Some comments that I just have to make

I apologize to my regular readers for the following rant post. But there are times that I just have to say "What the F***?!" And last night on the blogosphere I ran into one of those moments.

It was a post by Robert Zink, headwarden of the EOGD, and he is talking about how both him and Mathers have both victims of the "Blemish" game, a tactic used to justify actions by finding faults in others. In both his and Mathers case, the Blemish game (the term was coined by Eric Bernie, I think) was used to justify schism.

(By the way, the schism happened in 1900, not 1904. Sorry, one of my faults is that I am a double major [Literature and History] currently attending university---little mistakes like that disturb the S*** out of me.)

Zink went on to say that he believes that the current went with Mathers because he was the Third Order contact, a point that I have never seen enourgh proof of to believe in. Nor have I seen enourgh proof of the implied fact that Zink is not mentioning here.

(For the record, I would have voted against Mathers the day he decided that playing politics was a more valuable use of his time than making needed repairs to the Vault of the Adeptii. I don't care if your are the voice of Third Order; my concern as an Adept is my own work which requires a fully repaired Vault.)

"Often we play this game with leaders, it is a common game with dire consquences." Ok, leaders lose their jobs to this game. Of course, I am always surprised by the things that leaders should have gotten the boot for that does not come out until after they get the boot. One of the things that can be said about having political power is that it allows you to keep a tight lid on the members of your group who would talk of your faults and abuses.

After a brief comment about his favorite enemy, we finally get to the part that I have to comment on. Zink mentions that Jeff Randich and Alex Walker, along with some other members, "have decided to create their own group", the OGD/CSS.

Zink says that he feels bad about the way that they left, as he thinks that the EOGD should have a method for those who have been in the Order for a long time to be able to create their own Orders. He notes that they will be a new lineage, and that he was proud to be the Second Order initiator of all those who schismed against him.

Ok, here are my primary comment. None of the Golden Dawn Orders (no matter what their names) have ever been good at being able to hive off new Orders. One of the differences between Wicca and the esoteric Orders one will notice if one studies the first decade or so of the re-invented English Wicca is that they had a rules about how  and when to create new covens. (I don't know enourgh about European Wicca to know how they dealt with this---sorry about the English bias.)

For instance, once a coven got to a certain size (typicially over a dozen members) and had enourgh members of certain degrees, then the group had to "hive off" according to the rules. There was no finding fault with the current parent group leadership; the rules said that the group membership had to be divided. Furthermore, the group could not have contact with each other for a specified time period (typically a year), so that the new group leaders could develop their own skills without someone second-guessing them at every turn.

Of course, this plan will not work in any Golden Dawn or esoteric Order that insists that Third Order contact equals a REAL Order. Presuming that Zink is truthful about his feelings, there is no system that can be invented that allows a new Order to form if Third Order contact is monopolized by a single individual.

So what we get in Golden Dawn is schisms and expulsions. Either you rebel or you p*** off the current leader so badly that you get expelled---those are the only two commonly used routes that Golden Dawn allows you to form your own Order. Oh, there are two other routes, but the one is hardly ever used and the other is considered illegitimate by those who insist that they are the font of all knowledge.

Zink, I acknowledge your stated feelings and the fact that you believe that your faults are not great enourgh to justify members leaving your Order, but honestly there will never be any other option for those who are ready to head their own Order. Because deep down, you believe that you are the heart of your Order and can do no wrong. You like your monopoly too much and we all know it.

As noted already, I apologize to my regular readers for the rant. I also apologize to anyone who do not think I went far enourgh in my statements, or that I did not go far enourgh. I will be weighing comments on this post based on how much gasoline I think that they are soaked in---note that I do not want my blog to burst into flames.

Affliation and bias

Recently, I was reading a post on the Golden Dawn Forum from someone involved in setting up a Golden Dawn group in Massachusetts. They want an unbiased explaination about the differences between the various branches of the Golden Dawn system.

They are not going to get one.

It is impossible to know the differences between the various branches of the system and not have a bias. If you have an association with a branch of the system, you are biased. If you are not affliated with a branch, but can percieve differences between them, you have a bias.

The reason that they want an unbiased opinion is so they can figure out what branch to associate with; they did not state that they wanted an affliation, but I suspect that they feel that they must have a connection to one of the existing branches of the system to be legitimate.

Now everyone who knows me knows my personal bias.

I feel that a group should actually start out without an affliation. Each Golden Dawn group (lodge) is different. Each group has their own working style. Each group has their own way of dealing with the hierarchy and administrative side of things.

And often, when left to their own devices, a group doing the work (working the system) will discover that they are happier not answering to anyone else. Or at the very least, that their opinions of the right way of doing things does not match any existing group.

Charters, Warrents and Affliations (Associations) come with rules. One should know what makes them happy before burdening oneself with a bunch of rules.

That is my opinion.

If a group decides after a couple of years of work that they want to affliate with one of the Big Name Orders, or even one of the smaller ones, then at that point they should feel free to do so. At least then, they will have a benchmark to compare the advantage (if any) of belonging to a Grand Lodge.

