Friday, March 23, 2012

What a shame

I'm a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Outer Order of the Rosicrucian Order Alpha et Omega and I've been following Nick Farrell's blog and articles and the defamation and attacks against my Order are more than evident.

What a shame that Nick Farrell calls himself an Adept and a founder of a pseudo Order. First of all, a true Rosicrucian devotes and respect Tradition and this yellow journalist is the least thing he does.

How can Nick Farrell dare to pretend to be considered a person of respect if he spits on the plate from where he eats? How does he dare to desecrate the Golden Dawn Tradition and its founders, and over all, the Rosicrucian Tradition?

How can Nick Farrell disrespect many honest and hard working magicians as myself and many of my fellow members of my Order and the whole Golden Dawn Tradition? The only thing I can think of, is the envy he feels for his lack of achievements and even talent to teach his own students real magic.

Frater VL

17 comments:

  1. Are you serious?

    Frater VL, I was in Zink's order, and let me tell you -- Griffin's is exactly the same. The sooner you get yourself out and start studying on your own (not with Farrell's Order, not with anybody's -- just on your own), the happier you will be.

    I know Griffin probably tells you he has the only "genuine" Rosicrucian power, and that if you leave you will never be doing "real" magic -- it's bull.

    I hope a part of you will consider what I'm saying for a moment. If you don't, no harm done, and God bless you anyway; I still hope you get out sooner rather than later.

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  2. I would not call Nick Farrell's order a pseudo order. I have no doubt that the initiates of the MOAA are very sincere and hard working initiates just like you are. The problem lies not with the MOAA but rather with Mr. Farrell's gutter sniping tabloid journalistic attacks on the initiates of the Alpha et Omega. Even worse, he tried to dress this flame war up up as objective history. Clearly Mr. Farrell owes you and every single initiate of the Alpha Omega a personal and formal apology. He ought also to apologise to the members of his own order as well, as his constant rumor mongering reflects badly on them as well.

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  3. It really is a matter of having clarity on what was and was not being stated. Clarity yet to be forthcoming from Mr Farrell whose person and order are in no way being detracted from in all this...

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  4. I just posted this in HOGD/AO blog:

    Great article and I do join to this defense.

    People is mislead by thinking we are defending our chief David Griffin; no!, he's capable enough to do it himself; he doesn't need us as personal defenders. We are defending our Order and our beloved Tradition; we are defending our names and our holy work; we are defending an ageless Tradition from the pretenders; the false brothers; they nay sayers.

    The rose has its thorns, and they are intended to defend the precious treasure at the top of the stem. Each of us can be a petal of the rose, and each of us can be a hard thorn.

    Nick Farrell doesn't even has respect for his own students, he has lost his mind in trying to get a name and selfish recognition. He is attacking our Order, spitting on the face of many honest magicians and now I ask:

    Who the hell is this "guy" to come to spit in our sacred work? this infamous person must receive what he deserves.

    Frater VL

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  5. @anonymous:

    I'm sorry to hear you were part of Zink's Order, but thank God, it already finished.

    On the other hand, I don't regret of what I said and I will explain you why:

    1. I have never been forced to keep my Chiefs and even my Tutor pleased in order to obtain something. I have earned my advancement by hard work.

    2. Our Order doesn't even sell things!!!, why? because HOGD/AO is not a cheap shop.

    3. As I said in my previous post, people is mislead by thinking we are defending our Chief David Griffin and I repeat: no!, he is capable of doing this by himself. We are defending our sacred Rosicrucian Tradition.

    4. I personally know many of my fellow magicians and all of them, are hard working magicians; people committed to do their work and earn what they deserve.

    5. Our Chief never has asked to any of us for reverence as Zink did his days; he hasn't even asked to us to stay in the Order!

    I'm the most irreverent person you can find; and if for one moment our Chief had asked me for doing that, I would have left the Order a long time ago.

    I hope you are the one who will consider your thoughts and make up your mind in discerning the orientation of our defense.

    Frater VL

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  6. 1. You are very mistaken about the nature of Zink's fraud... We in the EOGD believed we were defending the real Rosicrucian tradition, and that it didn't have anything to do with our Chief -- all while we acted just as antisocially as the HOGD is now.

    2. Back when I was in the EOGD, I would have said exactly... I mean *precisely* -- what you just said. I would have gone on about how it wasn't about Zink, but just about defending "true" Rosicrucianism, blah blah blah. All while Zink led me around on a string.

