Why the BITE Model Matters
The BITE Model is a framework developed by mental health professional Steven Hassan for understanding the ways high-control groups exert undue influence over their members. It organizes these dynamics into four broad categories: Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotion.
No single incident demonstrates that an organization is a high-control group. The relevant question is whether the same patterns recur across many different people and situations over time.
During my 11 years in O.T.O. — first as an enthusiastic member, and later as Master of Horizon Lodge — I repeatedly encountered organizational dynamics that the BITE model helped me recognize and organize. What follows is not a comprehensive account of every troubling experience I had, but a selection of representative examples.
This essay is not an attempt to prove that O.T.O. is a cult in some absolute sense. Rather, it asks a narrower question: to what extent do the recurring organizational dynamics I observed over 11 years resemble the forms of influence described by Hassan’s BITE model? The goal is not to persuade readers through any single anecdote, but rather to identify recurring mechanisms that only became visible over time.
O.T.O.? A High-Control Group?
At first glance, O.T.O. doesn’t resemble the stereotypical image of a cult. Members live independently, hold ordinary jobs, and are free to leave. The organization is often disorganized, financially modest, and decentralized. Members are not required to believe particular theological claims; nor does the organization exercise the kind of total behavioral control associated with groups like Scientology or Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Yet high-control groups exist on a spectrum. Organizations can exert powerful forms of informational, social, and emotional control without dictating every aspect of members’ lives. That is why I found Steven Hassan’s BITE model helpful. The question isn’t whether an organization is completely controlling. It’s how and to what extent it influences its members.
O.T.O. does not strongly exhibit every dimension of the BITE model. In my experience, behavioral control was comparatively weak, while information control and social pressure surrounding criticism were much more prominent.
If someone had suggested to me in 2024 that O.T.O. was a high-control group, I probably would have dismissed the idea. My own image of high-control groups involved organizations that tightly regulated members’ beliefs, finances, relationships, and daily lives. O.T.O. didn’t look like that. It was only after years of observing recurring patterns — and later encountering Hassan’s model — that I began to reconsider that assumption.
See The Experiment That Changed My Mind About Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.).
Information Control
“They’re keeping track of everyone’s stance on you.”
Information control refers to efforts to shape what members know, whom they trust, and how information flows within an organization. It includes not only secrecy, but also surveillance, rumor, selective disclosure, and discouraging open discussion.
As an initiatory organization, O.T.O. naturally keeps some ritual material confidential until members reach particular degrees. That kind of secrecy is not harmful on its own. What concerned me were repeated patterns of information control that extended far beyond preserving spiritual teachings.
A Culture of Surveillance and Informing
Shortly after my resignation, a member described a meeting they had with Sabazius, the National Grand Master in the United States. During the meeting, Sabazius displayed folders containing screenshots and other documents he had collected about ongoing situations within the Order.
The folders included screenshots of my public posts about my resignation. They also contained screenshots of other people’s friend-restricted posts about my resignation, along with those who commented either approvingly or disapprovingly on them.
According to the attendee, I was not the only subject of this kind of documentation. The folders were organized around incidents rather than individuals, with screenshots and comments catalogued in a way that tracked where different members appeared to stand.
The attendee who shared this information with me concluded, “They’re keeping track of everyone’s stance on you.”
This wasn’t simply passive observation. It depended on members routinely forwarding information to leadership.
In spring 2025, I held a private, non-O.T.O. ritual for a small group of friends. I organized the event through a private Facebook page whose guest list was visible only to me. The event generated reports both before and after it occurred.
About an hour and a half before the event was supposed to start, I was contacted by a Sovereign Grand Inspector General (7th degree), whom I’ll call Heather. Heather said it was brought to her attention that I had invited someone to my event who was a suspended member and public critic of the Order.
Since the guest list was private, the information appears to have come from someone who had access to the event page.
While I was not asked to uninvite him, I was told that if he said anything critical of the Order while at the event, it was expected I would ask him to leave.
