Am I a Dinosaur?

And now for one of those terrible introspective articles that every reader dreads (and every writer periodically indulges in), where I ask that inexplicable question “am I relevant?”

Yes - this is one of those self-pitying write-ups that poses such existential questions as: Do I matter? Does what I am doing as a writer, teacher and practitioner of occultism, paganism and ritual magick really matter at all? Would anyone in the world have noticed if by some chance I had never existed? If I suddenly vanished from the face of the earth, would anyone even care? Are my ideas so redundant and unoriginal that someone else could have easily stepped into my spiritual foot print and done pretty much the same thing, except maybe quite a lot better? Or perhaps, someone has already done so innumerable times in the past, but it’s just that I hadn’t noticed? I know what you’re thinking, it’s just me feeling the futility of my efforts, and it will pass in a few minutes. (Taking a deep breath, I will endeavor to continue..)

I admit that there is a bit of hubris and self-loathing associated with such musings, and they usually represent the kind of maudlin sentiment and self-absorption that I find quite boring and pathetic in others. So why would I engage in this kind of disgusting feeling-so-sorry-for-myself public lament if I also found it so silly and distasteful? That’s a damned good question, and before I answer it with a “yeah, this too shall pass and be an embarrassment to me later” kind of statement, I think that I could at least explain why I occasionally feel this way. Besides, there are some interesting reasons associated with why I am sensing this angst at this particular time.

Perhaps the times have changed to a degree where I am altogether out of step, or maybe what is changing in the pagan and magical world is not for the best. Allow me to explain what I am thinking here and leave behind the emotional feelings that must accompany such an insight. At the end of this article I may attempt to answer the questions posed in the first paragraph, and perhaps have a better understanding of what is really going on in my world.

We all sometimes feel that are best effort isn’t good enough, or that what we feel is important and strategic in our lives seems to have little value to others. The sting of cognitive dissonance can be quite irritating and even distressing, but it is also (sometimes) considered the price that one must pay for any kind of social or technical precociousness. It’s all too easy for anyone to say to themselves that trite little by-line: “I am a genius and nobody understands me.” Often the opposite is more true: “I am a dinosaur and everybody has passed me by.”

Ideas do become extinct over time, and their purveyors usually die an obscure and ignominious death by a thousand yawns. The irony is that sometimes extinct or forgotten ideas are much later resurrected, and their long-gone spokespersons gain a kind of posthumous cult status. I have no desire to go through that kind of cyclic return, which would occur long after the worms and vultures have eliminated my mortal remains (including the various books and other materials that I have created), but I might also have no choice in the matter. Popularity is fickle and constantly changing, and often the mediocre and trendy are lionized at the expense of the true path-cutter or innovator.

So the question right now is in the world of paganism, witchcraft, ritual magick and western occultism, what is really vogue and exciting right now - in my opinion? Let me list them here and now for us to consider.

Pagan and witchcraft reconstructionism. Antique, classical paganism and the supposed “Old Craft” (anti-Gardinarian craft proponents) are the “in-thing” these days. If one doesn’t have a truly historically derived pagan or witchcraft tradition (or one produced by the properly vetted and agreed upon historical data), a tradition can be created through the use of trance, channeling or the imagination. Pagan reconstructionism is probably more aligned to the historical data, however, Old Craft is probably a lot less so, since the last documented cunning folk were nominally Christians. I would also include “Hedgecraft” and forms of “Bushcraft” in this list, which should be considered, in my opinion, synthesized or new approaches to an old perspective, instead of promoting them as some kind of antique version of pagan witchcraft.

Paganism and Wicca are becoming more like church establishments. Another phenomenon that is occurring and is quite popular is that the modern practices of Paganism and Wicca are becoming more like organized religions and less like systems of magic or the occult. What this entails is the systematic removal or elimination of actual practical magic from the liturgical and religious foundation of a given tradition. I have seen this happen to Gardnerian versions of Witchcraft (including my own), and also to other traditions as well. Also, the emphasis has changed from experimentation to the conservative preservation of the core practices and beliefs. That change in emphasis also seems to be behind an emerging fundamentalism that is slowly and insidiously invading traditions that are really only several decades old or less. When lineages, pedigrees, lineage vouches and staunch, mindless preservation of the lore become far more important than modification, revision and experimentation, then I think that religious conservatism has become the preeminent force in that tradition. This is a situation where legitimacy trumps authenticity, indicating that transformation and direct experiences of Deity and Spirit are no longer either wanted or needed.

