Aleister Crowley died with £430 and left his writings to his order, and a federal court decided in 1985 which of the rival orders owned them

Aleister Crowley headed the Ordo Templi Orientis from about 1921 and died at a Hastings boarding house on 1 December 1947. His solicitors reported about £430 in cash and saw no point in proving the will until the assets were clear. Karl Germer, his successor, wrote on 13 December that he had paid Crowley's expenses and his printing bills, over $2,400 since May, and asked for the literary work under the will. A federal court later found that Crowley left his unassigned literary and personal property to the Order. Germer moved it to California around 1950. He died in 1962 with no will probated, and the property stayed with his widow, Sascha. She died in 1975. In 1976 a Calaveras County court order in her estate let Grady McMurtry take the Order's property. Marcelo Motta, a Brazilian who published Crowley's works, claimed to be the Order's head and registered copyrights. McMurtry's Order sued. After a five-day trial in May 1985, Judge Charles Legge found that Motta was not the head, that his copyright registrations were invalid, and that McMurtry's California corporation was the continuation of Crowley's Order and owned his unassigned writings. The judgment of 10 September 1985 awarded four plaintiffs $35,000 each against Motta and his society.