David
Griffin has been caught doctoring quotes in my book King over theWater in a desperate bid to rally his own Order into a flame war.
Earlier
this week Griffin ordered his troops to hit Amazon.com with one star reviews because of a phrase in my book which he claimed said that I
was accusing his order of being a personality cult.
This
is the quote with which he rallied his troops:
"By the end of the 20th Century this availability of [Golden Dawn] information enabled various reenactment groups to be established. Some of these groups are sound... Unfortunately, other groups border on religious or political cults, typically centered on a single leader.... Typically such groups claim a link to that section of the Golden Dawn Order known as the Alpha et Omega or AO."
This
quote apparently caused his members to do his bidding and post nasty
messages about a book that they had not read. When I read his quote I
thought he had just mis-understood what I said, because at no point
had I ever considered his AO re-enactment group a personality cult.
At
the request of another esoteric author, who thought I should have
made that clearer, I re-examined what I wrote and discovered that
DAVID GRIFFIN had FORGED THE QUOTE BY ASSEMBLING IT FROM
HARMLESS QUOTES which were on the same page.
This
is something which is frowned upon in journalistic circles because is
a form of forgery of reality and can lead you into a lot of legal hotwater. Here
is a copy of the page with the parts of the sentences that Griffin
assembled to lie to his own order. The fact that the ... has been removed for the crucial last sentence to attempt to make it appear like I was talking about his order.
One
has to question what sort of leader would forge a document to incite
his order to attack another group like this? I feel
sorry for the victims of this scam, because they have been duped into
believing that they have been attacked by the publication of this
book, when they clearly have not. So I assume that they were
ignorant of what their leader was telling them.
Now
everyone in the AO has been informed. If I were a member of the Griffin's A+O I
would be seriously wondering what other lies he might have told me.
Valid Secret chiefs, turning lead into gold, lineage to the original Golden Dawn all these things
suddenly would be questionable. If he forges quotes like this what other unthruths has he foisted upon the A+O?
David
claims that he is only interested in protecting the members of his Order. If that is the case he should resign to prevent the Order
being further damaged by his antics. Until he posted this forgery of the quotes my
book there was no flame war with the rest of the Golden Dawn
community and now suddenly there is.
All
I can assume is that David is either desperate to start a Flame War
or there is something else in the book which he does not want members
of his order reading.
The
members of David's order are now faced with an ethical choice. It is
the sort of choice that many individuals face on the esoteric path and defines them as either true spiritual people or sheep.
It is the same question that those in Robert Zink's order had to
face. Do you continue to follow a man who manipulated and lied
to you. Is it possible to follow a leader who takes you into combat
with people who would otherwise be your friend?
David
has made a lot of the fact that I called those who posted one star
reviews against my book “brown shirts.” Sadly that is exactly
the type of people who follow such leaders as they bully others. By
following such a leader you become forever tarred with your
association with him.
Griffin
has been telling his members that MOAA is getting ready to overthrow
me for daring to start a flame war. However it is my own members that
have insisted that I post this evidence of the forgery of my quotes so that others
can make an informed decision as to whether they will continue to
support David Griffin.
After this I am not posting anything about more David Griffin and his group. I
am not interested in any flame war with anyone, but I will not debate
anything with people who are not true of voice.
Well Nick it might have gone this way. Griffin got all ten of his members together and said. " We can't have this Farrell person writing a history of the AO because it is Mine, Mine, Mine! Besides, it is just as I suspected! He is telling the truth."
ReplyDelete"Aren't you" says a newbie.
"There is more than one truth. There is the Universal truth which I preach, and the mundane truth which Farrell teaches".
"My Fu--"
"Wrong group SR, that's tomorrow's meeting". Griffin quickly jumps in.
"Its just Master here." Griffin adds.
"As anthropologist I think.."
' Shut up, that's for the plebs who think I have not got academia behind me."
"I am behind you David"
"Jorge not now, we are at a meeting".
"Now remember I have the ear of the secret Chiefs"
" Bos..I mean Frater LET is behind us."
"But he knows nothing of the GD"
"Frater XYZ you are disruptive influence here with these questions."
"I know down with Farrell, PZ does not have his 7=4, Rob Zink has gone and Chic is still running nite club. Have we missed anyone?'
"They are not AO and I demand loyalty from you. There can be only one."