Later, during the national call in which Sabazius shared his social media screenshot archive, he shared not only screenshots of the private event page I had created for this event, but a memo on it written by one of the event’s attendees.
This attendee — an O.T.O. 6th degree I had considered a good friend — described the event’s ritual symbolism in detail and included a list of the event’s O.T.O. and non-O.T.O. attendees. The memo was used by Sabazius as evidence I was mentally unstable.
The issue was not simply that people shared information. It was that ordinary acts of friendship — inviting someone to a private gathering, speaking candidly in front of trusted companions — could unexpectedly become part of the organization’s internal reporting network.
These incidents did not stand alone. Over the years, I repeatedly encountered situations in which members’ speech — particularly criticism of leadership — was monitored, screenshotted, and discussed outside its original context:
- In 2019, within hours of making a friends-only post expressing criticism of a leadership decision, I received a phone call discouraging me from leaving the post up. This single incident illustrates several dimensions of the BITE model and will reappear throughout the discussion below from different analytical perspectives.
- In 2020, a friends-only post I made questioning church policy was discussed in a Rose-Croix Chapter meeting I was not of the right degree to attend.
- In 2022, a post I made about local sponsorship culture was screenshotted and shared with another local body.
- That same year, a private post I made disagreeing with a popular interpretation of the Gnostic Mass was screenshotted and shared with the head of our Rose-Croix Chapter. This became a pretext for counseling me on my stated opinions.
- In 2026, another member made a lengthy YouTube video in which she described the effect bullying in her local body was having on her. Shortly afterward, she took the video down, citing pressure that it was hurting “harmony.”
- That same year, a 7th-degree member told me that after leaving a supportive comment about me, someone in leadership contacted them to discuss it.
Nor was this practice denied.
In the summer of 2025, a former member of the Electoral College responded to one of my videos about O.T.O.’s surveillance culture by defending the practice, describing it as “bringing receipts.”
What these incidents illustrate is an informal expectation that information about other members — particularly information that might concern leadership — should be passed upward through the hierarchy. The practical effect is the blurring of lines between friendship and institutional control, O.T.O. membership and private life. Private conversations, private events, and trusted personal bonds can become sources of intelligence for the organization’s leadership.
Rumor as Organizational Currency
In my experience, informal rumors often traveled more quickly — and sometimes carried more weight — than official communications.
In September 2022, I filed a confidential complaint with the Secretary of the Electoral College of United States Grand Lodge. The Secretary was obligated to keep the information confidential. Instead, he shared it with his wife, another O.T.O. member.
In doing so, he mistakenly told her that I had accused another member of screenshots and misinformation that I had never attributed to her. The wife then shared this false rumor with two other members — who in turn shared it with more people.
The rumor spread so widely that I eventually heard it from a friend who was not even an O.T.O. member. I was stunned — not only because the information was false, but because it implicated another member whom I was certain had done nothing of the sort.
When I eventually pieced together what happened, I was appalled — not only by the way information had been distorted and spread so widely, but by the lack of accountability of the participants.
Instead of taking responsibility, one person involved — Heather — said, “I don’t think [their] reputation will be damaged by this. But you are a good friend to be concerned.” She was later promoted to Sovereign Grand Inspector General, a position that routinely involves receiving and evaluating highly sensitive reports, including victim statements.
One of the 6th degrees involved initially accepted responsibility for his role in spreading the rumor. The following day, however, he reversed course, telling me that sharing and discussing this kind of information was part of his duty as a member of Kaaba, the section of United States Grand Lodge responsible for leadership training. He too was later promoted to Sovereign Grand Inspector General.
The Secretary later apologized and told me he had reported the incident to the President of the Electoral College.
What struck me was not only that a false rumor spread. It was that confidential information entrusted to an officer of the Order became the basis for speculation, and that once the mistake was uncovered, few involved appeared to regard correcting it — or accepting responsibility for it — as especially important.
