Theodor Reuss

German occultist, freemason, illuminati, martinist, rosicrucian, theosophist, journalist, singer and co-founder of Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), an occult secret society and hermetic magical organization. Theodor Reuss (or Reuß) is also known by his neo-Gnostic bishop title of Carolus Albertus Theodorus Peregrinus.

He was a professional singer in his youth, and was introduced to Ludwig II of Bavaria in 1873. He took part in the first performance of Wagner's Parsifal at Bayreuth in 1882. Reuss later became a newspaper correspondent, and travelled frequently as such to England, where he became a Mason at the Pilger Loge No. 238 of the United Grand Lodge of England in 1876. He also spent some time there as a journalist and as a music-hall singer under the stage name "Charles Theodore."

In 1876, Reuss married a woman ten years his senior, Delphina Garbois from Dublin, and moved to Munich in 1878. Their marriage was annulled, due to bigamy. They had a son, Albert Franz Theodor Reuss (1879–1958), a self-educated zoologist who lived in Berlin.

In 1885, in England, Reuss joined the Socialist League. He had been quite involved as a librarian and labour secretary. On 7 May 1886 he was expelled as a police spy in the pay of the Prussian Secret Police

While in England, he became friends with William Wynn Westcott, the Supreme Magus of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia and one of the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Westcott provided Reuss with a charter dated 26 July 1901 for the Swedenborgian Rite of Masonry and a letter of authorization dated 24 February 1902 to found a High Council in Germania of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. Gérard Encausse (a.k.a. Papus) provided him with a charter dated 24 June 1901 designating him Special Inspector for the Martinist Order in Germany. In 1888, in Berlin, he joined with Leopold Engel of Dresden, Max Rahn and August Weinholz in another effort to revive the Illuminati Order.