Alternatives to physical secret chiefs - the Theosophical system

No physical secret chiefs have knocked on my door.  The person who came to fix the satellite dish couldn’t remember the 7=4 passwords, and the person who delivered the cable modem had difficulty even remembering his own name let alone the password of the Aeon.  Over the next few days, depending on when I get time, lets look at look at what other people thought about secret chiefs.

Blavatsky

The Theosophical system is probably the most common idea of Secret Chiefs and it comes from the founder of the order, the hard swearing, psychic Helena Petrovna Blavatsky .   Her idea was inspired by the Buddhist idea of Bodhisattva.   It implied that after someone had achieved enlightenment they faced a choice.  They could escape the wheel of birth and death, or hang around and help other people escape the illusion.

In many ways the concept had similarities to the idea of Physical chiefs, which was no doubt influenced by the concept.  Where it differed was that the Inner Plane masters did not exist on the earth.  That is not to say that they couldn’t make the journey, but they rarely did so.  What was the point of going all the way down to physical reality when you could train a student to come and meet you halfway.

Being a secret chief means it is handy to have lots of arms

The secret chiefs, or Masters as they were known would take an aware student and train them.  They would also line up any physical plane meetings so that the student could learn.

A medium could, and did channel, these masters so that their ideas could be understood by the riff-raff. They could also be picked up by students from time to time, but more often by a guru who was an advanced student.

The week point of this system was that it depended a lot on the ability of the medium, who often could not pick up anything and was obliged to make it up. This caught Madam Blavastky herself and her movement was damaged by claims that she made up the letters from her Masters.

Leadbeater -- beards and boys

One of her trusted lieutenants, Charles Webster Leadbeater did not fair much better.  He believed in having a beard you could nest several owls in and poking beautiful Indian boys.  Therefore it was no surprise to him when one of his masters said that one of the beautiful boys he fancied was going to be the Messiah.

Whatever the exponents for physical secret chiefs might say, it is almost certain that it was these sorts of experiences that Sam and Mina Mathers were referring to when they meant secret chiefs.  The language that Sam used to describe his experiences are couched in  identical language to the Theosophical works of the period.  The only thing he did was replace the words Masters with Secret Chiefs.

His biggest mistake was that be loved the book Zanoni by Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, which used a romantic idea of a physical secret chief.  Mathers had made a mistake before in thinking that the book was real and not a novel.  One of the reasons that he adopted the theosophical/ tantic teaching of Tattvahs into the Golden Dawn system, even though its elemental system broke the Western system, was because he believed that a scene where Zanoni removes poison from a drink was based on him using Tatvahs.  However all Mathers’ recorded experience with secret chiefs were using the Theosophical Model. Next we will look at developments of the Theosophical idea within modern magic.

Magical Imagination (first reviews)

The first review is now in and can be seen here.  From Níall s review

Magical Imagination takes a more contemporary view of pathworking as a form of magic rather than the psychological experimentations of Farrell’s earlier work. The industry is already heavily populated with so-called “self-help” books and New Age techniques and so it can be difficult for occultists to find material they can actively work with. Reading the book I’m fascinated with the layers of self-discovery presented before the reader and find myself highly enthused with the material presented here. The book is really well formatted presenting areas of personal space to be explored in one’s own “Inner Kingdom”, following on to mapping out safe techniques that can be developed for clairvoyance and astral projection though the book stays on topic and provides only a peripheral idea of rising in the spirit vision or astral projection. More time is spent towards the latter half exploring the creation of Inner Temples and working with inner plane contacts. The author is highly skilled in this area with case studies on hand to illustrate from personal experience what an individual might encounter along the way offering sage advice.

 And here  from the Skylighers site

"Farrell instructs on modern Imagination techniques, the Inner Kingdom, changing the psyche, the incorporation of myths, pathworking, dreams and the use of various mystical tools, but the real strength of the book is the author’s demonstration of a virile and inventive imagination throughout. He uses fresh examples, makes bold connections and draws from a wealth of associations –  from ancient societies to pop culture. Not just content to pontificate about imagination the author provides explorative insights and draws humorous and surprising parallels from his own experience. Beyond the teaming and delightful references can be found a plethora of useful exercises and practical applications."

 Magical Imagination: The Keys to Magic in support of this wonderful author and teacher. The book is available from various retail outlets such as Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk or direct from the Skylight Press website.

Secret Chiefs Challenge

While I wait for the secret chiefs to show up I need to clarify what it is that I am waiting for. Many people have misconceptions of what I am ACTUALLY wanting to see.

Firstly I am not, like Samuel Mathers, looking for a secret chief who ghosts in and does not say anything.  Nor am I looking for a chief who contacts me in a dream or in a meditation.

I am specifically looking for a physical human being who can be touched and can provide the grade signs and passwords of MOAA.

Why is this important?  Well in some ways it isn’t.  If a secret chief came to me in a skrying session can provided me with the valuable teaching then I would test it and use it on its own merits. 

A physical secret chief on the other hand is similar to believing in superman. According to Zanoni and other places where they are mentioned they are practically immortal and are eternally young and wise.  So therefore we are looking at something which does not provide information, or directly assist in a Magical Order, but are the embodiment of magic itself.

The fact that they exist physically is very important.  Because, at a stroke, it overthrows all perceptions of modern magic.  It does not matter how much great names like Crowley or Dion Fortune studied, or if Alex Saunders really was a magical genius.  All their work will be rendered null because they did not meet a secret chief in the flesh.

You can see how important this is.  If there are a panel of secret chiefs operating in Europe then they have done so completely free of any contact with modern occultism.  This means then that modern occultism and its methods must be completely flawed.

However if Secret Chiefs do not have a physical presence and are just human adepts much like Sprengle, who gave permission for the GD to form, then there is nothing to worry about.  There are a lot of references within modern magic to Inner Plane beings of various sorts which provide connections and teachings.

By showing up, Secret Chiefs would place modern magic at a cross-roads were everything in the last hundred years or so was junked.  Orders which have been formed without their backing would have to close and give way to Orders that had the backing of these physical chiefs.  It would not matter if your Order had lineage, or a court order which gave you the right to exist, if a Secret Chief had not confirmed your right to teach people you would not have it.

This is the scenario of those who claim that secret chiefs are important.  They off course claim that they have seen these secret chiefs.  They do not provide proof but expect us to believe that on faith.  We have no idea, for example, if when these groups met their physical secret chiefs, they tested them with their own order’s passwords.  Certainly Paul Foster Case did not, but then, his meeting with a secret chief was probably not in the flesh. Personally I would not hand over control of my spiritual direction, or the spiritual direction of students, to a complete stranger who did not know the most basic information about my Order.  But then some people, including Mathers, were completely naive in that way.  He failed, for example to test Madam Horos in the way I am suggesting.  Had he done so he could have saved himself some considerable bother.  It is possible that those who claim they have met secret chiefs in the flesh may not have done so, but are just dealing with another Madam Horos case which has yet to reach its final conclusion.

Still we will all know on August 5, if the Secret Chiefs have not shown up physically at their appointment, and provided the passwords and grade signs.