Spiritual Ancestors as Heroes

Recently I’ve had a very unpleasant experience arguing with an occult pundit (Nick Farrell) who basically called me a naïve fool because I honor my spiritual ancestors and treat them as heroes. Because I celebrate and honor my spiritual ancestors and treat them with a certain amount of reverence I am considered a dupe and a fool. The reason for this criticism, of course, is because I happen to revere such individuals as Alex Sanders, Gerald Gardner, Aleister Crowley, MacGregor Mathers, or any other number of occult founders and trail Blazers. I take an uncritical and positive outlook on these individuals because they have had such an impact upon my own workings and study. Maybe that’s being naïve and stupid, since in our current time it’s so trendy to be cynical, negative and disparaging of the occult luminaries of the past. I have been called a pathetic hero worshiper and that makes me the worst possible judge of anyone’s character, especially those who have been dead nigh these many years. Yes, I admit it, I’m rightfully found guilty of hero worshiping, but I think that I have an important reason for taking this stand.

It’s not as if I haven’t read about these individuals and know all too well that they were human beings with human failings and flaws. I have also talked to individuals who personally knew Alex Sanders and the consensus is that he was quite a disreputable character. There seems to be no lack of stories about things that Alex did that were notorious and completely over-the-top. It seems that everybody has an opinion about Alex who knew him, and most of those opinions tend towards the negative. There are some people still living today who absolutely despise Alex and have few or even no fond memories of him whatsoever. Someone once told me that Alex was the kind of man who hated to work and so chose a life that was materially precarious when all he had to do was keep a regular job, and that would have made his life and the lives of those he supported more stable.

So, Alex Sanders was something of a gold brick. He was also reputed to be a great storyteller (another way of saying "liar") and had to be the focus of attention at all times. He invited the press and even the police to his very public gatherings in order to garner as much publicity as possible. That’s hardly the kind of stellar image that one would consider either heroic or worthy of emulation. Even so, Alex was a trailblazer and started his own tradition. He was an avid experimenter and tried to mix all sorts of different occult disciplines together into a workable whole. His tradition invited many different and divergent people together under one large tradition. Many of the first gay and lesbian witches that I met years ago were Alexandrian, and this was also true of the first African American and handicapped members. Alexandrian Witchcraft was the “big tent” tradition, and this was before other traditions appeared that catered to specific social collectives, such as the Dianic tradition. Perhaps we can turn a blind eye to his various flaws and bad behavior if we focus instead on what he contributed to the pagan and witchcraft movements. The world needed Alex Sanders, warts, obnoxious behavior and all.

What then is a hero? How do we define what a hero is in our culture today? Is Superman or Mighty Mouse good examples of the iconic hero? What about the antiheroes that are found in Marvel comics? Are they to be considered heroes as well? I found myself pondering the definition of a hero, but then I remembered that a good place to find that definition clearly established would be reading what the author Joseph Campbell had to say about it. Joseph Campbell says, “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than one’s self.” Well, that seems simple enough, but does that fit the heroism of being a spiritual founder? Additionally, Joseph Campbell says that a hero brings back a “boon” to his community. Basically, Mr. Campbell is referring to the hero’s journey, and the object of that journey is to return something back from the underworld into the world of light. The hero also manifests a steadfast virtue in what they have contributed to their community, despite all of their flaws. According to Campbell, heroes are indeed flawed because they are so human. They are, in word, us. A cartoon hero on the other hand often lacks the kind of humanity necessary as the foundation of being a hero. Despite being flawed, the hero becomes a role model that inspires the rest of us to be better than we thought we could be. A hero is also inspired by an “inner calling.”

