Wilfred Talbot Smith (born Frank Wenham; 8 June 1885 – 27 April 1957) was an English occultist and ceremonial magician known as an advocate of the religion of Thelema.

Born the illegitimate son of a domestic servant and her employer in Tonbridge, Kent, Smith migrated to Canada in 1907, where he went through a variety of jobs and began reading about Western esotericism.

In 1922 Smith moved to Los Angeles in the United States, where he, Jane Wolfe, and Regina Kahl tried to establish a new Thelemite community.

Seeking to revive the inactive North American O.T.O., in 1935 Smith then founded Agape Lodge of O.T.O., which subsequently relocated to Pasadena.

[1] He was the illegitimate son of Oswald Cox, a member of a prominent local family who resided at Marl Field House, and one of his domestic servants, Minnie Wenham, whom Frank would never come to know.

From 1909 to 1911 he worked at a confectioner's warehouse, and then for a further nine months at a logging camp, before gaining a job as an accounting clerk at the British Columbia Electric Railway in April 1912.

[6] While at work, he met Charles Stansfeld Jones, a Thelemite who shared Smith's interest in these subjects and who lent him copies of Aleister Crowley's Book 4 and volume one, number one of The Equinox.

With Nem and her daughter Katherine, Smith moved into a specially-constructed house designed by the Thelemite architect Howard E. White, located at 138 East 13th Street, North Vancouver.

[13] Soon after, Smith would be upgraded to the position of Master Magician within the Lodge, and in March 1916 received the Probationer level in the A∴A∴, adopting as his personal magical motto the Latin words Nubem Eripiam ("I will snatch away the cloud").

[15] Nevertheless, in March the lodge shut down for 13 months, during which time Crowley and Jones scrutinized Smith's diaries to ascertain his magical progress.

[18] Jones himself claimed that he had undergone a "Great Initiation" and was now an Ipsissimus; his relationship with Crowley broke down, and he subsequently resigned from O.T.O., deeply disappointing Smith.

Smith however was unnerved that rather than expressing a Thelemic viewpoint, the UB adhered to Roman Catholicism, and he also considered its literature purposeless, vague, and grandiose; he soon dropped out.

On the way he stopped at San Francisco, where he met with Cecil Frederick Russell, a Thelemite who had departed from the Crowleyan orthodoxy to found his own group, the Choronzon Club.

[25] After settling in Los Angeles, Smith gained a job at the Southern California Gas Company, entered into a relationship with a woman named Ann Barry, and began attending occasional meetings of the United Lodge of Theosophists, an esoteric organisation centred in the city.

[27] Now based in Los Angeles, Smith applied for US citizenship but was rejected, due to the fact that in his application he had claimed to be married but he was unable to prove this with paperwork.

[28] Seeking to promote Thelema in the city, he adopted his own student, Oliver Jacobi, whom he mentored in the A∴A∴ system,[29] and in the autumn of 1927, he developed a close friendship with fellow Thelemite and Hollywood actress Jane Wolfe.

[30] Although he continued to have sexual relationships with other women, Smith retained his love for Katherine, who came to visit him in Los Angeles, where they were legally married on 24 August 1927 at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, the day before she returned to Montreal.

[31] She tried to get Smith to abandon occultism and Thelema and return to her in Canada, but he refused, leading her to file for divorce in May 1930, taking sole custody of their child.

Kahl and Wolfe began using the attic for Thelemic rituals, and in March 1933 they performed their first public Gnostic Mass in the room, hoping to attract interested persons to Thelema.

[42] The Agape Lodge held regular meetings, lectures, and study classes, as well as social events and a weekly Gnostic Mass open to the public.

[50] The Parsons would help bring new members into the group; Grady McMurtry and his fiancée Claire Palmer, and Helen's sister Sara Northrup.

[54] Crowley's criticisms nevertheless continued, and Smith suffered a mild heart attack, retiring prematurely from work at the age of 56 before undergoing an operation to remove haemorroids in February 1942.

[56] Parsons had begun a relationship with Sara Northrup, while Smith consoled Helen, who would become his partner for the rest of his life; nevertheless the four remained friends.

and Agape Lodge, particularly as Germer, now leader of the North American O.T.O., was German; ultimately, they decided that the group was no threat to national security, describing it as a probable "love cult".

[67] In September 1944 Smith went on a second magical retirement, during which he performed pranayama and the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram, invoked Thoth, and recited the Holy Books of Thelema from memory.

[68] Returning to his Pasadena home, he was welcomed by Parsons, but Crowley insisted that Smith be shunned by the lodge members, and so he moved back to Hollywood.

[70] He became good friends with the art dealer Baron Ernst von Harringa, who commissioned Smith to construct Asian-style furniture for his gallery.

[75] Smith purchased a plot of land in Malibu where he built his own house for himself, Helen, and their son, which he named "Hoc Id Est" ("This Is It").

[76] This developed into prostate cancer, and mistrusting of conventional medicine, he sought out an alternative treatment at the Hoxsey Clinic in Dallas, Texas, which he visited in December 1956, but they were unable to help him.

He praised "Starr's lucid style and the inherent fascination of the material, replete with vivid characters, epic rows, and sexual intrigue".