Reconstructionism in Renaissance and Mediaeval Magick and Occultism. What is really popular in the practice of ritual and ceremonial magick these days relies on a kind of reconstructionism and strict adherence to source materials. While I have no problem with digging into the past for valuable and aesthetically pleasing magical lore, I do have an issue with the strict adherence part, because in my opinion, magick is something that is derived and recreated within each individual, thus actually making it a new and fresh construct. Since it is impossible to recreate a cultural context that is long passed, attempting to reconstruct the culture behind a collection of grimoires seems to be a fruitless task. Even so, with the publishing of ever more antique grimoires and other related tomes, the passion for reconstruction and strict adherence has become quite popular.

Shamanism, Ethnic and Native Spirituality. I have always believed that ethnic religious traditions belong to the ethnic groups who practice them. Outsiders are just that - they are outside the tradition and really don’t possess the keys to it. If someone wants to engage with teachers and spiritual sponsors of ethnic religious traditions then that is their business; but at least they are going through the same steps that everyone else who was born into that ethnic group must travel. However, it seems to be a popular thing these days to just read and research books on a given ethnic religious tradition, and then adopt some of those practices and beliefs that appeal to one’s tastes. This kind of selective approach produces modern or urban Shamanism, Neo-Tantraism, New Age Native American practitioners, uninitiated Voundoun or Palo practitioners, and quite a number of book-read experts and self-initiated masters. 

These days it seems that the self-taught and self-initiated are part of the greater outlier of ethnic religious traditions, and it remains a very popular approach for many people; although it is likely a source of confusion and consternation to those who have been properly vetted into one of these traditions. Book knowledge, derived practices, and independent development seems to be more important than actually finding a qualified teacher and becoming fully immersed in that ethnic tradition for many years. It would seem that the driving force for such a path has more to do with immediate gratification and personal edification than actually mastering a living and breathing tradition in an authentic manner.

This revelation brings me to my last point, which is the general trend of eschewing all traditional occult teachings, practices, and other elements of what I consider to be hard-core occultism. This would include mastering such obscure subjects as Tarot, Qabalah, Astrology, Alchemy, meditation, concentration and contemplation, Golden Dawn magic, classical ceremonial magic, classical mythology, world religions, basic philosophy, theosophy and theology, logic, systems of divination such as Geomancy, Runes, crystal scrying, pendulum work, and much, much more. I may not be a master of all of these occult beliefs, practices and techniques, but sometimes I feel like a cranky giant amongst a lot of narrowly focused Lilliputians.

It seems like I am meeting more and more witches and pagans who don’t know the basic magical operations of invoking or evoking spirits, using sigils or derived characters to imprint magical energy, generating Elemental energies, summoning Planetary intelligences or even fashioning talismans. These are basic magical practices that any witch or pagan should know, but they seem to be omitted or just plain considered irrelevant to the now established religious creed. At the same time Hoodoo is quite vogue and in many cases it is replacing hard-core basic magical practices (and associated transformative experiences) with a kind of derivative cookbook approach to acquiring magical phenomenon. (You don’t need to understand how it works or the cultural context behind it, just gather these items, do these procedures and mix them together in this manner.)

So, these are the hot topics and pursuits in paganism and witchcraft that are the cutting edge, in my opinion, and unfortunately I am on the counter point with almost all of them. I have been pursuing my own path for nearly four decades, and the basic foundation of my knowledge comes from being involved in a tradition, and then heavily revising and adding to it over the years. I prefer revisionism, creating new systems of magical practices that fit with my overall occult perspective than pursuing some new-fangled fad. I am deeply engaged in classical occultism, and have been so since the very beginning days of my spiritual and magical path.

I believe in and I am engaged in a practice of magic as theurgy, consisting of progressive and incremental transformative ordeals. Ecstasy is the key to what I do, but a deeply held occult discipline and practice is the locking mechanism that I use to open myself to wholly new and wondrous experiences. Because I represent such a strong counter movement to the above list of modern trends in paganism and witchcraft, one could say that I am an adherent of an antique perspective - that I am, in a word, a dinosaur awaiting an immanent extinction. I hope that my outlier practices and beliefs just represent a temporary contrary trend, and that in time, what I am doing and what I know will be valuable some day in the future. 

