Biographical aperture
Dr. Phil Felix Lazerus Pinkus was born on 13 August 1881 in Breissgau/Prussia. At the University Breslau he studied economics and natural science, writing his doctorate on “The Modern Jewish Question”. He was a member of the General Society of Zionists. In 1907 he became a dramaturg at the Stadttheater Lindau. In 1908, together with his wife Elsbeth Flatau, he was engaged at the Volkstheater in Zuerich and soon became a teacher at the private high school Minerva. In 1910 he was made an editor of the “Swiss Journal of the Education of the Youth”; in 1914–18 he was editor of the “Economist” and president of the Zionist Society in Zuerich. In 1918 he wrote “About the founding of the Jewish State”, but went bankrupt with his business. He fled to Vienna, got arrested and was brought back to Zuerich. He settled down in Albania.
In 1931 the Pinkus family met again in Berlin. Eventually, Felix Lazerus Pinkus became an expert on economy for the Soviet trade mission.
“Originating from the unusual jewish bourgeoisie of Prussia, bound to tie together the life style of a banker with a ‘liberal socialistic’ Weltanschauung” Pinkus led an extravagant life style in his villa “Krystall” in Zuerich, not missing one of the many occasions of a busy social life.
He was also active in the lodge “Bnai Brith” and a part-time journalist of the League of Nations.
The Psychosophische Gesellschaft
Pinkus founded the section “Psychische Forschung” of the Swiss Cultural Society and in 1945 also founded a “Psychosophische Gesellschaft” in order to “communicate esoteric values and psychological help”.
In Pinkus’ esoteric group were Karl Brodbeck (Provincial and Custodian for the Swiss Order of Illuminati), Hans Rudolf Hilfiker (the supposed heir of Theodor Reuss himself) and many more, including people from the original Reuss lodge in Zuerich.
A “member” of this group was the engineer Traugott Egloff, who was very much interested in the Abramelin workings. Egloff corresponded with C.G. Jung about Abramelin and allegedly died in 1969 in the Brazilian jungle, where he wanted to contact his Holy Guardian Angel. The Abramelin manuscript allegedly used by C.G. Jung, keyed in by Egloff, is published as a facsimile in the paper version of Abramelin & Co.
Soon, Pinkus’ “Psychosophische Gesellschaft” was to become the roof organisation for Hermann Joseph Metzger’s compilation of Orders.
Hermann Joseph Metzger
Hermann Joseph Metzger (1919–1990), a baker and ex-communist, had grown up in the Tessin canton and in 1943 was initiated into the Reuss O.T.O. by Genja Jantzen and Alice Sprengel. Genja Jantzen was described by witnesses as a yes-woman. Pinkus became Metzger’s “spiritual father”, whereupon he, Metzger, “received” the IX°.
Alice Herder (born 1902), a Theosophist since the 1920s, vividly remembered the time when Pinkus came to Zuerich as a Jewish refugee and visited the Zuerich Theosophical group about ten times. There was no lodge at this time. Pinkus had never been accepted within the group and was considered too “revolutionary”, whereupon he founded his own group, the “Psychosophische Gesellschaft”. This group was based upon Eliphas Lévi’s magic.
Through Pinkus, Metzger visited the Theosophical group two or three times. As he was only propagandising his horoscopes and was accompanied by people without any “real” interest — “actors, circus people, hot air, without depth” — he rather never appeared in that Theosophical group again.
Frau Herder recalls that she had the impression that both Pinkus and Metzger had been “characteristically weak black magicians”, and especially Metzger had caused her goosebumps.
It was common knowledge that Pinkus intended Metzger to be his magical successor and to that effect gave him his crystal ball.
Documents, leftovers, and contested continuities
Pinkus died on 12 February 1947. His son, Theo Pinkus, a friend of H.J. Metzger, could not remember that his father had any function in the O.T.O., but saw in the theosophical ideas a similarity to the communistic ideals followed by both Pinkus and Metzger.
Although Metzger set his face against the Abramelin workings, he could use Pinkus’ relationship with the many occultists in the German-speaking area. Alice Sprengel also died in 1947, thus making way for Metzger to found his own O.T.O. lodge in Zuerich.
A witness to Metzger’s initiation in 1943, Gundula Bader — daughter of Genja Jantzen’s superior and instrumental in forwarding the Alice Sprengel/Rudolf Steiner documents to the Steiner archive in Dornach, Switzerland, under the supervision of Oscar R. Schlag — considered it “improbable” that any of the original O.T.O. documents went over to Metzger’s O.T.O. lodge.
Metzger himself saw it like this:
“The only surviving leftovers of the O.T.O. have been in the hands of Dr. P. and this Frau Sprengel ... Nevertheless, P. had laid everything into my hands and the documents of Sprengel and her younger friends had been destroyed. It is noteworthy, that the friend of Sprengel [Jantzen?] did not know about the office of either P. or myself”
... and other gossip in order to discriminate against Gundula Bader and other remaining members of that O.T.O. group who did not accept Metzger’s lodge.
© by P.R. Koenig, 1994
