I have had occasion when writing here to feel very sharply the sting of regret that comes from saying what is true, but perhaps best left unsaid.  Don't get me wrong - I have no reservations about shouting the ugly truth from the rooftops.  Actually, I take that back; I derive sublime pleasures unknown to lesser mortals from forcing unpleasant truths on anyone unguarded enough to listen, or unlucky enough to hear.

No, what I regret instead is the possibility of breaking kayfabe, or of fucking someone's con.  If you don't know what a con is, don't worry; someone will educate you on that matter soon enough.  (On a totally unrelated note, I will mail you an exciting account of the Astrological Secrets of the Atlantean Adepts for a mere $30 donation to my Atlantean Research Foundation.  Dig?)  As for "kayfabe" - it is a word used in various ways to refer to the professional mores of carnies, and, later, professional wrestlers - in particular, to the tabu against destroying the illusion of such enterprises as straightforward, unscripted, and "honest" in the sense of being exactly what they superficially appear to be.  Some illuminating reminiscences upon the carny millieu can be found at Quest for Slack.

Now, I maintain that kayfabe is good, and breaking it is bad.  Consider the cases of Santa Claus and Bigfoot.  Of course, in both cases, one wants the believers to eventually grow into non-believers in a certain sense, but there is a certain ineffable value brought into the world through such benign lies.  There is even a certain kind of truth to be found in each case.  Considering Bigfoot as potentially real at some point in one's life allows one a vision of the world as mysterious, uncharted, and as exceeding the grasp of even our most advanced knowingness.  And what kind of pissant world excludes strung-out carnies ripping you off with rigged games?

On bad days, I sometimes think of the world's organized religions as resulting from  the child's version of the story being remembered long after the adult's version has been forgotten - so that Santa remains a literal flesh-and-blood dude living at the actual North Pole (etc.) rather than what he is.  I suppose this is a perhaps undesirable side-effect of kayfabe having been kept too strictly.

My perception of Crowley changed considerably when I for some reason asked myself this question:  After he squandered his inheritance, How did he make his living?  After all, Heroin is (or was) expensive.  Another data point:  his involvement with the irregular (means "bogus") masonic group known as the OTO (New!  From the folks who sold you the Rites of Memphis and Mizraim!) began when they approached him accusing him of having revealed their innermost secrets in a chapter of his Book of Lies.   Many (including the always-straightforward Robert Anton Wilson) have suggested that this must have been Chapter 69, which deals with sex magick in a suspiciously transparent manner.  I suggest that the smart money is on Chapter 88, which is a meditation upon the Barnum Principle.  Certainly, this should make a great deal of sense to anyone who bothers making a sober investigation into the history of the pre-Crowley OTO.   Indeed, given their overall history, the moral of that chapter makes more than one kind of sense.  Oddly, none of this stops Crowley from having been a genuine visionary and critter of great insight - even, arguably, a great mystic.  And somehow that doesn't stop him from having been an asshole.  There is no contradition in him, or perhaps there is.

In a similar incident, Manley Palmer Hall (late of California) - esotericist, scholar, sometime crackpot-genius, man-about-town... - himself not a free-mason at the time, published a little hothouse flower of a book titled The Lost Keys of Freemasonry, which is bursting with unfounded speculations on the matter at hand.  Somehow, this publication caused him to be encouraged by actual masons to join, and in due time he enlisted in the Craft, after which time his book was effectively endorsed by some of his fellows in it (themselves, of course, sworn to secrecy, etc.).  Between this and the equally overheated works of Albert Pike, one suspects the masons of a conspiracy to promote as much nonsense about themselves as possible.  Consider how much good, by way of recruiting, is done for them by conspiracy theorists!  One imagines the young would-be initiate, lured in by Illuminatus! or, "Bob" help him, The DaVinci Code.  He kneels before the Grand Poobah.  The hoodwink is removed.  And....

"So - You fell for it too, huh?  Heh.  Okay, here's the secret handshake; now you're in.  Beer's on you, tonight, sucker.  Why the long face?  Get yours back the way I got mine!"

And yet, this is not necessarily incompatible with free-masonry as a system of personal development.  Having your illusions shattered is an unqualified win.

Having dwelt among free-thinkers and heretics, it seems natural to look into atheism - particularly the sort that draws on Nietzsche and Sartre.  How can one claim to be beyond good and evil if one insists on being seen as good - especially by oneself?  How can one claim to be free of the God concept if one still fears Satan?  One might say that the most sincere expression of atheism is to profess Satanism.  In this way, one makes it clear that the mythology of the prevailing religion has no more power over one than any other source of amusing myth and imagery that may supply entertainment - or inspire new means for freaking the mundanes.  Oh, and costumes - lots of costumes.

"But" - I hear you protest - "None of them do that!  Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Ayn Rand, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris - none of the leading atheists seem to agree with you on this.  All one sees are a scattering of real Satanists - those poor misguided fools!  Why, Satanism doesn't even make sense..."

Erm, right.  It doesn't.  Perhaps - well, perhaps you are citing the wrong names when you speak of "leading atheists".  Perhaps you forgot a big one.  Hint:  Friend of Jayne Mansfield.

Now - name all the most famous Satanists you can think of.  How many of them are in show biz?  Or even started out in show biz, and then later branched out into Satanism?

But it's a shame to say so.