After years of claiming that his reconstituted Golden Dawn/A.O. was the only one with physical secret chiefs in charge, David Griffin appears to have been abandoned by them.
According to Griffin’s co-chief, Jean Pascal-Ruggiu introduced him to his secret chiefs and gave David the much-desired connection to the Golden Dawn third order, which Griffin craved.
Griffin wanted Golden Dawn lineage for some time. He initially hoped to get a Regardie lineage from his first teacher, Chris Montastra. Still, when he realised that these were easy to get, he obtained a paper lineage from Robert Word, which was obtained from a U.K. masonic collector, Desmond Bourke. Bourke weakened Griffin’s claim by denying he had a right to give it out, and while defending his lineage against claims from Pat Zalewski that it was worthless, Griffin looked elsewhere.
Pascal-Ruggiu was exceptionally well-connected with the continental magical scene and several alchemical groups based around the teachings of Fulcanelli. When he signed up for Griffin’s order in the early days, there was no mention of secret chiefs, so either he had not met them, or they had not revealed themselves to be secret chiefs.
However, according to Ruggiu, in 2002, a council of secret chiefs was formed to rule Griffin and Ruggiu’s order. A person who happened to have the same motto as the founder of the Golden Dawn, Samuel Mathers’ contact Frater Lux E Tenebris, was supposed to act as the council’s spokesman.
Griffin wrote: “Frater L.E.T. represented the same Continental European order of Hermetic alchemists who had initiated Kenneth MacKenzie, to whom S.L. MacGregor Mathers referred to as the “Secret Chiefs.” Griffin and Ruggiu received the same Hermetic and Rosicrucian lineages transmitted earlier to MacKenzie by Count Apponyi and to Mathers by Lux E Tenebris, as well as an esoteric corpus and skeletal initiation rituals with which to create the “Third Order” that had since its inception been intended to complete the “three order” system of the Golden Dawn.”
Griffin was to get much secret teaching, related to alchemy, which he would install as third-order teaching within the Golden Dawn. The emphasis on alchemy and the often quoting of Fulcanelli in papers by the secret chiefs seemed to show that they were based around Ruggiu’s circle.
According to Griffin: “Secret Chiefs had transmitted to us the grade rituals and complete curriculum for the highest grades of the order (8=3, 9=2, and 10=1)... we revealed the importance and prominence of Hermetic Internal Alchemy in the Golden Dawn’s Third Order. We also revealed how Third Order alchemical processes, in symbolical and analogical ways, permeate the entire Golden Dawn grade rituals, knowledge lectures, and even the R.R. et A.C. magical system. We further revealed that the Third Order possesses a clear explanation of all of the advanced alchemical processes encoded in every aspect of the Golden Dawn.”
Then, last year, Ruggiu resigned as the Imperator of Griffin’s order and closed down his Ahathoor Temple no. 7. Griffin played this down, saying that Jean-Pascal remained in the A.O. However, he has stepped down from all leadership roles while developing a new order in France. But around this time, he started making bizarre claims about the masonic SRIA and the Order of the Rose and Cross attacking him, which might have been a move to distract his followers from the importance of Ruggiu’s exit.
Ruggiu did not go quietly. He moaned online to various sources that Griffin did not live up to his end of the bargain with the Secret Chiefs and failed to carry out even the most basic of alchemical experiments. If practical alchemy was so crucial to the inner orders of the A.O., then why wasn’t its leader practising it?
Recently, the link between Ruggiu and Griffin soured further. In a Facebook post, Ruggiu said he was the only link Griffin had for the Third Order, which was cut when he resigned. He said that he introduced Griffin to the secret chiefs in his home. So, if members of the A.O. wanted secret chiefs with their magic order, they needed to talk to him.
That would only sometimes have indicated that the A.O. had lost its secret chiefs, as they might have continued to work independently with Griffin. But Ruggiu said that Griffin had angered the Secret Chiefs greatly.
“They say he has betrayed them!” he wrote on Facebook.
The Master told Ruggiu that Griffin did not help him but “just exploited him” and wrote a “very insulting letter to the council of Masters.” The result was that the Secret Chiefs decided to leave him.
None of this information indicates if Griffin is disconnected from the Italian couple, which he introduced in a disastrous lecture at Pantheacon. They went by the name of del Bosco Sacro, who ran an Italian wiccan circle which appeared to be based on Leyland and the Golden Bough and did not attract much interest. However, Griffin was heard to describe them as his secret chief. We have not heard of this couple for some time amongst Griffin’s postings, although all the websites he set up explaining their methods are still live.
What is telling is that Griffin has made no comment about the Ruggiu disclosures. His more recent comments about Secret Chiefs have been less that he has a connection with them but more historical hair-splitting about whether they exist. Ruggiu, after his latest Facebook posting, has also been quiet about the matter.
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