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A couple of days ago Nick Farrell (see picture) answered my post on Scholarly pretense and the Secret Chiefs in a somewhat agitated manner. It seems that he took my critique of his latest literary efforts very personal. Although his reactions are understandable from the human point of view it should be known that I am primarily criticising his scholarly efforts and motives in writing his trilogy on S.L. MacGregor Mathers, not his person per se. I have serious objections against some of his conduct over at his blog as well as I am concerned that his opinions, which are based upon sheer ignorance and a great lack of initiatory experience, will spread throughout the community and become a standard of some sorts. But being a trained professional counsellor I know the difference between a person and his acts.
In his refutation against my critique Mr. Farrell has gone into great length to attack my magical knowledge, scholarly ability and intellectual capacity. That’s o.k. as well, as my personal integrity is not of any primary interest for me in this polemic. I have no urge in defending my name or reputation, only that of my Order, its past and present initiates and Chiefs, and that of the Inner School (the Third Order). But I must note that I have never understood the hallmarks of scholarism in the academic world to include that of defamation of one’s opponent. So if scholarly considerations actually were of a greater concern of Mr. Farrell, he surely would have welcomed my critique in the first place and engaged in a debate with me, which we all know that he hasn’t. So his efforts to elevate himself as a great history scholar actually falls flat.
I myself don’t pretend to be a scholar or a trained historian, even though I do try to make an effort in upholding a certain basic level of scholarly quality to my blogging. I confess that I don’t always succeed in that venture. However, it has to be remembered that I am not writing a book here; it’s simply a blog in which I present my own personal opinions about things that I have observed in the occult community in general and the Golden Dawn community in particular. I prefer to see myself more as an artist commenting on my contemporary world as I see it through my personal lens, rather than a scholar making objective observations. Would I some day publish a book I certainly would make a greater effort in my scholarly research and ambition.
Thus in ignoring Mr. Farrell’s attacks on my person I still feel the need to answer some of his misrepresentations concerning the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega® or to clear up some other misconceptions. Also, I don’t want to disappoint Mr. Farrel’s anticipation regarding a lengthy reply to him ☺. An editorial note: As Mr. Farrell has quoted from my blog I have retained some of these so that his answers are understood in the proper context. For easier orientation I have used red colour for my words and blue for Mr. Farrell’s. Now, Mr. Farrell writes that I:
Furthermore, I do not agree with Mr. Farrell regarding the Slater documents. I don’t doubt that he has access to some of them as they have been circulating in certain quarters for the last decade or so without the consent of the original owners, one of them being the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega® which Mr. Farrell correctly asserts. So he knows perfectly well that they are much more clean and well composed, and readable despite that most of them are hand written. I admit that there are some errors in there too, but not as much as in the NISI documents that I have seen. Slater was also a much more proficient artist and his diagrams are simply stunning.
However, let it be clear that I have never claimed that MacGregor Mathers changed much in the rituals. On the contrary, some years before Mr. Farrell’s publication I made it quite clear that there wasn’t much done to the Elemental Grades and that most changes were made to the Neophyte Ritual. This fact makes it a bit odd to read Mr. Farrell’s words that “Mathers was using slightly tweaked Golden Dawn rituals with the magic taken out” which is yet another contradiction of terms. “Slight tweeks” cannot “take magic out”, at least not any substantial amounts of it.
The fact is that the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega® has made continuous changes and tweeks to the rituals since the General Reformation of 1999 (and even prior to that), because, as Mr. Farrell asserts, the rituals of the A∴O∴ are very similar to the ones in the G∴D∴ as presented by R.G. Torrens in his Secret Rituals of the Golden Dawn. As an example, we changed the passwords of all the Grades long time ago. We have also made other substantial changes to the rituals beyond that. So, actually the Alpha et Omega® wasn’t that affected by Mr. Farrell’s publication as was hoped by our detractors, as G.H. Fra. L.e.S. has asserted us, as our rituals were reformed anyway long before Mr. Farrell’s profanation. However, as our rituals are based on the ones used in MacGregor Mathers’ A∴O∴, including its unique tweeks, I personally was very upset by the profanation.
Were me and Mr. Farrell do differ in opinion (and remember that the difference is between him reading the rituals from an analytical point of view and me practicing these rituals for the last one and a half decade) is regarding the small extra portions that I contrary to him do consider to be very potent and creating a unique flavour to the A∴O∴ rituals. And I will personally never forgive and forget that it was Mr. Farrell who profaned my beloved Orders initiatic secrets coming from MacGregor Mathers. Some of these Mr. Farrell through his ignorance labels as black magic against the candidate, whereas I see them as safe guards to protect him. And I ask my reader who to trust: someone that has never himself worked these rituals in a initiatory context and has political advantages of making MacGregor Mathers into a villain, or someone as me who has had one an a half decades of experience as a Hierophant and tutor using them with great success?
As I have said in my review, MacGregor Mathers never took out anything from the rituals; contrary to this misconception he expended magically upon the rituals. What he also did though is that he gave instructions that certain portions in one of the Outer Grade Rituals could be skipped over in special circumstances, something that Mr. Farrell has turned into a “proof” that all magic was cut out from the A∴O∴ rituals. However, it has to be remembered that all the portions which were used in the original Golden Dawn was retained. Noting was removed.
Regarding that the book should have never been published, I stand by my opinion even more firmly today, not only because of the sloppy and disinformative transcribing. Mr. Farrell has proved to us that he is not a trustworthy person in delineating the history of the A∴O∴ as he is strongly biased against it. He is not credible as an historian as he has interests in defending the honour of the Stella Matutina which schismed against MacGregor Mathers. To justify the treacherous actions that the rebels of the Isis-Urania Temple took against MacGregor Mathers in 1900, which he damn well know to be a great breach of Order protocol, he has to uphold the image of the autocratic and mischievous leader. Not only does he paint a picture of MacGregor Mathers as an evil villain who resorts to magically attacking the candidate during his initiations, but also as someone who lacks any magical skill or occult understanding, and a complete loony just to be sure. Being such, the only decent action by any righteous Adept was to rid him from his office as Chief.
