The initiatory adventure of the OTO degrees is not a climb up a ladder… I’m afraid to say… that those who see it as such will eventually become sadly discouraged. Initiation is not a journey upward … it is a journey inward. And for you lucky few who for one reason or another will come to realize that all the trials and the ordeals that come along with your membership in this most magical of magical orders are not flaws in the system… that all the crazy politics and the heartbreaks and the romance and the pains in the ass and the ecstasy and the confusion; and all the stupidity and BULLSHIT that your OTO experience will most assuredly heap upon your life … that all this magical CRAP…. is just a metaphor … an allegorical movie of all the inner trials and tribulations affecting your own unique and private spiritual metamorphosis …. For those of you who manage to link and sequence your outward and mundane OTO career with your inward initiatory ordeals … for those of you who will eventually realize that the slings and arrows of your personal outrageous fortunes are really the weapons of the initiating officers of your own evolving soul … For you lucky few who will somehow survive the magical bootcamp of The Man of Earth … those of you who will … reach for … and finally seize the Holy Grail … who will know the secret of Love and then be consumed utterly by that Love … YOU LUCKY FEW will awaken to the fact that the Great Order has always been and will be forevermore an Order of One.
Lon Milo DuQuette