied by John Yarker to establish a “Masonic Academy” which became known as the Ordo Templi Orientis or O.T.O.
He was Aleister Crowley‘s predecessor as Head of the OTO, and in 1880 and 1888 attempted to revive the “Order of the Illuminati” in Munich and Berlin. For information on his activities as an irregular mason after 1877, see Ellic Howe and Helmut Moller, “Theodor Reuss. Irregular Freemasonry in Germany”, 1900-23, Ars Quatuorum Coronatorum Vol. 91, 1978.
Initiated: November 9, 1876
Passed: May 8, 1877
Raised: January 9, 1878
Excluded: October 1, 1880
Pilger Loge No. 238, UGLE (London)

Source: AQC Vol. 91 (1978) pp. 28-46. Also see notes from Sexuality, Magic and Perversion, Francis King. New English Library, Times Mirror. 1972, p. 92 ; photo “taken from an unidentified biographical guidebook, Zurich, 1918.” – Richard Kaczynski, 2010.