In my experience, unofficial information often traveled farther and faster than official communication. Rumor frequently filled the vacuum created by opaque decision-making processes, making it difficult for members to distinguish verified information from speculation — or to know whom they could safely trust with sensitive information.
Opaque Decision-Making
O.T.O.’s disciplinary and advancement processes often operate through substantial informational asymmetry, with complaints often disappearing into a black box.
A member filed a complaint against a local body master alleging multiple forms of serious misconduct. Rather than hearing back from the governing body to which they had submitted the complaint, they eventually heard from another individual not directly involved that the complaint would not be acted upon.
In another disciplinary case involving allegations of sexual misconduct, the process unfolded over nearly eight years. Participants struggled to determine what information decision-makers actually possessed, why particular decisions had been reached, or even which governing bodies were responsible at different stages. A witness statement containing a firsthand allegation of sexual assault was never forwarded to the disciplinary body responsible for deciding the case. Years later, an independent investigator uncovered additional evidence that had likewise never been considered during the original proceedings.
When decision-making is this opaque, accountability becomes difficult. Members cannot meaningfully evaluate whether procedures were followed, whether evidence was considered, or whether outcomes reflect the facts of the case or other institutional pressures. (See: When the System Failed: What the Case of Adam Revealed About O.T.O.)
Thought Control
“You may appear to assert you have expertise beyond the authority of members in good standing of higher degrees.”
Thought control does not necessarily require brainwashing or members to unquestioningly adopt an ideology. It can also operate by shaping how they interpret disagreement, criticism, authority, and one another. Certain explanations become socially acceptable, while others become difficult to entertain.
Pathologizing Dissent
After I resigned and publicly criticized O.T.O., the organization’s senior leadership did not primarily address my criticisms. Instead, they focused on explaining why I had made them.
During a meeting with other members, Sabazius described me as suffering from “spiritual psychosis” and said my “ego couldn’t handle being in O.T.O.”
As evidence of this diagnosis, he cited claims that:
- I was attempting to use O.T.O. to financially enrich myself
- My personality had changed
- I was “theatrical”
This was not unique to my resignation. Over the years I repeatedly watched members reframe criticism of the organization as evidence of personal defects rather than occasions to examine the criticism itself.
Someone would write a book or article critical of O.T.O. policy, and rather than engage with the substance of the argument, discussion would often shift toward the author’s personality, friendships, motives, or personal history. And this was done even when the person was a member in good standing.
Once someone left the organization, the rhetoric often became considerably harsher. One local body master spoke of “despising” a former member critical of O.T.O.’s initiatory practices. On another occasion, this same individual described his desire to physically assault a critic.
Over time I came to recognize this as a recurring pattern at every level of the organization. Rather than treating criticism as something to be evaluated on its merits, members often interpreted it as evidence that the critic was immature, obsessive, narcissistic, mentally ill, spiritually unstable, morally repugnant, or undergoing a midlife crisis.
The practical effect of this pattern was that the cost of criticism was character assassination. To question the organization meant risking not only disagreement but having one’s motives, judgment, or mental health called into question.
Disagreement as Disloyalty
Another pattern I observed was that public disagreement was often treated not just as difference of opinion, but as evidence of disloyalty — to senior members, to the organization, and to its spiritual principles.
In 2022, I wrote an article in which I disagreed with an interpretation of the Gnostic Mass — O.T.O.’s central ritual — which had been put forward for over a decade by Lon and Constance Duquette, two popular 9th degrees. The article was respectful. I criticized their interpretation, not their character.
Later that year, my 5th degree sponsor reached out to me at the urging of the head of our local Rose-Croix Chapter, to discuss concerns about the article and social media posts I had written the previous summer while brainstorming it.
I reached out to him personally to get a better sense of his concerns. He said I “may appear to assert [I] have expertise beyond the authority of members in good standing of higher degrees.” I was also told I “may wish to review the III° oath in that regard.”
