Having started my occult path before the arrival of the internet I am “old school” and believe that initiation is not something you get automatically. A friend of mine in another school is having problems with a student who felt he should be initiated because he said so. He had shown up, paid his dues, and he felt he was ready. He was so shocked when his teacher said no, he left in a huff and then started to attack the teacher online for not noticing his greatness. Like many modern “magicians” he has failed to see that his very actions are exactly why the teacher did not want him initiated yet. The assumption was that rejection was the ego of an
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SORTING OUT THE SHEEP FROM THE GOATS
Occult groups can't let everyone in. They have to be exclusive clubs and there are good reasons for this. One of the difficult issues that a modern occult group faces is “who do you let in” which actually comes out as “who don’t you like.” The modern “new age” theory is that everyone should be let in unless you can find a damn fine reason not to. However his is not entirely true. There are some people who should not be allowed into an esoteric group until they have mastered some fairly basic skills and some will find the work actually dangerous. Mental illness On my Facebook group were talking earlier about being excluded from occult groups for mental illness – and it
20 WAYS TO GET KICKED OFF A GD FACEBOOK GROUP
Doing the admin on the Hermetic Golden Dawn group on Facebook has been a real revelation for me. Although I like to keep conversation free and unedited, and let anyone who wants join, I have been prevented from doing so by the sheer arse fuckery of some people. I had to stop people joining if they were not friends of members already on the group, because we were being constantly hit by people trying to flog sunglasses. However, cases of people getting the boot have been getting more frequent and really I cannot be bothered going through the process of giving warnings. Anyway, to help explain why I have kicked people off the group over the last year or so
WHY GOOD PEOPLE DO EVIL MAGIC
A number of years ago I did not believe in magical attacks. Most of the magicians I knew had been positive that attacking someone was a bad thing – unless there were real reasons. A “real reason” presented itself in the 1990s when I was involved in a ritual to curse Saddam Hussain. The ritual was designed to twat his expansion plans by effectively cursing all his actions. The ritual, which was under some senior people of the Order I was in at the time, got a little out of control and the doll which represented Hussain was damaged – its neck was pulled out of shape. We thought our curse worked when the First Gulf war ended with Hussain totally
Why Watchers of the Dawn is important to the esoteric community
People wonder why I am so keen on the Watchers of the Dawnsite – particularly when I have nothing to do with it.Sure it are run by people who want to be tabloid hacks and are not (it is harder to write than way than you think). They sometimes go off half-cocked, or “sensationalize things” or fall into the realm of satire, but they are doing something that the occult community has needed for at least a century – they are reporting news about the occult scene. Their best items have been actually delivered straight and have been extremely hard hitting.There is a saying in newspapers that news is something that someone does not want you to read, and Watchers