Society Ordo Templi Orientis
(Order of the Eastern Temple)

Alternate Names of the Group:

Sometimes called "OTO" or Ordo Templi Orientis, after a larger and better known group which SOTO claims they are the "true" version thereof. SOTO was always tiny (less than 100 members at its height over several countries)

SOTO, a so-called "fraternal organization" was incorporated as a church in 1978 after Motta reportedly had a falling-out with the three remaining contemporaries of the founder of OTO (Aleister Crowley, 1875-1947) who had joined together and restarted OTO in California after 1969. Motta was, allegedly and by his own admission, an alcoholic who suffered from extreme paranoid delusions (for example, he reportedly believes that he was the real target of the JFK assassination, the CIA and Israeli secret service were targeting him for decades, etc.)

I. Behaviors

Motta required all members to keep diaries and submit them to him regularly. All correspondence was sent to him for review. He was the sole decision-maker and all commitments in life were subject to his approval, especially any involvements with anyone outside the group. If you said or did anything he disapproved of, various levels of sanctions were imposed by him; his manner was so hostile and abusive that he drove away all but the most "devoted" followers. He made everyone sign "letters patents" (which were unenforceable contracts) which required you to pay 1000 times your annual salary if you revealed anything he declared to be "secret." Nude photos of candidates for membership were required with your application along with photographs.

II. Information

Motta twisted all facts, repeatedly, to suit his present needs; he rewrote the history of himself and others to fit in with his belief of being the "true persecuted heir" of Crowley. All information was on a "need to know" basis, with the decision of who needed to know what entirely in his hands. Strangely, he felt a need to "prove" his case by copying the documents in his keeping--this is what eventually led me to the certainty that his "true story" mutated over time and his explanations of his behavior and the motives of others made no sense other than fulfilling his need for proving the "plot". (I joined in 1979 and left in 1985.) Motta's published writings (circulating on the Internet now) were entirely one-sided, self-serving and filled with lies, misstatements, libels (proven so in a US Federal Court in 1985). Since Motta had the intimate diaries of everyone involved, he could hold out any aspect of your life as "proof" you were "insane" or "demonically possessed." In particular, masturbation was the king of all demonic acts and all members had to confess this terrible "sin".

III. Thought

Motta had an absolute and privileged contact with the "Truth" and no disagreement was ever tolerated. If you didn't agree quickly enough, it was "proof" you held some other thought. All those outside the cult were "evil" and meant to do you harm and cause your destruction. Family members were especially suspect, or anyone espousing a different religion. Anyone who disagreed with anything Motta believed was denounced as a "Christist", "traitor", "morally insane", "Zionist", "spy". He was the FINAL judge, jury and executioner of the entire world. Questioning him was fatal to your membership and his threats and accusations made more than twenty years ago are still being used as the basis of libels and death threats against those who had the good sense to get away from him or denounce his abuses of others. Anti-Semitism, homophobia, anti-Catholicism; these were rephrased with cult language into virtues and to question them meant you were "sick." All religions of the world were to be ritually cursed every time you encountered any symbol of them.

IV. Emotional

Motta claimed a unique and privileged access to the "Truth" and anyone who questioned his "spiritual authority" was therefore "insane" and "diseased" and had to be "cut off." Motta wrote in his "SOTO Constitution" that members could call for the "elimination of the culprit" for anyone expelled for "crimes" against SOTO. In other places he makes it clear that "traitors" should be killed. Motta plotted the murder of several people and in fact one of his late followers in Britain, Jeremy Charles Ellis was convicted of making bombs to blow up an English publisher's warehouse (Motta believed he owned the copyrights of Aleister Crowley and sued Samuel Weiser of ME over this in 1984--and he lost). Leaving SOTO was your "magical death". Now the "true followers", most especially David Bersson, routinely (daily?) threaten former members and "enemies," including myself, with death, eternal damnation and a stream of abusive, libellous, privacy-invading invective and lies. Everyone who left their group or who disagrees with them will be ceaselessly defamed because we all should have been "executed" years ago for our "crimes."