Day Two secret chief's challenge

There was a storm, but nothing spoke to me from it.  I also did not have a dream where I was told to meet at a coffee shop at a certain time.  In fact my dream was about the Taumarunui train station and was not connected to this challenge at all.

So far then it is fair to say that if the secret chiefs exist, then they are not quickly responding to the challenge.

If you know a secret chief you might want to nudge them to get in touch.  After all if they exist, that knowledge should be one of the first lessons we teach students and their are huge implications for magic generally.

Secret chiefs

Gr FR LeT the secret chief behind the
Golden Dawn.  If you see Fr LeT on your
 bus or train you might want to remindhim about
my challenge.  Of course he should already
know about it, but Secret Chiefs in the
Flesh can be so forgetful.

The issue of whether or not secret chiefs exist in real life is perfectly simple to prove or disprove.  So I am going to conduct a scientific experiment.

I am giving the secret chiefs a chance to get in contact with me by August 5.  They will have to physically contact me in a meeting or something similar (phone and email can be faked on the astral).

If they do they will, have to submit to the 5=6 test, which I am required to do because of my oath.  I am prepared to make it incredibly easy.  All they have to do is tell me the current password for the Aeon of the Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea and give me the grade signs for the MOAA 7=4. While this would be difficult for a mortal, it should be jolly easy for a Secret Chief.

If they do show up in the appointed period of time, then I will dedicate the rest of my magical life building the concept of physical chiefs into anything I teach or write about.   I will also tell everyone I talk to within the Golden Dawn community that their concept of secret chiefs was wrong and that they have to factor in the idea of physical ones.  If they want to assume some degree of responsibly over the work of the Magical Order of Aura Aurea then it would be irresponsible of me to not let them have some say.

If no one shows up, and face it they should know where I live, or at the very least phone me for an appointment, then I will assume that the status quo on secret chiefs exists.

So if your Order happens to have a physical secret chief, and you have been telling your members that you are somehow superior because you have secret chiefs as contacts, this is your chance to prove it to your members with an independent witness.  After all you don’t want to try and create sheep, who rely on faith in you alone.  You want to create magicians who believe in truth.   So get on the phone to your secret chief now and get them to take part in this experiment.

You can trust in my discretion that I will not name them, unless they fail to come up with the correct password and grade signs of course.

Either way taking part in my experiment will reveal ONCE and for ALL if secret chiefs exist or not.  This is an important experiment which has not been attempted since Helena Blavatsky invented the modern idea of secret chiefs.  I am completely sincere about it all and I will be watching closely just in case some street bum slips me the password in conversation and does the grade signs before walking away.  

The Death of the AO lineage

In my book King over the Water I describe the end of the AO Lineage. I thought the source of the information obvious as it had been publically available for many years.  Apparently not.... 

The only real records we have for this period are from the pens of Dion Fortune and Ithell Colquhoun.

Fortune was sent by her mentor Maya Trenshall-Hayes from the London temple run by John Brodie-Innes to join Mina’s temple.  Things did not go well and Fortune was removed before she reached the Second Order.  She did not provide much in the way of details.

To that we have to turn to Ithell Colquhoun who was the cousin of one of the last chiefs Edward John Garston.   According to Sword of Wisdom Page 19 she was introduced to a Mrs Weir and her daughter who were the chiefs of the Order along with her Cousin (Mina had died by then).

On Page 5 Ithell Colquhoun’s introduction to Edward John Garston’s Rosi Crucian Secrets she identified Weir as Mrs Margaret Boyd who had helped Mina Mathers establish the AO Lodge of the Golden Dawn when the latter moved from Paris.   The address 26 Elm Park Road in Chelsea was also where the London AO temple met.

26 Elm Park Road
The last full time home of the AO

This helps us identify the people in her Sword of Wisdom book. Garston had wanted to marry Boyd’s daughter Isme who was another chief, however she was interested in a stockbroker.  The Order at this point seemed to be members of Boyd’s extended family with Isme, and her cousin.

Colquhoun was famously turned down by Boyd for membership of the AO after being astrally examined, she later wrote that she should have applied again but did not know that you were automatically rejected on your first application.

She spoke to Garstin again in 1939 and he told her (p27 of Sword of Wisdom) that the temple had dispersed and the Secret Chiefs had ordered that everything was to be destroyed.

Later in the book (Page 46) she gives more details. 

Colquhoun has proved reliable when she is describing events that she knows about or has experienced.  She is completely unreliable when she starts to speculate.  It is then she goes off talking rubbish about Druid vaults and Samual Mathers giving lineages to people he did not know.

However  was probably not the complete end of the AO. This is because John Brodie-Innes continued to run a slightly schismatic branch of the Order and when he died he appointed Carnegie Dickson to carry it on.  It was not a big force on the occult scene after the war and in the end took what was left of the AO lineage back into Stella Matutina. When he died his wife took over.

Hermes only had less than 12 people by 1956 and one of the chiefs Charles Renn, had to take his 7=4 in New Zealand under Whare Ra.  When they appeared in NZ they were so impressed Whare Ra building, and with the relatively strong Order in New Zealand, they decided to emigrate permanently and joined that Order. Mrs Carnegie Dickson died in 1968 and any connections had long since passed to New Zealand.

Thus it would appear that any claims at legitimately reviving the AO lineage hits the same problem that those who claim official links from the Stella Matutina.  It is impossible to claim descent from Mather’s London temple because that had closed, Mina’s temple, though legitimate, was formally closed by by its secret chiefs (so that is a dead end too).  To claim Whare Ra lineage you have to have been given the link by someone entitled to do so. There are a few people who have that standing.  But the AO link would only be possible if it was given to you by Charles Renn.  The only AO link from Renn I know of is claimed by Tony Fuller. 

But the Renn lineage is equally problematic. To accept it you have to accept that Mina Mathers was not the rightful spiritual heir to her husband’s order and that honour legitimately fell to John Brodie-Innes.  Not only that, you have to believe that Carnegie Dickson had the right to disobey the secret chiefs instructing the AO and carry on, even after Mrs Boyd told them to close.

In my view this lineage is a little tenuous, even if is at least considerably stronger than others that have been claimed.  It might be that the reason Hermes had such difficulty with those higher grades was that the spiritual force behind the AO had really gone up in the bonfire of Isme garden, just as the Secret Chiefs had requested.