I believe that if we take what Joseph Campbell has defined regarding a hero, we can easily apply that definition to individuals such as Alex Sanders, Crowley, and Mathers - not to mention Gardner and many others. As heroes we would expect them to be terribly flawed on the one hand, but also inspiring and the bringer of a profound new way of thinking or practicing occultism on the other. All of these founders had that in common with each other, and all of them were egregiously flawed. To accept their gifts while repudiating their characters or disparaging them could be construed as being highly ungenerous, if not cynically and selfishly motivated. We all owe these founders a certain amount of respect and consideration because we have accepted their gifts and use them in our work; since to behave otherwise is to show oneself as greedy, power-hungry and soulless. I am not advocating that we turn a blind eye to the flaws and imperfections that were so highly on display by these founders, but instead we should really focus on the gifts that they bestowed us. All I am saying is that you can appreciate the history without having to assassinate the character of those trailblazers who came before us. After all is said and done, their gifts were certainly important to us occultists.

Because I’m an Alexandrian witch, then Alex Sanders is one of my spiritual ancestors. Since I also work the Golden Dawn system of magick, at least in part, then MacGregor Mathers would be considered one of my spiritual ancestors. I have to also include Alister Crowley as one of my spiritual ancestors because I have benefitted greatly from reading his work and I was also a member of the O.T.O. Gerald Gardner would be yet another spiritual ancestor in my witchcraft and magical lineage. There are probably many others as well, but that’s the group of ancestors that I’m willing to talk about. So, these four individuals who are founders of their respective traditions make up part of the overall lineage that I have followed as both a witch and a ritual magician. As representatives of the various streams that make up the current of spirituality and magick that I follow, I believe it is important to venerate the memory of these individuals because as magical heroes they have given the world great gifts, and I happen to use those gifts.

We, as ritual magicians, do not stand alone or in isolation. Our practices, whether or not we have been inventive and creative, have come down to us from the work of many other hands across the centuries. This is the whole basis to the perennial philosophy, and while we may add a greater or lesser share to this knowledge, we have received what our spiritual ancestors have passed on to us. Therefore, lineages are important and represent the combined streams that seamlessly joined together to formulate the work and practice of each initiated ritual magician. Our lineages are not exclusive to those founders whose tradition we were initiated into, since each and everyone of us has borrowed extensively from other sources. We are, in a word, a melange or mixture of many different traditions and strains.

To give respect and veneration to the founders of our tradition and practices, we receive from them empowerment, since this opens and establishes the connection between us and them. While this might function as an egregore of a tradition, it is not limited to that vehicle, but could represent the single contribution of some brilliant luminary in the past. Therefore, to use the gifts of our spiritual and magical founders is to be empowered by them. And if we are to retain a certain amount of grace and positive intent in our practices it is important for us to not only acknowledge them, but also to venerate them. This means not just respecting them and their gifts, but also giving them offerings and periodic acknowledgment. This is a Pagan thing to do, to honor our ancestors, both those that are genetic as well as those who represent the lineage of traditions and ideas that we follow. We act this way to retain a certain amount of honor for ourselves and for our work. Just as we give offerings to our genetic ancestors in order to function as modern pagans, we should also give offerings to our spiritual ancestors as well. We do this despite their history and notoriety as flawed human beings who had many failings and even engaged in disreputable activities. This is not white washing or wishful thinking, or even a terrible naïveté; it is a pagan way of honoring those who came before us. It is also how we honor the gifts that they courageously sought and achieved for our benefit.

Now, when we consider everything that I have written up to this point, you can see the ideas that I am promoting and even celebrating as a witch, ritual magician, initiate and adept. I believe that being faithful to the founder and the trailblazer of one’s spiritual lineage is an important part of being an adept. It is not naïve nor foolish to venerate one’s spiritual ancestors, just as it isn’t foolish or naïve to venerate one’s genetic ancestors. It is part of being a pagan and a magician, and so in this context to behave and comport oneself in this manner is honorable and generous. After all, wouldn’t I want people to behave in a respectful fashion to me after I have gone to great lengths to give them the lore that I have labored upon for so many years? Do I want people to disparage me for my all too human failings and personal flaws while at the same time greedily using my ideas and writings for their personal betterment? I believe that that is the real issue regarding the honoring and veneration of spiritual ancestors. How would you like to be treated disparagingly by posterity in the future when you are unable to defend yourself, and even worse, when those same people are still using your ideas and rituals?

