Thou therefore who desirest Magical Gifts, be sure that thy soul is firm and steadfast; for it is by flattering thy weaknesses that the Weak Ones will gain power over thee. Humble thyself before thy Self, yet fear neither man nor spirit. Fear is failure, and the forerunner of failure: and courage is the beginning of virtue. — Liber Libræ sub figurâ XXX – The Book of the Balance
Quote featured at FEAR IS FAILURE from the Ministry of Information.
J S Kupperman reviews Kabbalah, Magic and the Great Work of Self-Transformation: A Complete Course [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Lyam Thomas Christopher, in the Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition archive at A Post-Modern Golden Dawn?.
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn is perhaps the most famous, or maybe infamous, magical order of the last two centuries. Today’s occult book market is filled with “magical primers” based on the Golden Dawn’s particular form of astro-Qabalistic magic. Here is one more book for the list.
Kabbalah is a mixed bag of history, philosophy and practical esotericism. In the first chapter of this ten-chapter work Christopher provides the most important caveat of the piece; that there is nothing new in this book. This is not actually a mark against Kabbalah, quite the contrary in fact as it lets the would-be purchaser know what they are getting; not new information but another approach to the information that is being presented. As an educator I am aware that different students learn in different ways so another approach to the Golden Dawn system of magic may provide the student a way that works for them.
Christopher’s purpose in writing this book appears to have been to present the Golden Dawn material, as well as a method for initiation into the Golden Dawn current, in a way that fits the ideologies of post-Modernism. Thus, while there are elements in Kabbalah that will be familiar to any Golden Dawn magician his approach may be quite foreign. In some ways this is to be expected but the text does present some internal inconsistencies. For instance Christopher stresses the importance of focusing on the Outer Order material while in the Outer Order, and indeed this makes up the bulk of the book. However in his Outer Order material he includes practices such as the hexagram rituals and the LVX signs, which are taught in the grade of Adeptus Minor. He says that both of these can be useful to the Outer Order magician in their work, and while this may very well be true it is inconsistent with his previous message of focusing on Outer Order information.
Christopher’s methodology is not entirely original and appears to be a combination of Regardie, whose Golden Dawn you will also need to purchase to use Kabbalah, Dion Fortune, Aleister Crowley and a bit of Pat Zalewski, through Christopher’s own training by Peter and Laura Yorke. The focus of the work is on the practice of variation of the Middle Pillar exercise, pentagram and hexagram rituals and the study of the Z material, which is the underlying formula of the Golden Dawn’s initiation ceremonies. There is more to it than this, but these three rituals and the Golden Dawn’s Z formulae are what are primarily employed for the process of self-initiation and self-transformation. This methodology, which Christopher claims to be superior to the Golden Dawn’s initiation rituals, is to bring the magician into alignment with the elemental forces of the Golden Dawn’s outer order and Portal grade.
Unfortunately there is a great deal more to the Golden Dawn’s initiation ceremonies than elemental energies and Christopher does not sufficiently explain how these missing elements are incorporated into his magical praxis. This is not to say that Kabbalah presents a non-functioning esoteric and spiritual practice; its methodology will subject the magician to the elemental energies associated with the Golden Dawn. However it remains to be seen whether or not it will provide access to the other aspects of the Golden Dawn current.
The first three chapters of Kabbalah, rather then focusing on practice, present the author’s ideology and raison d’ être. Here the author discusses his understanding of history, religion, philosophy, magic and learning. These chapters are important for understanding the author yet they tended to leave me as though I should feel that by disagreeing with his conclusions, philosophy or history I was somehow just not enlightened enough to understand him. It is here that Christopher’s revisionist history and spiritual biases are the most obvious.
These chapters are not all bad however. Beyond tendencies towards revisionist history Christopher stresses the difficulty of the work and the importance of actually doing the work and not just reading about it. There is an important emphasis on the need for discipline and perseverance. The message that the work is in fact work is hammered home and this is something often missing from other magical primers. The philosophy and history, some of which is both interesting and useful, also continue throughout the whole of the book, breaking up the magical instructions.
