Excerpt 22

 

"Is there still a need in the current age to maintain the veil of secrecy surrounding many lodges, groups etc?"

Technically, there is a purpose behind secrecy in a magickal organization, but I believe too many people have confused and distorted that purpose into forms of magickal elitism. From what I can see in my own research and in talking to others with extensive group experience, secrecy is an aid for building up energetic power/pressure (from ceremony workings) within the individual - like a pressure-cooker. When you tell everyone you know exactly what it is that you're doing, then the energy/effects of your workings can tend to be diminished significantly (both from your own dispersion of the energies through indiscriminate sharing and through other people's unconscious astral/mental poking around in your business after you tell them about it).

The act of secrecy also assists in making/maintaining the temple/lodge as a special magickal place that the initiate him/herself can go to and also helps him/her quickly re-enter it (perceptually/mentally) every time they return to the lodge/temple. Telling everyone about this 'special place' cheapens it and diminishes its effectiveness in your life as a tool for personal change.

Secrecy for its own sake makes no sense nowadays when it's done for the purpose of withholding information from the masses in regard to standard occult information. Almost all of the really useful practical information on magick/occult topics used by currently operating Orders/groups has been already published. I was actually privileged to read a few high-level documents that are not openly available in print and are currently used by a big-name Order that I won't name here, and was surprised to find that there was absolutely nothing amazing about any of it. The information was rooted in traditional Hermetic Qabalah, and parts of it I had seen published elsewhere in some form or another, though not necessarily all in one convenient place such as those documents displayed. So, secrecy for the purpose of not letting dangerous info fall into the hands of the masses clearly wasn't the intent in that group, since the info was possible to be found publicly if someone looked hard enough.

I can see maintaining secrecy with regard to the physical location of a temple/order and its members for the purpose of keeping the internal energy/pressure/inertia of its ceremonies vital within the initiate of that group. And I can see maintaining secrecy for the purpose of limiting the number of requests for membership etc. (Obviously it's impossible for any group/Order to accept everyone who comes to them for initiation and still expect to function efficiently.) But I see no point in refusing to discuss already published information and methods with people who are clearly interested in learning about the information and using it in a positive and responsible manner.

It really doesn't matter if the average person knows about most of the already published (and much of the unpublished) info anyway. If he/she is psychically undeveloped then he/she won't understand it and won't be capable of making any use of it - it'll just sound like the ravings of a lunatic. The only people I can find a legitimate reason for withholding specific information from (i.e. info obtained through one's own personal astral work etc.) are OTHER MAGICKIANS of questionable character. THOSE are the only ones who could make any (potentially harmful) use of such sensitive personal information anyway.