Apotheosis

Esoteric Orders: A Survival Guide
          Section I: How To Find An Esoteric Order

Last Chapter: Orders in the Age of the Internet

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After doing a bunch of internet searches and web surfing, you probably have a pretty good idea of which type of tradition is calling to you.  Whether it be Wicca, Thelema, Golden Dawn, OTO, Rosicrucianism, Paganism, Shamanism, Hellenic Reconstruction or what have you, there are going to be plenty of options to reach out and connect with people of a like mind.  Yet, the goal of this endeavor is not to just meet up and chat online (although, of course, you want to do that, too).  What you’re really looking for is to uncover the information about the esoteric Orders you researched that doesn’t show up on their websites.

Due to the dynamic and rapidly changing nature of the Internet, the locations and level of activity of these online discussion groups changes over time.  Back in the 80’s, it was USENET and groups like alt.magick.  At the turn of the century, Yahoo groups were all the rage.  In the early teens of the 21^st century, most discussions seem to be through Facebook groups.  There are still websites out there set up as discussion groups, but they are becoming the exception rather than the rule.  Regardless, finding an online group that addresses your target tradition should not be that hard to do.

If you want to introduce yourself as a newcomer to the group, go right ahead.  If you want your initial message to be a little more substantive, ask for a list of good books on the tradition to read.  Jumping right in head first and asking every question you have on the top of your head, however, is not going to yield you the most effective results.  If the first thing you do once you get into a discussion group is ask what people think about Order XYZ, you will get flooded with opinions strewn across the full spectrum, heavily seasoned by all kinds of group politics.  You’re not going to know which opinions are coming from wizened members of the community and which are coming from propagandists, predators and delusional “true believers”.

The best thing you can do at this point is observe.  Dip your toe in the environment of the forum and get an idea of how feels intuitively.  If there’s too much time spent on petty bickering or the forum owners are using it as a soapbox for their political screeds or publicity stunts, find a different venue with a better signal-to-noise ratio.  Also, don’t assume that one discussion group, or a small subset of people in such a group, speak for an entire community.  For every loudmouth on the Internet, there are a hundred good seekers of the Light doing the Work in silence.

This phase of observation should not be rushed over a period of mere days.  This is about observing over a period of weeks, maybe even months.  Intertwine this observation phase with reading a couple good books focused on your chosen tradition.  I know you have a lot of questions. I know you want answers to those questions.  However, when it comes to those answers, you don’t want quantity, you want quality.  You, being a newcomer to the community and the tradition, likely will not recognize quality answers when you see them!  That is why it is so important to first observe.

Spend a fairly significant amount of time to read through the message archives or scroll through the timeline of the forum.  It shouldn’t take you very long to figure out the people to avoid.  You can easily discard those who seem to post about everything except the forum topic or tradition at hand.    They are not there to benefit the community; they are there to benefit themselves.  Steer clear of anyone who asks questions or makes comments that smack of radical pseudoscience, or worse, conspiracy theory.  They are a special amalgam of instant gratification and willful ignorance.  Bypass the ones who ask the most questions, or ask questions whose answers are easily found with a Google search.  They’re either looking for raw entertainment or quick, spoon-fed fixes, not the actual Work.  Also shy away from those people who generate the greatest amount of chatter.  For them, the discussion is more about their social circle than it is their magickal circle.  Remember, you want quality, not quantity.

By now, you’ve filtered out a vast majority of the participants, have gotten through a large chunk of your books, answered most of your own questions and generated a few new ones.  This is the time to start asking questions, but ask those questions which show that you've started doing your own research and homework.  As a rule of thumb, higher quality questions get higher quality answers from higher quality people.  Besides, by now, you will have observed enough to figure out, to some degree, which responses (and responders) can be dismissed out of hand.

As you continue to participate in the discussion group, start looking for a select few forum participants who share certain admirable qualities.  They would be the ones who listen much more than they speak.  They present themselves as knowledgeable without being pretentious or disparaging.  They are mature enough to not have to have the last word all the time.  Those qualities of character are of paramount importance, but just as important is their level of experience and longevity in the tradition.  You want to be able to talk to those people who are community builders but have been around for decades and witnessed the worst flaws of their society with their own eyes.

These are the people to which you want to ask the more sensitive, incisive questions.  Again, don’t jump right in and inundate them with your questions about the Orders out there and which one to pick.  These folks are usually extremely busy with rituals or writing or some other such community project.  They place a great value on their time and do not suffer fools gladly.  However, if you approach them with dignity and respect, and establish a rapport with them first, most of them will be more than happy to hold their Lamp of Knowledge out for you, so that you might find the Path that’s right for you.

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Next Chapter:  Fly-By-Night Mentors

Esoteric Orders: A Survival Guide
          Section I: How To Find An Esoteric Order

Last Chapter: Section I: Introduction

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Back at the turn of the 19th century, if you wanted to get involved in an esoteric Order, you needed to know somebody. Secret societies were, well, still secret back then, for the most part. On rare occasion, one might see an editorial, or even rarer, an advertisement in a fringe magazine, with contact information through postal mail, if one was lucky.

