Grady Louis McMurtry (October 18, 1918 – July 12, 1985) was an American ceremonial magician, student of occult writer Aleister Crowley, and an adherent of Thelema.

Six months prior to completing 30 years of Reserve service, he was mustered out as a lieutenant colonel during a RIF (Reduction In Force) and lost what would have been an earned pension.

He noted his opposition to Richard Nixon's Middle East policies and characterized himself as "a poet who happened to fight in two wars.

"[4] During World War II, especially when he was stationed in England in 1943 and the first half of 1944, McMurtry was able to meet with and become a personal student of Aleister Crowley, who elevated him to IX° of O.T.O., giving him the name Hymenaeus Alpha (which enumerates to 777) in November 1943.

representative in the United States (April 1946), subject only to the authority of Crowley's viceroy and heir apparent, Karl Germer.

body in the world was Agape Lodge in Southern California, which was headed for a time by McMurtry's friend Jack Parsons.

[citation needed] On October 25, 1962 Germer died from prostatic cancer at the age of 77, without naming a successor as head of O.T.O.

There were a few individuals, notably Kenneth Grant of Britain, Hermann Metzger of Switzerland, and later, Marcelo Ramos Motta of Brazil, who claimed succession to Germer.

[citation needed] Seckler's letter was to inform McMurtry that the archives in Germer's widow's care (including Aleister Crowley's library) had been burglarized the previous year by persons unknown.

Though the crime was never officially solved, McMurtry felt that it had probably been carried out by a group, claiming affiliation with O.T.O., that called itself the "Solar Lodge".

They also eventually succeeded in their efforts to find a publisher for the Thoth tarot deck designed by Aleister Crowley.

In that year McMurtry, in failing health, successfully sued Motta in United States district court over the possession of the O.T.O.

He died in a Martinez, California convalescent hospital on the day that the U.S. court clerk released the text of the decision that set the seal on McMurtry's efforts to reestablish O.T.O.