However, I have watched this change happen over a long time, and if and when it changes yet again, I will likely be gone from this world. Maybe my writings will be valuable to someone someday, but whoever they are, they will be missing that most important of teaching mechanisms, direct and hands-on training and peer review. What I am saying is that because it will take many decades for this trend to reverse itself, by that time I will be in my dotage or more likely dead and buried.

Only time will tell how all of this works out, and particularly, what the new generations make of my writings and my work. Will they see me as a quaint practitioner of something that should have been discarded back in the 90's, or will they see me as some kind of novel founder of a new perspective? I can’t effectively answer this question at the present time; but I can at least be true to my own beliefs and practices, knowing that what I am doing is important to me and the few associates, spirits and deities that are daily part of my life. Everything else is just “sauce for the goose.”

Frater Barrabbas

Some Issues Regarding Grimoire Magick

Persecution of Heresy - Beginning of the Great Divide Between the Old and Modern World

Every day there seems to be another grimoire manuscript that is being published by some high quality book publisher, and it would seem that the volume of published and available material hasn't in any way diminished the demand. It would appear that an important factor for the popularity of the old grimoires is vested in the magical idea that somehow we should emulate the magical practitioners of the late middle ages and early renaissance. In fact, there is a movement within the practice of ceremonial magick that stipulates that all anyone really has to do is to choose an appropriately antique grimoire and practice it exactly as it was written, with no substitutions or revisions.

There is also the mind-set that such works were written by masters of their craft, and that they should therefore be wholly adopted without any changes or revisions. Thus, in the discipline of high magick, we seem to be overrun these days with individuals who are purists and nearly fundamentalistic in their approach to working with the old grimoires. Happily, I can state that I am not one of them, and I think that such an attitude is problematic at best and an insufferable arrogance at worst. Let me explain what I mean by this loaded and opinionated statement.

It’s my opinion that these purists are the occult absolutists in our field of magick. They are the ones who vow a strict adherence to their sources and who condemn others who are not so strict, in other words, those terrible gadfly revisionists - of which I am a proud member. I believe that flexibility and mutability are the hallmarks of true creativity, and their opposite are often the sign of a complete lack of imagination and creative insight. This is quite an unusual state of affairs in the annals of magick because I believe that each magician must create his or her own magical practice from whatever material and lore is available. Certainly, we have an abundance of materials available now that weren’t available just a few decades ago, yet to be hidebound to any one single source is to be, in my opinion, quite self-limiting.

I suspect that the magicians of the previous epoch had no problem borrowing their lore from multiple sources, and the diversity of antique grimoires even with the same title is a remarkable testament that this was so. With ever greater resources at our disposal, we live in a time when we can craft our own system and technique of magick from many different and diverse sources. Doing so is nothing more than following an age old technique of borrowing and appropriating the occult lore and practices of a previous age. I suspect that the magicians of the past age, both great and obscure, borrowed and appropriated their lore from whatever sources they had available to them. Should we be so different? (Of course, this presupposes that one knows enough about magick to be able cobble together a magical system, but that is another topic altogether.)

There are at least three different approaches that one take to utilizing the material found in the old grimoires, and four, if we count the approach of not using them at all. These approaches can be labeled traditionalism, reconstructionism and revisionism. I have talked about these three different approaches several times before, but I want to discuss them in context of the old grimoires. Of these three, the traditional path is the most problematic, since only if one has access to an initiatory lineage that incorporates this lore would it be possible to call oneself a traditional grimoire magician. Nearly all of us must rely, one way or another, on the public materials available. We can attempt to develop a magical practice based on the best historical information available and through that method, we can approach the full employment of one or more of the antique grimoires. There are a lot of problems with this approach, but it should be noted that grimoire reconstructionism is based on an assumption that whatever is unknown or omitted in that lore can be developed using modern sources or one’s creative imagination.

