Living the Lie

While I can accept that there may be such a thing as traditional British witchcraft, the more it involves pseudo-masonic orders, the more it loses its cultural origins in pure esoteric myth. The epitome of arrogance is the insistence that theirs be the one and only true path, privy to their initiates. Well, unless they're Jewish, they can shove that bogus Babylonian lineage where no light shines, especially looking at the most recent DNA studies

Of course your wonderful collection of new agey books isn’t gonna tell you where they're really coming from- rather only so much as to allure you into paying every penny even for the sake of argument. These days, they seem to descend on forums en masse, making all kinds of enigmatic claims, which they avidly defend with every double-talking tactic of a snake oil merchant. However, they are nowhere near as dangerous as the ones who acquired their credentials through outright  treachery and intimidation.

While I am sure there are some genuine chapters that humbly abide by charitable means, the unfortunate fact is that some just can't resist the urge to let any degree of secret authority completely go to their heads. Indeed, this has been my experience with a certain English chapter in Strasbourg. Fortunately the French are real sticklers when it comes to the code of ethics, and disbanded the lot for "dubious practices". A particular orangeman from Dublin playing both sides against the middle to assume the role of civilian secret police in the Canadian military community. All the incredible lies told to avert attention from his own very dark past, namely developing the atomic bomb for South Africa. Oh, how they all wanted to believe this was untrue, but even that admonishing article in the local paper could not conceal the fact. "Researching radio isotopes in the world's largest dynamite factory". How he loved to wave those special gov't security passes in our faces, and especially the quaint little info card on the policies of apartheid to be upheld...but as the story goes, you can't fool all of the people all of the time. The moment of truth came when he aspired a feather in cap by giving the French Grand Master a guided tour of his secret empire. A police friend and I took the liberty of informing our mutual friend, the chief of the regional French customs office. Needless to say, the tour came to a most unexpected halt at the border as the gendarmerie tore the fool's car apart...and so began his rapid decent into the quagmire of suspicion. In the end, his office was searched and 34 dirt files recovered that he'd been keeping on us Locally Engaged Employees- with every intent of having us ostracized by those German authorities within the influencial allegiances of his brotherhood. Although it may take years to clean up the mess he made of our lives, at least I stirred enough flack that the parties in question will always remain under suspicion by a much higher authority.