My get out of jail free card

Early in my personal Golden Dawn history (before I learned what I joined was not really Golden Dawn according to the most vocal historians and pundits), I learned a very important phrase: I don't know.

It actually started before I joined Golden Dawn (I will continue to call it GD because I believe that it is GD despite opinions that tell me that I am wrong). My sponsor spotted me in public with Donald Michael Kraig's Modern Magic (How to Become a non-GD Adept in Eleven Easy Lessons). It is a book that most of us own.

He started right in on me: Why are you reading that book? does it really work? why do you have to learn the Hebrew alphabet?

My standard response, after I got done being frustrated, was: I don't know.

To this day, I am not sure why he decided to sponsor me for membership in Hathoor Temple. But I continued to use the phrase well into my membership. It is an useful phrase. It allows me to ask questions, assign research projects (Temple Officers are mean that way), and helps keep my ego under control (well as much as it is possible for my ego to be under control).

Unlike several Adepts I have ran into over the years, I don't have to dodge behind secrecy ("You will learn that in a higher Grade"), nor do I have to make up answers. If I don't know something, I just admit to it.

And if I do, I either tell the person the answer or give them a full run-down of what all they need to know before I can give them an answer that will actually make sense to them.

(That is a form of secrecy in itself: an answer that makes no sense unless you know X, Y and Z.)

After all, my office and oath requires me to teach and not merely hide the information that I do know. Preservation of information is my burden, not secrecy.

(For those who are concerned with secrecy---if it is already in public domain, why not talk about it? and do you know what I reserve exclusively for the members of my own lodge? are you sure that the public knowledge is all that there is?)

I am not sure if this is the right way to do things or not. It was acceptable in Hathoor, and it is acceptable in Bast Temple. It is my way. Is it the best way to do things? Honestly, I don't know.