Theodor Reuss

 Theodor Reuss (28 June 1855 – 28 October 1923) was an Anglo-German tantric occultist mystic, anarchist, police spy, journalist, singer, a promoter of the Feminist movement, and the head of the Ordo Templi Orientis after Carl Kellner, and prior to Aleister Crowley. Crowley named him one of the Saints of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica.

Parsifal and the Secret of the Graal Unveiled (1914)

 * Parsifal and the Secret of the Graal Unveiled (1914)


 * Contemporaneous with the awakening of the interest of the great masses of the German people in Parsifal, a flood of newspaper articles about Parsifal have begun, of which, most have no trace of a hint of the deep deep mystical meaning of the plot and the symbology of the play is lost. The great masses of the Parsifal-critics and Parsifal-commentators, who have not a trace of a hint of the deep mystical meaning of the secret of the graal, are not even the worst enemies of Wagner and the Idea of Parsifal. The real worst, by which I mean here, the dangerous enemies of Wagner's are those people — columnists, critics, interpreters etc. — who surely have no clue of deep mystical meaning of Parsifal — and the idea of the Graal, but go against the recognized meaning, or purposely change the true and only really deep meaning of the Parsifal idea into its exact opposite meaning. The worst of the last category are the sexual-ascetics. For they understand the meaning of the Parsifal-Symbology very well, but they reverse Wagners idea into its exact opposite. They are those, who on the basis of the plot of the play Parsifal and on the false understanding of its underlying mystery, proclaim sexual abstinence to the German people, far and wide as the gospel of renunciation, and they knowingly lay the foundation for the decline of the virulent German people. If it has not yet succeeded,it is high time to pull the carpet out from under the feet of these false prophets.
 * I. Introduction : Struggle of Spirits.


 * Nothung, Nothung, envious sword — what is the sword Nothung, but that unbreakable legacy which Siegfried, as the only son of the father, re-tempers in the fire of youth. What else, but the symbol of the primal-sword (primal-Phallus!) The primal-father has stuck this primal-sword into the trunk of the primal-tree, and whoever pulls out this sword wins a woman with it — as bride and sister! These are no symbols of sexual-abstinence!
 * II. Main Part : The Unveiling of the Secret.


 * Gurnemanz is still not absolutely certain that Parsifal is pure and a fool, as he makes the decision to lead Parsifal to the castle of the Graal, for Gurnemanz sang after they both had walked a while: Now pay attention, and let me see, if you are a fool and if you are pure ...! — The test, if he is a pure fool, shall come to Parsifal first in the Temple of the Graal! This point cannot be worked out further here.
 * II. Main Part : The Unveiling of the Secret.


 * Now begins the true pilgrimage: Parsifal with the lance in hand! Here begins the symbol of renunciation! The renunciation lies, symbolically expressed, in the words, with the lance in hand! A renunciation is first, then, a renunciation in the true sense of the word, when one does not do something that one has recognized as desirable and has wished to do. The sojourn of Parsifal with the lance in hand corresponds to the 40 days that Christ shall have spent in the wastelands. It corresponds to the trials and tribulations which all candidates of all the old religions, of all mystical secret societies etc. had to undergo, before they could become initiates. This sojourn also corresponds therefore, to the 40 days of the fast and abstention, which yet today the initiates of a mystical society impose on their candidates as a test before they are left to study the mystical secret, salvational — teachings.
 * II. Main Part : The Unveiling of the Secret.

But Parsifal does not ask in the first act: What is the Graal, Parsifal asks, Who is the Graal? — and why does Wagner not have Parsifal say: What is the Graal? — Here lies hidden a profound mystery! So Parsifal asks (with underlying intent of the author): Who is the Graal? — and Gurnemanz answers quite revealingly: That one does not say!
 * Now it remains only to show what the conception grace of the highest miracle, seeks in the greatest holy heater with last love-meal in sacred vessel flowing as longed for by the Knights. What in short — is the Graal!
 * II. Main Part : The Unveiling of the Secret.

Close minded, petty, or malicious, great and small spirits! Just as the whole plot of Parsifal of the festal play of Richard Wagner is only an allegory, a symbolical depiction with no real occurrence in the material world, so the above explanation of the Graal-secret is not to be understood as literal, personal, material, earthly, relative to vulgar events. But it is only to be understood as totally impersonal, symbolical, and relative on purely spiritual grounds.
 * A Warning to all
 * II. Main Part : The Unveiling of the Secret.

Learn to eat of the tree of Knowledge, and of the tree of Life enjoy the fruit. Seek both within yourself, and so you recognize them and know their place, you are come to the highest rung of the 12 step ladder. Through this will the Divine-Love be awoken that does not have a place in the twisted minds of men, but dwells in his heart, from which the salvational current will be born which gives us the vision of the eternal light and annihilates all falsity. "The eternal-feminine draws us up?!"
 * Closing Word
 * IV. Defense and Support : Building blocks for the O.T.O. Temple

Quotes about Reuss

 * Reuss was very uncertain in temper, and in many ways unreliable. In his last years he seems to have completely lost his grip, even accusing The Book of the Law of communistic tendencies, than which no statement could be more absurd. Yet it seems that he must have been to some extent correctly led, on account of his having made the appointments of yourself and Frater Achad (Charles Stansfeld Jones), and designating me in his last letter as his successor.
 * Aleister Crowley, in a letter to Heinrich Tränker (14 February 1925).