Biography of Imperator David Griffin
David Griffin is S.L. MacGregor Mathers' present sucessor as Imperator of the Alpha Omega Rosicrucian Mystery School and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Griffin is fluent in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, and English. David is today charged with the mission to train Magicians in the ancient Hermetic Mysteries of Solar Ascension.
As Bishop Ioannes, Griffin is also an independent Christian Bishop whose work is sustained by multiple lines of apostolic successions, which you can learn more about here.
Griffin is also a high grade Freemason (33, 90, 96 Degree - Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Mizraim in possession of the complete and true Arcana Arcanorum. He is also 32 AASR, KT, and IX Degree in the Swedish Rite.
Griffin additionally holds substantial Rosicrucian initiatic transmissions. These include the Gold und Rosenkreutz Order, the Asiatic Brethren (Fratres Lucis), the Societas Rosicruciana of Backstrom, Reaux Croix, and the Rose Cross of Egypt (Rose Croix d'Orient), the Frères Ainées de la Rose Croix (F.A.R.+C.) and several other European Rosicrucian and Hermetic orders and societies that shall remain unnamed.
From 1992-1994, Cris Monnastre regularly initiated and advanced David Griffin into each of the Grades of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn at the Alpha et Omega II temple in Los Angeles, then into the Portal and Adeptus Minor grades of the R.R. et A.C.
In 1994, Cris Monnastre was involved in a Golden Dawn schism. Griffin sided with Monnastre and became Imperator Ordinis of the Monnastre's Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In 1998, Cris Monnastre retired from the Golden Dawn, leaving Griffin in charge. In 1999, Griffin was advanced through the 7=4 Grade of the Golden Dawn's Second Order (R.R. et A.C.) at the Ahathoor Temple No. 7 in Paris.
The lineages descending from Desmond Bourke, Countess Bourkoun, and Marquis Tereschenko were transmitted to Griffin, who took the initiatic name of "Lux Ex Septentrionis" (Light From the North, which was the motto used by one of MacGregor Mathers' "Secret Chiefs" in Paris). Griffin's Golden Dawn order (formally Monnastre/Griffin's) was merged into the European headquartered, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Today it has been merged into the Alpha Ωmega.
David Griffin's is the author of the record-breaking, Ritual Magic Manual (Golden Dawn Publishing: 1999), in which Griffin finished the integration begun by S.L. MacGregor Mathers of the Qabalistic and Enochian systems for the elemental and astrological magic of the Golden Dawn.
In 2002, David Griffin met in Paris with Frater L.E.T., representing the same Continental European order of Hermetic alchemists who had initiated Kenneth MacKenzie, to whom S.L. MacGregor Mathers referred to as the "Secret Chiefs." Griffin received the same Hermetic and Rosicrucian lineages transmitted earlier to MacKenzie by Count Apponyi and to Mathers by Lux E Tenebris, as well as an esoteric corpus and skeletal initiation rituals with which to create the "Third Order" that had since its inception been intended to complete the "three order" system of the Golden Dawn.