One other key point is that the further we go back in time, the less details that we know about the culture, people’s basic beliefs, basic language used, assumed religious practices and a myriad of other minutiae. Reconstructing a magical system must also include reconstructing the cultural matrix from that specific time period in order to be really effective, and even with the most painstaking research, only fragments exist for cultures that existed merely half a millennia ago. Therefore, reconstructionism, by definition, must always be incomplete and filled out with suppositions and even one’s creative imagination. Thus they become more like an “as if” proposition rather than a perfect reflection of what once existed.

This is why I consider revisionism to be a much better and simpler prospect than attempting to reconstruct an antique practice. You can even start out with a tradition, like for instance, the Golden Dawn, and upon that foundation, build and add appropriate various materials, techniques, themes, tropes and practices from the old grimoires.  A magician needs to know and understand what is needed to build out a new magical functionality, and armed with this knowledge, then choose the appropriate grimoire and harvest from it whatever is needed. In this manner, material is extracted and placed into a proper occult discipline where it will become more or less redefined and used appropriately within of the context of an already established magical practice.

The reason why I am much more inclined to taking a revisionist perspective to all magical lore from the middle ages and the renaissance is that I believe that there is a massive gulf that lies between us, who are living in the post-modern age, and those who lived in the previous epoch. That gap has made a powerful difference between not only how one works magic today versus those previous times, but it also makes a great difference between the post-modern magician and the magician of middle ages and early renaissance. Our beliefs, expectations, approach to religion and spirituality, and our cultural determinants are all completely and radically different. Thus, a modern magician is not at all like his or her peer from the earlier epoch, nor is the world that we live in and our cultural matrix in any manner similar.

If we were to go back in time to the period of the late middle ages or early renaissance when the grimoire system of western magick was being formulated, we would find ourselves in a much different world. Roman Catholicism would be the dominant and primary faith, and all its beliefs and practices would be commonly known and engaged in by nearly everyone, from serf to the highest aristocracy. The whole notion of a secular approach to governing or to a knowledge of the world would not yet exist. So, too, would the notion of an existential individuality and self-determination. The Pope would be the absolute spiritual authority throughout most of Europe, and it some cases, he would also be a temporal authority. The aristocracy would be just beginning to exercise their independent authority, but no one would be foolish enough to directly countermand episcopal dictates. The lords who ruled the various kingdoms and principalities owed their temporal authority to the church, who sanctioned their rule through the artifice of their various offices. This was not too surprising, since these lords were from the same dynastic families that also held positions of power in the church. It was often prudent for the aristocracy to promote their offspring into positions of temporal power as well as within the church hierarchy.

The world of the greater Catholic domain was a complete, seamless and total world view, encompassed by an annual festive calendar and dominated by a monolithic religious belief system promoted by continuous and periodic religious practices. Nearly everyone participated in it, and it would be mostly inconceivable for anyone to exclude themselves from participating. It was considered a universal faith and practice, which is what the word “Catholic” literally means.

So, what would the typical literate magician of the late middle ages or early renaissance be like? First off, he would be a devout Catholic and fairly conservative in his religious beliefs. He would see visions of angels, demons and experience the powers of the saints first hand and it is also likely that his piety and zeal would have pushed him into the study and practice of ceremonial magick. Since he was literate (and often in more than one language), then he was either a member of the upper class or a trained cleric, since literacy had a certain power, mystery and prestige all by itself, especially to the greater masses of the population who were illiterate. He would have had access to enough resources to be able to equip himself and to acquire the privacy to be able to work his rites alone and unobserved. A poor man would have neither had the time nor resources to practice magic, and certainly, being alone and unsupervised would have been something of a great privilege. To outsiders, the ceremonial magician would have appeared to be no different than anyone else, he would have been the very model of religious piety and class privilege, and therefore typically beyond suspicion in regards to impious or heretical behavior.

A magician from that period would have been proficient in the inherent disciplines of discursive meditation, contemplation, the Holy Office with its eight daily periods of prayer and meditation, and the use of special mass rites to charge and empower his regalia and fortify his work. He could do all of these things, including ceremonial magick and likely get away with it because he was a member of a protected and privileged elite. Even Agrippa was a member of the (petty) nobility and no commoner. He had certain privileges and responsibilities associated with his station. His life, with its service to liege lords, training and social expectations associated with his class (from social etiquette to military training), his religious education and continuous engagements with a pious religious practice, all of this, would be quite foreign to us today.