As I said in my previous blog post, MacGregor Mathers changed the Neophyte Ritual because of the Horos scandal which used the Neophyte Ritual as evidence in the court case against the Horos couple. He didn’t bother with the rebels as he knew that they themselves wouldn’t publish the rituals, as they were bound by their oaths. Contrary to the post-modernist generation, initiates of old took their oaths seriously and understood the importance of egregore integrity.
Mr. Farrell’s sentiments about ritual betrays his lack of understanding basic Hermetic principles. Not being properly initiated into the Hermetic Tradition I can understand his ignorance though. But I have to inform him and anyone of my readers that Magic has both an outer and inner aspect. Both are equally important. Mr. Farrell is dangerously close to nurturing a dualist world view which is wholly foreign to the Hermetic Tradition and also to that of the Golden Dawn. Furthermore, even if the changes to the Outer Order rituals are slim compared to the previously published by Regardie and Torrens, that doesn’t mean that these changes doesn’t create a major positive change in the ritual. I know that they are doing precisely that.
I do agree that most of Freemasonry lacks the inner context, which is sad, although there are some examples of esoteric freemasonry. But Mr. Farrell seems to nurture some strange notions (no doubt deriving from the Servents of the Light) that rituals may solely be made upon the astral plane. That is equally an error. Man is both Spirit, Soul and Body. In magic, as well as in alchemy, all these aspects must be employed. I can understand now, in reading Mr. Farrell, why the majority of the post-modernist initiates lay such emphasis on “spirituial alchemy”, denying the possibility of actual physical transmutation. When did this strange radical Gnostic element creep into the Golden Dawn current?
Furthermore, The Alpha et Omega® has never changed its history. Before 2002 it laid its sole emphasis on the different major and auxiliary lineages (such as Bourke, etc.). Post 2002 it has instead laid its main emphasis on the Third Order connection following the meeting with its emissaries, knowing well that this is the most important lineage in the Golden Dawn Tradition to have. Why continue the emphasis upon these previous lineages as they since 2002 are bleak in comparison to what the Third Order represents? This is perfectly logical for an Order which has this connection. For an outsider who doesn’t have it is seems as a volatile position. It’s simply as that.
Mr. Farrell also twist the meanings of what I actually have said regarding the A∴O∴ lineage. What I did say or meant is that the Ahathoor Temple was resurrected in 1992 but that the A∴O∴ lineage had been alive and well on the level of Adeptus Exemptus all time long since the closure of the last Temple in the 1940’s. The A∴O∴ went into an inactive or passive state, but that doesn’t mean that the line of succession was broken. It is part of the normal life cycle of all traditional Rosicrucian bodies which grows and withers according to the 111 years cycle. Only the Third Order or Inner School sustains throughout the ages. Would Mr. Farrell be a true Rosicrucian initiate he surely would know this.
With the General Reformation of the German Gold und Rosenkreutz Order in 1777 the Rosicrucian Order was resurrected in a never before seen semi-public and expansive manner to teach the traditional way of Hermetic Alchemy. Its semi-public activity ceased only a couple of decades later as the Order went into abeyance (as in “temporary inactivity”). In a similar way the Rosicrucian Order was resurrected in 1888 through the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which continued with the earlier Tradition but now steeped in the new age of romanticism and magic. Some decades later it went into abeyance to be later resurrected again in 1999. With the emergence of the Ahathoor Temple in 1992 the Order was preparing for the coming General Reformation.
Thus the Rosicrucian Order of the Alpha et Omega® is certainly not a “reconstruction” in the academic sense of the term (such as in reconstructed neo-paganism, etc.). Notice how Mr. Farrell uses that word “reconstruction” throughout his posting, in a conscious manner to throw a label better suited for his organisation back at the Alpha et Omega®. It’s a simple rhetoric trick. Contrary to this, the Alpha et Omega® truly is a Traditionalist Order.
It is also interesting to note how Mr. Farrell is pushing his antagonistic attitude towards matter and the possibility of physical transmutation by alchemical means. This is truly a proof that his version of “hermeticism” has nothing at all to do with the true Hermetic Tradition. For me it is obvious that he is ignorant of the alchemical tradition and of its processings.
Mr. Farrell’s crimes against his Adepti vows are two fold: (a) the profanation of the material (going against the spirit of the Binah clause) and (b) the wilful attempt to discredit the works of the former Chief S.L. MacGregor Mathers (going against the spirit of the Chesed clause). Of these two I find the latter crime against the spirit of adepthood to be the most outrageous. His ambition to destroy the reputation of MacGregor Mathers in such an untruthful and biased way makes me sick to the stomach, to be honest. As I have shown in the first and second parts of my review of Mathers’ Last Secret his so-called “anaysis” of the rituals amounts to nothing else than pure fantasy, bordering on paranoia. It has absolutely no foundation in reality, neither in history nor in occult formula.
What is even worse for me personally it that because of this publication I have lost all my faith in the Golden Dawn community. It seems as Mathers’ Last Secret was a joint collaboration with Adepts across the community. Also all the hails and praises following the publication has left med wholly disillusioned. Is this book actually meant to be the measuring stick of the Golden Dawn communtiy? For a time I had high hopes that eventually the whole of the community would heal from its past errors. I was not only publicly and privately communicating with several Adepts outside of my own Order but also felt a strong and fraternal kinship with the majority of the hardworking initiates outside of my own organisation. Today I’m not sure what to think or feel. I have come to realise that after all there is a great abyss between the traditionalist camp of the Alpha et Omega® and its associates on one hand and the rest of the community which acts and reacts as typical post-modernists.
I have come to realise that the label “Golden Dawn” today doesn’t say anything at all about a particular initiate. It doesn’t prove anything. I have also come to realise that the significance of that label has lost its former meaning and glory, and today represents something totally different. Even something undesirable. I wonder what the initiates of the original Orders (G∴D∴, A∴O∴ and S∴M∴ alike) would say if they saw what had happened to the community. I doubt that they would be pleased or proud. I surely am not pleased nor am I proud. Thus I don’t stick that label to my person any longer.