Secret Chiefs and the Golden Dawn

One of the things that has been part of the Golden Dawn since its original formation is the Secret Chiefs. Basically, the Secret Chiefs are beings that are considered to be the true rulers of the Golden Dawn system.

If they exist, I am quite sure that they do not like me. I have been in too many occult groups where the leaders have dodged behind the ruse of communication with the Secret Chiefs to claim to be able to do whatever they wanted to without any regard to the health of the group. To say that I am a loud protester is perhaps a understatement. Quite simply, I believe that whenever a Officer invokes the authority of the Secret Chiefs, things have gone very wrong and perhaps it is time to flee.

How did the concept of the Secret Chiefs get wrapped up in the system of Golden Dawn? Quite simply, they were a method (most likely a fraud) to justify the formation of Golden Dawn. Even today, there is a belief that only someone with a lineage and enlightenment can run an occult Order. Golden Dawn is based on a Cipher Manuscript; it does not actually give anyone the authority to start an Order based on it.

So Golden Dawn started off without any charter or warrant. The founders had no authority to start a new esoteric Order. Without a charter from a Mother Lodge, they needed something to be able to satisify the demands of the members for some form of legitimacy. What they decided to use was a old trick.

Today, we are more likely to associate the concept of the Secret Chiefs with Theosophy. But that is only partially true. The concept of enlightened beings, who are hidden from profane view, is a part of the beliefs of many spiritual systems. The Kabbalists have the thirty-six righteous, who guard the existence of the world (there are similar concepts in other systems).

And more importantly, for us, is the fact that certain branches of Freemasonry (such as the Strict Observance) included the concept in their systems. While many say that the concept of the Secret Chiefs come into Golden Dawn from Theosophy, I suspect that it is equally likely that the founders lifted the concept from Freemasonry.

So do the Secret Chiefs actually exist in Golden Dawn? Yes and No. Odds are that if you hear a leader saying that they are in contact with them, that things are already going bad (leaders who tend to invoke them are notorious for abusing their power). On the other hand, the concept of the Secret Chiefs does explain certain phenomena that one can encounter when using the system; though claiming authority from them is like building a system on the advice of the Qlippoth.

My personal advice to all is to treat the Secret Chiefs as a myth, and nothing more. If the Secret Chiefs really exist, they would chose vessals that are hidden, or at least more humble than those who shout their contact with them at the top of their lungs.

Hard copying manuscripts

In the good old days before the advent of the personal computer and the publishing of the Golden Dawn documents by Regardie, a member of Golden Dawn had to hand copy all the documents they wanted a copy of. It was simple. You filled out the form and the lodge (Order) loaned you the master copy of a document (ritual, lesson, address, flying roll, etc.) for a specified length of time, and you sat down and hand copied it.

It was slow and tedious, even in the days when people were still used to doing things this way. After doing it a couple of times, one begins to sympathize with the monks who did this for a living before the printing press was invented. One understands the marginal comments of relief, and curses uttered when someone damaged or stole a book.

And it is a thing of the past. Yet there are times that even today it serves a purpose.

I have personally ended up typing rituals and lessons out of books (for me, having something in Word makes my studies easier, especially the type of studies that one does in ZAM and beyond); it is tedious even now that I am better at typing. Despite the difficulty (I started out as a "Biblical typist"--"Seek and ye shall find"), it is worthwhile doing.

There are things I would have never noticed if I won't have been typing them up into Word. "Did he really mean to say this? And if so, why? What would be the point of doing it like that?"

Maybe I am the only one that needs to approach the material like this. If so, I apologize to those who brought the Revised (Three Officer Version) Neophyte Ritual.

There are some who consider the price tag on that book to be too high. And it is if you already belong to a lodge that has enough members to do the version that Regardie published. But there are some students of Golden Dawn who live nowhere near a functioning lodge, and do not know enough people to petition for a Warrant to establish one. It is for them that the modified ritual is meant for.

And I want them to type it into Word. I don't want the book to meet the photocopier, and I don't want numerous copies to be printed out UNLESS someone took the time to hand copy (AKA type) it. After they do that, I figure that they are going to run off copies for the three other people that they gather to work the ritual. At that point, I don't care.

The ritual is meant to be used. And considering that I am not personally there, I did what I could to make sure that some of the lessons that I learned would pass onto them. One of which is that handcopying a text helps you actually read what is on the page--not what you think is on the page, but the actual words that are there. The book is purposely expensive to make sure that it is easier for someone to type it up than it is for the other three to spend that much money on copies of the ritual.

And besides the ritual (as are all Golden Dawn rituals) is an "open document." It is subject to change as it is used. Over the years, the ritual evolved from the original version of it. I expect the same to happen as new groups of people start to use it. Each of us brings something new to the tradition, and our footnotes and comments should make their way into the texts of our tradition.

[Updated: June 21, 2013--Changed the link for the Three Officer version of the 0=0 ritual from the Lulu sales page to the Smashwords sales page.]