+1
DeleteNick,
ReplyDeleteI think you're on the correct side in this argument, but can we please stop with the Internet lawyering and the "this is actually legally [x]" or "a court would think [y]" stuff? It's just needless hyperbole. If Griffin messed around with your quote, that in itself is enough to show he's a liar. There's no need to add spurious accusations of legal fraud.
I would never give legal advice on the Internet, nor should anyone... But a little research will show you that (at least in American jurisprudence) civil fraud requires that the same party (the plaintiff) I) relied on the false statement of the defendant and ii) suffered damage. There are no parties in this case for which both of those facts are true. Maybe there are exceptions to this rule... I don't know... But slinging around accusations of civil liability (or, God forbid, criminal culpability) is needless at best.
Slip of the pen there... fixed... we were warned about using quotes like this in the law section of journalism school.
DeleteGood on you Nick for taking that in stride. Let's hope that Griffin will also stop with the legal hyperbole (and maybe grow up enough to stop with this whole "every rose has its thorns" nonsense).
Deletehttp://doingmagick.blogspot.com/2012/03/e-is-for-exit-pagan-blog-project.html
ReplyDeleteI think that the "creative editing" is rather telling in this case. In some ways this seems to be nothing more than a political propaganda trick to "stir the troops' to loyalty and action. Goebbels was a master of this sort of propaganda (while I know that the use of a Nazi figure is contraversal, it is appropriate here as an example of the master propagandists - and Goebbels' work is still studied today as what to do to get your agenda and "message" out to the masses) used to "inspire" action and to limit liability on the part of the leadership.
ReplyDeleteSince the particular quote used by Mr. Griffin does appear to be from multiple paragraphs within the Introduction to "King Over the Water", the use of "..." to separate the verbiage is wholly inappropriate academically, meeting no academic style requirements at all.
This also calls into question the reliability of said quote and its particular use by Mr. Griffin, especially from a standpoint of credibility.
Of course this could be nothing more than a simple mistake on Mr. Griffin's part in that he is not academically trained, not knowing the most basic of academic protocols relating to taking and using quotations by others, epecially published authors.
As for debating a topic, that requires that all parties are at least debating about the same topic, not misunderstanding of the topic or what one party or faction of parties want the topic to mean. As you point out Nick, there is no debate with those that are not "true of voice". It is impossible to engage meaningfully those that merely want to spout their particular agenda in the form of constantly reiterated "talking points". This, in essence, has the parties or camps talking past each other or at each other rather than presenting any meaninful dialog.
If Mr. Griffin has intentionally created a misquote for the purpose of stirring strife amongst those that really are trying to do the Work of the GD, then I would think that his motives should be fully and carefully considered by those that are working with him. This sort of behavior, if intentional, is not what is beneficial to the GD whatsoever, nor is it the way that a person claiming such high grade and leadership of a group should behave in representing that group.
The whole issue is a good example of knowing a person and/or group by the fruits of their labors. If Mr. Griffin has called for the assistance of the members of his organization to intentionally discredit the works of an author on the grounds that the opinion of said author offends his particular sensibilities, then that, to me, is a rather suspect from an ethical point of view. What sort of person or leader do these particular actions and words say about Mr. Griffin? Those within the GD that are discriminating and understanding can see what these sorts of Words and Actions are and how they are meant to be taken. This extends to those within Mr. Griffin's own organization as there are discriminating and rational people there as well, who I am sure would not like to be manipulated by their leaders (if indeed Mr. Griffin intentionally did such an act to disgrace such an august body).
In the event that Mr. Griffin did intentionally manipulate the material to create an enflamatory quote, then I have all the confidence that the members of his particular organization will do the ethical and correct thing for themselves and for their organization.
In LVX Fraternitas,
Samuel
Mr. Farrell, if I may, your characterization of Mr. Griffin's quotation from your book as "lying to his own members" and as being journistically unethical or potentially unlawful is unfair and incorrect. You state that the quote is doctored. It is not. It is common practice to place "..." in a quote to show that material was ommitted. Mr. Griffin did just that. This would invite any intelligent reader to realize this is not a contiguous quotation.
ReplyDeleteWhat Mr. Griffin did here was to only place the relevant portions of your work before members' eyes, the relevant portion, that when read in full context can be fairly argued to implicte the Order that Mr. Griffin belongs to. I understand that you deny this was your intention. But still, the argument can be made that you did intend to do just that by being imprecise with your identification of the groups you are discussing.
