Sunday, December 26, 2010

The Golden Dawn Systems have some Sucky Parts

Readers of this blog know well my feelings for Alexandrian Wicca. My experience with it was horrible. To this day, I regret my neophyte initiation into that tradition. However, in watching the behavior of others within my tradition, I want to rush in and claim "Hey the Golden Dawn isn't like that!" I call bullshit.

I have pointed out that one must see the entire picture. Jesus may be the transcendent logos. He is also the diety that supports the wacko meanness of the Christian right. Yahweh maybe me the loving father of Christ. He is also a war of God. Jesus is Lord of all of his domain,the good and the bad. You can't have it one way. Well, I suppose you can, if you like. You can claim the transcendent form has nothing to do with the immanent form.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Therefore, I must admit this poor behavior I have watched with pity over the years is also the result of the GD systems. There is much good to be found in the quiet orders but there is also a negative in them as well. I'm sure there is some quiet good going on in the 'famous' lodges that is overshadowed by the sad public events.

From this I must conclude that there may be a very positive side to Alexandrian Wicca. Frankly, I've never seen it. That does not mean it isn't there. I've likely painted the tradition with too broad a brush. Maybe Alexandrian Wicca is toxic to me. Maybe it was just those people. Maybe it was just those people in just that time period of their lives. Recent events over the illness of a friend seemed to reinforce my view that their thinking is so far from my own that I find it incomprehensible. Yeah, so what? I don't think they get me either.

The point of this is two-fold.

I was about to post something that was an attempt to defend my tradition. Fuck that. Defending my tradition from public displays of smallness is just an exercise in my own lower ego. I know what I got out of an what it can offer is so much more. There is no point in convincing others of that fact.

The second was that I need to take a more wholistic approach to a lot of things. Perhaps this forced recognition of the other side of the coin, well help me to transcend such dualities. I don't expect that any time soon but steps are steps.

5 comments:

Frater.Barrabbas said...

Robert -

I don't know with whom you had the so called "bad" experience in the Alexandrian Witchcraft tradition, but there never was a "neophyte" degree. If your teachers were calling it that, then it's doubtful that they were actually legitimate members of that tradition.

I happen to be an elder in the Alexandrian tradition, and although there are good and bad leaders in every organization, I don't think that I would ever refer to that tradition (or any valid tradition) as "toxic."

I know that you are just talking about your own experience, but it doesn't help matters to dismiss a tradition just because you had a bad experience in your first and only Lexie coven. Perseverance would have taught you wisdom and forbearance, unfortunately you either didn't or couldn't continue to be a practicing witch.

As a ritual magician and an Alexandrian witch, I have found the key to forms of pagan magick that I could not have acquired had I not persevered on my path years ago. So, as a clarification, it would be better to say that you had a bad experience and didn't continue that particularly path. It isn't the path, just the experience, and I might add, because of the brevity of your time on that path, a superficial one at that.

Fr. Barrabbas

Robert said...

Care Frater,

I think I was just putting out there that I think I may have painted with too broad a brush. So being chastised for doing what I just admitted to doing seems a bit odd.

As far as calling my experience superficial, you have no idea what I experienced and therefore are not in a position to judge it as superficial. Most superficial experiences do not leave one with over half a decade of obsession. That I've only recently defeated through the assistance of another deity.

I will not debate with you the validity of the group I was with. That is an old game in the occult world. One, as you can see, I just got over playing myself.

Yvonne said...

I had a horrible experience in my first lodge/house. Unstable people, fakery and illegitimate authorities, toxic relationships, poor teaching, and human money and energy leeches. I was damaged and could not understand the purpose of the experiences that I had, which, ironically, put me on the current path to higher knowledge and elevation toward greater wisdom, and not to mention, health in spirit and mind. It seems to me now looking back and trying to explain to myself and others, that "it had to be" even though it felt like I was in hell for that time. Thank you for your honesty, your words feel like a kind of cleansing to me, a healer must heal himself, I guess

Robert said...

@Nutty, Yes, I once told a would be magician "magician, heal thyself!"

I have previously mentioned I met my current mentor through that coven. I have deep respect for that man, as you can tell by my writings I love the magickal life. Yet, if someone told me I could live a mundane life and not go through what I did with that coven, it would be a difficult decision to make.

However, I do seem to be making good progress in healing folks' mental issues. Shamanistic tradition teaches us that we often have to possess the illness and heal and that gives us the power over the ailment.

Anonymous said...

"Perhaps evil is the humus formed from virtue's decay. And perhaps it is from that dark, sinister loam that virtue grows strongest."

-Alan Moore