Read some of the wild and ungrounded accusations made by David Griffin and his A.O. Golden Dawn on the serious subject of long distant initiation and you may be shocked at how a twist here and a turn there could cause fear in someone considering legitimate long distant initiation. Read this article and discover the truth about astral initiation.
David Griffin’s accusation and comments are in red italics.
Our order is a direct lineal descendent of the original Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in Britain in 1888, and operates an extensive network of fully chartered and licensed Golden Dawn temples throughout North America and Europe. We offer True Golden Dawn Initiation with highly trained Hierophants and candidates each physically present in traditional Golden Dawn temples.
There are several Orders who could make the exact same claim and some whose lineage is far stronger that David Griffin’s so called French A/O. lineage. Many Golden Dawn scholars believe that there is no direct descendant of the Golden Dawn, while others believe that only through the American Temples established by Mathers is there a true lineage. The point is that a lineage argument as a way f borrowing power and authority does not work for the A.O/GD. The only provable lineage that David Griffin holds was that he was once initiated by Chic Cicero of the H.O.G.D. (Florida Corp.)
The acquisition of a trademark has nothing to do with authicinity or lineage either. This would be akin to saying McDonald invented the hamburger. The trademark office simply wants to know if you have filled out the paper work correctly and have paid the fees. They won’t even help you defend your trademark; you need to do that yourself with your own attorneys. This is exactly what Chic Cicero of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (Florida Corp.) did to stop David Griffin from using the name Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the U.S. Prior to this David also called himself the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Since then, David has developed the Alpha ET Omega presentation with a whole new claim on lineage. This is a brilliant marketing scheme, considering he can no longer legally use the GD name in the United States. Now, I am not about to talk negative about what David Griffin and his Order teach, I will simply say that negative marketing and bashing of other groups that do not agree with his so called landmarks is a very negative way to try and attract people into his Order.
As far as trained Hierophants, all Hierophants go through extensive training. A qualified Hierophant knows how to create astral god forms in the Hall of the Neophyte and they understand astral/spiritual current. If David Griffins AO/GD does not understand how raise energy, create god forms, or direct energy and initiate a current of Light, then literally everyone in the Golden Dawn community would question their level of training.
Since I personally doubt that he and his Hierophant are not ignorant about the validity of Astral Initiation, and they know that virtually everything that takes place in the Hall of the Neophyte is based in the spiritual/astral current, we can only conclude that calling groups who provide Astral Initiation a scam or dangerous is simply another negative marketing ploy. Sadly, this type of marketing from David Griffin and his A.O. group is similar to gutter level American politics. We certainly hope this is not intentional, and call for him to make positive changes that express his view without the need to scare innocent people from proceeding on the pathway of Light within The Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn or the Self Initiation group or any other G.D. Order of Light that he has attacked or bashed.
We warn the public about dangerous Astral and Self Initiation scams recently invented by start-up Golden Dawn groups attempting to exploit people’s desire for short cuts, falsely portrayed as legitimate alternatives to True Golden Dawn Initiation.
Since Leister Crowley and Israel Regardie published the Golden Dawn’s initiation rituals and parts of the Golden Dawn magical system, Golden Dawn teachings have had a huge impact on the entire esoteric community. This has been a mixed blessing, however. Many Golden Dawn temples closed because of it, but it has also aroused a great deal of public interest in Golden Dawn teachings and created a flood of newly started “Golden Dawn” groups based on this published material.
Thousands of people today already practice Golden Dawn magic on their own using Israel Regardie’s books before joining the Golden Dawn looking for additional guidance, supervision, and training. People join the Golden Dawn looking for training in magic and expecting True Golden Dawn Initiation physically present in a traditional Golden Dawn temple.
Golden Dawn start-up groups could be of great service by making True Initiation available to more beginners than would otherwise be possible. Although these start-up groups don’t have any Golden Dawn lineage or other real connection to the original Golden Dawn, they could nonetheless be helpful at least in properly initiating and training beginners, despite that Regardie’s publications leave off at the relatively low, Adeptus Minor level.
