John Dewey is very complex. It did not come as a surprise to me that he created Lord Egan. Most people at that time had these grandiose craft names to being with, and this was true especially on the net. It made even more sense with the beginning of the First Church of Satan. It afforded him a net persona, which is not uncommon in broadcasting or entertainment.
John is like a lot of us who ended up in broadcasting for a
living. He is naturally a very shy individual. As a musician, he learned to
overcompensate for this. He could write a book on it. While I still get the shakes
before going in front of an audience or in front of the cameras, he can perform flawlessly. It has taken me years to be totally comfortable behind the
microphone. The intimacy and privacy that the keyboards of the internet have given us
certainly put enthusiasm and confidence into the life of many a person as well.
Lord Egan was born nine years ago. As with any character, automatically Egan had some of the qualities John had, and some of the qualities John assigned to him. As is often the case, we assign to our personas those parts of ourselves that we wish we could have. To this day, John and I would disagree on the type of person or character Egan was, but that is neither here or there. When you play a role day after day, you end up becoming that person sooner or later. This can have its benefits and drawbacks.
There are tricks that those in the entertainment world use to
avoid the traps. I am not going to get into those here. The past is the past and
there is no sense to argue whether or not John could have stopped what ended up happening over his nine year phase as Egan, but he did not. John lived
and breathed the FCoS and ended up spending too much time in character, thus, John
Dewey was shoved to the back burner.
Where were his friends? Good question. Most of us did nothing. His friends and family may have said things to him, and the words fell on deaf ears. His lover tried but failed. John is as stubborn as a bull, and he will admit that. For a lot of those years, John believed he was happy and doing the right thing. By 2001, a lot of us could not help but notice that there was little of John Dewey left. To quote the Brady Bunch it was all about "Egan, Egan, Egan!"
His time was spent answering positive and negative posts on the internet, email or interacting in person or on the internet with council members. It is important to note that while John's detractors have mentioned that the council was made up of just young men, this is not true. There were a majority of young men, and I have found this to be true in Satanism in general. You will find that in Wicca there is usually a high percentage of young women. This fortunately is changing. However, John did have a few experienced adults on the council. The fact is that they were not the ones who were problematic or that took up his time. They also were not the ones whose problems and issues were broadcast all over the internet. Thus, yet another Egan legend was born.
Many of us, when we build our own pagan organizations, want
to do it our own way. John is no different. I am proud to say that my own
organization, which is independent and separate from anything to do with John Allee
or the left hand path, runs by committee. In our case, the experiment worked. For
whatever reason, the gods looked favorably on us. We have the right people in the
right positions. I also started with some very young people in some very important positions. These individuals never once faltered. My point is
that John's vision and method was not incorrect.
In fact, when I first started building a site and starting a tolerance
organization, he was one of my mentors and supporters.
Building an effective group that works well together and can run an organization flawlessly is a
gift. Since I have been working with John, my site has had to basically run on its own.
These people are phenomenal. They are the best there is. They volunteer their time even when they do not have an extra second to spare.
For whatever reason, this does not happen with every
organization, be it big or small, on the net, or in a community. Grottos and covens open
and close on a daily basis throughout the world due to the inability to interact
effectively.
FCoS needed to make changes. The structure was not flawed, but personnel changes needed to be made. In my opinion, John Dewey would have seen this and dealt with it accordingly. Lord Egan was determined to make it work, no matter what. Egan broke the first rule according to Don Corleone: "It's not personal, it's business." To run an effective organization, you cannot wear your heart on your sleeve. This rule is the same whether you are running a Fortune 500 company or a corner store. Egan then broke rule #2 "You can't please everyone all of the time." He ended up becoming frustrated with various council members, and thus ended up satisfying no one, including himself. In the meantime, the council members themselves had broken rule #3. If you do not believe in your leader, you can not carry out an effective mission.
False statements about Egan and the FCoS were running rampant across the internet. The youngest council members were two busy volleying for imaginary positions rather than defending their leader or their organization. Worse, others were busy trying to get rid of members they did not like for whatever reason. Even worse, some felt it was a ripe time to attack some of Egan's views, thinking he might change them. It was a disaster waiting to happen. Egan knew it. The more mature council members knew it. Many people on the outside knew it. Egan's detractors rubbed their hands in anticipation and knew it. Then there were those of us who just buckled our seatbelts and waited for the ride.
