by David Griffin
My entire adult life, I have been haunted by one, solitary, unshakable idea. In fact, this single notion has entirely shaped a spiritual quest that would take me not only to the far corners of the Earth - but lead me on the greatest occult adventure I ever could have imagined, namely that:
"Reality is not what it seems."
I grew up in the 60's - And in the 70's transmuted the 60's Mantra, "Challenge Authority," into my personal prime directive: "Challenge Reality." In fact, this was to later become the fundamental leitmotif of my entire spiritual quest.
Thus my magical career began with a quest to prove that the walls of reality are not at all as solid as they seem. My magic wand, to this end, I consecrated having climbed to the apex, on top of the the Great Pyramid of Egypt. To follow up, I invoked all of the angels of the decans and the quinants at the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan.
I spent thousands of dollars constructing my magical implements and even many thousands more chasing the predictible path of total solar eclipses around the world - celebrating one ritual more incredible than the other under the light of precious minutes of solar totality.
To celebrate the first Uranus-Neptune conjunction in history that mankind was conscious of (February 2, 1993) I managed to spend the entire night alone inside the King's chamber of the Cheops pyramid in Egypt. Although it cost a fortune to bribe the guards, to me it was worth every penny to prove to myself that I could do even this, as reality is not at all what it seems!
The other notion that shaped my spiritual path like no other has been a persistent belief that there is life inside the Sun. As a kid, I was practically weaned on Star Trek, and yet, while everyone else was asking "is there life on other planets," I have always been utterly convinced that there is life inside the Stars.
All of this, of course, eventually led me to the Golden Dawn, and later to a deeper, more occulted, inner school of the Hermetic tradition, where I found notions like the Inner Planes and the Solar Body - that made final sense of the labours of Hercules I had completed along my spiritual quest.
I guess therefore, it should come as a surprise to no one that when "The Matrix" first came out in 1999, the year I wrote the Ritual Magic Manual, and the year of the Reformation of the Alpha et Omega, it quickly became one of my all time favorite films.
I am therefore extremely pleased to read a most wonderful article here, written by my talented disciple, GH Frater Sincerus Renatus, about The Matrix and the Golden Dawn. To what Frater S.R. has already said so eloquently, I have but one thing to add:
To all my readers, and to all members of the Golden Dawn everywhere, I invite you to remember:
"There is no spoon!"
