Alexandrian Witchcraft Tradition - Is it a Tradition?

 

I read an article written by Maxine Sanders that was passed on by some Alexandrian Witches in a FaceBook comment. In that article, Maxine seemed to be decrying those who have used the traditional Godhead names and words of power with a certain impunity and a lack of deference to the traditional lore given to them. While I do not approve of people abusing what they have received from their teachers and sponsors in a traditional religious practice, what she said also made me wonder to myself what could possibly be sacred about a tradition that was mostly invented by Gardener and later, Alex Sanders? If it was all invented, contrived and cobbled together by a handful of people where only individual gnosis could be considered as original contributions, then what is actually being abused? If a student goes off on their own path and makes use of what they have been taught and mixes it with other material found in other non-traditional or uncanonical sources, then is that not their own business?

Alexandrians initiate third degree witches to be autonomous, and there is no process where any initiatory degree can be recalled or nullified. Gardnerians, on the other hand, can recall or nullify an initiation through their initiating High Priestess, since even after a Gardnerian Witch is initiated to third degree they are not autonomous. Everyone is held accountable to their upstream lineage elders, but this is not so with Alexandrians. That means that an Alexandrian initiate is only accountable to themselves and possibly, to the community at large, but nothing can be done to unmake an initiate. I know this fact from personal experience, yet overall, we are made to realize that mistakes can be made in choosing individuals for elevation who later turn out to be bad actors in their communities. 

People can be banned from covens or community gatherings, but they can still function as High Priestesses or High Priests whether local community covens and groups like it or not. That also means that an Alexandrian Third degree initiate can also determine what their tradition looks like, what they would practice as liturgical or magical ceremonies and operations, and there is no one who has the authority to countermand them or punish them if they do bad things, thereby making them accountable. That kind of authority doesn’t exist, so if someone invents new things in their version of Alexandrian Witchcraft, or appears to abuse their teachings, then even Maxine Sanders cannot really do anything about it. It is what it is, and autonomy means that an initiate can comport themselves however they see fit. Can we as a community criticize their behavior? Yes, indeed, although it will be a kind of toothless criticism unless a large majority agree, and even then there is nothing to disenfranchise an autonomous third degree initiate.

Then there is the issue that what is taught by a High Priestess or High Priest in an Alexandrian coven is somehow sacred. It was always the case back in the days when I was a witchling that the coven and traditional lore had a provenance that made it sacred and magically powerful. We were told that Witchcraft was the old religion and that various elements of that tradition were passed down from witches going back to antiquity. Of course, that was determined to be an urban myth that accurate historical research showed through the writings of academics and initiated practitioners. Gardner invented the rituals of Wicca and plagiarized many sources, including Crowley’s Gnostic Mass and the Masonic initiations for Entered Apprentice and Fellow Craft. All of the Deity names and words of power were taken from various sources or just invented. Some of the best liturgical rites were penned by Doreen Valiente, and we owe her a great debt of gratitude. 

So, since nothing actually has an ancient provenance and it was invented at some point in the last 75 years or so, is it truly sacred? Oath bound material is given in trust between teacher and student, but it is not sacred because it is only confidential to that specific traditional line. Since the various Books of Shadows have been either published or exist online, there doesn’t seem to be any secrets except those related to an individual’s personal gnosis and to the confidentiality of the members of a coven and what goes on in that group. That is, as far as I am concerned, the extent of oath-bound boundaries and what they should actually cover. Coven histories, membership, covenstead Deities and group developed rites and ceremonies should be covered by an oath of secrecy, or better yet, of confidentiality. Everything else is already known about the various traditions of Witchcraft by the writings of practitioners and folk religion academics. I have maintained in my various articles that the true mysteries of modern Witchcraft and Paganism are what the many individuals experience first hand in their encounters with nature and spirit. 