The more I read what others write the more I feel distanced and isolated from the rest of the Golden Dawn community. It also gives me the increased feeling of being a grumpy old man lamenting the state of the modern youth. I don’t know anylonger what the purpose of my blog is anymore. With it I used to try to extand my hand to the community. Today it seems that I mostly polemize against it. And I know that my words makes me unpopular and somewhat of a persona non grata. But political correctness and public image is not my primary ambitions. Honesty is though.
This “bad apples” rhetoric that I have encountered before from Mr. Farrell and others of his ilk is not the most constructive way of addressing the Alpha et Omega® if one wants harmony in the Golden Dawn community. Remember that in doing so Mr. Farrell in fact denies the existence of hundreds and hundreds of hard working initiates working for their betterment and the betterment of the world (even Mr. Farrell’s). This kind of rhetoric is simply the height of arrogance. It is outright disrespectful to sincere people’s dedicated works.
It frankly is disturbing. I personally don’t conflate Mr. Farrell’s behaviour with his Order or with any of his initiates. In fact, I have had absolutely no problem with any of them in the past (besides Mr. Farrell) and have had friendly chats with several of them. I do respect their own personal work and serious aspirations, and it makes me happy to see that they have found a spiritual “home” in which they are able to progress spiritually despite of their leaders own failings. I am myself not a perfect man by any means. I have made many faults and I will probable do so also in the future. But I urge Mr. Farrell and any of my critics to please refrain from passing such sweeping remarks or judgements over such a good body of initiates which are all doing a splendid work, as are his initiates. Any personal issues are between me and Mr. Farrell, not between our respective Orders. At least it shouldn’t be.
Now, in this polemic over the Secret Chiefs one often hears the talking point that the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega® represents a faith system and thus a Golden Dawn religion of some sorts. But the contrary is actually the truth. Although I do believe in angelical and spiritual communication from a certain perspective (the Enochian system being the prime example) I on the other hand don’t have to rely on any fancy ideas about Angels being the primary deliverers of knowledge to my Order as I see the visible proof with my physical eyes of teachers of a high standing, which goes way beyond that of ordinary Adepthood and anything related to the Second Order of the Golden Dawn. So, this it is not a question of beliefs but of facts. I cannot deny what I already know through my own experience. Thus I don’t have to rely on any faith.
Mr. Farrell also creates an unnecessary dichotomy which is rather bizarre. If Mr. Farrell truly believes that nobody in the Alpha et Omega® are searching for a contact with their Higher Self, or is barred from it, because our Order is guided by physical Secret Chiefs, this again is only betraying his own arrogance and ignorance. Belief in incarnated Secret Chiefs doesn’t contradict an honest desire for union with the Higher Self. Belief in physical Secret Chiefs doesn’t also mean that one has to surrender one’s will to another human. It means though that you accept the guidance of someone else more advanced than yourself, who knows the pitfalls that may effectively hinder your spiritual progress.
It is the height of arrogance and narcissistic even to believe oneself to be wholly self sufficient and without the need of any guidance, only because one has put on the label of “Adept” unto oneself. It sounds a bit autistic (as in autoerotic) to my psychotherapeutic ears. A hermetic initiate never ceases to be a student and he or she always is benefited by a significant other or someone else and more experienced teacher.
Now, was this lengthy enough? Enough said for now.
S∴R∴
A couple of days ago Nick Farrell (see picture) answered my post on Scholarly pretense and the Secret Chiefs in a somewhat agitated manner. It seems that he took my critique of his latest literary efforts very personal. Although his reactions are understandable from the human point of view it should be known that I am primarily criticising his scholarly efforts and motives in writing his trilogy on S.L. MacGregor Mathers, not his person per se. I have serious objections against some of his conduct over at his blog as well as I am concerned that his opinions, which are based upon sheer ignorance and a great lack of initiatory experience, will spread throughout the community and become a standard of some sorts. But being a trained professional counsellor I know the difference between a person and his acts.
In his refutation against my critique Mr. Farrell has gone into great length to attack my magical knowledge, scholarly ability and intellectual capacity. That’s o.k. as well, as my personal integrity is not of any primary interest for me in this polemic. I have no urge in defending my name or reputation, only that of my Order, its past and present initiates and Chiefs, and that of the Inner School (the Third Order). But I must note that I have never understood the hallmarks of scholarism in the academic world to include that of defamation of one’s opponent. So if scholarly considerations actually were of a greater concern of Mr. Farrell, he surely would have welcomed my critique in the first place and engaged in a debate with me, which we all know that he hasn’t. So his efforts to elevate himself as a great history scholar actually falls flat.
I myself don’t pretend to be a scholar or a trained historian, even though I do try to make an effort in upholding a certain basic level of scholarly quality to my blogging. I confess that I don’t always succeed in that venture. However, it has to be remembered that I am not writing a book here; it’s simply a blog in which I present my own personal opinions about things that I have observed in the occult community in general and the Golden Dawn community in particular. I prefer to see myself more as an artist commenting on my contemporary world as I see it through my personal lens, rather than a scholar making objective observations. Would I some day publish a book I certainly would make a greater effort in my scholarly research and ambition.
Thus in ignoring Mr. Farrell’s attacks on my person I still feel the need to answer some of his misrepresentations concerning the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega® or to clear up some other misconceptions. Also, I don’t want to disappoint Mr. Farrel’s anticipation regarding a lengthy reply to him ☺. An editorial note: As Mr. Farrell has quoted from my blog I have retained some of these so that his answers are understood in the proper context. For easier orientation I have used red colour for my words and blue for Mr. Farrell’s. Now, Mr. Farrell writes that I:
...started claiming I [i.e. Mr. Farrell] never met Whare Ra people and was never a member of OTR...Did I really do that? I wasn’t aware of this. As far as I can recall all I have said is that Mr. Farrell was a low grade member of the O.T.R., a Order which had former Whare Ra Adepts as members but wasn’t properly a Golden Dawn Order. Furthermore I have never claimed that Mr. Farrell never met any Whare Ra Adepts. I trust his story that he did. The question remains to what extent and for how long?