There is a line in the 3rd degree oath in which the candidate swears to look with respect and reverence on members of higher grades. The implication was that disagreeing publicly with two 9th degrees was itself a failure of reverence.
It was relayed to me later that the High Priestess of the Chapter was making similar claims to others, implying I had violated my sacred oath by publicly disagreeing with influential members.
In 2021, Agapé — the official publication of United States Grand Lodge — published an article I wrote in which I disagreed with Dionysius Rogers, a high-ranking member of O.T.O., on questions of theology. In particular, I took exception to his claim that questions of theology were exclusively the concern of 9th degree members of O.T.O.
Later I heard from multiple people that Dionysius was upset that I had “gone after” him and the DuQuettes. He referred to me as a “shit-stirrer” and unfavorably compared me with IAO131, an outspoken critic who had been suspended. Here again, disagreement itself was interpreted as aggression.
A similar pattern emerged during my vetting for 5th degree. Social media posts expressing unorthodox views on theology and organizational policy were reportedly discussed as “concerns” about my suitability.
I can’t think of a single time an issue was made of the substance of my arguments. Instead, the act of publicly disagreeing with influential members was itself treated as evidence that I lacked the proper attitude toward authority.
Over time I simply stopped publicly disagreeing with influential members. My views hadn’t changed, but I came to expect that disagreement itself would be interpreted as disrespect, disloyalty, or evidence of poor judgment. The result was not formal censorship but self-censorship.
Scripted Interpretations
Another recurring pattern was that members often responded to situations using the same small set of scripted responses. Rather than evaluating each situation independently, they seemed to reach for familiar explanations that preserved existing assumptions about the organization and its leaders.
In 2019, Sabazius pressured a 6th degree member to remove former member and critic IAO131 as administrator of a privately owned Facebook group unrelated to O.T.O. The member believed refusing would lead to discipline. He complied under protest and later resigned from the Order.
When I raised concerns with fellow members about this, instead of taking the concern seriously, I was asked whether Sabazius “really ordered” this 6th degree to break ties — or whether he was merely expressing his personal preference.
I heard this response from no fewer than 5 members — leaving me wondering whether there was coordination, or everyone just happened to fall back on the same language.
Whether Sabazius had literally issued an order was not the central issue. The concern was that a senior leader had exerted pressure on a subordinate to end a personal relationship. Yet discussion repeatedly shifted toward the technical question of whether the pressure qualified as an “order,” as though resolving that semantic point also resolved the ethical concern.
In my experience within O.T.O., discussions often relied on memorable quips or reflexive responses in place of deeper analysis. I explored this tendency at greater length in my essay What Is Consensus Thelema? Phrases like “Success is your proof” or “It’s up to each person to decide” were often used to shut down disagreement while appearing to affirm individual freedom. These responses rarely addressed the substance of the issue being raised. Instead, they made further examination appear immature, unspiritual, or unwise.
When I left and spoke out, I tended to hear the same accusations repeatedly: that I was unstable, egotistical, narcissistic, that I had “rejected initiation,” was unwilling to “do the work,” and that I was suffering a midlife crisis. I doubt anyone instructed members to use these particular phrases. That is precisely what made the pattern striking. The language appeared to reproduce itself, suggesting that members had absorbed common ways of interpreting criticism and dissent.
I don’t know whether these responses reflected explicit coordination or simply a shared way of thinking that members absorbed over time. Either way, the effect was similar: difficult ethical questions were repeatedly reframed in a way that made serious engagement unnecessary.
Emotional Control
“I’d hate to see something bad happen to you.”
Fear of Retaliation
After I criticized Sabazius’s handling of the 2019 IAO131 incident in a private Facebook post, I received a phone call within hours from a 6th degree member in the community. The conversation started warmly enough, with him saying he enjoyed having me as a member. But he immediately followed this by saying, “I’d hate to see something bad happen to you.”
