The myth of the perfect teacher

There is a myth in esoteric orders that the teacher of any esoteric order is perfect and knows everything.
To prop up the fantasy when it is fairly clear that teachers do not know anything, or even can’t tie their own shoelace, there has come about backup plans.   These plan b’s include things like secret chiefs, contacts or anything else a group leader can blame for not knowing the facts.
You will find that when pressed, such a leader will say “it is below your grade” or “I am pledged to keep that secret.”
Honesty is not something such leaders can cope with.
I get into all sorts of trouble because I ask questions.   Now as a leader of an Order, I am supposed to know everything.  In fact I will make this clear:
“I do not know everything”.
I do have to ask other people who are specialists in various fields, I sometimes have to ask other magicians for help.
But you know what….
I am ok with that.
I do not have to pretend to be some bullshit expert on everything.  I do not have to pretend to be a superman.  I can just be myself.  Nor do I have to put my own development on hold simply because I run a group.
Sometimes I will ask questions to play devil’s advocate, but other times when I am working along certain lines I need help and do not have any problem with asking for that.
But what is interesting is that other magicians ask me for help and I am cool with that too.   It is when people build a closed circuit which shuts them out from the rest of the world that you know that they are trying to prop up their own egos.
Now I have an ego.
I don’t have a problem with that.  In a world that people are trying to prop up their egos with lies and deceit it is fashionable to claim that you do not have an ego.  In fact the people who claim to be modest, and call for the death of the ego normally have an ego which is so big that the British Royal Family can take a well-deserved skiing holiday on its upper slopes.

I realised that ego was important in my portal when I suddenly realised that I could not stop myself telling the truth, even when it was not in my own interests.    It also meant that I could not play the “game” of being an occult leader. If you are an occult leader you are supposed to spend your time avoiding calling someone a cunt, when they clearly are, because that is not spiritual. 
“Being spiritual” also means that you have to sit while some leader speaks absolute shit about themselves and a system which you know better than them. Being spiritual means not calling a spade a spade. 
The price of being spiritual is that there is no change in any system.   Call your self a teacher and you are supposed to remove you from any new teaching.  There is no one who is brave enough to tell these fuckwits that they are not even doing magic.  Being spiritual means you have to smile while some loon tells others how important they are because they have some piece of paper which they bought from a library.
It would not matter so much if these idiots kept their mouths shut and just tried to convince their brain dead followers that they were Jesus, but the irritating thing is that these people are often the loudest- shouting their superiority from the roof-tops while keeping their “teaching” “so secret” because they do not dare it reaching public scrutiny.  
As a result the Golden Dawn is now associated with such types.   There are not many of them, but they are loud enough.
So as a result when Jake Stratten-Kent made his claim about the contamination about Golden Dawn orders with masonic thinking and war on “spiritualism” techniques he was absolutely right. He was not right about MOAA, or even HOGD, but there are a lot of Golden Dawn Groups out there who are doing exactly what he says.
There is even  GD groups out there which bans psychics and people who have had mediumistic experiences. Because they claim bogusly that was what was intended by the original GD oath!
 FFS that means I could not be a member of the Golden Dawn and neither could Mathers, Felkin, Brodie Innes, Farr, Horniman, Dion Fortune, Crowley, Case or anyone else who is a significant player in the GD.   Such ignorance of magic should not be allowed.
Psychic stuff is exactly what the Golden Dawn was all about.  At the higher grades you are spending all your time doing the same things that mediums and spiritualist were doing. Arguably they were using better techniques, but they were still the same thing.
Jake also does not like the idea that we are all closed in and don’t experiment. He is right. There are a lot of groups out there who don’t.  They rely on the fact that their members will not get to the higher grades and don’t bother.  Or, worse, they pretend they have lots of secret teaching which is mysteriously missing when they get to those grades (which few ever do).
In MOAA we want our adepts to work on areas they like and develop them.  They are given assistance by the order to do that and that provides a body of work for others who follow them. This makes magic a science and the GD something living. 
Jake is interested in classical Geotia and so am I.  I am working on this, but I am sure that there will be other 5=6s who will be working on areas that interest them and will train others. 
As a teacher, I can only do so much.  So I will rely on others who are soaked in my system to research and come up with new avenues of magic for future generations.
That way, I am not limited to having to be a jack of all trades, but can focus on the things that interest me, while promoting those adepts who know what they are doing in particular areas.
Again this has to mean that I admit that I do not know everything. Occultism will move forward when it ditches the belief in a perfect teacher, and the need for teachers to pretend that they are.
 BTW I am not referring to one order here it is a general concept.  If you think this is talking about you and your order you need therapy and are part of the problem.

