In the court case commonly summarised as the ‘Caliphate’ versus the German Hänssler Verlag, the judge took a view which is historically useful precisely because it refuses the devotional shortcut.
The local German branch of the ‘Caliphate’ was treated as independent from William Breeze, the so-called Caliph, and from the American Mother Lodge. It was also not regarded as fulfilling the claimed definition of a socially beneficial body, despite freemasonic-like self-presentation.
The decision further acknowledged the inconveniently crowded landscape of rival bodies using the name O.T.O. — a small terminological zoo, but one with legal consequences. If many bodies claim the same magical initials, the initials do not automatically become a private sceptre.
Accordingly, Breeze’s American O.T.O. could not simply execute its United States rights in Germany. Local law, with its usual lack of incense, asked for local standing.
