Secret Chief cat is fascinated by this discussion.
There is no innovation in Golden Dawn magick! If there were, the same three or four topics would not get endlessly recycled on GD blogs and fora across the internet, year after year after year…
Just this week, for example, Nick Farrell has resurrected another old chestnut, the question of the reality of the Secret Chiefs. I could shove in my ha’pennorth on the subject… but looking back through my own blog posts I realise I am guilty of joining in the eternal gyres
Recently though I have seen this post on Magic of the Ordinary, and I thought I just had to respond to the four hypotheses that Peregrine advances.
I disagree with all four of them – and instead advance a fifth hypothesis of my own.
I have met in my life three or four people who could possibly be “Secret Chiefs.” NONE of them had internet access, nor used emails, nor ever attempted to go online in anyway. They communicate in strange, esoteric ways, such as using snail-mail (or, as it is known in the Third Order, “mail”), talking to people face to face – or, in the case of one potential Secret Chief who is particularly computer illiterate, getting her daughter to handle email communications on her behalf. 😉
This is a strange concept for some people who are addicted to the internet to grasp, but the fact of the matter is that if the Secret Chiefs are for real, they probably would not publicly respond to Nick’s challenge for quite innocent reasons, such as not being on the internet they haven’t read of it. One can get so addicted to being online that one should remember that 93% of the world’s population is not on Facebook, and as far as I’m aware that includes the Secret Chiefs as well.
If however I am mistaken, then I would say that I know which one of Peregrine’s four hypotheses is most likely… unfortunately I am bound by zillions of oaths of secrecy from saying. 😉
Sol Ascendans - The Website of Alex Sumner 
Alex Sumner’s answer to Who are the secret chiefs of the Masons? – Quora
Most Worshipful Brother Francis Bacon
The Theosophist, Charles Leadbeater, alleged that the Secret Chief or “the Head of all true Freemasons” is Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban. (Note the use of the present tense despite the fact that Bacon is popularly believed to have died in 1626).
Some Memphis-Misraim rites believe that the Secret Chief of Freemasonry is a character named “Elias Artista,” whom Paracelsus first described as a sort of mythical patron saint of Alchemy. There are probably people who believe that Francis Bacon and Elias Artista are the same person.
Of course, whether you chose to believe this is another matter. Most Worshipful Brother Bacon has requested his name not be disclosed, so all true Freemasons will deny the existence of a Secret Chief of Freemasonry – as witness the other answers to this question.
Source: Alex Sumner’s answer to Who are the secret chiefs of the Masons? – Quora
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