I started to realise he was not interested in what really happened at any time in history (including events at which I was actually present) and only interested in creating a reality distortion field.Well, this is exactly how I personally preceive Mr. Farrell’s misinformation. I am also living the history that Mr. Farrell is trying his very best to refute and deny the existence of. I must repeat that I do not deny that Mr. Farrell was a member of the O.T.R. But initiated sources has informed me that he was a low grade member of that organization and only had a brief relation with a few of its Adepts. I trust my sources enough to make this presumption. However brief that might have been, it still is a quite interesting résumé in his occult CV though.
(a) MacGregor Mathers took the initiation rituals of the Golden Dawn Tradition into a Masonic direction, stripping it off from all Magic, and that (b) he changed the same rituals into Magically barring the initiate from a full spiritual development. The attentive reader will of course notice that ‘a’ contradicts ‘b’.Where does MacGregor Mathers take out the Z documents? If he did that, surely there would be no traces of any Z documents in the much later George Slater collection. But they are there alright. Mr. Farrell’s assumption is only based upon the suggested “short cuts” in the ritual instructions of the Neophyte Ceremony, mistaking them to be a general protocol when they are only to be used in certain cases of time restrictions. I won’t repeat my counter arguments here. I instead refer my reader to my full review entitled Historical revisionism in the Golden Dawn.
It does not. Mathers takes out the Z documents, thus removing the magic, and then tweaks what is left so that it blocks the candidate from symbolically reaching a particular point where he can be challenged.
But even in this respect it fails tremendously, as entire portions of the rituals in the source text are missing and the transcriptions are filled with typos and errors.Actually, in that quote from by blog post I was referring to Mr. Farrell’s own transcription of the NISI documents. Though I did note that there were typos in NISI’s handwritten originals which was corrected in the margin, presumely by NISI himself. But there are errors in it too which weren’t spotted by NISI himself; however compared to Mr. Farrell’s transcriptions they are much more reliable even though the hand writing is terrible (remember that English is not my native tongue).
Nisi is pretty good in comparison with Crowley, Yeats, and some of the Whare Ra manuscripts. In King Over the Water I had to use some Slater manuscripts which were even worse. Slater’s are the pile of documents that SR’s order is based upon, so if he says Nisi was bad because of typos, etc he has to rule out his own material too.
Furthermore, I do not agree with Mr. Farrell regarding the Slater documents. I don’t doubt that he has access to some of them as they have been circulating in certain quarters for the last decade or so without the consent of the original owners, one of them being the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega® which Mr. Farrell correctly asserts. So he knows perfectly well that they are much more clean and well composed, and readable despite that most of them are hand written. I admit that there are some errors in there too, but not as much as in the NISI documents that I have seen. Slater was also a much more proficient artist and his diagrams are simply stunning.
Publishing a revised edition not more than one year after the first is a bit unorthodox, to put it mildly.“Some minor typos” is a great understatement! And I doubt that it is common to republish a title shortly than one year of the initial publication. Well, as I mostly read older literature, I must have missed this latest oddity of a post-modernist custom. I’m not arguing against correcting Mr. Farrell’s mistakes. What I’m arguing against is that he didn’t correct them already in the first edition. I personally don’t want to send him any more cash because he blundered in his initial research.
Actually it is very common in the literary world now. It is possible thanks to new technology and means that people have access to the latest information, because books can be changed easily. Would SR rather people remain ignorant or not have access to the correct information? Historically books were updated when the first edition ran out and Mathers’ Last Secret was updated as soon as we sold over a certain amount agreed with the publisher. As far as the revisions were concerned there were some minor typos and I took the opportunity to add some more footnotes and tweak some points that were not clear or that I did not have at the time.
I stand by my opinion that it is one of the worst “G.D. publications” that I have seen yet, if not the worst. As I have stated before it should never have been published.In this quote Mr. Farrell reveal to us all the true motivation behind his publications, to “prove me wrong” regarding what I supposedly have said regarding the contents of the A∴O∴ rituals, i.e. his “scholarly research” has been politically motivated all along from the very start.
Yes, it would be the worst book in the world for SR’s order because it proved that what he has been selling people for years was just a reality distortion field. His order could no longer continue to pretend that the AO documents were different from the Golden Dawn. Apparently one of the “worst GD publications” has apparently forced it to make sweeping changes to the order that it would not have made otherwise. If Mathers' Last Secret was so unreliable (which it is not), then why make the changes? Maybe it was because it made SR’s historical fantasy look bad. The fact that Mathers was using slightly tweaked Golden Dawn rituals with the magic taken out must have been a little embarrassing. It meant that while he was claiming that Mathers was the font of all magical knowledge he had associated himself with someone who was not particularly interested in teaching magic at all. My guess is that he is sitting with his fingers in his ears waiting for another explosion of reality coming out from King Over the Water.
However, let it be clear that I have never claimed that MacGregor Mathers changed much in the rituals. On the contrary, some years before Mr. Farrell’s publication I made it quite clear that there wasn’t much done to the Elemental Grades and that most changes were made to the Neophyte Ritual. This fact makes it a bit odd to read Mr. Farrell’s words that “Mathers was using slightly tweaked Golden Dawn rituals with the magic taken out” which is yet another contradiction of terms. “Slight tweeks” cannot “take magic out”, at least not any substantial amounts of it.
The fact is that the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega® has made continuous changes and tweeks to the rituals since the General Reformation of 1999 (and even prior to that), because, as Mr. Farrell asserts, the rituals of the A∴O∴ are very similar to the ones in the G∴D∴ as presented by R.G. Torrens in his Secret Rituals of the Golden Dawn. As an example, we changed the passwords of all the Grades long time ago. We have also made other substantial changes to the rituals beyond that. So, actually the Alpha et Omega® wasn’t that affected by Mr. Farrell’s publication as was hoped by our detractors, as G.H. Fra. L.e.S. has asserted us, as our rituals were reformed anyway long before Mr. Farrell’s profanation. However, as our rituals are based on the ones used in MacGregor Mathers’ A∴O∴, including its unique tweeks, I personally was very upset by the profanation.
