Oriflamme, Die.
Mitteilungen der grossen Freimaurerloge fur Deutschland / Organ fur die Interessen des deutschen Hochgrads-Freimaurer des Swedenborg-Rutus und des Ordens der Rosenkreuzer / Organ des Obersten Rats 33.(o) A. A. Schottischer Ritus und des Suveranen Sanctuariums 95.(o), A. P. Memphis & Misraim Ritus, Grosorient von Deutschland / Manuskript fur Freimaurer / Amtliche Organ des Ordens der Orientalischen Templer--O.T.O. --des Suveranen Sanktuarium der alten Freimaurer vom Schottischen Memphis- und Misraim-Ritus fur d. deutsche Reich und die deutsch-sprechenden Lander, und des Suveranen Sanktuarium of the Antient and Primitive Rite of Masonry in and for Great Britain and Ireland and its Dependencies.
Oriflamme, Die.
Other titles: I.N.R.I.
1902--1915 Monthy, semiannual, annual (irregular)
Berlin then Munich, Germany, then Berlin, then Berlin and London, England; finally Lausanne, Switzerland. Language: German. Publisher: Verlag von Max Perl; F.E. Baumann. Editor: Theodor Reuss. Succeeded by: The Oriflamme (Pasadena; Nashville; Zurich) 1/1, January 1902-1915. 5 Marks a year, 9-10 pp. (varies, with some issues containing more than 160 pages in supplements). Distributed with membership in Reuss' orders. Later issues noted that the journal was "printed as a manuscript for Brother Masons."

This is the famous journal, more referred to than actually seen, that Reuss eventually used to spread the word of the O.T.O. (the Ordo Templi Orientis). The appearance of the journal varied with Reuss' fortunes--no issue was published in 1907 and only two each in the years immediately before and after that year. The first number of the journal was Oriflamme: Constitution. Mitteilungen der grossen Freimaurerloge fur Deutschland, a four-page pamphlet published as a supplement to Die ubersinnliche Welt in January 1902. It listed Reuss, Leopold Engel, Max Rahn, and August Weinholtz (on whom see the notes under Das Wort, L'Acacia, and ubersinnliche Welt) as participants in the new-founded Holy Grail Lodge and Temple No. 15 of John Yarker's Swedenborgian Rite. The journal also noted transactions of the irregular Ludwig Lodge, initially founded the preceding year, under the authority of Engel's and Reuss' Order of Illuminati. After Yarker complained, probably because the Craft Degrees were being worked irregularly, ubersinnliche Welt on February 1, 1902, announced its separation from Oriflamme, which began independent publication in the same format the same month. Initially, the journal was simply the organ of Reuss' Rosicrucians (the German branch of the Societas Rosicrucia in Anglia) which he had received from W. Wynn Westcott) and of the Swedenborg Rite he had received from John Yarker in England. Reuss then added (from John Yarker) the Antient and Primitive Rite of Memphis and Misraim and a version of the (Cerneau) Scottish Rite. After Reuss' move to London in early 1906 the place of publication for the journal, with 1909, was listed as Berlin and London. The last regular issue was that for July 1914, but in March 1915 a final issue, the "Kriegs-Oriflamme," was published in Lausanne. See Helmut Moller and Ellic Howe, Merlin Peregrinus: Vom Untergrund des Abendlandes (Wurzburg: Konigshausen + Neumann, 1986), 198. The journal was largely written by Reuss and consisted of lodge news and the internecine squabbles among members but in the early days especially it contained contributions by Carl Kellner, John Yarker and Franz Hartmann. In 1906 the journal carried part of Reuss' "Lingam-Yoni oder die Mysterien des Geschlechtskultus," carefully inserting it in its"Unofficial Part," as a way of refuting the charges of obscenity and homosexuality leveled against Reuss, and included some of Reuss' press credentials to buttress his legitimacy. The issue for 1908 reported on the International Freemasonic Congress held in Paris that year and prints the resolutions signed there by, among others, Reuss, Papus, Charles Detre (Teder), Victor Blanchard, and Rene Guenon (33(o), 90(o)). The same issue noted Reuss' lawsuit against R. Augsburg for saying that Augsburg had found letters in Reuss' brief case confessing to his having homosexual relations with Max Dotzler. With the issue for 1912, the journal finally apears as Amtliche Organ des Ordens der Orientalischen Templer--O.T.O. The "Historische Ausgabe der Oriflamme: Der Schottische, Memphis- und Misraim-Ritus der Freimaurerei" published in 1904 hinted broadly about "die Geheimnissen der okkulten Hochgrade unseres Ordens." Whatever Reuss may have thought those secrets were in 1904, by 1912 he had determined to reveal that they were sexual. In the Jubilee Edition of the Oriflamme (marking its tenth anniversary) published in September 1912 he announced: "Our Order possesses the KEY which unlocks all Masonic and hermetic secrets, that is, the teaching of sexual magic, and this teaching completely explains all the riddles of nature, all Masonic symbolism, and all religious systems." In 1913 the journal in its "Unofficial Part" published Merlin's (Reuss') "Mystic Anatomy," a disquisition of Hermetic anatomy, yoga, the accumulation of "surplus prana," and the like. "Masters of Hermetic Science hold that it is possible, by the right application of the meaning of 'Original Sin'and 'Fall of Angels' to arrest in magic art, i. e. Sex Magic, the Supernatural S.E.E.D.S. operating in every, and through every being, for purposes of understanding 'GOD ITSELF' and 'UNITING WITH GODHEAD.' -- This is called the great act of Transmutation of the Reproductive Energy. This Great Mystery is also embodied in the Eucharist of the Churches. It is a Hermetic Mystery. It is a Blind! Blinds are used by the Church and by Hermetic Sciences. No Hermetic Truth, entirely unveiled, is ever printed, or given out publicly." The journal was revived (or re-created) in the 1940s and again in the 1960s by various manifestations of the O.T.O. Large sections of the journal have now been reprinted by Peter-R. Koenig in his Grosse Theodor Reuss Reader (1997). Koenig has also transcribed the Jubilaumsausgabe, July 1912, of the journal and the July 1914 issue in Kleine Theodor Reuss Reader (1993) and on his exhaustive and authoritative webpages at parareligion.ch. United Grand Lodge of England Library; Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

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