To only quote only portions of a work that are relevant to an argument being made is not misleading or "doctoring." To be sure, it would be unethical to take a quote out of context, which is probably what your are talking about regarding journalistic ethics and the law, but that is not what happened here. Mr. Griffin's selective quotation, when read with the remainder of the work it was taken from, does not make an out of context argument. In other words, the meaning remains the same, regardless of the noted redaction of material that was not relevant to the argument.
Nothing untoward happened here with Mr. Griffin's quotation of your book. It was properly quoted, even if the quote was not contiguous. This is common practice, and I am surprised to hear a professional writer say otherwise.
Actually that is not true SV as I have a lot of journalism case law on my side. If you have a quote which is clearly intended to mislead the reader then you are in hot water. In this case the quote clearly leads the reader to assume that I am calling the modern AO a personality cult. It is not just unethical to do that but also possibly libelous One crucial part of the forged quote lacks any dots at all which strengthens the sentence that links cults to your order.
DeleteIf I were to do the same thing on your post I could write:
" Mr Griffin... is unfair and incorrect... the quote is doctored. It is unethical to take a quote out of context. I am surprised to hear a professional journalist say otherwise."
The post clearly a lie as I did not attack your order in my book. I trust you will do the right thing and remove your one star reviews that were clearly made on the basis that you were incorrectly informed by your leader.
As to whether he did this deliberately or not, I will leave that to your own commonsense and conscience. Likewise I will leave it up to your moral judgement as to whether you keep supporting someone who clearly lied to you and ordered you to attack me on the basis of that lie.
Mr. Farrell, I stand corrected on one point. You are correct that the last sentence of the subject quote was improperly quoted. I missed that on my first read. The "..." was indeed missing in the last sentence of Mr. Griffin's quotation, making it an improper quotation of your work.
DeleteHowever, I do not believe this was done by Mr. Griffin with the intent to deceive anyone, because it is a distinction without a difference. When the redacted material is added back in, there is NO difference to the meaning with regard to Mr. Griffin's argument. I do not see how the redacted material somehow indicates that you were definitively not discussing the HOGD/AO in your Introduction. The redacted material adds nothing.
I agree, taking a quote and doctoring it as you did in your above example of my own words is unethical and deceptive. But, again, this is not what Mr. Griffin did, by my read.
Further, no worries with regard to any rating at Amazon from me. I have not rated your book. I have, however, left replies to comments in that forum as I have seen appropriate.
thanks SV.... given some of David's other posts and the weight he put on the structure of the sentence I do not believe he did not do it deliberately. I have given the book to several third parties and they cannot see me saying anywhere that the modern AO is run by a cult leader. The suggestion that something has changed is a subliminal thing. Generally you will believe the first thing that someone tells you about something. It is hard to break that first heard law.
DeleteI have made it clear throughout King over the Water that the book was not meant to bash ANY modern golden Dawn Order (it is the last par in the intro). Which was why I was surprised that David went on the attack. All I can assume is that either he wanted a flame war (which he will not get) or he wanted to suppress the book in some way. Either is unethical.
I totally agree with Mr. Farrell, It is plain to see the deliberate omitting of key sentences in between quotes is done in order to give a totally new meaning which is out of context and misrepresents the Authors original message.
DeleteMr. Griffin is culpable of causing a flaming war by purposefully manipulating the quotes to give a distorted and complete misrepresentation of what Mr. Farrell authored in his book.
People need to actually read the book before passing judgement, it is plain to see that 90% of the bashers of this work who wrote 1 star reviews on amazon did so without actually even having read the book, this is completely unethical and considering it is coming from individuals who claim to be on the path of spiritual refinement by having joined a GD group, well they are just demonstrating they are actually on an opposite polarity to that.
Quite shameful behaviour really.
I think SV has taken the words from my mouth... Anyone reading the shortened version, or the complete page, would (if they knew Mr. Griffins AO) came to the conclusion that the text is obviously against Mr. Griffin order, even because there is no other AO out there (at least, not that I know).
DeleteBut...everybody has the right to think and write what they want, no?
Let there be peace, we are all members of a wonderful fraternity. I f we disagree here and there, it's healthy, and should not be the cause of flame wars, no matter who start them..
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ReplyDeleteI have no idea and speculating is of no interest to me, If it is not Golden Dawn or a natural development from it I am not interested. He can do what he likes other than lie, fabricate quotes and start flame wars
ReplyDeleteHave you actually read the material regarding that Great Rite group?