Were me and Mr. Farrell do differ in opinion (and remember that the difference is between him reading the rituals from an analytical point of view and me practicing these rituals for the last one and a half decade) is regarding the small extra portions that I contrary to him do consider to be very potent and creating a unique flavour to the A∴O∴ rituals. And I will personally never forgive and forget that it was Mr. Farrell who profaned my beloved Orders initiatic secrets coming from MacGregor Mathers. Some of these Mr. Farrell through his ignorance labels as black magic against the candidate, whereas I see them as safe guards to protect him. And I ask my reader who to trust: someone that has never himself worked these rituals in a initiatory context and has political advantages of making MacGregor Mathers into a villain, or someone as me who has had one an a half decades of experience as a Hierophant and tutor using them with great success?
As I have said in my review, MacGregor Mathers never took out anything from the rituals; contrary to this misconception he expended magically upon the rituals. What he also did though is that he gave instructions that certain portions in one of the Outer Grade Rituals could be skipped over in special circumstances, something that Mr. Farrell has turned into a “proof” that all magic was cut out from the A∴O∴ rituals. However, it has to be remembered that all the portions which were used in the original Golden Dawn was retained. Noting was removed.
Regarding that the book should have never been published, I stand by my opinion even more firmly today, not only because of the sloppy and disinformative transcribing. Mr. Farrell has proved to us that he is not a trustworthy person in delineating the history of the A∴O∴ as he is strongly biased against it. He is not credible as an historian as he has interests in defending the honour of the Stella Matutina which schismed against MacGregor Mathers. To justify the treacherous actions that the rebels of the Isis-Urania Temple took against MacGregor Mathers in 1900, which he damn well know to be a great breach of Order protocol, he has to uphold the image of the autocratic and mischievous leader. Not only does he paint a picture of MacGregor Mathers as an evil villain who resorts to magically attacking the candidate during his initiations, but also as someone who lacks any magical skill or occult understanding, and a complete loony just to be sure. Being such, the only decent action by any righteous Adept was to rid him from his office as Chief.
Mr. Farrell and his publishers are good enough occultists to know that the best way to hurt a magical Order is to publish its rituals.Is Mr. Farrel claiming that the A∴O∴ Neophyte Ritual was published long before his own publication? Did I read him right? If so, I would appreciate if he gave us any references to back up this claim.
Mathers was incredibly lazy and only tweaked the 0=0 rituals (yet he did not feel that their use by the rebels would cause him many problems). Elemental grade rituals have already been published, as has the revised 0=0. So if SR’s reconstructed AO was going to be damaged it already had been done so by the British tabloid press, Regardie, Crowley, Torrens and Gilbert. Magic is not about the literal wording of rituals, (that is Masonry). It is about the inner content behind them. Someone could publish the rituals of the Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea and it would not harm the Order at all. That is because the godforms would be different as would the various events which happen at an inner level. The egregore and the spiritual connections are all different.
As I said in my previous blog post, MacGregor Mathers changed the Neophyte Ritual because of the Horos scandal which used the Neophyte Ritual as evidence in the court case against the Horos couple. He didn’t bother with the rebels as he knew that they themselves wouldn’t publish the rituals, as they were bound by their oaths. Contrary to the post-modernist generation, initiates of old took their oaths seriously and understood the importance of egregore integrity.
Mr. Farrell’s sentiments about ritual betrays his lack of understanding basic Hermetic principles. Not being properly initiated into the Hermetic Tradition I can understand his ignorance though. But I have to inform him and anyone of my readers that Magic has both an outer and inner aspect. Both are equally important. Mr. Farrell is dangerously close to nurturing a dualist world view which is wholly foreign to the Hermetic Tradition and also to that of the Golden Dawn. Furthermore, even if the changes to the Outer Order rituals are slim compared to the previously published by Regardie and Torrens, that doesn’t mean that these changes doesn’t create a major positive change in the ritual. I know that they are doing precisely that.
I do agree that most of Freemasonry lacks the inner context, which is sad, although there are some examples of esoteric freemasonry. But Mr. Farrell seems to nurture some strange notions (no doubt deriving from the Servents of the Light) that rituals may solely be made upon the astral plane. That is equally an error. Man is both Spirit, Soul and Body. In magic, as well as in alchemy, all these aspects must be employed. I can understand now, in reading Mr. Farrell, why the majority of the post-modernist initiates lay such emphasis on “spirituial alchemy”, denying the possibility of actual physical transmutation. When did this strange radical Gnostic element creep into the Golden Dawn current?
When the Rosicrucian Order of the Alpha et Omega re-emerged in the early 1990’s, when the old Grand Temple of Ahatoor No. 7 was revived in 1992Where have my Order ever claimed that the Ahathoor Temple has been working continuously since MacGregor Mathers’ times in Paris? Never, to my knowledge. Jean-Pascal Ruggiu has been very honest about that he revived that Temple with the help of Nicholas Tereschenko in 1992. What Mr. Farrel cannot grasp and thus confuses is that it is the Adeptus Exemptus lineage which is unbroken. I suggest re-reading what I wrote in my last blog. I believe that I laid out everything perfectly clear in there.
SR has changed his story. Originally his reconstructed AO order claimed “unbroken lineage” from Mathers and that all others were just, er, “reconstructions”. It was even claimed that he had the minute book of the actual Paris temple as proof. In fact, they had a photocopy. If the temple was revived in 1992, as SR is now saying, it cannot have any lineage other than from his Secret Chiefs. Which is fine, so long as it does not use real history to justify its existence.