At first I wondered whether he was simply warning me that leadership might retaliate. But when I defended my criticism of Sabazius, his response clarified what he meant.
He suggested the following hypothetical: Imagine a member of the Order is on the editorial staff of a newspaper that is printing negative articles about O.T.O. Shouldn’t Sabazius use that connection to get the person writing the critical articles fired?
What struck me was that he responded not by engaging my criticism, but by defending the legitimacy of retaliation itself.
The conversation left me deeply unsettled, and I took down the post.
Whether this individual intended his words as intimidation is secondary to the fact that it communicated the consequences of publicly speaking against Sabazius.
In 2020, a respected leader in the community expressed his desire to “curb-stomp” IAO131, an outspoken critic of the Order. Even though IAO131 wasn’t present, hearing a respected leader casually imagine violent retaliation against a critic communicated something broader: criticism was treated not merely as disagreement but as hostility.
In 2024, I had to deal with an extremely volatile situation involving Samantha, a respected member of the community working as an officer under me. When I attempted to repair breaches in our working relationship, she sent me long, very emotional emails accusing me of personal betrayal and slander. I found these emails intimidating — both for the intensity of emotional response, and because I was worried this individual would try to turn other members of the community against me if I didn’t accept her point of view. These fears were later confirmed when other upper degrees began reaching out to me to “make things right.”
In 2025, after issuing a warning to a member who had been making a prospective member uncomfortable, a friend of this member — Heather, an SGIG — began pressing me to revise my decision. I began to worry about retaliation against myself and another member who had told me about the misconduct. This fear was confirmed shortly after when Heather started to manipulate policy wording to control my private events.
In these examples, fear rarely came through formal discipline. Instead, it emerged through respected individuals who signaled things such as “people are talking,” “you should be careful,” “this could become an issue,” or “people are concerned.” Individually, many of the interactions were ambiguous, but the result was the same: the creation of a climate in which members began anticipating negative consequences before anyone had to explicitly impose them.
Obligation Without Boundaries
Another recurring pattern was the expectation that leaders assume responsibility for managing other people’s emotional responses to ordinary organizational decisions.
During the period in which I was attempting to manage Samantha, her husband repeatedly pressured me to repair her emotional distress. I had to refuse many times, citing both my responsibilities as Master as well as my own boundaries around emotional labor. Rather than respecting those boundaries, he repeatedly reframed them as “confusion,” suggested I was not fulfilling my responsibilities as Master, and warned about the effect this could have on the community.
Four months later, another senior member became involved. A 6th degree told me how “demoralized” Samantha was and urged me to reconcile with her and her husband for the good of the lodge.
Around this time, Heather began pressuring me about the routine warning I had given her friend. Among other things, it was described to me how hurt and confused her friend felt, and I was repeatedly pressured to reconsider the warning.
Repeatedly, setting boundaries around emotional labor was itself interpreted as evidence of poor leadership.
In my experience, the most exhausting part of serving as Master was not the formal responsibilities of the office. It was the tacit expectation that there be no meaningful boundary between organizational leadership and emotional caretaking — that the Master should absorb, resolve, and take responsibility for the intense emotional reactions of anyone unhappy with their decisions.
Self-Doubt
Over time, members gradually stop trusting their own perceptions, because the organization’s social signals consistently contradict what they directly experience.
A member reported strange “coincidences” to me, like a member of a governing body reaching out “just to check in” after she left a supportive comment on a critic’s post. She also said an upper degree had told her it was “okay” if she remained friends with me after I resigned, but felt as though she was being baited into disavowing me.
She told me that, for years, people in O.T.O. told her she was paranoid and reading into things too much if she said she thought people were whispering about her. She repeatedly asked herself, “Am I tripping?”
After seeing the reaction to me and Sabazius’ trove of screenshots, she realized “my instinct has apparently been the correct one.” She concluded that she had been repeatedly gaslit.