While it is so trendy and cool to be cynical, disparaging and cleverly negative to anyone who is a founder or trailblazer, or even someone who could be considered a magical hero, I think that it is despicable and deplorable behavior which only serves to define someone who is actually bankrupt of any original ideas and morally a scoundrel. This might sound like harsh criticism, but I see it as a powerful antidote to the popular sentiment of iconoclastic thinking that seems to be the trend in postmodern occultism today. I stand against that kind of thinking, which I suppose makes me something of counter force in popular thought. Then again, I think that I have good reason for acting and believing as I do because I have found that the popular consensus contradicts both good Pagan theology as well as good magical practice.

Frater Barrabbas

Veneration of Ancestors - A Pagan Theme

Pagans from all time periods have engaged in a practice that is called ancestor veneration, where one’s departed forebears are given a certain reverential respect and honor due to their linear importance to one’s own birth and residence within the continuity of a family organization. I think that this is a very natural and basic human sentiment, perhaps somewhat displaced in modern times, but still important. I also believe that it is particularly important to modern pagans, as well as magicians who work with spirits.

In the U.S., there is a decided bias against this sort of belief and practice, and there is a habit of diminishing one’s forebears and putting them into a perspective that everyone who lived and existed in the prior age are inferior to everyone who lives and exists today. We are so devoted to progress that we have learned to belittle and dismiss the efforts and achievements of those who have come before us. This mind-set has unfortunately affected people’s attitudes towards their ancestors. It has also forced our culture to be divorced and cut-off from the people who made our lives and our very existence possible. I find this lack of respect and veneration for one’s ancestors to be not only problematic, but it also has the potential of making a practicing magician a lot poorer and much more isolated. Allow me to explain why I believe this to be true.

Several years ago, I had the same attitude towards my ancestors that everyone else of my generation had. We had a complete disregard for anyone in our past who was from the “older generation,” starting with our parents. Since I, like all of my contemporaries, had experienced a decided generational schism when growing up, we amplified this fissure by dismissing and devaluing everything associated with my father’s as well as my grandparents generations, and we even dismissed those unknown individuals who came before them. I guess we believed that we were the Crown of Creation and that everyone who had lived before us was deemed irrelevant. This was the kind of inherent snobbery held by those of us in the “Boomer” generation, and I suspect that this attitude has been continued in the later generations.

Some years later my sister got heavily involved with genealogy and she performed some extensive research and even interviewed some of the remaining family members who remembered events and individuals in our family’s past. I found all of this somewhat interesting, but because I was the only member of my family who had a strong proclivity for occultism and magick, I felt that I was unique and had little in common with any of my forebears. I read her reports with a certain detached interest, but I felt that it wasn’t really relevant to my life in the present world.

This sentiment continued for some time until I underwent a reformation in regards to my pagan beliefs. A few of my most respected pagan friends then gave me some constructive criticism and informed me that it was natural for pagans to have a certain veneration and reverence for their ancestors, regardless of what they might have been like when alive. I have also encountered individuals engaged in the African Religious Traditions who told me that the most important spirits in any kind of root-work or invocation regimen were one’s ancestors. Without them, a magician had no allies nor anyone to guide or vouch for them. In other words, without the ancestors, a magician was alone and without spiritual allies.

I pondered all of these various ideas and came to realize that they were all correct, and this completely changed my opinion and attitude towards my living family and its resident ancestors. I don’t have to either engage with these spirits or seek specific guidance from them, but I do need to at least keep the “spirit door” open for them, and to honor and respect them in turn. In doing this, I have encountered some vague but intriguing notions that I am not the only one in my family line who has had an interest or an ability with magick and occultism. I can’t exactly determine who they were or from which genetic family line or time period they once lived, but I feel them and I sense that they are very much behind the scenes when I perform various magical or liturgical rites. My own mother, who is recently departed, seemed to show her ghostly presence to me whenever I perform the Mass of the Great Goddess, and of course, our recently departed furry friend, the cat Stars, is very much actively participating in the work of the grove where he is buried.

