a) It's a joke.
b) I'm insane.
c) It's a desperate plea for:
i) the men in white (or black) to take me away.
ii) the government to lock me up.
iii) the Secret Chiefs to contact me.
d) It's real.
e) Some strange combination of the above.
I doubt you'll be likely to take d) seriously, but consider the following article.
(Note: this article was written before Fratre V.E.C. actually met the Secret Chiefs, and thus it contains many subtle errors. Still, it contains many vital hints.)
In my viewpoint, the following statements are true: magic is real, non-material beings exist, God is real (using a kabbalistic conception of God), and Aleister Crowley was a brilliant, powerful magician, though he was neurotic (or worse). Crowley is difficult to understand, and it's hard to tell what he really means. However, from his writings, and the writings of MacGregor Mathers, H.P. Blavatsky, and many others better informed than I, it seems as though there truly are a group of powerful people, call them the Secret Chiefs, Hidden Masters, or Illuminati, that wield a significant amount of behind-the-scenes power in our world.
Much has been written about these beings, though none can agree exactly what they are or what they are trying to do. Some theorize that there may be two or more mutually antagonistic "Illuminated" groups. Perhaps these beings still exist in human bodies, or perhaps they are non-material. Certain Christian Fundamentalists have incorporated the idea of the Illuminati in their paranoid millenial fantasies. For the purpose of this article, I'd like to ask you to temporarily ignore all previous theories you may have heard, so you can hear my ideas with a fresh mind.
To start, I should define some terms as I will use them. I will define "The Secret Chiefs" as very powerful magicians, who may be immortal or non-material, and do whatever it is they do for what they perceive to be our benefit. This is somewhat the way Crowley, Mathers and Blavatsky use the term. For "Illuminati", I'll mean physically incarnate magicians who must have attained some form of enlightenment, but whose motives are suspect. Perhaps I'll talk about them in a later article. This article will focus on the Secret Chiefs.
In Theosophy, there is the idea that we reincarnate, and we exist on the physical plane only until we have learned certain things, at which point we need no longer reincarnate. (Yes, Theosophy is derived from Hinduism.) Thus, there is an anti-carnal bias, an anti-material bias, and an anti-sex bias contained in Theosophy, which one might expect from it's Victorian roots. (H.P. Blavatsky, founder of Theosophy, didn't quite live according to these biases.) According to some theorists, our desire for sex is one of the things chaining us to this material world. (We should expect H.P.B. and Crowley to come back to us.)
So, Secret Chiefs would therefore have evolved beyond the desire for material pleasures, and may not even have material bodies. They would likely consider this to be the ideal state, and desire to bring us all into this state "for our own good." It is the general assumption that the Secret Chiefs don't have to be active on our world, but choose to in order to help us evolve to where they are.
In his book "Zanoni", (a difficult book to find, but well worth reading) Bulwer-Lytton writes of two immortals: one Mejnour, who is forever old, logical, and emotionless, and one Zanoni, who is forever young, idealistic, and passionate. Mejnour appears to be what Blavatsky considers to be a Secret Chief, although Mejnour is physically immortal------(I'm still in the procees of turning my old rough draft into something more presentable)
