Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-01-11 Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Request Information

 * Request made by: JMax555, M1ss1ontom a rs2k4 (T


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Golden Dawn tradition entries.


 * Who's involved?
 * Myself and persons unknown.


 * What's going on?
 * Anonymous editing by persons promoting a baised POV toward one particular group or another.


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * I have been trying to keep the entry as NPOV as possible. People keep making edits with many links in the text to their own particular Golden Dawn group and including editorial POV comments. Looking at the history of the entry it's obvious this has been a continuing problem. An ongoing lawsuit over the use of the name "Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn" is undoubtably fueling rivalries between the factions.


 * If you'd prefer we work discreetly, how can we reach you?
 * I can be reached by e-mail at joseph_max@excite.com

Comments by others

 * There appears to be an onging edit war:
 * Golden Dawn tradition
 * Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn


 * Fraterhh and Frater_SSGD seem to have appeared very recently just to insert POV material on these pages. Prior to their appearance various anon users have also been adding POV material.

Please see the reply to the recent editing and dispute on the Golden Dawn tradition article at the bottom of this page.Frater FiatLux 03:23, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


 * In the last few days I have watched JMax555's valiant efforts to maintain NPOV but he's getting gang-banged and it's difficult to keep up. I'm thinking Semi-protecting these pages would be a good idea.--◀Pucktalk▶ 16:48, 13 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Another anon user and a new user, Dr. John Gold, whose only contributions have been to post links to the EOGD web site, have appeared. I've reached my three reverts for Golden Dawn tradition.--◀Pucktalk▶ 21:59, 14 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Reverted again to NPOV version. -- JMax555 07:14, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Reverted AGAIN to NPOV version. -- JMax555 17:14, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I will put in a semi-protect request. --M1ss1ontom a rs2k4 (T 21:16, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I just got through reading WP:COOL. As for me I'm taking it to heart and will back off for a few days. At least I'll try.--◀Pucktalk▶ 19:51, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


 * For the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn page- There seem to be two main points of contention. The first is the question as to whether certain documents should be included as part of the foundation of the Golden Dawn. JMax555 seems to believe that certain documents called the Cipher Manuscripts should be exclusively understood to be the root of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. However, this is only his opinion, and there are many others in the Golden Dawn community who feel that such a representation is too limited, including authors such as Pat Zalewski, who has authored over a dozen books about the Golden Dawn. Pat Zalewski recently wrote, "The ciphers are not the GD, they are a major contributing array of finer point on rituals but they are not the magical process the GD rituals are." Thus, others have been attempting to include the full complement of documents in the article, but JMax555 has been consistently censoring this.


 * In repsonse: The issue here is one of the baseline definitions. Every currently active Golden Dawn organization agrees that the Cipher Manuscript is indeed the establishng document of the tradition. The disagreement arises when other documents or practices are added on to this foundation. Zalewski believes the Z Documents are fundamental in defining the tradition. Cicero does not, so it is not "only" my opinion. The two foremost published authors on the subject disagree on the Z Document's importance to the tradition, and it is therefore improper to insist that the Z Documents be described as canonical without qualification. The OSOGD, the group I belong to and to which our Chief Adept (an office like the "president", in a manner of speaking) is a member of the HOGD Board of Directors, agrees with Cicero that the Z Documents are valuable technical documents and an valid expansion on the Cipher, but adhering to them 'religiously' is not required to be defined as a "Golden Dawn Order." If anything, the controversy should be noted in the Wikipedia article, not ignored with only one side of the controversy being enshrined as being "true". Especially improper was the edit by "Dr. Gold" that tried to append this one-sided definition on to the HOGD (Inc.) entry, which was blatantly untrue. The heading of the article is "Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn", and Cicero is the holder of the trademark to that name, as well as publishng even more books on the subject than Zalewski; while a respected scholar of the tradition, Zalewski does not operate a working Order, nor has ever presented himself as representing "Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn." So the position of the HOGD (Inc.) in this matter -- i.e. that adherence to the Z Documents is NOT required to be considered a valid Golden Dawn Order -- must be given a considerable amount of weight, not simply eliminated from the article. -- JMax555 02:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The second point of contention concerns some links and whether they should be included in the article. As a source, I used a link which is run by a Golden Dawn Order. JMax555 seems to feel that the inclusion of this link would be embracing a biased point of view. However, by eliminating the link, he is also eliminating the documentation of my source. JMax555 himself is a leader in an Order which uses altered versions of the GD material, and which embraces some documents and shuns others. I believe that he thus has a hidden agenda to suppress some documents and embrace others and is attempting to dominate the representation of the Golden Dawn, and I ask the Mediators to allow other expressions of the facts to be written. -- Frater HH 19:30, 16 January 2006 (UTC)