This brings me, of course, to my own case. I took what my teachers gave me, adding it to my own personal system of magic and developed, over the years, an advanced system of magic. I did this without any permission from my teachers, and seemingly without any thought to keeping the traditional practices intact in my work. I am guilty as charged as to having no awe or even appreciation for the traditional teachings. This is because my quest was not to either preserve or promote the teachings that I had been given, but to continue its development and evolve it to highest extent possible to me. I still have the traditional teachings kept separate and intact, although they are, for all practical purposes, been replaced with the more advanced lore that I developed. That includes the seasonal Sabbats and the Esbats and all liturgical as well as magical operations. In my current practice, there is nothing of the traditional lore that I had received so many decades ago.

I also have organized and published this lore that I have developed, and my task is to eventually publish it all. That makes me the consummate oath-breaker, although since what I have developed is my personal system and so far removed from what I received when I was freshly initiated as to not be covered by any oath that I made when undergoing my training and initiation. Still, what Maxine said in her article would identify me as one of those individuals who have used the traditional lore as a stepping stone to gain greater glory while supposedly denigrating the tradition that I was given in sacred trust by no longer using it. However, I have a simple excuse that makes what I have done acceptable, perhaps even admirable. That is the fact that this advanced lore which I have developed and published was an obligation I assumed years ago, even before I was initiated, to my personal Goddess who urged and inspired me to greater complexity and who directed me to share what I had developed with others similar to myself. So, I can say that I am an oath-breaker, sort of, and that I have blithely passed beyond my traditional lore, and I am a published author, simply because my Goddess obliged me to do these things. In other words, the Goddess made me do it!

Frater Barrabas   

Some Further Thoughts - Oaths, Secrecy & Secret Chiefs

Well, now, the discussion over Nick Farrell’s blog article about the Golden Dawn oath of secrecy has gotten some interesting traction as of late. As an outsider, it mostly doesn’t concern me, since I have not taken any of the Golden Dawn oaths. I am not a party to that discussion, just an outsider who is puzzling over it because it seems so simple to me.

I have already responded to this argument that pagans and witches take their oaths pretty seriously in a previous article, even if it is to protect confidences and materials (like the Book of Shadows) that everyone pretty much knows anyway.

Some like Fr. Peregrin have opined that secrecy and oaths are archaic and could even be considered idolatrous, since they mistake the symbols and tools for the real mysteries. You can find his blog here. I am sorry, but I find that argument kind of confusing and a bit off topic. The real issue here is whether or not oaths and secrecy have any relevance. Of course, I can talk about this from a theoretical perspective, but I can’t freely violate the oaths that I took when I was initiated as a witch - it just isn’t done. Why is that so? Well, for one thing it would undo my initiatory process, invalidating what I received and what I appear to continue to receive. Who wants to screw around with progress? Peregrin makes a really good point that the mysteries are inexplicable and can’t be written down or shared with others, and I wholly agree.

This is one of the reasons why witches and many pagan are not “people of the book.” We have no sacred scriptures because the mysteries themselves provide those experiential mysteries in great abundance. What is secret is what I do in my personal magick (at least the more subjective and personal stuff, in case I feel the need to share or teach others), the personal names of the various Gods and Goddesses that I have experienced or received, the ritual lore that I use, and most importantly, the name of my Holy Guardian Angel. Does this mean that I am some kind of idolater? Well no, it really doesn’t. I am an idolater because I’m a pagan and use statues of the gods in my magickal work, and I give them offerings and worship them, but that’s another issue altogether.

Then there is the sticky issue of the secret chiefs, also known as those “remarkable men and women” who have achieved the highest level of being possible for a human. Do I believe that they are mythic and they don’t really exist? Of course not. I don’t believe in omniscient and immortal humans who live for centuries without aging and who have superhuman powers, but I do believe that a single human being can achieve complete and total enlightenment in a single life time. That’s different than believing in “ascended masters,” but I won’t argue or try to prove that such individuals don’t exist to those who believe in them. I just don’t share their beliefs, that’s all.

Could it be possible that there is a Third Order of higher adepts in the Western Mystery tradition who reside in some location of the world, most likely Europe? Why not? Some have said that there couldn’t possibly be such a group or even individuals. They even say that those who claim to have made contact with such a group and have materials for the Third Order are lying and being totally deceitful. How could that be? If someone claims that no such group or organization exists, then they should be required to prove that statement, just as those who claim that it is true.