It is also my opinion that an educated man living in that time would have been easily able to attribute to his life and its various occurrences as being the outer manifestation of the grace or doom of God and his saints, angels or even, the Devil and his minions. A magician would have made use of the Catholic liturgy (including the techniques of reversed exorcism used for invocation) and the monastic discipline to be able gain the proper mind-state necessary to see and thereby command the spirits to be found nearly everywhere in the world. The domain of Spirit was not difficult to access for the average person and in fact, it wasn't seen as a separate world at all. So the methods used to fulfill the need for the first stage of an evocation (spiritual purification) were simply a variation of what was already practiced in the typical monastic discipline.  

My point is that the world that the magician of the previous epoch lived in was one where magick flourished, and the many varieties of grimoire magick had their origin in those times. According to the sparse historical data available, everyone seemed to practice some kind of religious based magic, which later would be considered to be steeped in religious superstition, but at the time, religious faith was a very powerful element in the world. Science and religion were interwoven in a manner that would be strange to us today. A magician in the previous epoch could easily employ one of the many grimoires secretly available and he would also know how to activate the spiritual practice behind the book, since he could merely perform the religious rites and practices already available to him, and it would be sufficient. However, this is no longer true, and there are some compelling reasons why that is so.

The first thing that happened that began to radically change the European culture was the reformation. Over a period of fifty years, beginning early in the 16th century, the entire religious perspective permanently changed with the advent of Protestant Christianity. Catholics, faced with such a challenge, zealously promoted what became known as the counter-reformation, and the periodic but constant warfare between Protestant and Catholic ideologies indelibly changed both religious traditions. Suddenly, Catholics and Protestants alike became highly intolerant of any kind of spiritual deviance, heresy or assumed apostasy. It became a dangerous time for anyone to practice ceremonial magick, still the books were still clandestinely produced, circulated and elaborated upon despite the risk. However, piety and conservative opinion, which would have tolerated a certain amount of magical practice, now had no tolerance whatsoever and this resulted in the persecution and execution of many who once were a part of the protected elite. What this ultimately did was to purge from both traditions of Christianity many of the techniques and tropes that were used in ceremonial magick, transforming the typical magical practitioner into anything but a pious and conservative religious adherent. It also had the effect of removing all magic from the practiced liturgy, a process that continues today. 

Still, we can assume that ceremonial magick was likely practiced by some individuals, even though there is scant proof of that. However, from a more realistic perspective, it would seem that the literature itself had a certain sensational vogue amongst savants and affluent collectors who helped to spread it all over Europe. Over time, the social calamity of the reformation began to lose its passion on both sides, and the power of the Catholic church began to diminish while the power of temporal authority slowly became greater. By the end of the 17th and through the middle of the 18th century, it is likely that ceremonial magick was being practiced by a greater population of select individuals, most of whom would be considered more like occultists (or eccentric antiquarians) as found in our modern age than pious exponents of the religious status quo.

Even so, while ceremonial magick was having its own kind of renewal during this period, two more events occurred that made the gap between the previous epoch even wider, and these were the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, to be quickly followed by the Age of Science in the 19th century. By the end of the 19th century, only occultists had an interest in the magical writings and practices of the previous age, and the materials that they studied became ever more rare and difficult to acquire. The rest of the European world had become secularized, literate, educated and indoctrinated into science and socially empowered by democracy, and in the process, the late medieval mind-set of ceremonial magick and its cultural context were irreparably lost. It became the provenance of individuals like Mathers, Westcott, Crowley, and Fortune to resurrect the art and practice of magick, but what they derived from their studies and experimental practices was something that was quite new and infused with modern sensibilities.

While the times have profoundly changed from the previous age, magick has once again become relevant. However, the mechanisms and techniques of performing evocation now require a considerably greater effort to achieve the proper initial mind-state. Thus, we modern practitioners are forced to adopt a regimen of mind control that is considerably more elaborate, deeper and engaging that what the practitioner of the past age would have employed. In fact, to engage the Spirit world, we are forced to adopt ecstatic methodologies more reminiscent of shamanism than the merely pious practices required of the magicians of the previous epoch. Times have changed, and so has the discipline and practices of the ritual or ceremonial magician. So it would seem logical that in order to appropriate the lore of the old grimoires, we must first have developed and mastered a modern tradition of magick. It would also seem to be folly to expect that the old grimoires can be effectively practiced as they once were, given all that has happened in the last five hundred years.

