On the 18th of January 1902, readers in distant New Zealand opened their morning paper to a London report headlined, “The Sentence in the Horos Case.”
The article detailed the conviction of Theodore and Laura Jackson—self-styled initiates who had masqueraded as members of the Golden Dawn, defrauded their followers, and brought public disgrace upon the Order.
This exposure delivered a stark lesson —when the Mysteries are exposed to the uninitiated, they often attract imitation, not reverence. Once released from obligation and custodianship, the Order’s methods were easily misappropriated—and then just as easily abused.
In modern conditions, even minimal safeguards have collapsed. A proliferation of “Golden Dawn” books and the internet have dismantled the age-old initiatic test of time and effort.
Open-source occult material now circulates without discrimination, granting the unbalanced, the immature and the unethical equal access to means never intended for indiscriminate use.
The 21st Century has not been without its dramas, and the dangers of imitation and misappropriation are no longer marginal. In fact they are multiplied.
A new chapter has begun. Artificial intelligence is poised to amplify imitation, to simulate false authority, and to make the spiritually inept sound convincingly adept—and at scale through online media.
The faculty of common sense, best illustrated by the station and regalia of the Sentinel, had better be attentive. It is needed now, even more than in 1902.
Kasmillos
Note: The original newspaper report from the New Zealand Herald, archived at the National Library of New Zealand, can be viewed here:-