ReplyDeleteThe Great Rite is a uniquely Western system of spiritual sexuality, using the energetics of the human body to achieve higher states of consciousness. Without any genital or even explicitly sexual contact, The Great Rite profoundly alters consciousness immediately and effortlessly by raising sexual energy into the upper regions of the body with a few simple, non-sexual techniques.
GENERAL NOTES:
1. No explicit sexuality or nudity is allowed at any event of The Great Rite.
http://www.thegreatrite.org/Training.aspx
The Great Rite can most certainly contain both sexuality and nudity.
DeleteMy lineage: 3rd and ODL / Alex Sanders - Soror Moonshee - myself
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ReplyDeleteNick, you are being as duplicitous as usual. When are you going to quit attacking the entire Golden Dawn community with this tripe. Are you sure you are not a fundamentalist Christian pretending to be a Golden Dawn leader? You are certainly doing a good job of furthering their anti GD agenda.
ReplyDeleteYou have a bit of nerve showing up throwing accusations at me. You have been caught fabricating quotes from my book to create a flame war. Instead of being ashamed your antics and treatment of your own members you show up here abusing people. You should be out there apologising to your members for dragging them into a flame war not running around trying to pick more fights. It is clear that you show no humility for your attacks on me, my business, and my Order. But above all you have not shown any regret for dragging your poor members into your fantasy war against other members in the Golden Dawn. You should be ashamed! I am sure that there are some good people in your Order and you are a failed leader who dominates and bullies with lies.
DeleteI think we need to be careful not to get caught up with, nor encourage side-show antics. The practice and mastery of magick has many pitfalls.
DeleteNo doubt there are some sincere people
ReplyDeletein Griffin's group but he has been playing fast and loose with the truth for a long time.
A lot of us remember when he was riding Regardie's coattails for all he was worth,though he he now disparages this.
Next he was telling people in the LA temple they had A/O lineage because he'd made contact with the the original Ahathor in Paris. This claim was later devalued by Dave himself.
Some will remember when Bob Word announced on alt.magic that He, Dave and Ruggiu were now 7=4 and therefore entitled to whatever advanced papers and instruction people might have stashed away and that these should be sent to hi pronto (or words to that effect) Pat Z replied that they should go back to whomever conferred the grade if they lacked instruction. No doubt the reception was the same for more polite requests elsewhere.
Soon after this the third order apparently found it useful to single out Dave as their sole representative. He immediately declared anything prior to this anointing to be abrogated. We must assume that this third order turns a blind eye his constant antagonism, mudslinging and revisionism because they understand his special needs.
Nick,
ReplyDeleteWhat you have not properly considered is that the minute you put this blog on moderation you became the publisher of all content hosted on the blog. You are now personally responsible for all libelous content posted even by anonymous trolls. Our order pdf'd everything today before you sanitized your blog again. This is the second time you have slipped up lately. You are losing your touch.
Center for Ethics in Spiritual Conduct. Please sign our petition and share:
ReplyDeletehttp://cfesc.wordpress.com/
Masonic etiquette would have been useful here. Instead of all this strum und drang it could have gone like this:
ReplyDelete"Brother Nick, I take exception to the insinuations I perceive in the first page of your book. It could be read as referring negatively to my Order."
"Brother David, I assure you no insinuations toward your Order were intended."
"Brother Nick, I ask that you clarify to the pubic that you did not regard my Order as being a cult of personality."
"Brother David, I declare to whomever it may concern that your Order is not a cult of personality."
"I thank you, Brother Nick, and offer my apologies for the misunderstanding."
"I accept, Brother David, and also offer my apologies for the misunderstanding."
Viola! Honor is satisfied, corrective statements are on the record, the brethren depart in peace and go back to their Work.
(Of course, whatever these Brothers *truly* believe about each other hasn't changed, but that wouldn't change anyway. However, the comity of the community is preserved.)
Damn! Is that so hard?
Hi Joesph
DeleteIt really is hard. My normal instinct is to ignore bullies and let him go off and stew in his own ego. The situation is more like this
"Brother Nick, I take exception to the insinuations I perceive in the first page of your book. It could be read as referring negatively to my Order."
Brother David you cant really make this insinuations because you forged the quote to make it look like your beliefs had more validity. I cannot say sorry for something I did not do.
Brother Nick unless you do what you are told, censor your book according to my imagined slight. I will order my followers to give your book one star on Amazon. Oh look I already did it.
Brother David you forged a document to fool your members into believing your bogus theory. I will not give in to terror tactics and bullying.
David has only read the first page.... my guess is that he will find an imagined reference to his order in every page and if one is not there you will forge one.