A Godwin’s Law for Occult discussions

Mike Godwin (thanks Wikimedia)

In 1990 Mike Godwin stated the Internet adage that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches.
Although he was mostly talking about Usenet groups, he thought that given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably makes a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis.  These days the law is evoked to end a discussion when a Nazi analogy is made.  The writer who made the analogy is usually ruled as having lost the argument.
Over on Facebook Níall MacSiúrtáin suggested that there should be an occult addendum to Godwin’s law to cover esoteric discussion.  Some of the list below I have nicked from that conversation.  Unfortunately it lacks Godwin’s concise nature but if you are thinking of setting up a yahoo group you might like to post this.

A conversation about esoteric subjects shall be deemed over and lost by a person who:
1.    Says that [vital] information is secret and they are forbidden to tell you, but at the same time insists that they have to be believed.
2.    Says his or her Secret Chief told them that [contentious] information.
3.    Says they would like to give you proof but you are not in their Order.
4.    Claims that information is “above your grade”.
5.    Insists, against all evidence,  a person is a spy of [insert some implausible order], or a fundamentalist Christian who is trying to corrupt the [insert your tradition] from within.
6.    Argues that their neo-pagan god worship is more “historically accurate” than another's neo-pagan god worship.
7.    Refers to themselves as being a victim of the sort of persecution that created the “burning times.”
8.    Uses impenetrable anthropological, NLP, alchemical, New Age jargon to answer any magical question.
9.    Tries to trump the conversation with their Reiki master’s certificate or experience in martial arts.
10.    Claims to be a reincarnation of a famous historical figure.
11.    Names their grade, title, or generation removed from Gerald Gardner as a way of claiming seniority.
12.     Publicly claims that they have lineage of any sort from anyone.
13.    Tries to back their case with a long quote with no explanation of how it backs their case in the home that people will just assume they are right.
14.    Is outted using sock-puppets to agree with their ideas or bolster the thread.
15.    Threatens to magically attack someone who does not agree with them (unless as a joke).

Anyway put your suggestions in the comments box.

Book review Graeco-Egyptian Magic – Everyday Empowerment

 The Egyptian Papri provide us with very important authentic magical techniques.  The only difficulty is that they are hard to approach from a modern mindset. 

The biggest issue, besides having to drown some unfortunate street cat, or endangered species, are the names of power which are a mixture of Coptic, Middle Ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Hebrew.  Most of them are pronounced using a form of classical Greek.

Graeco-Egyptian Magic – Everyday Empowerment  by Tony Mierzwicki provides a way into this really interesting system of magic.  Mierzwicki calls the book “intermediate level” and while I would hesitate to call it a book for beginners it has a few things which rule it out for advanced use.

The bulk of the book is taken up with invoking the seven Aions or the seven planets.  Mierzwicki gives an interesting opening and closing and then a series of rituals to make a contact with those Gods.

This is an excellent idea and I decided to follow it as an experiment.  Mierzwicki provides you with the tools you need to pronounce the barbarous names of power but you have to really work it out for yourself.  In the ritual he will give you the word OUKRA and give you the pronunciation in the back (OOK-RA) with the R slightly trilled.  It would have been more useful to have the pronunciations in the actual rituals he gives.  But hell, an author should not have to do all the work.

The opening rituals is not bad but will take some getting used to if you are from a Wiccan, or even Golden Dawn tradition.  It works by invoking the unknown Aeon of Aion into your circle.  This is extended by using the Greek Vowels to open the six directions of space.  The Aeon of Aion energy is then divided into two by vibrating two different “male and female” names of power. 

There then comes a very long “blasting open the portals” by using the vowel sounds.  Four weeks into my experiment I gave up on this and replaced it with supreme pentagrams.  I could not make the vowels do much other than give me a sore throat. Mierzwicki ’s logic I really liked.  These were the names given to the Aeon of Aions at the quarters.

There then followed some interesting adaptions from the Egyptian Papyri to complete the opening.   What I found was that the Aeon of Aeon tended to be Thoth energy… in other words Thoth in his guise of the head of the Ogdoas and the creator of all.   That worked for me but I didn’t think about it until a bit later.

Then you chose the god you want to bring into your life. Mierzwicki uses invocations from the Orphic and Homeric Hymns as general invocations and then spells from the Egyptian Papri to bring the godform in.

There is not much unity between the different godforms.  For example, Mierzwicki gives you alternative forms for each of the main godforms which you are expected to visualise.  However in some of the godforms he does not give any.    This weakened the ritual for Aphrodite considerably.

The other issue was that Mierzwicki appears to have assumed that the targets of the papyri were Greek gods, rather than the more exotic Greco-Egyptian mix.  This belief lets him down completely in the “Ares ” working because, as he points out, there are few spells connected to Ares in the Papyri.

To get around this problem he uses a love spell which is supposed to bind Aries and bring him to you.  Not really something I would want to do.

In fact the Papyri are full of Ares gods forms, just not under his Greek or Roman name.  The role is taken up by Typhon or Seth and there are numerous spells too him that will get him to show up without having to bind you with love shackles.