However, due to oaths of secrecy and confidentially, providing proof that such a group exists might actually be impossible, if one actually obeys those oaths. This is definitely a Catch-22 situation. It’s like the argument about the existence of God - some will propose proof that God exists, but that proof can be just as easily turned around and shown to be negative. In the end, the only proof is a person’s good works and faith in God. The existence of God is determined by the fact that many believe in God, and they are powerfully and positively transformed by it. It can’t be proven, but then again, it can’t be disproved, either. The same paradox exists for the secret chiefs. If you have met them and know they exist, then you have been made to take oaths not to reveal their identities, which is part of the issue of keeping confidences (and a real conundrum).

What this means is that if one faction of the GD claims to have contact with the secret chiefs and has constituted the Third Order, then the only way to prove that claim one way or the other must require a person to undergo those initiations and teachings and find out for themselves. Otherwise, the arguments are all pointless. The proof of the pudding is in the eating - if you don’t eat the pudding, then you can’t know. It’s very simple logic, even for an outsider.

Finally, to claim that there are no secret chiefs or any kind of advanced adepts in the world, or at least in the Western Mystery tradition, is to say that the only valid knowledge in the world is what is in books in a library or available on the internet. If it isn’t in those various sources, then it doesn’t exist.

Think about that for a moment. It sets up a terrible boundary or limitation on spiritual, magickal and esoteric knowledge. It says, in effect, that there is nothing greater out there than what we have already achieved. Everyone, no matter their personal gifts and abilities or how long they have studied, not to mention the breakthroughs that they might have made, are at the same level. Initiations, transformations, secret oaths - it’s all just window dressing! Well, I for one would find that quite discouraging. It means that we are totally alone and there are no brothers or sisters out there who know more than we do, at least in any significant way.

Gee, if I were to believe that, then I may as well quit all of this mumble jumble occultism now while I am ahead and do something really constructive with my life, like making lots of money or discovering my happiness in the sandy beaches of Tahiti. Good thing for me that I still have hope that I will someday meet some remarkable men and women who might teach me something that I don’t already know. I eagerly look forward to that day.

If someone claims to have contacts with the secret chiefs or remarkable men and women and that they have established a Third Order of higher adepts, who am I to deny them? If I want to prove them wrong, then I would need to be initiated into that organization. Otherwise, I can just nod my head and give them the benefit of the doubt, because who knows, what if that claim is legitimate? Who wants to spoil any future opportunities to achieve total enlightenment? I, for one, don’t, so I will play by the rules and see what happens. That’s the most that any of us can really do. To do otherwise is to spoil the game for ourselves and for others as well.

Frater Barrabbas

A Matter of Oath Breaking

Recently, Nick Ferrell wrote a blog article where he criticized the necessity for the oath of secrecy for Golden Dawn initiates. While I am not a Golden Dawn initiate, I do have some opinions about oaths of secrecy and confidentiality. I have also incorporated a kind of oath for members of my own order, but that oath is more engaged with confidentiality and ethics than actual secrecy. Still I can understand the need for such an oath as well as its limitations. You can find Nick’s article here.

The Golden Dawn has been rife over the last century or more with various kinds of individual oath breakers. Certainly, Crowley could be considered one of the first, who published the Golden Dawn lore in his periodical “Equinox.” Then we have Israel Regardie, Dion Fortune, and a host of others. I have to admit that if these individuals had not circumvented their oaths, none of their writings about the Golden Dawn would have been produced. We would have known next to nothing about this secret organization and its precious lore, and there would have been a dearth of popular occultism, paganism, wicca and magick today. Some might have been quite happy if the occult explosion of the last hundred years had not occurred, but I can tell you that I would have been quite unhappy. In fact, the thought of not being an occultist and having my mono-mania of magick to pursue is quite daunting indeed. (Ha! Maybe I need to get a life and stop being such an occult nerd.)

