Yes I said that (the David Griffin edition)

No denial here--yes, I did say that.

Facebook down, Instagram down, can't play Vikings Gone Wild!, Bejeweled Blitz is unavailable, Hulu seems to be missing also...oh, I guess it is time for an installment of "Yes, I said that!" the delightful game where I admit to saying and doing things that has upset various people on the internet.

And tonight's offended contestant is the ever delightful David Griffin. There are many things I have said and did that Griffin, and his rabid followers, are annoyed with.

Perhaps the best one to start with is what I said when I recently learned that paid government trolls were trying to discredit him. Yes, I said, "Wait a second! You can get paid to annoy and discredit this man?! Where do I sign up?"

Is there a conspiracy to destory him and his Order? Hell, if I know. But I would love to get a paycheck simply for annoying the man--that would so beat writing erotica and grave robbery for a living.

Hey, it is not like David Griffin and me will ever be besties.

Not that he hasn't tried to be nice to me. For instance, in late December, he posted the following picture to his Golden Dawn Facebook group.

Colorado Kitteh sez Dude, I tink dis was some bad catnip!

Problem is that a couple of days later, David Griffin complained about people causing discussions to go off-topic with non-magical talk, including talk about the legalization of marijuana.

David Griffin feels that I am part of the plot to destory him and his Order, and his Facebook group. 

Honestly, I wasn't trying to derail his discussions. But yes, I was guilty of talking about the legalization of marijuana. Some members of his Facebook group did not understand why he had tagged me with the Bad Catnip kitty. So, I had to explain that it was a joke, that Griffin knew that I lived in Colorado, that I was a supporter of the legalization of marijuana, and that I was the caretaker of a feral cat colony as well as being the pet of several cats. And considering that this was the only discussion talking about the legalization of marijuana, I guess I should have just ignored the questions of those who did not understand the joke in the first place, and allowed Griffin to explain why he was tagging me in a cat picture. 

I was a little surprised that he went on to say that anoyomous bloggers had called him, "HugASatanist Griffin." Yes, an anoymous blogger did popularize that nickname, but they were not the ones who coined the nickname. Yes, I was the first person to say that Griffin wanted us to hug Satanists. It happened during the lead-up to last year's MagickAll--an event that featured E. A. Koetting as a guest speaker, At a certain point, the non-Griffin Golden Dawn community, which represents maybe a whole one percent of the GD community (the other 99% being firm Griffinites) got upset that E. A. Koetting would be invited to a Golden Dawn sponsored event, due to him being a black magician, and the Golden Dawn Neophyte oath containing the clause that one promises not to do black magic ever. 

(It should be noted that I have heard that Griffin's Order, being the most modern and progressive, as well as best lineaged, GD group today does not include this anti-black magic clause in their Neophyte oath, therefore, black magicans are welcomed in the HOGD/AO; and not having the clause, the HOGD/AO could actually invite a black magician to lecture their members on how to do black magic.)

Yes, I was super hostile about Griffin and Koetting being besties.

My coining of the nickname, HugASatanist, was probably the politest thing I said during the uproar. At one point, Griffin said that anyone protesting the attendance of E. A. Koetting at MagicakAll was a racist (a feat done by swapping out the term "black magician" for the term "black man" in the hostile statements made by the non-HOGD/AO community), and that it was also Wiccan bashing--both accusations got my Irish up, and I said a lot of hostile stuff in return. And yes, I recently said that I found it ironic that Griffin now finds Koetting to be a dangerous black magician. 

Speaking of nicknames, yes, it is true that yesterday when someone asked why Griffin is so obsessed with the SRIA, claiming that the SRIA are out to destory him and his Order, I said, "One of the reasons that he who must be mocked talks so much about the SRIA, is simply the fact that legally he is not allowed to name another Order that he fought a court battle against--the SRIA shares a common member with this unnamable Order." The common member last name, for those who are unaware of this factiod, is Cicero. But the important part is that I just coined a new nickname for Griffin, "he who must be mocked."