All of these elements have come together and forged within me a very different attitude and perspective in regards to my ancestors. I now have a special sacred place in my library where I have placed all of the pictures that I have of my linear ancestors. They occupy a place of honor and learning within my occult and spiritual work. Certainly, a number of these ancestors would have objected to my occult practices if they were alive (and in fact a few of them did), but now that they are dead, it would seem that I have realized a greater acceptance from them. I have acquired an attitude of honor and reverence for these important individuals regardless of what kind of person they actually were when alive. It would seem that the transition of death gives a person a certain amount of restitution and rehabilitation. Whether they were scoundrels or irascible tyrants during life, death has a way of mitigating all of their faults so that they become worthy of honor and remembrance simply because they were ancestors. Perhaps this is one of the greater mysteries of death, although still being alive, I am unable to confirm this as a fact.

Another thing that I learned is that we have both physical ancestors and we also have spiritual or magical ancestors. We have our actual genetic forebears, and we also have individuals whose traditions we have been initiated into or whose beliefs and practices we borrowed and incorporated into our own spiritual and magical work. Eastern mystical traditions as well as some western venerate their founders and include them in their prayers and spiritual practices. Catholics have their saints arrayed in great abundance, but western occultists have founders and trail blazers who could also receive the same degree of veneration, honor or respect.

We who work with these traditions believe that those individuals whom we venerate are not dead, mute or lost to time, but instead they have a manner of existence that continues beyond death. These spiritual ancestors, as I call them, have become part of the egregore of the spiritual system that they helped to found. Because so many people believe, think or talk about them, and even pray to them, thereby building up their legendary mythic persona, they have become far more powerful and important in death than they ever were in life. As occultists we can choose to either engage with these spiritual ancestors or we can ignore them, but I believe that we ignore them at our own cost. Spiritual personalities that are part of a tradition’s egregore are quite important, and I believe that one must engage with these various individuals in order to fully engage with that tradition. In my opinion, to omit them or somehow denigrate them is to greatly impoverish the holistic experience of that tradition.

Imagine how poor Catholic magic would be without the power of the Saints and the Archangels. The founder of Christianity, Jesus Christ himself, is so pivotal to Christianity that it would seem to be totally absurd to omit him from any kind of Christian service or religious celebration. Yet it is no more absurd to omit the founder or trailblazer of any given occult tradition from one’s considerations and practices. So it is for this reason that I accept and believe that I must give a certain degree of respect, honor and even veneration to those individuals who laid the occult foundation for me to follow many decades later.  

This brings me to the point of my article, and that is the answer as to why I supposedly venerate certain individuals who I believe are critically important to me, and therefore, are my personal spiritual ancestors. One of my friends recently said that he doesn’t believe in putting anyone on a pedestal, which I guess means that he doesn’t subscribe to venerating ancestors, whether genetic or spiritual. I believe that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, but I think that taking this attitude makes any magician a lot poorer and less able to be spiritually guided and assisted. Perhaps this does occur whether one has this attitude or not, but I have found in my own work that engaging in the proper attitude of honor, respect and veneration makes it much more likely that I will be fully conscious of any positive encounter with my ancestors, and in fact, I highly welcome it. 

Some have obliquely criticized me that venerating such individuals as S. L. MacGregor Mathers, Aleister Crowley, Gerald B. Gardner or even Alex Sanders is ridiculous. These individuals were just ordinary men who lived and died in the last century, and they were as likely to be highly flawed as well as particularly gifted. Of course this criticism can apply to nearly everyone, since we are all flawed and imperfect who are also mortal. In the eyes of my critics I must be some kind of naive fool or a complete sucker to venerate such individuals as these (or for that matter, to venerate anyone). 