Frater Barrabbas

A Very Busy Spring

Looking at the calender, I am shocked by the fact that here it is nearly the end of April and I am deeply engaged with work, work and more work. I guess there’s no rest for the wicked, even though I haven’t even had any time to be wicked. The balmy days of March have become the nearly frigid days of April calends, even despite the flowers and leaves coming out early. It represents the peculiarity of the weather this far to the north. However, Beltain is coming, and following that, the celebration of May Day in the Twin Cities. This includes the madcap left-wing workers’ parade and the Heart of the Beast outdoor presentation. This year it will all take place on May 6, so perhaps the weather will have warmed up somewhat to make the occasion more enjoyable.

May Day is also when I must complete and turn in the revisions and resubmit my manuscript for the upcoming Llewellyn book “Magical Qabalah for Beginners.” I have added more text to certain strategic chapters to help make it more self explanatory and comprehensive, and I have also applied some of the new insights that I had when assembling my two classes on the Qabalah. Once I submit the manuscript with revisions, then it will be subjected to the more rigorous process of editing, where the manuscript will be refined, perfected and prepared for publication. The date when this book will be available is still Spring 2013, so I will inform you about the up-coming milestones, once they are achieved. Hopefully, I  will have a more definitive printing date in the near future.

***

There has been quite a bit of hubbub on the Golden Dawn blogosphere, which seems to be typical of what has been occurring there as of late. The HOGD and A+O organizations are fighting a furious battle against obviously regressive reconstructive forces, which have been characterized by them as the McGoldenDawn. It brings to my mind the image of a kind of demented Ronald McGoldenDawn mindlessly and happily plugging his wares, along with the whole cohort of cartoon-like characters representing the varieties of fast-food occultism. We have been warned about this temptingly easy and cheap meal. It may temporarily fill you up, but in the long run, it will kill you with all sorts of industrial level diseases and malnutrition. I think that is a useful analogy about the current state of affairs. The additional revelation that the organization of SRIA (Societas Rosicruciana In Anglia, or the Soc Rose) is the godfather-like puppet master behind this conspiracy seems to make complete sense to me. Although, it also seems like a pathetically contrived conspiracy, since such a push against the A+O is doomed to failure. Also, those who are behind it don’t seem to be very intelligent or gifted.

However, I think that the overall motivating factor for individuals to attack the A+O is because they are terribly jealous and filled with a deadly envy. This is due to the fact that the A+O organization has a wealth of new materials that have never been published or revealed to the public, and they also have the trust and care of the secret chiefs. Thus they are blessed in a manner that no other Golden Dawn group has been blessed in the last century. So if David Griffin wishes to be overly dramatic, comical and passionate about the defense of his organization, then he has every right to be that way. Not being in his shoes, I don’t really know how I would react if I were in a similar situation. So to judge him harshly as some have done is to do the entire Golden Dawn a great disservice. (Just imagine yourself in his place, and ask yourself what would you do to protect the honor and integrity of the A+O?)

Just to give you an idea of how bankrupt certain reconstructionist groups have become, all you need to do is to compare them to myself and the humble little organization that I am helping to run. The Order of the Gnostic Star has a handful of members and a great wealth of ritual and liturgical lore. Most of this lore was designed and developed in directions and from sources that are not to be found in books or any other materials. In the library of the Order are a series of unique ritual systems consisting of hundreds of rituals and liturgical rites. Every year, more materials are being added to this foundation. How is that occurring?

First of all, the whole basis to our work is completely experiential, and the focus is mostly theurgic ordeals. We work our ritual magick to converse with spirits and aspects of Godhead within our spiritual hierarchy, and thereby discover new connections, new insights and new techniques. This new material is used to develop new lore, which in turn helps those who are using it to discover new insights. This process is self-feeding, producing a cycle of creativity that seems to be boundless. We obviously have some very dynamic inner plane connections that are powerfully active, making our tiny organization one that has a constantly evolving and growing foundation of lore.

