Why I got kicked out of Golden Dawn and Thelema (Go look for a better ceremonial magick teacher)

Given my experience as a lodge officer and student of the Hermetic Golden Dawn and its offshoots, occasionally I need to explain (if only to remind myself) why I am not allowed to teach and lead in GD. 

A who's who of the Golden Dawn community.

I was not selected by a lodge to be a leader, or teacher. No, I accidentally declared myself one when attending my first Open Full Moon in fall 1996. Finding myself in the presence of a hundred-plus Denver witches, all who seemed to be experts in some esoteric field or another, I introduced myself with the only thing that I felt confident in discussing: Hermetic Golden Dawn, Thelema, and Aliester Crowley. It was either that, or talk about being an erotica author, right?

Everyone who heard that initial introduction of mine, which included the mention that I was a published writer, no one ever allowed me to move past, or forget that intro. I got rewarded, or punished for it, depending upon the ego of the occultist. A couple of shop owners used to direct customers with ceremonial questions to me while another (the head of an OTO study group) did their best to make me feel unwelcome in her shop. 

My background in ceremonial magick includes both self-initiation and lodge initiation experiences. Personally, I consider my best magick lineage to be through a Thelemic Order of the Golden Dawn, and my best training through an expensive hundred dollars a month Hermetic Golden Dawn course. 

The most frustrating ends of memberships in my occult experience were groups dying. The original in-person lodge I belonged to fell to this fate. Online groups also suffer, perhaps more so.

The loss that affected the most students probably was the death of Mark Imhotep. As the only person who had passwords to the website, without him, the entire Sanctuary of Maat (SoM) was unaccessible. All the members ceased to be members, all at once. We lost all the discussions. Not a expulsion, but still painful to suffer, it was. Plus in the case of Bast Temple, the Sanctuary had lead to Bast Temple 2.0. 

(The Sanctuary of Maat was an online group, working through the self-initiation book by the Ciceros.)

The expulsion that was never an expulsion I love the most was my banishment from a Thelemic Order of the Golden Dawn. Through a quark of luck, I lived in Capital Hill Denver, just blocks away from the Head of the Order. I lasted two years plus before he actually noticed that I was an actual writer.

"Someday, I want to write a book to help Golden Dawn officers understand their jobs."

That is the sentence that ended my time in the TGD. Suddenly, the Fearless Leader was concerned that I was developing "ego issues." This is after I had already informed him a year earlier that Khari (and a couple of other friends) had asked me to start Bast Temple 1.0---which was a Hermetic lodge. 

For a laugh, I would like to point out that within a year, the Thelemic leader had turned his attention to playing music with his girlfriend; every dealing I have had with the Order since is with an underling positive that they will inherit the Order upon the leader's death . . . hmm, paid labor, you are, right?

Besides my experience with TGD, Thelema in the form of the local OTO has hated me. Something about me being a poacher, according to the leadership that held Colorado for decades. As if you can actually get Thelemics to respect Hermetics to sit peacefully in lodge together. No one understands that one can study and practice both Thelema and Hermetics without one's head exploding. 

Mixing systems is probably the number one complaint that everyone has about me. Runes, Wicca, and world religions are just some of the things that I have been told that I am placing too much emphasis on. Yes, only the stuff in Regardie's book is Golden Dawn, so don't you dare add anything to the pile.

Sorry, I am not a good Christian, Catholic, or Mormon. I started out as a Wiccan. Everything is colored a little by that life experience. Whatever you do, don't look at my library.

The banishment from Golden Dawn that I have discussed the most over the years was the end of Bast Temple 2.0. During one of the meetings, I mentioned that I had been involved in the magical binding of the Capital Hill rapist, as was several other covens at the time. One of members, an Outer Order member, went to a teacher, Native Headhunter, and protested that I was trying to overthrow the legal system by this spell against a serial rapist. The crime disappeared in the public letter against the Evil Hierophant, and a Charter to start a rival Colorado Golden Dawn lodge was issued to the rebel.

"So basically, Golden Dawn believes in Old Testament, women are property law, right? And any Wiccan (witch) who believes that they have a right to bind abusive harmful people is just wrong about what their religion says. Do you require proof of conversion to Christianity upon Inner Order entry?"