If I give into David , no book on the Golden Dawn is safe from this sort of censorship strategy. Well, only the sorts of books that he and his followers write.
Of course, my proposed exchange would have had to occur *before* any posts with doctored quotes were made. It would have had to been the *only* exchange from the get-go.
DeleteWell, this exchange would have had to occurred right from the get-go, *before* any misquoting, public complaints, etc. were made by David. Preferably the first exchanges would have been private e-mail. The only thing the public would have seen at all was a comment by you, clarifying what you effectively said in the first place: that the paragraph was not written with David or his Order in mind. Case closed, nothing to see here, move along...
DeleteI imagine you would have had no problem with that. But *sigh* it was not to be...
After a recent interaction on Facebook with a member of David's Order, I am giving up trying to be reasonable. There is simply no point. It is exactly like talking to a ossified politician or truculent three year old.
ReplyDeleteThat David has cut and pasted to produce an edited quote to suit his needs, whether done consciously or simply out of ineptitude is not surprising. He has done the same to several of my comments to his blog to change the meaning. This is why I no longer post on his blog.
I would not be surprised if Griffin does not fabricate a similar quote on your book and issue similar orders to his troops. If he thinks that this tactic works against me then he will repeat it. He appears to have this dream that every book which mentions the Golden Dawn will have to go to him for approval otherwise he will unleash the one star crew. After that it will be Pat Zalewksi. He has to be careful with the Ciceros because he would be in contempt of court. Still the Golden Dawn community should be concerned about trollish censorship by someone who claims to be an esoteric leader and yet forges quotes to suit his own ends.
DeleteLecturing me about defamation and your usual rumbling about courts is not appropriate David. You have been caught forging documents to start a flame war and lying to your members so that they will follow you. I do not think you really understand the gravity of your situation which shows you up to be a failed leader. It is time you faced up to your responsibility and stop making attacks on the Golden Dawn community by the deliberate distribution of lies. Rather than trying to gather "evidence" of more imagined crimes you should be spending you time apologizing to your order for your deceitful behavior rather than exposing them to more of your fabulous conspiracy theories.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, I feel the need to step in and clarify the issue here with regard to the red herring argument that Mr. Griffin "forged" documents or lied to his members to deceive them.
DeleteMr. Farrell, you keep stating the gist of the foregoing repeatedly, even after it has been clearly pointed out to you that the quotatation you speak of was NOT forged, NOT doctored, and was not crafted to deceive anyone. To a reasoned mind, with just a little inquiry, this is patently obvious.
You make it sound like Mr. Griffin completely fabricated a quote out of your book. What you don't state clearly, however, is that the only thing Mr. Griffin did was to, apparently inadvertently, leave out one set of "..." in one sentence of the quotation. While this does make it appear that one portion of the quoted sentence does not have a break in it, when it does, thereby creating a slight misquote, this apparent typo does absolutely no harm to the credibility of Mr. Griffin's argument. That is because this misquote, when placed side-by-side with the full quotation from your Introduction has exactly the same meaning that Mr. Griffin was trying to convey to his members. There is no need to deceive anyone.
I invite anyone to read the full Introduction from Mr. Farrell's book (or at least the portion he published here), and then to look at the quotation used by Mr. Griffin. I believe that any reasonable person would find that the quote is pretty much spot on and did not "spin" Mr. Farrell's words.
This is NOT a case of forgery and fraud as you make out, Mr. Farrell. Mr. Griffin's quotation of your work does NOT create a quotation that does not reflect your words and work. Unfortunatley, it does, however, give you the opportunity to seize upon one minor typo in the quotation and spin it to be a complete fabrication, which you know it is not. By use of this disingenuous tactic, you lose credibility.
Jeez people (involved audience at large), at least argue honestly and use that thing between your ears for critical thinking.
I beg to differ there. I have had the opinion of several independent writers and a couple of editorial experts who confirmed that David's manufactured quote misrepresents the text badly. It is more than just the missing ... for the crucial paragraph it is the way it is assembled.
DeleteGiven that the original text does not make any links to David being a cult leader and his manufactured quote comes closer to doing so then you have to question the validity of it.
David has had plenty of time to retract the quote and call his troops off. The fact that he has not done so proves that he intended to have the effect which this manufactured quote which I object to. Any outsider takes into account his use of the bogus quote as part of an orchestrated litany of lies to try and suppress my books.