How much things have changed in a century and a quarter.

When I was initially looking for the Golden Dawn in 1997, I stumbled upon AvatarSearch one night, which billed itself as the search engine for the occult Internet. Although it’s already been gone for a few years, it did a pretty good job in its day. I remember typing in “Golden Dawn” and immediately getting half a dozen solid hits. Before I knew it, it was 3 AM, my eyes were glazed over, and so was my mind from all the information that had been thrown at it. I started out excited, and ended up inundated.  Nearly two decades later, in a World Wide Web where “Google” has become a verb, a newcomer would only get more overwhelmed.

Solid, principled esoteric Orders have to walk an interesting tightrope in the 21st century. Tradition holds that they operate under a veil of secrecy. They have their oaths to preserve and their heritage to protect. Contemporary society, however, almost demands that they present some sort of public presence. This typically rubs raw against Orders’ oaths of secrecy, but it also provides them a powerful benefit, as they also have the responsibility of their egregore to perpetuate. Finding that balance is a difficult exercise, but one that they should not shrink away from, as good Orders are all about proper equilibrium, for their members and themselves.

Because of this, websites of responsible esoteric Orders are going to be predominantly for educational and informational purposes.  If their tradition already has a rich and protracted history, plenty of space will be devoted to it.  If the Order is a variation on a tradition, or an entirely new incarnation, expect there to be some sort of founding statement or manifesto, defining itself and its raison d'être.

Every half-decent website is going to have a fairly sizeable section devoted to resources, including such things as references, articles, images, historical letters, art, news, and event announcements.  Information pertaining to the Order's teachings, even if it has been published for decades, should be significantly excised, simply out of respect to the tradition and its oaths.  However, you can get an idea of the group's mindset and center of attention from the resources they provide.  If their materials adhere closely to their own tradition, you can expect the Order to be focused and devoted to that tradition.  However, if their information spans widely across a number of different doctrines and practices, it could be evidence of a hazy concentration on, or worse, a fundamental lack of understanding of, their own tradition.

Since these sites are primarily about information, and because these Orders are still semi-secret, don’t be surprised if they make it a little difficult to find out anything about how to become a member.  In fact, you should count on it.  You might find a reference on a remote page to a post office box or an email address.  At most, there may be an online form to fill out for serious inquiries only.  Many Orders, including ones with groups, circles or temples world-wide, shy away from publishing their locations.  After all, a good Order is going to, first and foremost, be discreet.

The more dubious Orders out there do not suffer this conundrum.  In this day and age, anyone with a little pocket change and time on their hands can register a domain name and set up a slick website, replete with fluffy bunny affirmations, surrounded by lots of eye candy.  In this sense, the Internet is the “Wild Wild Web” when it comes to trying to make heads or tails of legitimate esoteric Orders.

Those types of groups, more especially the smaller ones, are more than ready to let you know how widespread they are.  The thing is, finding out that an Order has multitudinous temples across the globe really doesn’t tell you much.  When newcomers see the word “temple”, they think of a free-standing building with dozens of people participating.  Truth be told, many of the “temples” out there are a couple people running things out of their spare bedroom, if you’re lucky.

The same goes for any references to membership brought up by the website.  Simply put, the earlier there is mention of the ease, and especially the cost, of joining their Order, the sooner you know what their focus is truly on.  If the information on the main page of the website reads like the script of a bad infomercial, then it is highly likely that they are trying to sell you something.  That’s fine if you’re looking to buy a pentacle necklace, a cool talisman or some other pretty bauble, but we’re talking about the first step on a new spiritual life here.  Think about it.  If a website claims to be the elite Order of its tradition, would it be so indiscriminate of its applicants as to allow anyone with a credit card and a button click to become a member?

Along the same vein, if an Order claims that they have all the tools and tricks to make your newly-founded spiritual life instantly powerful and easy, then they are trying to take you to the cleaners.  There are many reasons why the endeavor is called “The Great Work”.  It’s because it takes a Great deal of Work to achieve it.  Any good writer can give easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions for rituals and ceremonies.  Knowledge, however, falls considerably short of gnosis, and won’t get you even near the threshold of understanding or wisdom.  Spiritual growth requires a great deal of personal introspection, admission of hard truths about yourself, and significant psychological change.  There are no short cuts.  You will not hold dominion over your own personal world until you first know thyself.  As above, so below.  As within, so without.

Remember that this is but your very first step in finding the spiritual path that is right for you at this very moment.  Surfing the web is a good opportunity to get a glimpse of what’s available out there.  However, just because certain statements and claims are out there on the Internet, that doesn’t make them true.

If you want to find the right esoteric Order, you are going to need to do more than scratch the surface.  You are going to need to crack the veneer.  There are plenty of people out there, also accessible through the Internet, who have been underneath the candy-coated shell.  You can glean a great deal of valuable information from them, if you next choose to seek them out and engage them properly.

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Next Chapter:  Engaging the Community