Furthermore, The Alpha et Omega® has never changed its history. Before 2002 it laid its sole emphasis on the different major and auxiliary lineages (such as Bourke, etc.). Post 2002 it has instead laid its main emphasis on the Third Order connection following the meeting with its emissaries, knowing well that this is the most important lineage in the Golden Dawn Tradition to have. Why continue the emphasis upon these previous lineages as they since 2002 are bleak in comparison to what the Third Order represents? This is perfectly logical for an Order which has this connection. For an outsider who doesn’t have it is seems as a volatile position. It’s simply as that.
it’s no surprise then that he nurtures such views and desperately tries to overlay them upon the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and its successor the Rosicrucian Order of A∴O∴Mr. Farrell is clearly distorting facts here. There has never been any schism in the Swedish jurisdiction over any inner plane teachings or techniques in communicating with “ascended masters” deriving from the S.O.L. Furthermore, my former brother and mentor (who was a former student of Ashcroft-Nowicki) never brought in any of such techniques that Mr. Farrell is referring to into the Swedish Temples.
I know there was a schism in SR’s group about their uses so this is a little sensitive for him. David also had run ins with Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki’s (DAN) former student, so he would try to distance himself from this aspect of GD magic. However, DAN did not invent those methods (and indeed I don’t use her methods, favouring those taught to me by Whare Ra people).
SR is actually dismissing the inner teachings of a former AO leader Tranchell-Hayes (at one point he claimed lineage from her), which she learned from Brodie-Innes. But that is OK because he claims that the Secret Chiefs abandoned the AO before he took over. The same method was also used in Whare Ra, but he claims the Secret Chiefs were not behind the SM. Some of the channelling techniques that Fortune used were an adaptation of the methods used by Mathers and were used to communicate with LeT, but that is OK because he says that he met the Archangel face to face. I am interested to know SR’s source that LeT is Lux ex Tenebris as the meaning of that name was a theory from Howe’s book.... I can find no point where Mathers mentioned that was what those initials mean. It is interesting that his Secret Chief pops up with the same name as Howe’s theory about what the name meant.I wonder if Mr. Farrell can back up his claims with sources that there existed a A∴O∴ inner plane channeling technique originally coming from MacGregor Mathers in contacting the Secret Chiefs that was eventually to become the basis for Dion Fortunes spiritistic séances in communicating with her own masters. I have a hard time accepting this considering the severe attitude that the Order had against spiritism, as expressed in the early G∴D∴application form:
The Chiefs of the Order do not care to accept as Candidates any persons accustomed to submit themselves as Mediums to the Experiments of Hypnotism, Mesmerism, or Spiritualism; or who habitually allow themselves to fall into a completely Passive condition of Will; also they disapprove of the methods made use of as a rule in such Experiments.
A quotation of the original Neophyte Obligation from 1888 echoes these sentiments in a quite similar way:
So what is Mr. Farrell suggesting with his pet theory, that the Chiefs MacGregor Mathers, Brodie-Innes and Tranchell-Hayes would break their obligations in their search for a inner plane correspondence? And regaring the true identity of the letters “L.e.T.” Mr Farrell is again resorting to history revisionism. The identity of these letters is recorded by A.E. Waite in his diary Ordo R.R. et A.C. which is concerned with his dealings with R.W. Felkin and the latter’s search for the Secret Chiefs. Let me quote the pertinent parts for Mr. Farrell’s own erudition (which he perhaps may use in his soon to come revised version of King over the Water):I will not suffer myself to be hypnotized, or mesmerized, nor will I place myself in such a passive state that any uninitiated person, power, or being may cause me to lose control of my thoughts, words or actions.
XXXIII Meeting with FR June 11, 1912In that same document the “Liege Adept” is identified as MacGregor Mathers Secret Chief, also with the name Dr. Thiessen associated to him, such as in the entry of December 23, 1910, where it says: “5=6 sent to DDCF by Dr. Thiessen of Liege who died in 1909.” Thus it was not a theory of Howe’s. If anything Ellic Howe was drawing his sources from Waite’s diary.
FR [Felkin] brought letter from SA [Westcott] with copy of cipher letter from Liege adept to SA. Cipher was GD, signature was Lux ex Tenebris. Letter said SA shouldn’t fear as DDCF [MacGregor Mathers] was cut off from communication, no date or address but SA says he has dated envelope. SR [Waite] said this went against German claim that DDCF had never had dealings with them. FR said Liege Doctor acted on his own.
This is what makes people as Pat Zalewski and Nick Farrell scared as hell. That is what makes them so obsessed with the Rosicrucian Order of the Alpha et Omega, both past and present. In this they use the subtle and deceiving tactics of targeting the historical Order to hit the current Roscicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega®.Mr. Farrell’s obsession with the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega® is showing lately on his blog and in particular on a certain Yahoo-forum. If he truly was so concerned in only working magic we wouldn’t seen this behaviour from him. He clearly has the personal ambition of being recognised by the occult community as that great Magus that he imagines himself to be, and anything which stands in his way to that stardom he will use his rethoric and literary efforts to combat, as he has done for the last years. We have seen this happening with the profanation of George Slater’s copy of the Book of the Tomb, which he used against the Alpha et Omega® already in 2009 as a prequel to his profanation of the A∴O∴ initiation rituals in his Mathers’ Last Secret.
Actually, I have no particular interest in SR or his order (which, as he has publicly said, has little to do with Mathers’ AO, but is rather a later reconstruction by his “Secret Chiefs”). He has absolutely nothing that I want or need. My path is that of practical magic and that is what I teach in MOAA.
Mr. Farrell also twist the meanings of what I actually have said regarding the A∴O∴ lineage. What I did say or meant is that the Ahathoor Temple was resurrected in 1992 but that the A∴O∴ lineage had been alive and well on the level of Adeptus Exemptus all time long since the closure of the last Temple in the 1940’s. The A∴O∴ went into an inactive or passive state, but that doesn’t mean that the line of succession was broken. It is part of the normal life cycle of all traditional Rosicrucian bodies which grows and withers according to the 111 years cycle. Only the Third Order or Inner School sustains throughout the ages. Would Mr. Farrell be a true Rosicrucian initiate he surely would know this.