So I can’t either blame or condemn any of these occultists for breaking their solemn oath to the egregore of the Order of the Golden Dawn, because I and many others profited from it. However, I can look at what motivated each of these individuals and determine what the driving force was that caused them to take this step. For all of the occultists except Crowley, the reason was selfless. They were driven by the desire to enlighten and inform the public. It doesn’t matter too much that the material was given out of context, since it did indeed inform and enlighten many individuals. In fact, it is probably what saved the Order from complete extinction, so perhaps the egregore of the Order was behind these illicit transmissions.

Crowley’s reason for publishing the Golden Dawn material was undoubtedly for pure spite. He despised Mathers and the other members of the Order. He also sought to abrogate the lore for his own personal magickal order, and he published some of Mather’s manuscripts and passed them off for his own work. However, Crowley also produced his own stellar work and had many great contributions to the study and practice of magick. However, his intentions were not selfless or positive, even though the final outcome did end up being good. I suspect that Crowley got to taste the full bitterness of his betrayal of a powerful order and its egregore, if we attribute his final days to that consequence. We can also just as well believe that Crowley was just being himself to the very end, brilliant, pathological, addicted, profoundly creative, notorious and controversial.  Despite his final pitiful days, I think that Crowley would be pleased with the number of occultists today who read and study his works.

Other occultists have published Golden Dawn material - much of it has been in the public domain for quite some time, so I would assume that such material couldn’t be part of an oath of secrecy and confidentiality. So for this reason I couldn’t condemn someone like David Griffin for being an oath breaker. In fact, I am quite happy that many Golden Dawn initiates have written books for me to read and study. However, where I draw the line is the consideration of the author’s motive. Why are they writing about this material when it properly belongs to the Order of the Golden Dawn. Answering that question is very important, as I have already shown in the examples above. If the motive is a selfless desire to inform and enlighten the public, then it must be a positive development, perhaps one that the egregore has sanctioned itself in some manner. If not, then what is revealed is probably not only illicit but against the spirit of the organization.

Nick Ferrell has written a lengthy article that outlines what he thinks is invalid and wrong about the oath of secrecy in the Golden Dawn. There are things that he finds agreeable and things that he doesn’t agree with and feels should be changed. That is all well and good, and probably it would be better stated by someone who has never taken that oath than someone who has.

Say you take an oath. Later on you pick it apart to determine which sections are agreeable to you. Those you agree with, you follow, the rest you ignore. Does that make any sense at all? It seems kind of fast and loose to me. It’s almost like getting your driver’s license and then deciding which traffic laws are relevant and which ones can be broken. A lot of drivers get away with ignoring some traffic laws, like coming to complete stop at a stop sign, but sooner or later either a traffic cop or an accident will force them to change their mind.

I believe that if you make an oath, it doesn’t matter how ridiculous it is, or whether you can obey some parts of it and ignore others. If you don’t respect the oath as a whole, then picking it apart will only completely undo it. In other words, if you can’t respect any part of an oath, then you have no business taking it in the first place.

Confidentiality is, preeminently, the most important part of an oath. Yet confidentiality extends beyond just the names, addresses and personal characteristics of the members of the organization. It is also includes the daily business and personal interactions of the group, the magick they are jointly working, the rituals and lore that they use, group politics and interactions - all of this is strictly confidential. If materials are not already in the common domain, then they shouldn’t be published except without proper authorization from the organizational heads.

 I wouldn’t like it if some clown in my local magickal temple decided to publish the group’s rituals and activities without telling the whole group about it and getting our consent. Maybe someone might have good reasons to publish confidential or unpublished information, but if their reasons are good and if they took an oath to retain all such information as confidential, then they need to ask permission and get approval. In our order, such approval is strictly limited to the local temple, and then it is by full consensus. These are matters of ethics, and anyone who is in a formal group should take them quite seriously.

Here is an example of the oath of ethics taken by an initiate of the first degree (Neophyte) in the Order of the Gnostic Star. I can share this information with you because it has been available on the internet for the past several years.