Therefore, we are happy to keep our noses in our own business, and for the time being, seem to need nothing outside of that work to sustain us. Since we are gifted with this potent egregoric connection, we don’t spend any time grousing about other groups or declaring that this group or that is fraudulent. In fact, I am quite happy and satisfied with the progress that our own work is following, and I have discovered that it is often quite all-consuming. I don’t have time to be jealous of anyone else’s work, and I feel that someone like David Griffin is to be honored for what he is doing in regards to the lore of the A+O.

Since I have access to David, he does tell me some of the things that he is doing (or at least as much as he can considering that I am not under the Rose, as it were), and I don’t feel envious, jealous or spiteful. I am hoping that all of David’s work is a smashing success, since that will benefit many occultists and initiates following the Western Mystery tradition. He certainly doesn’t seem to be doing it to magnify or edify himself, so that makes him different than some of the other GD leaders whose opinions and diatribes I find myself constantly bombarded with whenever I search the internet. All of this reminds me of the way that Republican pundits declared that they wanted the newly elected president of the U.S. to fail, just because he wasn’t the leader of their party. If the president of our country is a failure, then we all suffer accordingly. I think that the same analogy can be used in examining how a number of pundits in the Golden Dawn community seek to vilify and disparage David Griffin and the A+O. Instead, we should wish him and his organization well, since it can only benefit everyone if he is successful.

David is very busy doing his work, which I might add is quite massive, and he has to interrupt that work to respond to the inanity and mendaciousness of those who are fighting against him and his organization. I can only wonder how much more he could accomplish if everyone just focused on their own work instead of seeking to glorify themselves as they attempt to uproot and demolish the very overall organization that they are supposed to be building and defending. They obviously have too much time on their hands, and they also seem to have a paucity of new lore and breakthrough insights. They are running on empty, since the Regardie Golden Dawn material is nearly exhausted in its capacity to enlighten or help determine self-mastery. Anyway, it all seems very simple to me, but then again, I have no stakes in the war of egos, but would see great merit in whatever new groundbreaking materials would become available to those of us who are initiates. I suspect that the one group who will truly amaze and astonish the western occult world in the near future will be the A+O, and not the overly glorified stooges of the McGoldenDawn franchises.

***

Very recently I saw a comment on one of my older blog articles about Michael Bertiaux. Incredibly, Allen Greenfield, who was the author of that comment, has whined that I have defamed his very fine reputation with rumors of his supposedly infamous initiatory relationship with that man. While I personally don’t know what transpired between Allen and Michael, I did hear quite a lot of salacious speculation from individuals who had inside knowledge of that affair. I can only report what I heard and also what I knew then about Bertiaux.

Michael never freely gave away any of his magickal secrets, lore and lineages. He always made someone pay a price of some kind for what he had to offer. Typically, it was some kind of gratuitous exchange, and it could be as supposedly harmless as giving him a picture of yourself and perhaps other personal possessions. (Although what he claimed to do with that picture and those personal possessions would trouble even a hardened magickal operator.)  Michael claimed that he sought some kind of compensation from his students as a natural part of his teachings, and that he could and would function like a psychic vampire if given the opportunity. He has even stated this fact in his written work (referring to some victim students as “human batteries”), so it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone if he did behave that way.

I happen to know one individual who was able to get consecrated by Michael Bertiaux and not have to give more of himself than what would be required just to be initiated. That person was my esteemed brother Lugh, who told me that he had to threaten Michael with physical harm in order to get him to behave himself. All I know is that if I had wanted Michael Bertiaux’s consecration and magickal lore, I would have had to give myself to him, body and soul. (Michael certainly made that clear to me and said as much.) That was the bargain, and I found it much too steep, while others eagerly sought what he had to give at any cost.

Of course, all of this happened thirty-four years ago, and at a time when Michael was in his prime. No one stays the same, and I am sure that Michael Bertiaux is very likely different today than he was back then. However, I have no interest in ever finding out, since I don’t need to bolster my episcopal lineage by tying it to him. I also have found very little useful material in his book, the “Gnostic Voudoun Workbook,” and the little material he gifted me before I cut ties with him. Keep in mind that I had to fend off Michael’s advances, and that he also behaved this way with my teacher, Bill Schoebelen, and anyone else who sought his knowledge and power in those times.