With the General Reformation of the German Gold und Rosenkreutz Order in 1777 the Rosicrucian Order was resurrected in a never before seen semi-public and expansive manner to teach the traditional way of Hermetic Alchemy. Its semi-public activity ceased only a couple of decades later as the Order went into abeyance (as in “temporary inactivity”). In a similar way the Rosicrucian Order was resurrected in 1888 through the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which continued with the earlier Tradition but now steeped in the new age of romanticism and magic. Some decades later it went into abeyance to be later resurrected again in 1999. With the emergence of the Ahathoor Temple in 1992 the Order was preparing for the coming General Reformation.
Thus the Rosicrucian Order of the Alpha et Omega® is certainly not a “reconstruction” in the academic sense of the term (such as in reconstructed neo-paganism, etc.). Notice how Mr. Farrell uses that word “reconstruction” throughout his posting, in a conscious manner to throw a label better suited for his organisation back at the Alpha et Omega®. It’s a simple rhetoric trick. Contrary to this, the Alpha et Omega® truly is a Traditionalist Order.
I am not interested in the fantasy of people who claim they can turn lead into gold, those who construct bogus histories, spout New Age rubbish, claim proprietary ownership on documents they don’t own or say they have the secrets of the universe but when they are asked to provide proof they mysteriously clam up.Mr. Farrell have himself claimed copyright on a historical document which wasn’t his property to begin with, i.e. George Slater’s version of the Book of the Tomb. One of the original holders or trustees of the Slater Collection is the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega®. Now, anyone quoting from the Book of the Tomb must cite Mr. Farrell (a professed detractor of MacGregor Mathers’ A∴O∴) as a source, even me a guess, although I as an initiate of the Alpha et Omega® have had access to it years before he profaned that document. I suppose the same may be said since the publication of Mathers’ Last Secret regarding the rituals of the A∴O∴which I have used for so long and grown a attachement to in the process. I find this situation to be quite bizarre, to put it mildly. Not the least amusing. The closest feeling I get is if someone had stolen some personal property from my house and later used it publicly under the protection of civil law (which is possible in my native country).
It is also interesting to note how Mr. Farrell is pushing his antagonistic attitude towards matter and the possibility of physical transmutation by alchemical means. This is truly a proof that his version of “hermeticism” has nothing at all to do with the true Hermetic Tradition. For me it is obvious that he is ignorant of the alchemical tradition and of its processings.
At one time I made friendly approaches to SR and his order…If there were any tentative fraternal communication between me and Mr. Farrell in the past all that was effectively ruined by him after his publication of Mathers’ Last Secret. Knowing that he is a journalist by profession I can understand his writing style. But considering his claims to be an initiate of the Golden Dawn I cannot understand him as an author at all. It is below the initiatic and spiritual integrity (also of a professed initiate of the Whare Ra Temple) to write such a distorted view of a founding father of the Golden Dawn system of Magic. There is of course no need for any Adept to put anyone Adept or Chief upon a pedestal; it is not even desirable. But it is equally wrong to wilfully drag any such name into the mud in the manner as Mr. Farrell has done with MacGregor Mathers.
Mr. Farrell’s crimes against his Adepti vows are two fold: (a) the profanation of the material (going against the spirit of the Binah clause) and (b) the wilful attempt to discredit the works of the former Chief S.L. MacGregor Mathers (going against the spirit of the Chesed clause). Of these two I find the latter crime against the spirit of adepthood to be the most outrageous. His ambition to destroy the reputation of MacGregor Mathers in such an untruthful and biased way makes me sick to the stomach, to be honest. As I have shown in the first and second parts of my review of Mathers’ Last Secret his so-called “anaysis” of the rituals amounts to nothing else than pure fantasy, bordering on paranoia. It has absolutely no foundation in reality, neither in history nor in occult formula.
What is even worse for me personally it that because of this publication I have lost all my faith in the Golden Dawn community. It seems as Mathers’ Last Secret was a joint collaboration with Adepts across the community. Also all the hails and praises following the publication has left med wholly disillusioned. Is this book actually meant to be the measuring stick of the Golden Dawn communtiy? For a time I had high hopes that eventually the whole of the community would heal from its past errors. I was not only publicly and privately communicating with several Adepts outside of my own Order but also felt a strong and fraternal kinship with the majority of the hardworking initiates outside of my own organisation. Today I’m not sure what to think or feel. I have come to realise that after all there is a great abyss between the traditionalist camp of the Alpha et Omega® and its associates on one hand and the rest of the community which acts and reacts as typical post-modernists.
I have come to realise that the label “Golden Dawn” today doesn’t say anything at all about a particular initiate. It doesn’t prove anything. I have also come to realise that the significance of that label has lost its former meaning and glory, and today represents something totally different. Even something undesirable. I wonder what the initiates of the original Orders (G∴D∴, A∴O∴ and S∴M∴ alike) would say if they saw what had happened to the community. I doubt that they would be pleased or proud. I surely am not pleased nor am I proud. Thus I don’t stick that label to my person any longer.
The more I read what others write the more I feel distanced and isolated from the rest of the Golden Dawn community. It also gives me the increased feeling of being a grumpy old man lamenting the state of the modern youth. I don’t know anylonger what the purpose of my blog is anymore. With it I used to try to extand my hand to the community. Today it seems that I mostly polemize against it. And I know that my words makes me unpopular and somewhat of a persona non grata. But political correctness and public image is not my primary ambitions. Honesty is though.
It was clear that the price of being left alone by SR and David is to accept their reality distortion field without question.If Mr. Farrell really wants to be left alone I urge him to simply stop writing historical books and blogs with a political agenda against the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega® as he repeatedly has done for the last few years and also admits to doing. My advice to him is to write books about magic instead of pretending to be a historian, which he clearly is not. As I said in my previous blog post, he has done a splendid job at these literary venues before. I do believe he has lots to offer to the community if he simply lets go of all his personal issues with MacGregor Mathers and his A∴O∴, both past and present.
Spinning a reality distortion field around other people’s work when you are ignorant of what they really do and then shouting the lie over and over has made SR, David and their Order the pariah of the Golden Dawn community. While so called “scholarship” promotes this distortion field no one with any sense can take any of them seriously.Fantasies don’t become reality just because Mr. Farrell himself believes in them and in his disinformative books is trying the very best to convince others to believe. If he pretends to be a scholar he shouldn’t be so hostile against his critics, as that surely betrays his true motives because such behaviour he is showing towards me are contrary to any scholarly considerations common in academia. If he really wants to dupe the public in believing him he should learn to keep his temper.