With all due respect, Mr. Farrell, your writer friends are probably not giving you an unbiased opinion. Without question, the HOGD/AO is caught up in the wide net that you cast regarding your discussion of modern personality golden dawn cults in your Introduction. It is not explicit, it is implied. The very fact that your negative description in your Introduction is so lose as to potentially include potentially several groups and/or individuals (including the HOGD/AO), gives one pause to wonder how this could not be intentional on your part. It is the effect of the negative association, however, that is damaging to the reputation of the HOGD/AO. Whether or not you intended this is irrelevant. The effect is there, and only you have the power to alter that, whether or not it was intended in the first instance.
DeleteYou say that Mr. Griffin bothched your words in his quotation of your work, and that he did this with specific intent to deceive people and to twist your words into something that they are not.
This did not happen. Your writers' analysis as to whether your introduction, as selectively quoted by Mr. Griffin, somehow changes the content and meaning of your work is hardly compelling. In fact, when your introduction is read in whole, not solely the selective quote by Mr. Griffin, it is even more clear to the reader that the HOGD/AO is implicated in your disparaging assessment. So, the missing material from Mr. Griffin's quotation (the irrelevant material) only adds strength to Mr. Griffin's argument. This set of circumstances strongly leads me to believe that there was no intent to deceive by Mr. Griffin, because the redacted material would have helped the Mr. Griffin's argument, not detracted from it.
I don't want to parse and analyze Mr. Griffin's quotation piece by piece in this forum and compare it to the source from whence it came. I don't believe that is necessary because it is so simple. Any curious reader can do this themselves and come to their own conclusion.
In sum, your words were quoted, not concocted. They were quoted in context, because the context did not change from where the quotes were extracted. And the minimal mistake made by Mr. Griffin in not showing there was a break in the quote in the last sentence changes nothing in the larger analysis.
I do respect that you post counter positions on your blog. It is appreciated.
I wouldn't describe what Mr Griffin has done as forgery per se, but there is a word for it, admittedly a rather ugly neologism: contextomy.
DeleteThe term was coined by the writer Milton Mayer to describe the method by which Nazi propogandists employed selective quotation of religious texts to inspire hatred of Jews. (Before arousing the ire of the easily offended, I am not accusing anyone of fascism, merely pointing to the origin of the term). 'Contextomy' has since gained wider currency in other fields (look it up, if you are in any doubt), particularly cultural, media and communication studies, and I would recommend any of the articles Matthew S. McGlone, of the University of Texas, has written on the subject. I offer two brief extracts from one of these:
"The real objection often is not to removing a quote from its original context (as all quotes are), but to the quoter's decision to exclude from the excerpt certain nearby phrases or sentences (which thereby become 'context' simply by virtue of the exclusion) that serve to clarify the intentions behind the selected words." ('Deception by Selective Quotation' in McGlone and Mark L. Knapp (eds.), 'The Interplay of Truth and Deception: New Agendas in Communication' (Abingdon, Oxon., and NY: Routledge, 2009) 54–65 at 55).
McGlone goes on to say, "contextomy yields two negative consequences for a quoted source: initially, a false impression of the source's attitudes and subsequently, a residual distortion after the misleading quote is restored to its original context" (ibid., p. 63).
There can be little doubt that Mr Griffin has engaged in contextomy; to suggest otherwise would be dissimulation. Mr Griffin decided to exclude particular sentences and phrases from the quotation that appears in his encyclical and there is evidence that in doing so his actions have provided a false impression and yielded negative consequences. The only residual question is to what extent this was driven by malice?
G.
Dear Nick and VH Frater,
ReplyDeleteDear Samuel,
please dont think that in Griffins Order are only sheep who follow blindly what the Master demands.
On the contrary, i have read "Mathers last secret" before anyone else has read it in our Order.
And well, what would you think, if being part of the A.O., when reading this book?
A candidate who is looking for a GD Order to join would get the impression that people in the AO work with rituals full of flaws and dont know how to enliven the quasi-masonic procedure with magical/astral work.
I FOR MYSELF got the impression that you follow a special political agenda way before Mr. Griffin got hold of this book.
The reason why initiates and adepts of the GD/AO nowadays speak out on behalf of their Order is because they are no sheeps, but initiates with integrity and a heart that burns for the purity of the system they work in.
The Golden Dawn work is the sole and silent centre around which my whole life revolves. Given the many insights about myself and the secret forces of Nature i have earned through my work in this system, i feel it is my duty to defend this system and Order when there is need.