When things get this stressful, there will come a breaking
point. Egan was spending more and more time with the FCoS problems. However, this
was about as effective as trying to save the Titanic at 1 AM with a bucket. The final
straw in his personal life came in the winter with the demise of a long term personal relationship.
For Egan, that was it. Now, because he had distanced himself from his
family and friends, all he had left was the FCoS. It was not exactly the most reliable life preserver.
A lot of comments have been made about former FCoS council
members who had left before or during the early spring of 2003. I urge that you do
not judge them too harshly. They at least stated their reasons and left. I am not
sure what is worse. Let's use the example of the Titanic again. The ones who left
early on could be likened to those who had a bad feeling and sold their tickets to someone else. The ones who stayed on are just crew members who
jumped on the lifeboats and left their captain to go down with the ship in the end.
You be
the judge.
By the end of the early spring, Egan was pretty well done. He knew it. He knew that he did not want to continue with the FCoS the way that it was. He knew that he wanted to see things go in a different direction. He had also decided he wanted some time to himself and actually return to civilian life. He wanted to have friends that were not in the FCoS and see his family now and then. Egan's only family was the FCoS. This posed a problem.
I am not going to argue about who did what and who said what in April. At this point, it is past history and not worth it. Egan wanted out. He wanted the FCoS to go on. He asked the remaining council members to take it over for a while so he could take a sabbatical, possibly for a while, possibly forever. Who knows what happened in those meetings? I was not there. Personally, I could not be happier that I was not. I do know that I have heard so many conflicting stories of what was discussed and what was decided that I wonder if anyone to this day remembers what actually happened or was decided. That is not unusual in a highly emotionally charged situation.
This is how I see it. Egan wanted out. When Egan somehow did not like what he heard or could not explain what he wanted or whatever, he told them that by killing off the persona, John Dewey would finally have the life he wanted one way or the other. He asked them to keep his secret or run with a story or something. I do know that they did run with a fictitious story. I do know John put up a story on the death of Egan on the website. I do know he "forgot" to explain that it was not John Dewey that died.
Of course, if you knew John and put together the date of the death and a few other tidbits in the tale, you would have come to the conclusion that something was up. I do also know that he wanted to be caught because he did a terrible job in faking the death. Only through the mistakes of his own council members did the persona and John Dewey Allee himself get confused.
Some people have asked me about the legality of this. It is
legal to kill off a persona. If he had stated on the website his real name - that
would have possibly been considered a federal offense. Let's say I leave John today. I
could put up on my website an announcement of the death of Lillee Allee. Currently, this is not my legal
name. Since it is not my legal name at this time, but a persona, I could do this now. Yes, it would be in poor taste, and
I would not do this, but I could. I could always say I was born again! (I am kidding!)
John apologized for his part in the fake death. Yet to
this day, he still wonders how else he would have been able to extricate himself
from the situation as effectively. As he knew those involved had not been able to support
Egan or the former council members who had left, within a matter of weeks, they announced that they were not going to continue with the FCoS as
promised. The question remains - why the charade? The FCoS could have gone to an
inactive status as John wanted. Why take over an organization and shake up the community
only to change your name? We can ask that forever. Everything happens for a reason.
The Council members have moved on and become strong individuals in their own right. They are building their own vision of what an organization should be and doing a great job. This is what had to happen. These people needed to get out of the shadow of Egan and come into their own. I respect and admire them all.
As for John, Egan was taking his
toll. Egan just was too one dimensional. John was ready too evolve again. He knew that he ignored
his own spiritual needs and that had had a negative affect on his ministry and his personal
life. He had spent nine straight years being a Satanist, but he forgotten what it was to be a person.
Once I knew for sure that John Dewey was fine, and Lord Egan was dead, I danced on his grave. On the 30th of every month, I dance on his grave. I have never made it a secret that I hated Egan. John will argue with me for hours on this and say that I never hated Egan, that hate is not the correct word. I think hate is the correct word. It is the polar opposite of love, and it is exactly the word I feel is appropriate.
I can explain this further. Egan was pompous; John is cocky. Egan said things to purposely inflame, John is just controversial. Egan tended to get to the point of being too sensitive, John sometimes acts like he could care less. Egan had that monkish, priest thing going on, John has that vampyre "I am going to eat you" thing going on. Despite the bravado, Egan would put another person before himself, John is all Satanist and it is all about him. In person, Egan would only talk about himself, if John is around friends, you cannot shut him up about politics or the latest sick jokes. Egan rarely smiled, John is usually smiling, but watch where his hands are.