Another thing that I recently said is that I thought that his ad copy (blurb) for his latest video, and the video itself, was simple fear mongling. (I have said several times in the past that I feel that Griffin is using fear and conspiriacies as selling points, and a way to bind the members of his group to his leadership--so it is nothing new in what I said about his marketing style.) I also said that I did not like his Starship video background special effect, that his movements were awkward, and that the information content of the video was extremely low. I also mentioned that I felt that the fact that E. A. Koetting was now being used as the archvillian evil black magician to be especially ironic. Of course, I do not feel completely bad about this, for I recently learned, thanks to a posting by someone that I am positive is a sock puppet (yes, I said that someone was using a sock puppet to fed Griffin advertising opportunities), that Griffin believes that even my serious videos on the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram are nothing more than jokes. I would repeat what I said about the man after I heard this, but I really do not need to do so--my regular readers know that I occasionally swear like a sailor. 

No, I am not in serious competition with Griffin--I tend to avoid the "I am under magical attack" audience.

The most insulting thing I have probably said, in the last six months about David Griffin, was about his Facebook group. One of the things that I dislike about his group is that it tends to be knee deep in people who have never cracked open a book on the Golden Dawn. Now, I do understand that Griffin's version of Golden Dawn is not the same one that I am accustomed to--that in his Order, the Grade initiation rituals are not nearly as important, and that one can actually do all the Grade work before recieving the initations, something that is impossible to do in the version of the GD that I work with.

But because his Order is set up that way, his Facebook group, in my opinion, bogs down in conversations where people are claiming to be the next Messiah, smarter than everyone else about the Golden Dawn, despite the fact that they do not know the first thing about Golden Dawn as far as I am concerned. And yes, I did say on more than one occasion that it is the price you pay for wanting to have the biggest and most active Golden Dawn Facebook group, as well as an Order that is built to handle vast masses of people--something that I have said on several occasions is not what GD is about. 

It is because of that trend of crap conversations filled to the brim with nonsense, that I have said that I follow his Facebook group for "purely entertainment reasons." Yes, I said that the only value his group offers me is its entertainment value. Now, this is not always true--occasionally, a good conversation does happen there, but it could be weeks between good conversations. Weeks where, as far as I am concerned, his Facebook group exists solely for making me laugh. 

So why do I say the things I say about Griffin? 

One, my style of Golden Dawn is different than his. I am outright conservative in my approach to Golden Dawn when my style is compared to Griffin's. The only thing that Griffin is more conservative about is the subject of lineage, which makes sense considering his Order's lineage traces back to the Ancients and was authorized by the Pharoahs themselves. My own lineage only traces back to a bunch of Odd Fellows who also decided to work the Golden Dawn system.  

Two, I get caught up in the flame war. The instance that Griffin accused me of being involved in a conspiracy against him and his Order, I became part of the oppostion. At heart, I am an angry blogger, and I am quite willing to be angry at him, just for the heck of it. 

Three, I refuse to make peace with the man. I was raised in a household where one carried grudges to the grave. Once I was gifted with the accusation of being his enemy, my upbringing kicked in and dig a trench and a no man's land, complete with barb wire and land mines. 

But most importantly, I say stuff about Griffin because it amuses me to do so. I take great delight in mocking the man on a regular basis. Of course, given my family background, this probably means that I really, really love Griffin--for arguing and fighting and insulting one another was a family pasttime during my childhood. 

And on that note, I leave you with two memes I created about David Griffin, and one that I got from someone else. Yes, I am the person who created the first and third memes. And yes, all three memes amuse me very much...especially when sharing them with the entire world. 

Based on an extensive scientific study, this is what David Griffin posts on the internet. 

And we all know it is true because Griffin says it is. 

Hey, I say that this line from Third Rock From the Sun fits Griffin to a T.