Is 100K actually needed to study Freemasonry?

Over the last few years, I have noticed an alarming trend in occultism: Some students believe that they should get everything for free---as in esoteric Orders, groups, teachers, and writers should not get a dime from the students. These are the same type of students who do not believe in doing daily exercises or memorizing the basic terms. I thought that I saw the worst of it a couple of months ago when someone suggested that magical Orders should pay their students to be members.

Well, I was wrong.

Last night during one of my moderator runs on Facebook, I ran across a pending post that made me realize that it could get so much worse.

Now for those who have not heard my rant: Running an esoteric Order (group) costs money---candles, rent, handouts, etc. all cost money. And writing a book and teaching takes a person away from activities that would result in a paycheck. And I feel that it is unfair for the students to get these services for free, placing the entire monetary burden on occult leaders, especially when occult leaders have to shell out money for things like groceries.

Plus there is also the little fact that I had to pay for lessons, books, materials, and membership dues, as well as pass my Grade exams--therefore, I do not see why the modern generation of students should get a free ride. Yes, I believe that modern occult students should suffer as much as I did coming up the ranks.

In other words, I am an asshole who does not realize that modern students are vastly superior in wisdom to me, and that I am blessed to be in the mere presence of such enlightened souls.

How much of an asshole am I?

Take for instance, last night's post.

Here is a lad advertising a GoFundMe campaign to help him collect the money neccessary to buy materials to study the Masonic symbols. He shared his ad with over twenty Facebook groups. And he is only asking for a mere 100K (one hundred thousand dollars).

Yes, I said 100K.

What the hell is he trying to study? Primary sources? Handwritten manuscripts? George Washington's wig? Maybe he thinks that he needs to own a lodge.

Or maybe, my inner asshole says, he is trying to get other people to pay him not to work and be a full time student of Freemasonry. And by full time, I mean he sits on the sofa reading internet posts and never once steps into a lodge.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why this person is so special that we should fund their esoteric career. And yes, I looked at what little they had public on their Facebook profile , and there is nothing to indicate that this person is the next Albert Pike. I am not even sure that he is a member of a Freemason lodge....and that would be the first step to understanding Freemasonry, or so I would think.

But if you think that I am wrong, feel free to donate funds to him.

Or better yet, start up a GoFundMe campaign to pay me 100K not to make fun of him. It can't be good for his studies that people like me are using him as fodder on a slow news day. Think of the number of special snowflake students you could save from the likes of me if you funded me to....pet cats all day long...go back and get my Masters in a completely useless degree (either history or literature)...go to Rome and annoy Nick Farrell...help out my wife in the art studio...run naked though a Broncos game...the possiblities are endless---hell, toss enough money at me (100K, come on people!), and I might even finish the artwork for the Tarot deck that I am working on. And if you like, I can claim to be studying Freemasonry while I am doing so. After all, if you give me 100K, I too can be a special snowflake.

Remember special snowflakes need you to fund them, so that they get all the esoteric wisdom and knowledge for free.  Don't listen to those asshole occult teachers who believe that money should flow to the teacher and not towards the student.

#specialsnowflakesmatter

And he spammed this across 20+ FB groups last night.

100K to learn more about Freemasonry. 

Magic is NOT for everyone

Late last night, a person posted, in the Golden Dawn Facebook group that I help moderate, that they and their partner were in the process of creating a new course. This course is to be aimed at a mainstream audience, so it could not be too occult--but they are planning on cherry picking techniques from Golden Dawn and other systems...so essentially the occult would be disguised. And most importantly, the course had to be effective and reliable for the average individual in western society--all in the name of empowerment.

To say I have a few problems with this idea would be understating things. Personally, I think that the whole idea is a giant bag of poo. Here are a couple of comments that I made about it before the entire discussion got deleted (and not by me...I think that the original poster did not like what I had to say about his project):

"My mind keeps coming back to a problem I see with aiming it at the average individual---your average person is averse to change; your average person is averse to work. So unless you are making another "Law of Attraction" level course (most LOA stuff is...well, flawed---the only real work most of it does is to transfer money from the clients pockets to the person running the course), you have to figure out a way to make your average person accept change, and a way to make them actually work at the process."

"Unfortunately, GD methods are full of change and work....so you are probably going to have to lose this part of your course plan if you want your course to appeal to your average individual."

"And yes, if I was to create a course myself, aimed at the average individual, I would not go for anything more than happy New Age talk aimed at confirming that individual's opinion and biases are absolutely correct....because that is the amount of work and change that your average individual is willing to accept---absolutely no work and no change at all. Therefore, all the GD stuff has to be left out....along with the working bits of any other spiritual development system."