All this being said, again, there is still nothing new in Kabbalah, Magic and the Great Work of Self-Transformation. For the beginning magician who is interested in the Golden Dawn or one who has tried other magical primers and found them to not work Kabbalah may be the book that works, and it will provide such a reader with an unique interpretation of the Golden Dawn material that should not necessarily be ignored. However if you are already accomplished in the Golden Dawn system, while you may find some of the variations on the Middle Pillar or Hexagram rituals interesting, you can still safely pass this one by.
Furthermore that I will perform all practical work connected with this Order, in a place concealed … that I will keep secret this inner Rosicrucian Knowledge … that I will only perform any practical magic before the uninitiated which is of a simple and already well-known nature, and that I will show them no secret mode of working whatsoever.
Ritual of the 5○ = 6□ Grade of Adeptus Minor, the Ritual of the Order of Rosæ Rubeæ Et Aureæ Crusis at Aleister Crowley, “The Adept” in The Temple of Solomon the King, Book II, continued, serialized in The Equinox.
In the Adeptus Minor ritual, the aspirant in effect becomes the Chief, and receives the hidden knowledge of the Tomb. The symbolic truth is revealed in the descriptions of Christian Rosenkreutz’s mythological life and teachings, where the initiate learns of the secrets of the sanctuary of the temple. Through a ritual passing into the Inner Temple, the aspirant enters the sanctuary and becomes aware of the hidden truth. By contrast, in the Gnostic Mass, the communicant goes forth to commune with the Priestess, who holds in her hands the fruit of the mating of Understanding and Wisdom, and offers it unquestioningly to the communicant in the form of the Cakes of Light and the sacramental wine. Both individuals take back the seed of gnosis within their bodies; one through the revelation of the tomb, the other through the ingestion of what could well be termed the symbolic fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.
Robert Furtkamp, Liber XV and the Adeptus Minor Initiation
Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Yeats, the Tarot, and the Golden Dawn [Amazon, Local Library] by Kathleen Raine.
This slender monograph was developed from a paper presented in scholarly sessions on Yeats in 1968, published in 1972, and revised in 1976. In its closing passage, it refers to itself as “this most superficial study of Yeats’s use of the symbolism of magic acquired through the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn” (74). Author Kathleen Raine appears to have been in the vanguard of academic research on the esoteric interests and activities of Yeats. She is the dedicatee (“to whom else …?”) of George Mills Harper’s much lengthier 1975 Yeats’s Golden Dawn.
Raine’s preliminary remarks on the historical sources and general applications of Tarot symbolism are sensible and well-informed. She follows these with a history of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, citing reliable sources from among those available in the 1960s and 70s, but here she makes a few odd blunders. For example, she takes the “Roseae Rubeae” and “Aureae Crucis” to have been the “two higher degrees” of the Inner Order (5), when the Inner Order in fact had three grades and “The Ruby Rose and Cross of Gold” was the name of the Order itself.
The 1976 second edition is very amply illustrated in black and white with images of Tarot cards and drawings from Golden Dawn ritual manuscripts. These are all fascinating and well chosen to support the text. I was especially intrigued by the inclusion of cards from the Tarot packs actually owned and used by Yeats and his wife, even though his was a quite conventional Italian deck and hers was the familiar Marseilles design.
At the outset of the second of the text’s two sections, Raine demonstrates that the Stella Matutina ritual for the Zelator grade includes conscious paraphrasing from William Blake (42-3). Her suggestion that pioneering Blake editor Yeats was then necessarily involved in the original composition of the ritual depends crucially on the rather dubious “if the passage belongs to the original text and is not a later addition.” As a general matter, her analyses are weakened by taking the Regardie exposures of the later Stella Matutina rituals as authentic texts of the Golden Dawn order in which Yeats had been initiated. She would have been better served, in fact, to work from Aleister Crowley’s exposures published in The Equinox as Book II of “The Temple of Solomon the King.”