To Samuel i can only say that i find it totally tasteless to refer to Nazi propaganda. Of course something like that can only come from someone who is not german, although i know you live in Germany.
Iam german, and i would have been killed in concentration camps would i have lived back then.
Fraternally in L.V.X.,
V.H. Fr. P.
I am fairly sure that there are good people in David's order, but I think they have been let down badly. David saw that King over the Water did not attack his order so he had to doctor a quote to make it appear so.
DeleteIf you have read any of my Mathers' books you will see it is about the AO not David's A+O order (Mathers never referred to the order as the A+O and rarely the Alpha et Omega). This is confusion of a modern order which was founded in the 1990s with a historical one which closed in the 1940s. The fact they have similar names does not make them the same group.
No doubt people do say that their order is great, that is the way of eggregores. But it does not mean that they are informed or right. In this situation members of an order attacked a book they had not read on the request of David who used a fabricated quote to gain their support. In my view that is an abuse of the trust the order places in a leader. Once people are informed about what David did, it is up to them to decide are they going to continue to trust him again. That is the choice of the Order and that more than anything defines them as individuals or as sheep. Individuals do not attack people who have not harmed them to further the political aims of another. You have not seen MOAA members attack anyone in this manner (I have not asked them to provide reviews to balance David's attacks).
The AO should not be David. If an Order is the Leader then there is something wrong. So you have to ask yourself am I defending the Order or am I defending David.
You have to understand that the GD is my system too. It might not be my job, but it is the thing I spend most of my life doing. When I am not writing books, I am writing course material, blogs etc. I am doing rituals, spending my cash flying to other countries to help groups become established. I know how good the Golden Dawn can be. So with all that effort I put into the work, I am expected to put up with continuous defamation and lies from David? For nearly a decade I never even mentioned his name and still his blogs attacked me.
So you say you are defending your Order... who from? I would be happy to be left alone. I just write books.
As far as the nazi comment... that has been embellished. But this is what I meant. The brownshirts were thugs used by Hitler to bully jews, communists and others who were political opponents of Hitler. They also burned books that disagreed with them. Some of my relatives were killed in concentration camps by Hitler. Their example showed to me the dangers of following any leader without question. It seems to me that those who post one star reviews on Amazon without reading the book using David's made up quote are not showing the sort of ethics I expect from brownshirts rather than esoteric students. It is exactly what Robert Zink asked from his students and I am shocked that David is using the same methods.
@VH Frater P: I believe that you have me confused with someone else. I DO NOT live in Germany. What I stated about Goebbels stands. I only used Goebbels as an example of a master propagandist and utilizing the method of selective quotation to rally the "troops". The fact that Goebbels' methods are workable and produce results is why they are still used in many political arenas.
DeleteIf you find Goebbels offensive, then that is something that you must come to terms with. History speaks for itself, and if Mr. Griffin wishes to follow the procedures of Goebbels to rally you and the other members of your organization, that too is something that you as a group must consider and reconcile.
At no point have I said that Mr. Griffin was a Nazi or that any members of his organization were Nazis. I do not know the political philosophies of Mr. Griffin nor of the members of his organization. I presume that he and the members of his organization are not Nazis.
Of course the above statement will be used to say that I called all members of your organization something vile as a Nazi. That is fine if I too am to be misquoted for the rallying of the troops.
The facts are rather simple in this case - Mr. Griffin used a technique of selective quotation to create the climate of a flame war and to rally members of his organization to action. Mr. Griffin used this technique to call for an action against Mr. Farrell by giving a book (or as has been shown on Amazon, books) a negative review with the purpose to surpress a book and the opinion of the author.
This action is what is reprehensible. This is unethical. This is NOT the way that a supposed adept ought to behave.
This should call into question the motivations and ethical nature of the supposed Archon Basilius of your organization.
This is the heart of the matter. Nothing more, nothing less.
In LVX,
Samuel
ALthough you refuse to say it, what described and illustrated here is typical of a personality cult. Specifically:
Delete1) Leader will lie and use intimidation to maintain power and authority. Leader needs to maintain by any means necessary the illusion of being the only link between "the elite" (i.e., cult followers) and the divine (usually God, but in this case, the Secret Chiefs).
2) Followers don't need to be ordered to do anything. They are so in thrall to the personality cult they will leap to the defense of the leader when he even vaguely hints at it. They will try to anticipate what the personality cult leader will desire before that leader even says something. As an example, see Rene Nagual comment above.