In fact the famous “bornless ritual” which is beloved of GD and OTO magicians uses a composite Set- Bes figure to perform an exorcism.  

There appears to be an idea that you can use some of these spells and the names associated to them for other purposes.  I am not sure that is entirely correct.  In the Ares case shackling the god as if he is a love object is not the same thing as invoking him.

I also think that Mierzwicki played down some of the underworld aspects of these godforms and I would have liked to have seen his take on that issue.

This might seem like I am being hyper-critical and I am not.  I am still working my way through this book and am having valuable insights.  It is also invaluable as I work my way through the Papyri to come up with my own system.   

There is some very useful material here which can save you hours of internet research.  To find out the meanings of some these names you have to do a lot of research to find out what you are invoking.  Some of the names are actually lost to time, so you can waste a lot of time chasing dead ends.

What I also find valuable in this book are the examples given from Mierzwicki ’s workshops of people’s actual experiences so you can see the sort of effects the rituals have with others to compare them to your own.  I think I will attempt to make this a feature of my own writing on esoteric rituals to provide guidelines.

Anyway I think this book is very important and well worth buying if you are interested in approaching this fascinating field of magic.




Addition  which did not make it through the comment checking system (being too big to fit)
Jake Stratton-Kent replies:

Though I haven't read this book, I've seen it discussed elsewhere - and responded positively. Looks like I better grab a copy when the opportunity arises. Anyhow, I've been familiar with the PGM (and
before that Goodwin's 'Fragment', and the Leyden Papyrus) for a long time, and any modern look at them has to be welcome.

That said, there are some interesting issues to be examined here, which may sharpen up PGM studies.  The first is, recasting the papyri as planetary magic retrospectively is probably not the way to go (the difficulties with Ares and Aphrodite reflect this 'non-alignment');
the papyri are not the Heptameron or the Grimoire of Turiel, and should not really be approached as an alternative way of looking at these methodologies.

Astrology was certainly the main model of magic of this period, however, the decans, lunar mansions, celestial pole and other details are at least as significant as the planets. Reference to Hellenistic astrology would also be useful in a book of this kind, I don't know if
that is addressed, but at intermediate level and with an astrological context, it is certainly required.

Also there is much in the PGM that is not specially astrological so much as concerned with this or that god specifically, not to mention the very large role of the dead. I echo the earlier comment about the all embracing importance of the Chthonic realm in the implied cosmology. The author's response to the earlier comment appears contradictory. In any case, the underworld is so important to the
overall conception that it requires addressing from the beginning of  any approach to the papyri - *before* we ever get to intermediate level. This requirement might be lessened considerably were there not widespread ignorance of the real import of the term 'Goetia'; as addressed throughout my writings for Scarlet Imprint.

As a grimoire magician of sorts, problems surrounding use of animals and other exotic items is something I'm more used to solving than a Golden Dawner - though there are also contextual angles (like drowning = deification, and the legend of Osiris). I don't support cruelty to animals  and can look to Orphism to traditionalist support for finding alternatives (also applicable to later issues of the same kind). There is also a section of the PGM which 'interprets' such uses in terms of
plants, a good place to start.

I agree with the author about Aeon, he is distinct from Tahuti - more similar to Sabaoth and Zurvan, as god of eternal time (thus distinct from the 'extra-cosmic' deity of Platonism, normative Judaism and of course Christianity). The relevance of such a deity to a 'Late Pagan' astrological context is fairly plain, and does not actually tail off there. This may be legitimately reprised - IMO - by those operating later planetary magic ala grimoires and other sources. These are issues I will be addressing further in the near future.

My campaign regarding the Headless One reaches back some decades, with earlier blanket rejection of my thesis gradually giving way to 'what everyone knows' being reassessed; but the case is not yet closed. He is not a suitable candidate for an Ares 'stand in'; there is a quite distinct astro-cosmological context which is not planetary in nature. See Hadean Press for a pamphlet approach to this important figure, and even more so the forthcoming 'Testament of Cyprian the Mage' from the Scarlets.

>From my perspective the PGM are no more suitable for an unreformed Golden Dawn approach than is 'Archaic Goetia'; indeed as things currently stand Goetia (properly defined) and the PGM are compatible mainly with each other. Both are badly served when transferred to ANY context involving the supremacy of a transcendental deity and demonisation of the underworld. Such problems may be overcome, but the Occult Revival requires some serious rethinking, some 'ecumenical' or 'meta' models and proper appreciation of its roots in order to achieve this. We should take our collective time over this and do it properly - reaching outside narrow focus peer groups to wider interactions to
achieve it. Quick fixes should be avoided.

In the meantime I recommend both the Solomonic list and in particular the Grimorium Verum list on yahoo for discussions in and around some of the issues - including reassessment of Archaic Goetia as the root of the subsequent Western Tradition, in which the PGM and the syncretic period play a major role.

Jake Stratton-Kent