Although Raine consistently disparages Yeats’s esoteric antagonist Crowley as an author of “bad verse” (46), she did find it worthwhile to include reproductions of many Frieda Harris Tarot cards with long captions quoting Crowley on the cards’ symbolism. She even surprised me by suggesting that Yeats’s The Resurrection (1931) may have had a debt to Crowley (47-8). However, I think she erred in pointing to Liber Legis III:34 as the influential text, when Yeats was quite evidently riffing on the Hellas chorus by Shelley (“The world’s great age begins anew”)–a text familiar and dear to Crowley, who used it for the solar benediction at the end of his theatrical ceremony “The Rite of Mars.” (A corollary question: Was Liber Legis influenced by Shelley?)
The most important element of Raine’s study, and one with which I take no exception, is her explanation of the relationship of Yeats’s magical training to his literary production. I am now perhaps sufficiently motivated to read Yeats’s A Vision, which has been on my shelf for decades.
Andrew Finley reviews Sent From the Second Order: The Collected Letters of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn [Abebooks] ed. Darcy Küntz at Sent from the Second Order in the Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition archive.
Mr. Darcy Küntz, with his eye for detail and his keen interest in the historical roots of the Golden Dawn, has allowed the public access for the first time to a number of letters from the “vaults of the Golden Dawn” which have only been available to a small number of scholars.
In this book I discovered a number of unpublished letters that revealed the hidden and unexplored idiosyncratic side of the founders and members of the Golden Dawn. These letters have provided me an insight into some of the unexplained behavior and interactions between the members William Wynn Westcott, S.L. Mathers, Dr. Berridge, Aleister Crowley, Annie Horniman, et al.
Of the new material in the book there is a document from 1900 which discusses a “preliminary contract of peace” between Dr. Westcott and S.L. Mathers. Mr. Küntz also produces evidence which reveals the name of the member who wanted revenge upon Westcott and who wanted him kicked out of the Golden Dawn. There are two letters written by Aleister Crowley in 1908 which brought me much pleasure in reading. These letters show Crowley’s wit and charm prior to publishing the Golden Dawn Secrets in The Equinox (Vol. I, Nos. 2 & 3). Of particular interest is the letter dated February 1901 and written by the Majority of the Second Order Council. It could be argued that this document shows that Crowley was initiated in the 5○=6□ grade of Adeptus Minor and a member of the Second Order, while some people might argue that the evidence is only circumstantial.
The quality and nature of the 103 letters and documents in this book has made it a valuable addition to my Golden Dawn library. The high standard of scholarship from Mr. Küntz has made this a highly sought after book. I was surprised to hear that Sent From the Second Order was published in a very limited edition of 27 copies and 10 “Hors Commerce” copies and that it would not be reprinted. Although it makes it very collectable the problem is that researchers may have trouble tracking down a copy. I only hope that Mr. Küntz will consider reprinting a larger or “popular” edition.
The paper and binding of the book are high quality for a small press production. Mr. Küntz has created the design for the cover which is an interesting example of a symbol reminiscent of the chaosphere sigil superimposed on a grid of occult symbols. Also the frontispiece is an unpublished colored version of Aleister Crowley’s Tarot card the Magician.
I would like to see an expanded version with more original letters with the same attention to detail that Mr. Küntz has applied to editing this valuable source material. I also look forward to his book titled The Golden Dawn Temple Manual. I have been told by Mr. Küntz that the book contains all the source material that one would need to start and manage a Golden Dawn Temple including the Consecration Ceremony of a Golden Dawn Temple.
The librarian John Griogair Bell reviews The Last Scabbard by Josephine McCarthy.