So I found Allen Greenfield’s claims of defamation to be quite ridiculous. How can I defame someone whose own spiritual and magickal corruption has become a monumental barrier to being anything other than a pathetic excuse for a human being. Allen, who was an honored seventh degree initiate of the O.T.O. and an inspector general, was kicked out of this esteemed organization because he publically claimed that the Outer Head of the Order was a fraud. 

I have had a number of encounters with Allen Greenfield over the last few decades, and I can say for a fact that everyone of them was quite negative, if not completely distasteful. I have described a few of those encounters in one of my previous blog articles, so you may remember me talking about him when spinning the tale about my past history. I might be a bit less disdainful of Allen if he hadn’t also sought to corrupt and negatively manipulate the local bodies of the O.T.O. in Atlanta. The sad fact is that there were two local bodies that were forcibly closed in the Atlanta area in the last couple of decades, and they can be pretty much attributed to the nefarious influences of Allen Greenfield. Perhaps now that the O.T.O. has kicked Allen out of their organization, the local bodies of the O.T.O. in Atlanta might actually be successful, but only if they keep him far away.

Perhaps it’s not ironic that I have met some really stellar individuals who are initiates in the O.T.O. over the long period of my occult career. Lon Milo Duquette is a brilliant and kindly gentleman, and Scott Stenwick is one of the foremost occultists and magicians that I have ever met. I went through the first four degrees of the O.T.O. and I have found that organization to be sound, successful and benevolently challenging. Many of the magicians that I have met who are initiates in the O.T.O. represent the cutting edge of magickal knowledge and expertise. I am proud to have been a member of that organization, and as an initiate, I would keep their confidences and implicitly respect those who are deemed their leaders. I have had other callings in the last few years, and allowed my membership to lapse after I had achieved the third degree, since by that time I had begun to follow an altogether different path than the O.T.O..

However, even though I follow a different path today, I still respect the tenets and practices of the O.T.O. and I consider the writings of Aleister Crowley to be one of the greater sources of my occult studies and researches. I don’t consider myself an exclusive Thelemite, but I have found a life-long respect for that philosophy. Still, I think that Allen Greenfield has shown himself to be completely unworthy of that organization in every way, and I believe that they had good reason to expel him with extreme prejudice. So how could I possibly besmirch someone who has made it a lifelong career to be a complete jackass to everyone around him?

***

Some other interesting things to share with you, my readers, has to do with the recently translated Gospel of Judas. When the National Geographic came out with their translation, I didn’t jump on the band wagon and attempt to realize what that newly found codex actually means to us today. I admit, though, that I find the Gnostics of antiquity interesting and fascinating. So when another new Coptic codex comes along, I usually end up reading it. This time, back in 2007, I was involved in other things and didn’t get a chance to see the National Geographic special that painted a startling new image of the disciple who supposedly betrayed Jesus. It wasn’t until recently that I downloaded that special via Netflix, and I found its theme to be quite interesting.

Judas Iscariot has been vilified over the centuries as a greedy and selfish opportunist who exemplified the Jewish persona in the eyes of faithful Christians. Judas had become the excuse and euphemism for antisemitism, but with this new gospel, he was seen instead as the close confident of the messiah who was convinced by Jesus himself to betray him. Of course, this seemed a bit too good to be true, and as it turned out, a new and more careful translation has shown the opposite to be true.

The Gospel of Judas was written by Sethians, and it was a sinister literary tool crafted to discredit the apostolic succession of the twelve disciples, and so completely overturn the ascendancy of the emerging Catholic Christianity. I found this interesting bit of information in a book written by Dr. April DeConick, entitled “The Thirteenth Apostle.” This book is quite excellent, since it also gives the reader a thorough insight into the Sethian Gnostic tradition. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in Gnosticism. The Sethians freely mixed the Judeo-Christian religious system with an applied occultism and magick, which makes it appropriate and relevant today, more than 1,800 years later. You can find this book on Amazon dot com, at this link.

In the future, I will write a more thorough article on this book. Right now, I need to get back into my manuscript and finish up all of my work. I also have another magickal working that will be performed on April 30, so there will be some more interesting data on the ongoing Portae Lucis working that I am seeking to accomplish just before the Summer Solstice.

Frater Barrabbas