Even so, we live in a nation and a world that venerates its past leaders, ingenious creators, inventors and military heroes. Our public areas are filled with statues, busts and commemorative edifices. We have millions of acres of graveyards carefully tended with the past dead, so it would seem that a respect and reverence for our forebears is part of our culture, whether we admit it or not. So, with all of this in mind, I can hardly be perceived as a naive fool because I venerate my spiritual and magickal forebears. In fact, I believe that I am doing what only comes natural to a modern pagan and a member of my culture.

As I have said, founders usually become spiritual attributes associated with the tradition that they established. In this manner, Mathers, Crowley, Gardner and Sanders are alive in some fashion, existing within the ever growing and waning power and prestige of the traditions that they founded. Regardless of whether someone like Nick Farrell or Pat Zelewski excoriates and denigrates the history of someone like MacGregor Mathers, it would seem that he continues to have a powerful presence within the rituals and methodologies that he originally wrote and passed on to his followers. Not only do I find this lack of respect and honor on their parts toward Mathers to be offensive, it would seem to be a very un-pagan thing to do as well. 

Since I have established above that it is proper and a good pagan practice to venerate, honor and respect one’s physical and spiritual ancestors, then I and others who have taken the teachings and practices from the Golden Dawn should naturally have this same kind of attitude to the founder of that tradition. In fact, I would say that anyone who is an initiate in the Golden Dawn should have a particular veneration and respect for Mathers if they are going to be actively engaged with that tradition. In my opinion, to denigrate and devalue Mathers is to do violence to the egregore of the Golden Dawn. Such a person is not only guilty of a kind of attempted spiritual patricide, but they would seem to have stepped fully out of the egregore altogether, and could no longer be considered as actively engaged with that tradition in any kind of magical or spiritual manner.

Finally, do we judge someone who lived either decades or centuries ago by the scant information that exists about them, or do we judge them by their contribution to our world? Certainly Beethoven was a highly flawed individual who few either liked or loved when he was alive; but it was his transcendent music that made him a venerated and respected composer. Do we consider someone foolish who has a bust of Beethoven in their home? Of course not, since his music was so extraordinary in that time, and it is still performed and listened to today. The same thing could be said of Shakespeare or any other great author, poet, or literary master.

In our post-modern world, many westerners have become iconoclasts and have rejected the relevance of their forebears, despite the fact that we owe our cultural heritage and our lives to many individuals who lived in the past. Their efforts have enriched our world today, so giving them their due seems hardly foolish or reprehensible. I think that have made my point, and I believe that now you might understand why I have said certain things in my previous articles about my spiritual ancestors.

Zalewski’s Critique of My Review for “King Over the Water”

One other thing that I would like to mention before I end this rather long article is that Pat Zalewski has recently criticized me for my review of Nick Farrell’s book, “King Over the Water.” I would like to quickly respond to a few of his points, since it does fit into the overall topic of this article. In his response to me, Pat made the following point:

“It was interesting to read a review of King over the Water, which has recently popped up. The author cited Sword of Wisdom as a good Mathers biography and essentially admonished Nick for his analysis of Mathers. Now most of us know that Sword of Wisdom was an informative book, but was essentially a whitewash of Mathers and depicted him as a hero throughout. Now Nick does not need me to defend his work as he is quite capable of doing it himself. What I am commenting on here is how people (like the reviewer) have an idealized mental construct of Mathers and don't want that view shattered with some facts getting in the way, as did the author of Sword of Wisdom. The review was a defence [sic] of the mental image of Mathers and what he should have been like, not like he was. He apparently cannot differentiate the work Mathers did from the character. Howe lays it out [on the] table as to what Mathers was. Though Howe's work is dated, the new material on Mathers that has come to light since Howe, is more peripheral than core.”

