Hate Bloggers Attack Nick Farrell: Golden Dawn Fundamentalism?

by Golden Dawn Imperator

David Griffin

Nick Farrell's Peace Initiative

You are likely by now aware of MOAA leader, Nick Farrell's, peace initiative to end defamation in the Golden Dawn community. I fully support this initiative, as I set forth in the below State of the Golden Dawn address, which I released last week at Candlemas.

The truce arising from the Farrell initiative has held for over a week now. There have been no attacks on any Golden Dawn leader posted on Mr. Farrell's group nor any other major Golden Dawn group on Facebook.

The only sad news this week came when Golden Dawn hate blogs attacked Nick Farrell for silencing them by no longer allowing them to promote posts on his Facebook group, thus depriving them of any meaningful traffic or readership. Nick Farrell deserves much credit for standing up to these hate blogs.

In other developments, Olen Rush commented on YouTube beneath my "State of the Golden Dawn" video, pointing out that he has completely taken down his blog where once numerous attacks on our order were housed. Mr. Rush pointed out that negative references to that blog still remain today on the Golden Dawn Blog. In respect of Mr. Rush's effective takedown request, I yesterday removed any and all reference to Olen Rush from the Golden Dawn Blog. I took this action unilaterally and unconditionally in yet a further effort to support Nick Farrell's peace initiative - as well to inspire others in the Golden Dawn community to also do the right thing.

Nick Farrell deserves much credit for persevering in his peace initiative, despite being attacked by the hate blogs this week. There have always been - and will always be - a handful of extremists in the Golden Dawn community - and hatred will never be completely banished. Extremists can not continue to tarnish the reputation of the Golden Dawn, however, unless we allow their hatred to continue to have a disproportionate voice.

But does this mean that there can be no legitimate debate in the Golden Dawn community? Especially when it comes to the legitimate differences between one Golden Dawn order and the other? Does the public not have a right to know these differences?

This idea is being put to the test today over on Nick Farrell's group, where my name is being invoked once again this morning, this time in connection with the position of various Golden Dawn orders on the practice of Magick in the Golden Dawn's outer order.

Today's discussion arose when Dean Wilson, leader of Ireland's "Ancient and Honorable Order of the Golden Dawn" set forth his position that:

"the Elemental Implements should not be made in the Elemental Grades" of the Golden Dawn's outer order.

Golden Dawn author, Pat Zalewksi, leader of the Canadian "Order of the Golden Dawn" replied:

"You have get me here Dean as I have never heard of a GD order making elemental weapons in the outer order. Its bloody ridiculous for many reasons."

Morgan Drake Eckstein, of the Colorado based BIOGD, replied:

 "(I have heard of these Orders doing this.... ) I personally think that they should be made as a set in the Inner."

Samuel Scarborough, representing an order I can't mention here by name due to a legal agreement you can view HERE wrote: 

"Unfortunately, Pat Zalewski, there are those that claim to do GD work, yet do drop Inner Order material into the Outer. Those organizations previously named certainly are the most well-known for this particular (and other) set of practices."

Another group member made clear who they were talking about, suggesting "Griff's order" "does quite a bit of this sort of thing".

A leader of Sam Scarborough's order wrote:

"Amen and Amen! Bravo Dean!"

Let me first make clear why I am summarizing and replying to this discussion here rather than directly on Nick Farrell's group where it occurred. I am banned from Nick Farrell's group. Even today, despite Nick's peace initiative, I continue to be mentioned in discussions on Mr. Farrell's group, yet denied any possibility of direct reply. This dynamic has contibuted heavily to decades of Golden Dawn community polarization.

Moving on to relevant points of discussion, we observe that there is a faction of orders in the Golden Dawn community that do not permit use of the Golden Dawn's elemental implements in their outer orders. 

In fact, these orders reserve all practice of Magick for their Inner Orders. Not one of these groups will give you any Magickal instruction or coaching until you reach their Inner Order, which typically takes at least five years.

The position of our order, the European headquartered, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, in this matter is quite different that those of other orders stated above. We are, in fact the ONLY Golden Dawn order that will teach you Magick from the very first day your are accepted for membership in our order.

In 1888, in Victorian England, it made sense to make people wait until the Inner Order to learn the secrets of Magick. But today, when you can buy all that same "secret" magick for $37.95 from Llewellyn (discounted to $24.50 on Amazon), does this still make sense? Times change and no one can put the genie back in the bottle. The reality is that, due to the publication of basic Golden Dawn material by Crowley and Regardie, there is an entire army of self taught solitary Golden Dawn magicians out there picking up bad habits and in desperate need of proper training, guidance, and coaching. Our order's position is that it makes no sense at all to make people wait for years on end without proper Magickal training. We are a school of Magick, after all, and not of history.

For the sake of argument, let's say you join one of these orders that make you wait years before Magickal training? Just what Magick will you learn once training finally arrives?

This - And little more.

This is not at all the case with our order. We are Golden Dawn traditionalists. All of the Magick and Alchemy we teach in our First, Second, and Third orders comes straight from Hermetic, Rosicrucian, and Golden Dawn initiatic sources. 

We are very fortunate to have far more to offer our students than just what's in a Llewellyn book. In our order, we offer the complete three order training program originally envisioned for the Golden Dawn, but only partly realized by S.L. MagGregor Mathers.

Let us return to the discussion that prompted this article, the question of whether or not the Golden Dawn's elemental implements should be used by Magicians in the Elemental grades of the Outer Order. In our order, students do use these Magickal tools in our Outer Order. They use them to master the Forces of each Element using invocation of published Qabalistic and Enochian Magickal forces.

Unlike other Golden Dawn orders, however, our Second Order contains a great deal of unpublished Hermetic Magick. One part of this is Chaldaen Magick. Our Adepti Minori also make and consecrate new Elemental tools, but tools that use unpublished Chaldean Magickal entities, names, and sigils. These are used for secret Chaldean Hermetic Magick that is available in no other Golden Dawn order.

Is it any wonder that we are today the world's largest and fastest growing Golden Dawn order? In case you are interested, here is a direct link to our order's application process.

I respect that other Golden Dawn orders choose to make people wait for Magick like in 1888. It is our diversity that makes our Golden Dawn community so rich. I am not not implying that any of my colleagues from other orders are Golden Dawn Fundamentalists. Still, we as a community should be ever vigilant for the dangers of all forms of extremism including dogmatism and fundamentalism.

The Golden Dawn is not a religion, Israel Regardie is not Martin Luther, and the Llewellyn book is certainly not a "Golden Dawn Bible."

I am not claiming that our order is better than any other - only that we do things differently. There are important differences between Golden Dawn orders and the public deserves to know what these differences are.

One thing has became clear today. Despite ongoing success of Nick Farrell's peace initiative, meaningful debate about differences between Golden Dawn orders remains hobbled across different Facebook groups and blogs rather than in direct dialogue. I am optimistic that also this situation may yet improve. In any case, we as a community must not allow Nick Farrell's peace initiative to be scuttled by extremism in any form.