“I ______________, in the presence of the Lords of the Universe, who work in silence and whom none but silence can express, in this temple of the most high and holy Graal (Isis-Sophia). By the order E. S. S. G. do of my own free will solemnly promise to keep secret this order, its members, its rituals and proceedings. To undertake a benevolent revelation with all the fratres and sorores of this Order. To reveal to no one except the initiates of this order the rituals, ceremonies and documents of this order. That I shall never debase my mystical knowledge in the labor and service of negative magick at anytime nor under any temptation. If I should break this sacred vow, my soul stands before those powers conjured in this sacred place to judge my actions.”

Does taking this oath mean that the rituals and documents of the Order must remain inviolable secrets?  No, actually, it doesn’t. It means that a member of a temple of the Order must keep in confidence all that occurs within it, to protect the members and the workings that they are undergoing. The rituals are not what is kept confidential - only the ritual lore of the temple. There is an important distinction here that should be understood. I usually make certain that prospective members understand the nuances of this oath, but often, I find such an explanation to be superfluous, since it’s so obvious what is being kept confidential.

Thus I would never take an oath that I didn’t wholly believe in and follow to the end, and I would obey an oath that I took to the fullest possible definition. This is what is expected of occultists, and there is an important reason for behaving in this manner. That reason is rather mysterious at first glance, but if you think about it, it becomes more evident. If you break your oath with a spiritual or magickal organization, then you set up a powerful wave of negativity, distrust and dissonance that has a subtle but powerful over-all impact. If it is egregious and based purely upon one’s own lust for power and self aggrandizement, then it will cause a permanent disconnect from the egregore of that organization.

Once such a breakage occurs, as a kind of willful sundering, then it becomes more difficult for any other doors or future possibilities to open for that person. If they have left a bad group, then there is no blame. If not, then they are culpable. If we consider that there are possible higher levels of spiritual and magickal development that are neither in print or held by any known organization, then its possible that such lore would be in the hands of individuals who have achieved the highest level of spiritual and magickal attainment in this world. These individuals would very likely judge an oath breaker as not trustworthy for the greater lore, thus he would be overlooked even if his achievements were monumental.

As far as the Golden Dawn is concerned, a branch or a temple may be bad or corrupt, however, the egregore is still a powerful and positive vehicle in the spiritual and magick world. An oath made in that temple is to the egregore, not to the temple hierarchy. Violations of that oath will be measured against the good and the harm that such an action has caused. The intent of the violation must also be weighed, and that should indicate whether someone meant to do it for the greater good, or did it for ego or spite.

Nick has bragged that when he published an ebook version of the Book of the Tombs, a document that hadn’t ever been published before, he managed to single handedly silence a dispute between two warring factions of the Order that were fighting over the disposition of the Vault of Adepti. The vault is a chamber device that is used in the inner order to conduct intensive forms of magick and initiation, which the document outlined in detail. Supposedly, the two groups then ceased their bickering when they managed to review the original dimensions and qualifications of the vault. Of course, that’s his opinion, we can just as easily assume that they were silenced by his audacity and outraged at his illicit actions.  

I believe the real issue is Nick's cavalier attitude to the very organization that taught him magick and revealed to him the inner mysteries. What is Nick’s intention but his own self aggrandizement, which is in a word, “ego.” Nick seeks to make himself a great man at the expense of the egregore of the Order that took him into its bosom. That makes him not only an oath breaker, but a real blackguard as well. Nick seems to be ruled by his piratical rapaciousness for secret occult lore, which he turns around and publishes, all for the greater glory of himself. He seeks not to inform the general public, but instead to promote himself as an authority and a master of secrets. In declaring himself to be an oath breaker, he has shown the world that he can't be trusted, and has unwittingly slammed the door on any future transmission of even greater occult lore. Potential higher adepts would never consider him as a colleague, and who in their right mind would want to have that option negated?

I don’t feel impressed by what Nick has done, instead I feel sorry for him. Who could ever trust this man with their lore or their mysteries? However you attempt to spin this dilemma, an oath breaker is just that, an oath breaker. It’s someone who betrayed the trust that other individuals placed in them, all for the greater glory of themselves.

Frater Barrabbas