As for the FCoS, I asked John to bring it back. There were
too many people contacting me and asking me what had really happened and when the FCoS would
return. They were not happy with what had happened or how it had happened. They had lost confidence in the former council and wanted the FCoS to
return as it was. While I did not want the FCoS to ever return as it was, I did want to
see the FCoS become active again for those who wanted it to be there. I felt that
John could give that to the community, and that we could rebuild his
church to be what would be more in keeping with his original vision. I insisted that he
remain founder and high priest. He insisted that I take over the administrative functions and become his priestess. Because I come from another
tradition, which is right hand path, I cannot be the high priestess of this type
of tradition. It would not appropriate for the organization, for my tradition, or for
me. I have taken over the administrative functions as we work on the evolution of the church, and I handle the public relations, counseling and
non-ritual aspects. This way, John is able to maintain his semi-retirement status.
I am slowly building up a new staff of volunteers. They are all adults, and must
be ordained ministers in the field or will be doing some form of service. They also
must be committed to diversity and welfare of the Satanic and pagan communities. What we are doing has never been done before. There has
never been an organization of this type run by a RHP/LHP couple. That in itself may
prove more
controversial in the long run than Egan's illustrious past. From the FCoS, we are building the Allee Tradition (affectionately known as the Allee
Way) which combines Hermetics, Satanism and witchcraft into a middle pillar
approach. We have started S/Witch, a national tolerance organization, which has only
been put on the back burner because of the FCoS, and some publication deadlines. We
are slowly starting to teach classes, workshops and study groups online and in person. Times change, people change.
To John's detractors, I can only say: "oh, evolve!" A lot of people in the community ask me about my personal life with John. I do understand and I do not mind. Yes, if I had not known John Dewey before and during the Egan phase and drama, I probably would have run away screaming. I do know about all the allegations and then some. Yes, I know about his past... I probably know more than you do.
I have to say in a public place that there is one former FCoS council member who deserves special recognition and then some: Chris Parker. Throughout this whole mess, he and his lovely Tara were there for John and for me. Chris never once has betrayed our trust. He is a shining star in the Society of the Onyx Star. He, Magistrate Bleach from the Society, Priestess Marie, our FCoS minister in France, and Priest Shumlik, our representative in Israel and many others are examples of what is good in the community today.
I spend a lot of my time introducing John Dewey to people who knew (or thought they knew) Egan, even in person. Unfortunately, a lot of people simply chalk up the change to me and our relationship. That is not altogether true. If indeed, I brought John Dewey back, it was because I knew him from before. I did not create John Dewey. He existed and always has. I would not be in a relationship with Egan, I would not have married Egan. I would not have agreed to run the new FCoS with Egan. I never would be involved with anything magickal with Egan. I think it is safe to say that Egan would not have allowed a priestess to be in an equal partnership with him. That was not the way Egan was. Egan felt he could do it all himself, with a little help from his friends.
Egan had to die. John Dewey rose from ashes. He was finally freed from an existence that he had created for himself. It was a spiritual lesson that I hope others can learn from. He certainly paid for it dearly in many ways, but such is the path that he chose many years ago, and he has no one to blame or to thank but himself.
Those who are less experienced may think that killing off
Egan was a coward's way out, but actually the eradication of Egan may have been the bravest
thing that John has ever done. I have never loved or respected anyone more due to one action.
Change is frightening. With that single decision, he changed his existence and the life he had known for almost a decade. He had to face his own
mistakes
and right a lot of the wrongs he had made. In his personal life, he had to go back twenty years and retrace some steps that he had buried in his
unconscious. Further, to be around someone from the right hand path, a Satanist has
to learn to forgive, or at least forget. To have any kind of life with someone like
me, there has to be a closure to the past nine years.
Because I am an empath, I did not allow him to keep the pain inside.
He had to heal - physically, mentally and spiritually. With healing,
comes the most excruciating pain of all. John has had to find the answers to some of
the most painful questions that have been lurking in his soul. There will always be scars. But as with any
warrior coming out of a battle, he will wear them proudly.
Whereas John was in a way married to Egan, Egan was married to the old FCoS. It has been a very bitter divorce, but the ink is finally dry on the paperwork. Whoever said that divorce is like a death, certainly knew what they were talking about.
With the sword of Satan, John had to unleash his own
potential and unchain his heart to finally move forward. Like all of us who
experience these "dark nights of the soul," you are just happy to come out the other side.
John survived and thrived, this time, as a black phoenix rising.
Lillee C. Allee
August 2, 2003