 * In response: at the risk of excessive hyperbole, if an article on Christianity had appended to it an article by a fundamentalist Christian sect that believes Catholics are not "real Christians", that would be considered a "biased point of view", because very few Christians, even non-Catholics, support such a fringe opinion. The link Frater HH keeps posting is nothing but a chain of unsupported suppositions offering a completely undocumented (by their own admission) "theory" of the sources of the Cipher. They are of course entitled to their opinion, but it is a biased opinion, one that tends to support the EOGD's and only the beliefs on the subject. Since the article already includes a link to the EOGD website, the Wikipedia reader is able to visit their website and obtain their opinions on all these matters. But to enshrine ONE group's opinion, unsupported by any published scholarship whatsoever (including Zalewski, who believes that Westcott and Mathers probably wrote the Ciphers and the Z Documents themsleves), is a promoting a biased POV and has no place in an encyclopedia entry. -- JMax555 02:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)


 * For the Golden Dawn Tradition page- The major point of contention seems to be the description of one particular Golden Dawn Order called the Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn. JMax555 seems to have definite points that he wants to make about this particular Order for some reason, including description of their practices as 'controversial'. As the admitted leader of a rival Order, however, he has a conflict of interest, and whether he represents his own Order on the page or not, he necessarily has a biased view. -- Frater HH 20:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)


 * In response: The practice of long-distance initiationis indeed controversial; no other Golden Dawn organization listed in the article practices it, and in fact considers it highly non-traditional. I did not write that it was wrong, merely that it was controversial -- which it is. Perhaps the solution is to add a "Controversies" section to the article, which lays out the controversies and includes links to the various groups so they can have their say. -- JMax555 02:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Can this be productive?
I don't see how mediation with an anonymous party can be productive. Can we get the dissenting anon to register and use an account? Then we could start his mediation. Unfortunately, until that happens, the anon is going to be at a severe disadvantage in terms of getting their views to be taken equally versus a logged-in user. -- Cyde Weys 20:29, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm sort of hoping we can get it both pages semi-protected. The registered users seem to be reachng a grudging compromise.  The big problem now is the anons, particularly 24.22.204.79.  It has been making major changes.  I've left one warning and I've requested it leave edit summaries or justify itself on the talk pages to no avail.--◀Pucktalk▶ 07:53, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Mediator response
This seems to have simmered down, left a message for requester to see if it as or if help is still needed. --Wgfinley 02:41, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

No response, closing, can be reopened if interest. --Wgfinley 03:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Hello there. I am Cowman109Talk from the Mediation Cabal. I would recommend that you create a new request for mediation concerning this case, as several arguments from the January discussion appear to be concerning other matters. Also, only one of the links given above appears to be the source of the issue, so it appears to me that this is a different case entirely. A new case will let us start from scratch without a messy list of discussions from January, though you can link to this discussion page for reference. If you do this I'm sure mediators will be glad to help, but as it stands now, this case is quite intimidating to would-be mediators. Thanks. Cowman109Talk  14:46, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

PLEASE RE-OPEN THIS CASE. THANK YOU.
Seconded. The entire visible history of Golden Dawn tradition is just a bunch of anons adding POVcruft, then other users reverting it. --M1ss1ontom a rs2k4 (T 21:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Hm...that wasn't very civil. --M1ss1ontom a rs2k4 (T 21:13, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

My reply to the recent editing and dispute to the Golden Dawn tradition article.

Dear J. Kelly:

The only evidence that Cicero operated a Golden Dawn temple in 1977 comes from Cicero's own book, and one reference to that same book by a friend. In fact, Cicero's only formal contact in the Occult community in 1977 was the O.T.O.'s Major Grady McMurty.