I recognized the same pattern in my own experiences. The contradiction between what people told me privately and how they behaved publicly made it increasingly difficult to know what they actually believed.
While the drama with Samantha and her husband was brewing, multiple people in the community reached out to me privately to tell me they saw the same things I did. “Believe me, I know what they’re like,” I was told. But publicly they would support Samantha and her husband — with one person even going so far as to recommend Samantha for advancement to an invitational degree.
After I left, people close to me told me in private they believed me — even loved me. Publicly, they ridiculed me, unfriended me on social media, or speculated about my mental state.
What makes this dynamic psychologically powerful is that it doesn’t require people to lie outright. It only requires enough discrepancy between what members experience privately and what they encounter publicly that they begin questioning their own judgment. They stop asking, “What is happening?” and instead ask “Am I imagining this?”
Behavior Control
“The post needs to be removed, and [IAO131] needs to be removed as moderator.”
At first glance, O.T.O. appears to exercise relatively little behavioral control. Members choose where they live, whom they date, what careers they pursue, and even what theological beliefs they hold. Yet many of the examples described above illustrate a subtler form of behavioral regulation. Rather than issuing direct commands, the organization often shaped behavior indirectly through informational, social, and emotional pressures.
The 2019 IAO131 Facebook incident was one the clearest examples of behavioral control I witnessed. Sabazius wrote to a 6th degree member who was the admin of a non-O.T.O. Facebook group and said, “The post needs to be removed, and [IAO131] needs to be removed as moderator.” The behavior being controlled wasn’t internal Order activity. It was an attempt to regulate a member’s conduct outside the organization. Regardless of whether it was framed as an official order, the 6th degree believed refusing would lead to discipline. He complied under protest and then resigned from the organization.
The threatening phone call I received from a 6th degree after making a Facebook post critical of this was a form of emotional control, but it led to a change in my behavior: I retracted a public criticism.
In 2025, Heather told me she was not ordering me to uninvite a guest from my private event. At the same time, she reclassified the event as an O.T.O. function and reminded me that my guest was barred from attending O.T.O. events. I uninvited him. The result was institutional influence over conduct without an explicit command.
Both Dionysius Rogers and the head of my Rose-Croix Chapter acted in ways that got me to regulate my intellectual publications. They weren’t merely disagreeing with me. They were asserting that I should not publicly critique higher-degree members. That’s an attempt to regulate future conduct — and it worked. Over time, I stopped publishing public disagreements with influential members altogether.
None of these examples depended on constant supervision or formal discipline. The behavioral changes followed naturally from the informational, cognitive, and emotional pressures described earlier. By the time behavior changed, explicit coercion was often unnecessary.
Effects
These patterns have had real consequences.
Over time they’ve eroded trust, encouraged self-censorship, blurred personal boundaries, and made it increasingly difficult to trust one’s own perceptions.
They’ve driven away many conscientious, intelligent, reflective people who were passionate about the Order and its mission.
And they’ve also shaped the kinds of people who tended to remain behind in positions of influence, reinforcing the organizational dynamics described above.
Each of those consequences deserves more careful treatment than is possible here. Several are explored elsewhere on this site.
Conclusion
Before I encountered Hassan’s model, I had dozens of seemingly unconnected stories. The model provided a vocabulary for recognizing the organizational dynamics they shared.
Readers can decide for themselves whether O.T.O. should be considered a high-control group. My purpose is not to assign a label but to document the recurring mechanisms I observed over more than a decade and explain why they ultimately made continued participation incompatible with my own values.
What ultimately persuaded me was not any single incident but the cumulative pattern. Individually, many of these episodes could be dismissed as misunderstandings, personality conflicts, or isolated mistakes. Taken together, however, they revealed a remarkably consistent set of organizational dynamics. Hassan’s model gave me a vocabulary for recognizing them.
See Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.): An Analysis of a High-Control Group for more.