    3. The very fact that you think you have to defend something against a book and comments on the Internet shows how far the HOGD is from anything like the truth. The whole persecution complex is just something used by people like Griffin to keep you all in line without seeming like he's doing it... Zink did the same thing... Special emergency rituals to protect against the enemies of the Order, so on, so on. If you don't like Farrell's book, don't read it... Simple. Even if the book is critical of the HOGD A+O, I assure you it's not going to stop new initiates from joining your order if you've got something genuine to give.

    Of course, you're not going to listen to any of this... You're just going to dismiss me as one of the enemy, or as someone with a chip on his shoulder against Griffin, or as a deluded ex-EOGD member. But that's fine... No matter what you think, Griffin's order is based on lies, and so in time it will either start telling the truth or collapse like Zink's did. I hope when that day comes you will remember what I said and not rush to join the next lying "Only True Golden Dawn."

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  7. @Anonymous,

    I'm not considering you my enemy, you haven't given me a reason; I hope not to become myself an enemy of yours too. I believe we are just stating points of view according our own experience.

    VL.

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  8. @VL,

    Well, I've now been called some very severe names by people of your Order. Imagine how it looks to those of us on the outside -- whether you like to admit it or not, David Griffin continually insinuates that his is the only truly legitimate Golden Dawn. Then, he asks his members to give spurious Amazon reviews to a book. Then, the Order starts taking about how all roses have thorns to protect them, implicitly suggesting that those of you in the order need to pierce and harm your "enemies."

    Imagine how that looks to us!

    Then, understand that I'm coming at this as someone with experience in a cult -- the EOGD was a cult, there is no doubt. I'm coming at this as someone who has seen this song and dance before. I'm coming at this as someone who had a tender heart, eager for spiritual knowledge, who would do whatever the Chief asked (and whatever you may think, Robert Zink never "ordered" anything -- it was always "asked," with the implication that if you were courageous and wise, you would do what was necessary for the good of the Order, which was to do whatever the Chief "asked" of you).

    Look, pure and simple, from my perspective: if someone asks you to do something dishonest, then that person is in some way "bad." They may have reasons for being "bad," but who doesn't? And a person who asks you to do something that is clearly dishonest, clearly wrong, probably is not a good spiritual mentor. They may have magic skill and power -- that's fine -- but so do demons. I don't know how you feel about Aleister Crowley, but he certainly had a lot of magical skill -- yet I would never base my moral life on what he said. And from what I've seen, I would never put my spiritual and moral health in the hands of David Griffin -- I have seen nothing- and I mean *nothing* - to suggest he is *any* different from Robert Zink.

    What it comes down to, ultimately, is this -- you are the same sort of person I am -- you are interested in occultism and spiritual development. That means that even if I've never met you, I care about you. That means that it kills me to see you making the same mistake I did. I wish someone had been able to get through to me when I was in the EOGD, but no-one could. I always "knew better," I "knew" that I wasn't being brainwashed, I was just doing what was best for the Order, and the Order was the Only True Golden Dawn. But the fact is, it wasn't, and neither is the HOGD.

    The last thing I want to tell you is this -- I don't know what you study in the HOGD; I don't know what secret third-order magic the Order claims to have; but I do know that you are discouraged from reading certain books (like "King Over the Water," at very least). I will tell you this with about 85% certainty: there is nothing -- *NOTHING* -- in the HOGD that you can't learn elsewhere on your own. Everything you study was pieced together from other books and ideas. Outside of your Order is a *world* of new ideas in magic, just waiting for you, if you'll drop the chains of a manipulative spiritual Order and trust yourself to study on your own.

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  9. I just read David Griffin's most recent post on the HOGD Blog. VL, how can you read this stuff and not realise what's going on? Griffin claims that because Nick Farrell makes some arguments similar to those found on a fundamentalist ministry site, he must be part of that fundamentalist ministry?

    David Griffin also darkly hinted in the entry that Nick Farrell would be "dealt with." He also put his picture on Abe Vigoda's body and called him "Sal Tessio." Remember that Sal Tessio was killed... that's monstrous. I doubt the David Griffin will actually kill or ask anyone else to kill Nick Farrell (at least I hope he won't) -- but that's the implication.

    VL, David Griffin is feeding you lies and disinformation, and he's making you a worse person by doing so.

    I realise Griffin said that anyone who writes anonymously must be Nick Farrell in disguise. The truth is that I work in a profession where, if it was discovered I am interested in the occult, I could be fired. How can I make my identity known when anyone who disagrees with Griffin is indirectly threatened with death?

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  10. Here's a quote from the HOGD Blog: "You will not profit from your campaign against the Alpha et Omega. You slung the mud at us and it landed right in your face, on Amazon. That was just for tasters…"

    "Just for tasters." Even if this could have been called "defending yourself" at some point, it's not that anymore. It's bullying. It's threats. That's what you've attached yourself to.