While, like tens of thousands of others, Cicero may have bought a copy of Regardie's doorstopper/black book, he did not meet Regardie until Pat Behman (a/k/a Cris Monnastre) and Regardie flew down, at Behman's insistence, to Athens, Ga. This was in the early 1980s (where Cicero, as is a matter of public record, see the attached links to the affidavit of Charles Cicero, infra to this text; Cicero operated a strip club- "The Shady Lady").

Monnastre did in fact write the introduction to Regardie’s -black book- and it is P.O.V. of J.M. to attempt to link Cicero to a work totally unrelated to him. Llewellyn in fact has largely stopped publishing Cicero's works, which H.O.G.D., Inc. now markets through Thoth Publications.

Regardie's ONLY students were Pat Behman, Larry Epperson, William Kelly and Alan Millar, and Cicero has admitted that he was never initiated into ANY grade of the Golden Dawn by Regardie (all Cicero's initiations come from Epperson). In fact, Cicero only briefly met Regardie on two or three occasions. Regardie left the bulk of his papers to Alan Miller/Gary Ford's "Isreal Reardie Foundation," and gifted his magical tools to Pat Behman, (who gifted them to David Griffin).

As to the fact that Cicero licensees deviate from Golden Dawn tradition, please see the landmarks provision of the contract between Griffin/Behman's H.O.G.D. and Cicero's H.O.G.D., Inc. (and the associated sale of partnership from Behman to Griffin). The links infra to this text, to which the attached documents originate, are from public records. There is currently ongoing litigation, which seeks to invalidate these licenses. (Including those of J.M.'s group, which is heavily Thelemic in orientation).

Please note that J.M. has inappropriately, and in a very unprincipled manner, altered the H.O.G.D. entry in a manner that is not only P.O.V. but incorrect, defamatory and malicious. The correct entry should be:

"====The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn/Rosicrucian Order of the A+O====

["javascript:ol('http://www.golden-dawn.com');" Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn/Rosicrucian A+O]

is currently a sole proprietorship originally organized as a general partnership in 1992 by Patricia Behman (aka Cris Monnastre, a student of Regardie's) and David John Griffin. Behman had operated the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn temples in Los Angeles throughout the 1980s. Prompted by Regardie, Behman formed an unincorporated association with Charles Cicero and Adam Forrest. After withdrawing her endorsement from that organization in 1992 to continue the unschismed version with Griffin, she eventually sold her partnership interest to Griffin in May, 1998. Griffin's H.O.G.D. has modernized the practices of the original Order of Westcott and Mathers since it teaches all the previously published Inner Order materials and practices (notably by Regardie) in the Outer Order. It thus allows adepti to follow a structured curriculum in advanced Hermetic Alchemy. The material taught in their Outer Order is described in "The Ritual Magic Manual: A Comprehensive Course in Practical Magic", by David John Griffin. Mr. Griffin holds the European Community trademark to the name "Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn" registered with the Office of Harmonization in the Internal Market (O.H.I.M.), holds the trademark in Canada, and has a contractual agreement with H.O.G.D. Inc. to share the name "Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn" on a worldwide basis."

Please contact me should you have any questions. Thank you. Frater FiatLux 03:20, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Here are the attached links to: 1.Affidavit of Charles Cicero, 2.The landmarks provision of the contract between Griffin/Behman's H.O.G.D. and Cicero's      H.O.G.D., Inc. 3.The associated sale of partnership from Behman to Griffin.







Furthermore: The information in this, the present article, now under protection, is derived from “published” book sources. I’m not trying to make any new statements, the article in it’s present, protected form is the most accurate and the one that I am in agreement with. I’m merely validating the present version, under protection, with HARD, VERIFIABLE, ORIGINAL COURT AFFIDAVITS; as evidence for why the present version of the article, after it was rightly protected from the unscrupulous persons that kept trying to tamper with it, with a NON P.O.V., biased version. Is indeed, the correct and most neutral non P.O.V. version I feel is possible. My EVIDENCE and points made in the supra postings only go to confirm this.

I reiterate I’m not trying to change the article, or make any new statements; I’m trying to preserve the article in its present, correct, non P.O.V. version. Which is now, quite rightfully under protection from opportunists, with heavy motive, to deform and corrupt the article to their own biased P.O.V. and exacting needs.

Please contact me, should you have any further questions. Thank you, Frater FiatLux 14:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)