Of course, anyone who read my review would note that my problem with Nick Farrell’s book is that it is filled with conjecture, innuendo and talking points; but it has very little actual historical research in it. The lack of citations and the sparse bibliography alone demonstrate that this work is very poorly researched. Farrell has created a supposed psychological profile of Mathers, even when there is so little supporting facts to make such an effort possible.

If Mr. Farrell was such a good historian, then why did he fail to notice that there was another Mathers family in Bedford (possibly related), and that the student who supposedly went to the local grammar school was actually not the same person as MacGregor Mathers, since the birth month in the school registry was in March instead of January? This little fact was explored in the “Sword of Wisdom,” representing one of the many irregularities found in attempting to reconstruct Mathers’ personal history. In short, we don’t really know if Mathers attended that school or not. Maybe he was home schooled. So little is known about his childhood, and also, so much is a mystery about him even as an adult that much of what do know could be considered speculation. With such little information it would be impossible to make a coherent history of Mathers, or even attempt to build up a psychological profile.

Mr. Farrell’s book is more fiction and political talking points than it is factual, and if Mr. Zalewksi thinks that Farrell has presented a factual historical analysis of Mathers, then I wonder how he can make such a statement without perjuring himself. It would seem, as I have pointed out in my review, that Farrell has a hidden agenda for writing two books that disparage and denigrate Mathers. I don’t believe that Mathers was a perfect human being, but I do believe that he deserves honor and respect from us who have used his work to augment our own. It is his work that is being judged, not his person, because so much time has passed that no one is able to build a detailed factual history of him.

Pat continues with the following comment:  

“The reviewer was clearly out of his depth, going by some of the contrasts given. What Nick did in his book was to try and get rid of the fantasized Mathers and let the real one stand up. Now not everyone will agree with all of Nick's comments, but at least he tried to separate fact from fantasy which is a lot more than the reviewer did.”

Well “Golly Gee Wilikers,” I must be out of my depth because I believe that the contribution that Mathers has made to western occultism and the practice of magick is extremely important. If I think that Mathers was important, then I must be either delusional or just plain stupid!

I regret to inform Mr. Zalewski that I am equally as capable of making this kind of judgement as he is, and as a magical practitioner of nearly 40 years, I think that I am not at all out of my depth! I believe that Pat’s condescending attitude towards me is really quite obnoxious, and I feel that I can completely reject it as a bit of character assassination. Nick created a fictionalized cartoon character of Mathers in his book, whereas I judge Mathers based solely on his work. That’s hardly attempting to separate fact from fantasy, and I think that my opinion and attitude towards Mathers is much more realistic. I believe that we can argue about what Mathers was really like for the next century, but it doesn’t change the fact that his work was critically important to many magical practitioners today. The historical Mathers can never really be known because so little information has survived, but his work lives on, and for this we can happily venerate and honor him, just as we do with Beethoven or Mozart, regardless of what they were really like as individuals.

Pat goes to say that he does admire what Mathers produced for the Golden Dawn, albeit simply because he follows those practices and teachings, but he doesn’t enshrine him. In reality, he and Farrell do nothing but disparage and denigrate Mathers, so it hardly seems that there is much truth or sincerity in regards to their supposed “admiration.” I think that it’s obvious that Pat and Nick are really engaged in a serious bit of historical revisionism simply because they want to elevate the Stella Matutina (which is their own lineage) over the A+O; it’s all really as simple as that. 

Anyway, I think that I have made my point, and I believe that my readers will now understand what I mean when I say that I venerate certain spiritual ancestors. In my opinion, taking this attitude towards one’s spiritual and magickal forebears (as well as one’s genetic ancestors) is a testament to a practitioner’s sense of honor, worth and continuity. You don’t have to follow my way of doing things in regards to the ancestors, but if you are a modern pagan, then I think that omitting them from your religious and magical considerations might be a serious mistake.

Frater Barrabbas