I would add that there are some people who are members of personality cults who are not "true believers." They take much longer to move up in the hierarchy and are often pushed aside or ignored. They eventually leave the cult and may denounce everything the cult claimed to stand for or else buy into the cult leader's myth.
I wrote my bachelor thesis in comparative religious sciences on the dynamics of modern religious cults.
DeleteWhat is most common to all cult leaders is that they try to control all the private life of their members.
From lunch procedure to sexual intercourse.
This was the case in Poona, Jonestown, at the Spahn ranch or at the headquarters of Aum Shinrikyo in Kamikuishiki.
And yes, cult leaders also often need to create commone enemies, because they want to share their paranoia and strengthen the emotional bonds.
But i for myself do not see anyone as an enemy, except my evil persona.
Also, the members of the Inner Order certainly do not need the emotional bond of a common enemy.
There is definetely something much more beautiful that creates this bond, and that is the Great Work.
Mr. Griffin also never interferes with my private life, although iam a devoted member of the HOGD/AO since 9 years and have been initiated by him more than once.
He also does not need to maintain any illusion regarding the Secret Chiefs with me. I know some of the transmissions of the Third Order, and that is proof enough.
BTW- I also would never rate any book that i have not read on any online store.
I hardly ever use online book sellers at all, since i know from my profession that small bookstores all around the world have a hard time to survive in times of amazon.
Well, maybe i make myself a clown by trying to explain me here on this blog, moreover because i struggle with english, which is not my mother tongue.
To be honest, this whole blogosphere thing is just something that i follow for entertainment.
My heart and the REAL work is somewhere else and very private.
May you be all blessed with L.V.X.,
+RN+
David, a moderated blog comment section is much like the reader section of a newspaper or magazine. And you don't see many of those shut down over reader comments, do you?
ReplyDeleteYou know,
ReplyDeleteat least when Zink was around embarrassing himself and his order, Griffin didn't look as ridiculous.
Do we really have to put up the full passage and deconstruct it in order to demonstrate that the quote was not a forgery? We can go there. It just shouldn't be necessary. The way that you guys are spinning this is really insulting to your readers - who can read this for themselves and instantly see how the only misrepresentation here is coming from you Nick, and your supporters, including nameless authorities you are using to bolster your lies. Really this is just another act of defamation... please give it a rest.
ReplyDeleteSo you want me to take down evidence of your bosses forgery so that you can lie about it on another site and pretend it never happened? I think we will let readers make up their own mind. I know that must be hard to understand because you just do what David tells you but generally I allow people to decide for themselves.
ReplyDeleteThe difference in meaning...
ReplyDeleteThese cults claim a link to the Mathers 1900's order known as the AO.
These cults claim a link to the order known as the AO.
The second is far more ambiguous, and could easily be interpreted to mean present day AO. It appears this was the intent.
I don't think Mr. Farrell meant to single out Mr. Griffin. I think he was casting a broad net which Mr. Griffin has now got himself tangled up in.
Regardless, asking people to give reviews to books they haven't read is unethical, and writing reviews to books you haven't read is unethical.
David,
ReplyDeleteWhy do you spend all your energy and time in hatred, harassing other GD members and groups? You have heard Nick say repeatedly that his book is not an attack on you, if you had read it like everyone else this would be as plain as day.
For someone that is supposed to be working on a spiritual path towards bettering oneself seeking the true and right humble way, you certainly seem to have taken a mighty fall and are somewhat lost in a heavy sea of petty darkness.
I encourage you to take some time for deep introspection, find the good part of your true self and then emerge a better and more humble human being that is compassionate and worthy of a title such as you claim you have attained spritually.
Live and live let David, so far you are not making yourself look respectable or decent.
Peace.
Very eloquent and thoughtful...some insight for the present murky waters.
DeleteAnd now he's accusing you of being a sleeper agent sent by Christian Fundies to destroy the Golden Dawn.....
ReplyDeletehttp://hermetic-golden-dawn.blogspot.com/2012/03/golden-dawn-saga-episode-3-dark-secret.html
And now he's accusing you of being a Christian Fundamentalist "sleeper agent" sent undercover to destroy the Golden Dawn from the inside...... Words just fail
ReplyDeletehttp://hermetic-golden-dawn.blogspot.com/2012/03/golden-dawn-saga-episode-3-dark-secret.html
I think Dave targeted the intro to Nick's book because he'd really like to stop anyone he can from looking too far into the content. Debating some of that would be a very slippery slope for ol' Dave.
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