Again, David Griffin refuses to make a legitimate point about astral initiations, rather he chooses to brand others by calling them Golden Dawn start –up groups. Again, the entire Golden Dawn community and we positively know that David was very late in the Golden Dawn work. While others like Chic Cicero, Pat Zawleski, Robert Zink, were active in Golden Dawn workings or temples, David was begin trained by Pat Behman, a very good teacher we might add who was personally trained by Israel Regardie.
Now if anyone should be associated with Aliester Crowley, it should be David Griffin. Shortly after Chic Cicero initiated him he came back to Chic and proclaimed himself the true leader of the Golden Dawn. Chic and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn quickly expelled David Griffin. Since then he has been trying to build an Order, claiming to be the one true lineage. We think David is very ambious and has a great deal to offer the occult community, but scaring people into believing the astral or self initiation is a scam is beneath him. We will not attack him or his Order, rather we simply ask David Griffin to stop attacking everyone else.
A serious problem has arisen, however, because many local areas still remain without legitimate Golden Dawn temples, so a fair number of people seeking True Initiation have to travel to get to a legitimate Golden Dawn temple. Unfortunately, some start-up groups have tried to exploit people’s desire for short cuts by inventing dangerous Astral and Self Initiation scams, falsely claiming that these are legitimate alternatives to True Golden Dawn Initiation but without the need to travel. This is a terrible deception, not only because it cheats people out of the full benefits of True Initiation, but also because it dangerously exposes them to destructive astral forces and possession by low astral entities. In fact, Astral Initiation has gotten such a bad reputation that some start-up groups have started calling this scam Long Distance Initiation instead.
There you go again David. Throwing the boogieman at people who do not live near a Temple. The real deception is the hard cold fact that the entire initiation and virtually more everything practiced in the Golden Dawn are astral or spiritual in nature. Macgregor Mathers instituted Long Distance Initiation for people in the U.S. who are far more spread out than in England and France. We have solid proof that Astral or long distant imitation works, we have two Chiefs of our Order that began as astral initiates. If astral initiation has got a bad rap, it has been through David Griffin’s negative marketing campain. Next David could be telling people not to do the LBRP cause the pentagrams are astral. Maybe the A.O.temples do not create astral god forms. If so, I would suggest a further examination of the Z-doc are in order. But again, we know you to be an intelligent man David, and that you have some basic knowledge of the Golden Dawn, therefore we suggest you use it, rather than use scare tactics and gutter propaganda to derive people to your Order.
Here are some of the astral/spiritual things that happen or are created in the Hall of the Neophyte:
- Banishing of the Temple (Pentagrams are astral)
- Evocation of the Arch Angels (Arch Angels are visualized in the astral/spiritual)
- Invoking rituals (Symbols are astral/spiritual)
- Godforms in the Hall of the Neophyte (All god forms are involved in the astral)
- Influx of Light (spiritual/astral)
- Stigmata on the Candidate (astral/spiritual)
The spiritual integration of Light within the Body, the soul, and the mind take place in the Hall of the Neophyte and the process of initiation. This process happened in long distant initiation as well as physical initiation. People from a variety of traditions know and it is equally valid in the Golden Dawn. There is not reason to have to travel all over the world back and forth and spend thousand when a valid astral/long distant initiation will provide you everything you would expect in a physical initiation. Plus, in the Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn you can visit any Temple anytime there is a Neophyte Initiation and participate physically. Our Temples are not rented Masonic Lodges; they are FREE Standing Temples and provide monthly physical initiations.
We hope this will put this discussion to rest. We additionally believe it is critical that the negatively stop. Our Order refuses to engage in negative marketing. While we are concerned at all the negative marketing directed at as, and the inflation of lineage by David Griffin, we still must believe that most GD groups are on the pathway of Light.