This “bad apples” rhetoric that I have encountered before from Mr. Farrell and others of his ilk is not the most constructive way of addressing the Alpha et Omega® if one wants harmony in the Golden Dawn community. Remember that in doing so Mr. Farrell in fact denies the existence of hundreds and hundreds of hard working initiates working for their betterment and the betterment of the world (even Mr. Farrell’s). This kind of rhetoric is simply the height of arrogance. It is outright disrespectful to sincere people’s dedicated works.
It frankly is disturbing. I personally don’t conflate Mr. Farrell’s behaviour with his Order or with any of his initiates. In fact, I have had absolutely no problem with any of them in the past (besides Mr. Farrell) and have had friendly chats with several of them. I do respect their own personal work and serious aspirations, and it makes me happy to see that they have found a spiritual “home” in which they are able to progress spiritually despite of their leaders own failings. I am myself not a perfect man by any means. I have made many faults and I will probable do so also in the future. But I urge Mr. Farrell and any of my critics to please refrain from passing such sweeping remarks or judgements over such a good body of initiates which are all doing a splendid work, as are his initiates. Any personal issues are between me and Mr. Farrell, not between our respective Orders. At least it shouldn’t be.
If I write antyhing that breaks with the orthodoxy which SR or David is trying to peddle at this minute, I am apparently attacking their order. This might be true if I sat down and worked out “how can I piss off SR and David”, but really I usually don’t have the time to waste thinking about them or their groupMr. Farrell’s actions for the last few years truly speaks contrary to his words in that quote.
If they think that their Secret Chief has made a difference to their spiritual lives I am glad for them. Frankly I see little in the way of evidence. Personally I find the whole Secret Chief thing a personal attempt to satisfy a distant father figure in a personal life by rejoicing in finding a figure that actually gives the person some attention. In MOAA we are more interested in contacting our Higher Self and becoming individuals than looking for more humans to surrender our will to. But while SR claims to have invisible friends he has to accept that the rest of the community will take the piss, because it is silly to think that he can actually sell people that idea.My “friends” are not invisible as Mr. Farrell asserts. His are though, as he professes to believe only in astral Secret Chiefs. But contrary to his, mine are not “astral”. Thus, he is prone to be reliant on the council of any astral spirit that may enter into his Sphere of Sensation whereas I am not. I wish him well in his quest...
Now, in this polemic over the Secret Chiefs one often hears the talking point that the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega® represents a faith system and thus a Golden Dawn religion of some sorts. But the contrary is actually the truth. Although I do believe in angelical and spiritual communication from a certain perspective (the Enochian system being the prime example) I on the other hand don’t have to rely on any fancy ideas about Angels being the primary deliverers of knowledge to my Order as I see the visible proof with my physical eyes of teachers of a high standing, which goes way beyond that of ordinary Adepthood and anything related to the Second Order of the Golden Dawn. So, this it is not a question of beliefs but of facts. I cannot deny what I already know through my own experience. Thus I don’t have to rely on any faith.
Mr. Farrell also creates an unnecessary dichotomy which is rather bizarre. If Mr. Farrell truly believes that nobody in the Alpha et Omega® are searching for a contact with their Higher Self, or is barred from it, because our Order is guided by physical Secret Chiefs, this again is only betraying his own arrogance and ignorance. Belief in incarnated Secret Chiefs doesn’t contradict an honest desire for union with the Higher Self. Belief in physical Secret Chiefs doesn’t also mean that one has to surrender one’s will to another human. It means though that you accept the guidance of someone else more advanced than yourself, who knows the pitfalls that may effectively hinder your spiritual progress.
It is the height of arrogance and narcissistic even to believe oneself to be wholly self sufficient and without the need of any guidance, only because one has put on the label of “Adept” unto oneself. It sounds a bit autistic (as in autoerotic) to my psychotherapeutic ears. A hermetic initiate never ceases to be a student and he or she always is benefited by a significant other or someone else and more experienced teacher.
This propping up of a reality distortion field will mean that SR will write a long blog on his site which will actually say nothing.So Mr. Farrell denies my moral right and freedom to answer his wild allegations against me and the Order that I serve? Now I do trust the judgement of my readers to decide if my words actually do say something, not that of Mr. Farrell’s.
I have been around long enough to see David’s lineage story change so many times that it has become a joke. No, they don't have lineage to the original Golden Dawn and every time he has used a historical source to claim it, it has been subsequently disproven. They seem to have realised this because the new story is that you have the lineage from unnamed Secret Chiefs. Well, it is historically unarguable, but needs to be taken on faith that it is true. Given the fact that they and their order have not been able to tell the truth so far about its lineage, SR will perhaps forgive the rest of the GD community if we don’t believe them [this] time either.I am not asking anyone to take my story for granted. It is everyone’s choice. What I will never accept though are false allegations against the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega® and any further profanation of A∴O∴ material. One such false allegation is contained in that last quote from Mr. Farrell in which he distorts facts regarding how the Alpha et Omega® has presented its history. It still claims lineage to the original A∴O∴ through Desmond Bourke and the Countess Tamara Bourkoun. What has changed dramatically in this hi-story is the renewed contact with the Third Order in 2002. After that suddenly the earlier lineages became moot (as in irrelevant), although they were in fact relevant and necessary prerequisites to attain this communication with the Secret Chiefs. Obviously the Secret Chiefs regarded our lineages to be good enough, even though they have been refuted repeatedly in a parrot like behaviour by Mr. Farrell and his ilk for obvious political reasons, not historical. Thus, what has been seen in the reorientation of how we today present our history is actually a change in emphasis. It has nothing at all to do with our A∴O∴ lineages being “disproven” by pseudo-historians as Mr. Farrell.
Now, was this lengthy enough? Enough said for now.
S∴R∴