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  11. Dear Anonymous,

    I have no interest in start futile arguments with you; I just said above that I don't consider you my enemy nor I will be your enemy.

    LVX.

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  12. @Anonymous,

    I will ask you straight, and I also want a straight answer:

    Why do you defend Nick Farrell?

    LVX

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  13. You said you don't want an argument, but you asked me a question, so I'll answer it. Again, I feel like you're not hearing what I'm saying, but I'll try my best to be clear.

    First of all, I'm not primarily defending Nick Farrell. That's not my primary interest. My primary interest is that I think you're in a negative Order and I'd like to give you what warning I can.

    To whatever extent I care about defending Nick Farrell -- I read the document in question, and it absolutely and clearly is not referring to the HOGD. The fact that your Order is constantly going on about how it does indicates that there's a big persecution complex going on there.

    Furthermore, re-read the intro -- all it says is that some orders use Mathers as a way to bring their own teachings a patina of respectability that's not justified, especially considering Mathers' own inadequacies as a magician in later life.

    Even if that WAS somehow an insult against the HOGD, what would be the proper response? It would be to say, "well, Nick Farrell is wrong, end of story." But that's not what the HOGD is saying or doing -- instead, it is sending people to give his book unwarranted one-star reviews, talking about how roses have thorns (which is a violent image, regardless of any justifications), and playing up a rather frighteningly crusade-like mythology on its blog about people "bravely defending the Golden Dawn."

    Well, let me put it this way -- I'm a member of the Golden Dawn too (unless Griffin has you convinced that only his Golden Dawn is "real.") I do the magic just like you do, and I've been doing it for quite a while now -- and I get results, great results. And the HOGD neither represents nor defends me. I don't feel protected by what they say -- I feel frightened.

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  14. Nowhere, at any point, has AO positioned itself as the only "real" GD. It has however positioned itself as the only Traditionalst Order with renewed ties to the Third Order. That is all.

    The torrent of nastiness, spite, slur, defamation and the rest of this Christian Fundamentalist style flame war has ALL stemmed from that one fact.

    You have stated that defending against a mere book shows that the AO is not true - but it is not a matter of one book, it is an entire campaign in which that one book represents a new level of attack - one bound up in pseudo intellectualism, faked historicity, and "peer review" (but only by reconstructionist colleagues.)

    To ignore this threat would be very short sighted. Today the attack is against AO, tomorrow it will be every traditionalist, and the nest day? Who knows.

    Evil like this demands response.

    Christians may believe in "turning the other cheek" but when every AO member is attacked and insulted in this manner, they are justified in "heaping coals" upon the heads of the perpetrators. That does not mean that personality politics should become the level of the debate, and nobody should be trying to make enemies here, but there does need to be push back against Farrell's dirty agenda.

    Let me underline this - the Order that Farrell has founded is not being attacked. Indeed, that Order has not issued any statements at all. It probably has many genuine and hard working members. It is sad that they must now feel undermined by the flames.

    All of this will continue for as long as Farrell continues with his attacks. If you want it to stop, then help him to see reason. The steps he needs to take have been repeated several times now.

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  15. @Aletheia,

    I do agree with you; by the way, there's the blog of Morgan Drake Eckstein where he has called us "poor fools".

    I haven't had the time to write and demand an apology, because, who is this cry-baby to call me a 'poor fool'? I'm a hard working magician, dilligent and responsible in my work, to allow this cry-baby to say that about those who stand up to defend our Tradition.

    LVX, VL.

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  16. It is getting harder to take the guy seriously by the day. We have been called far worse than "poor fools" and really it is his support for rampant defamation that is our concern. He hasn't been the source, he has just supported the source.

    Not that surprising really. At base it amounts to this: all these guys are deeply involved in reconstructionist orders, and it is a big problem for them to accept that the likes of us are out here and public about it. Maybe they can accept Martinsts with Secret Chiefs, but a GD manifestation... no way. That is a threat to their turf.

    They are welcome to be reconstructionists, they just need to quit defaming AO for being Traditionalist.

    These Flim Flam Fundies and their little Witch War need to grow up really, and see the world outside of slurster Farrell's Fundamentalism. There is a LOT needing doing folks! Witch Wars and Fundamentalism are diversions from the Great Work not part of it!

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  17. Aletheia, there is no point in even debating with Farrell's Fundie Flim Flam trolls. The more you try to have a rational discussion with them, the more they take it as an opportunity to repeat over and over their Fundie Flim Flam talking points.

    The best advice?

    Don't feed the trolls!

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