When the person shot back that they want to create human beings that think--I merely rolled my eyes...I have seen what passes nowadays as "critical thinking" training (basically if you do not agree with what the creator of the course thinks, you are labelled a troublemaker and showed the door). And I have seen firsthand the lack of actual thinking in this person's own postings on the internet, so I do not hold out high hopes that they can teach something that they themselves seem incapable of doing.

My "polite" parting shot was: "Here is the bottom line---if any of us knew how to accomplish this goal, we would be doing it already. And that includes you--if you knew how to pull this off, you would not be asking for input."

At this point of time, I was declared a defeatist by the other person, who then cited Gandhi, Einstein, and Tesla as people who had vision and had made a difference. It was right after this that I said "I guess that you are the Messiah."

I didn't get to say anything else because someone (and I think that it was the original poster, aka the creator of this "soon to revolutionize humanity" course) deleted the entire discussion.

Seriously, ideas like this worry me. Every course I have ever seen aimed at the masses is nothing more than a control and asset reallotment scheme (think like me, and give me your money! and feel good about yourself for making a difference....in other words, thanks for being gullible and buying me a new jet). And this individual's idea that people who subscribe to courses actually do the work is flawed---just look at the numbers of subscribers that pay for the BOTA course, who do not do a lick of actual work with the course...and that course is about empowerment and change.

No, the only real reason to create an occult course, no matter how watered down, aimed at the masses, Joe Q. Common, is that you are running a scam and want to fleece people of their hard-earned money, so that you do not have to work hard yourself.

If you actually want to make a difference, you aim at those individuals who can and are willing to become exceptional--you do not have to disguise the occult or make them feel good about themselves--and you never mistake them for the common herd.

Yes, magic is for all of you---and God wants you to send me your money because I need a new jet. 

Falling short of the ideal persona

Last week, I had another spat with my sister. And during the middle of the spat I realized that in the back of her mind, she must have an idealized concept of what a relative is supposed to be like. I am guessing that it comes from Leave It to Beaver or The Brady Bunch or some other show from way before the point that television started to openly show what real families were like.

(The Simpsons and Married With Children are closer to what I believe real families are like.)

And as long as I fall short of that ideal, I am going to be judged as being a bad relative. (If you are curious about some of this drama, you can peek at my writing blog: Living in a Fishbowl III.)

Then I realized that I am falling short of a lot of people's idealized concept of what a person should be like. I am not the perfect leader, the perfect teacher, the perfect witch/pagan/wiccan, the perfect writer, the perfect college student, the perfect husband, the perfect friend, the perfect employee, the perfect employer, or even the perfect cat owner. And as long as I am judged by an ideal, instead of the actual person that I really am, I will be found lacking, deeply at fault for merely being human.

In the esoteric community, we see this all the time as Golden Dawn lodges and wiccan covens are found to be bad (sometimes even evil), solely because they do not match the idealized vision that seekers have for them. The other night, the lodge I belong to was found lacking because someone thought that we should teach the entire system without requiring membership in the lodge.

The same holds true for Adepts. I wish I had a dollar for every time that I have read a complaint that the Adepts on some online forum were not acting like Adepts. Often this complaint seems to follow an Adept telling someone that they are wrong about something. In an ideal world, some people seem to think that Adepts must accept every cracked pot idea that comes along, and worship at the knees of people who think these crazy ideas.

Now, don't get me wrong---there are bad esoteric groups, occult students, and leaders. It is just that one needs to be able to figure out what complaints are real and what complaints are merely the product of falling short of a misconceived ideal.

Adepts do not have to be nice

Last night, I was reading some messages from one of the many Golden Dawn yahoo forums that I belong to. And someone (an Adept) made a comment that another person promptly labeled as "not being nice."

I found myself wondering when exactly did people start expecting Adepts to be nice. Where are people getting this idea from?

None of the Adepts that I have ever encountered can be labelled nice. Especially if you are determined to be an idiot. They will come right out and tell you exactly what they think.

And that was exactly what was happening in this particular discussion. Someone was proving that they had the IQ score of a squash, and some Adept called them on it. It was not nice, but it was the truth.

I have even seen people say that if you are not nice and super-polite, then you are not a real Adept.

I cannot think of a single teaching off the top of my head that would require an Adept to be nice. So can anyone point out to me the source of this silly idea?

(And yes, I said that I find the idea that Adepts must be nice to be a silly idea. Heavens knows that my Inner Order sponsor was not nice when I was being stupid.)