The rival lodge disappeared within a year, or two. Sadly, another student without the Headhunter's blessing would go on to initiate Inner Order members--and attend an expensive GD course with me.

Or maybe I have discussed the fact that a self-proclaimed HGD leader, the Great Gherkin, expelled me from Golden Dawn, and called for my death after I supported the binding by witchcraft of President Donald Trump (term one). As in I was a "traitor" trying to overthrow the will of the voters. I was unaware that I had to vote like my Chief Adept did. What's next--hanging people who do not support the President, that's what. Sorry, I vomited in my mouth a little. Oh well, it's good for his business.

The absolute best "Morgan is not allowed to teach Golden Dawn" comes from Native Headhunter. He was an online teacher of mine early in my web experience. But we had differences in opinion about the importance of certain parts of the system (ex. the Forty-Two Judges of the Negative Confession). 

Nevertheless, on a couple of occasions (during the Gleamings from the Dawn blog days), I cited him as a source of something that I taught. It only happened a couple of times because of Headhunter's ego. The man would explode in my comment section, accusing me of theft, ignoring the shout out to his influence on me. In the end, I had to cut his material from my teaching material--all of it--to please him.

Not that I ever signed a non-compete. Or a NDA (non-disclosure agreement). And I would invest heavily in an expensive hundred dollars a month Inner Order course, so I needed some ROI. 

I was quite unhappy to be dragged into a social media forum to publicly apologize for not sending Native Headhunter students for his advanced training program. Publicly called a crook for not fulfilling my contract with him. A contract that he had been constantly changing for over a decade. And he wanted students to be sent to him?!? This was the teacher who sponsored (with a charter) a rival Colorado lodge and published a public letter about a black magick witchcraft using Hierophant.

This was the man who helped murder Bast Temple, and I had to apologize for not sending him students?!? Oh, I did . . . but everyone knew that I wanted to punch Headhunter in the face. Sorry, dude--was I supposed to work my ass off to create Bast Temple 3.0 just to give it over to you, after you helped kill off the previous version---seriously?!? And I have to say sorry in public?!? This is last time.

And I wondered what actually set Headhunter off. It took me a long time to figure it out. Like years.

I left Golden Dawn, Thelema, and social media (more or less) right after I had to bend my knee to one Chief screaming that I could be hang as a traitor to the United States, and another yelling that all my students were properly his and his alone. So I didn't concern myself with the last weird explosion. It wasn't until I started organizing the library for "selling after my death" that I realized what must had set off Headhunter. Oh yeah, his ego would have went off.

Because I wrote a commentary for that damn Golden Dawn Flying Roll book. That fucking book is a who's who of the Golden Dawn community. Or at least, a good map of one side of the GD coin (the other side being leaders like the Great Gherkin, who no one wants to invite to projects because they try to hijack them completely for their own Orders). It was a handshake project; someone had to be willing to shake your hand for you to hear about the project. Honestly, I assumed that I was a late-comer to the project. It had never occurred to me to question the absence of other teachers in the list of authors.

Like for instance, the absence of a certain one hundred dollar a month teacher. Why not him? Oh, wait, says I. His influence might actually be visible in my commentary. Or not. 

And that was my big problem with having to bend my knee to Headhunter.

I have invested in my occult knowledge since the 1980s. My library is worth about ten thousand dollars--mixed belief system. I might have taken two bachelor degrees (literature and history) to pursue a project of mine. And I started that expensive Inner Order course when Mark Imhotep was a fellow classmate. So basically, all that investment is gone because someone's ego says that they must have all the students of everyone that they taught for ten minutes?!? Okay, good to know. 

So that is why I will never be allowed to return to Thelema, Hermetic Golden Dawn, or any form of ceremonial magick or witchcraft. Bast Temple 3.0 will have to happen on Khari's watch, not mine. 

Or you could go study with Headhunter, or the Great Gherkin, the only true masters of Golden Dawn. It's not their egos, or their love of money, that drives them to the top; it's their spiritual worth, right?