Metzger, Herman Joseph (1919-1990)

Herman Joseph Metzger, the outer head of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) in Switzerland, was born in Zezikon, Switzerland, on June 20, 1919. Little is known of his youth. He considered the priesthood at one time but eventually became a Marxist. He emerged out of obscurity in 1939 when he moved from Lugano (in Italian-speaking Switzerland) to Zürich. During World War II (1939-45), under the stage name Peter Mano, he worked as a stage magician. He also was an astrologer. In 1947, he inherited a small publishing firm, Psychosophische Gesellschaft, whose owner, F. L. Pinkus, had died. Over the next decades, Metzger's activities would be underwritten by a wealthy friend, Annemarie Aeschbach.

After the war, Metzger founded a lodge of the Ordo Templi Orientis, the initiatory magical group then led internationally by Karl Johannes Germer (1885-1962). He also joined the World League of the Illuminati, an organization that had attempted to revive the eighteenth-century German Illuminati. In 1955, the leader of the Swiss chapter of the World League died and left the small organization to Metzger. In 1957 he was consecrated as a bishop in the Gnostic Catholic Church, one of several small ecclesiastical bodies that traced its apostolic succession to the mystical consecration of French bishop Jules-Benoit Doniel (1842-1894). Then in 1960 Metzger became the new patriarch of the church. In 1963, after hearing of the death of Germer, he called the German-speaking leadership of the OTO together and had himself elected the new international outer head of the order (though those in the Spanish-and English-speaking countries did not recognize him).

By this time Metzger was already putting together a new organization that would unite the teachings and practices of the several organizations he had inherited. His headquarters was established in Appenzell in northeast Switzerland. A variety of cottage industries emerged, from a bakery to a movie theater. There was also a chapel for the gatherings of the Gnostic Catholic Church. Metzger led the group until he fell ill toward the end of the 1980s. He died on July 14, 1990. His ashes are kept enshrined at the chapel at Appenzell.

Sources:

Koenig, Peter R. "Herman Joseph Metzger—OHO of the O.T.O. and Patriarch of the Gnostic Catholic Church." http://www.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/bishops.htm. April 23, 2000.