Josephine McCarthy is the author of a number of non-fiction esoteric volumes and is one of the people behind Quareia, an online school which presumably follows a similar curriculum to her three-part Magical Knowledge book series, but this is a fictional story set primarily around two periods, the founding of the first temples of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the present day, with a few bits of action set in other periods. The common thread is provided by the ancient artefacts involved which include the sword Caliburn, also known as Excalibur, and the Stone of Scone, also called Stone of Destiny, and the so-called scabbard.
Without a doubt the Golden Dawn gets short shrift again, this time as a group of foolish men who perform a ritual beyond themselves which creates a problem that ripples through time. Interesting there’s only one woman of the Golden Dawn mentioned, and then not even by name; perhaps this is a useful conceit since the foolishness of the ritual choice is posited as gender specific. But, really, can’t the Golden Dawn get a break? Canonically, the order didn’t last long, but like the Roman Empire, it continued in various forms long past its supposed demise; and I personally always come back to Mark K Greer’s The Women of the Golden Dawn with the overall impression that our spiritual Aunts of the Golden Dawn were very much involved in the order’s founding, successful operation and broad pervasive legacy.
Have you ever seen pictures of the Stone of Scone, whether you believe the images are of the actual stone or a replica? It’s giant. It weighs over 300 pounds as it appears today. So, I think you’ll understand when I choked a bit on the notion in this book that the main character held the stone for any extended period of time, let alone lifted it at all. Further, the main character, a trained specialist from the British Museum, finds herself in possession of the apparently authentic and original stone, one of the most famous objects in the history of the UK, and then proceeds to leave it in a hotel room, unattended or guarded, for hours while out for a walk. Seriously? Nope. Not even slightly believable. Denied.
The emotional life of the characters in this story could easily inspire a drinking game. If you want a game guaranteed to get you trashed by the end, then drink any time a character blushes or raises their eyebrows, without any other emotional content conveyed.
However, I’m a sucker for fictional accounts of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which may also be of interest you. And, if you enjoy historical fantasy, such as The Mists of Avalon, then you might enjoy this tale, if you can avoid stumbling on some of the rough spots.
[via]
Adept Magic in the Golden Dawn Tradition by Frater YShY, preface by Sandra Tabatha Cicero, foreword by Samuel Scarborough, from Kerubim Press, hardcover available directly from the publisher, paperback due for wide release in September, may be of interest.
“Within this tome are the secret instructional papers of a modern Golden Dawn order. The first half of the book contains an advanced exegesis of the Neophyte Ceremony using Lurianic Kabbalah, Freemasonry, modern Wicca and Greek mythology. The second half includes the author’s own application of the same magical formulae in his personal rituals. Among these are an example of his fusion of evocation and classical statue Theurgy, a careful interpretation and re-contextualisation of the Adept invisibility formula with new advanced visualizations, a Shamanic-style transformation ritual, and a higher genius or ‘higher self’ working that the author personally conducted over many years.” [via]
“Preface by Chic and Sandra Tabatha Cicero
Foreword by Samuel Scarborough
Introduction by Frater YShY
Chapter One: Zeta 1, Sephirotic Attributions to the Neophyte Hall
Chapter Two: Zeta 2, Planetary Attributions to the Neophyte Hall
Chapter Three: Zeta 3, Three Principal Officers
Chapter Four: Zeta 4, The Four Elements at the Equinox and Neophyte Ceremonies
Chapter Five: Zeta 5, Neophyte God-forms
Chapter Six: Zeta 6, The Hierophant’s Speech From the Throne
Chapter Seven: Zeta 7, The Seven Floor Officers as the Seven Planets
Chapter Eight: Zeta 8, The Zodiac and the Wheel of the Year
Chapter Nine: Zeta 9, Violence, Hazing and Power Struggles in Masonic and Magical Ritual
Chapter Ten: Zeta 10, The Ten Sephiroth Combined in Seven Palaces in the Neophyte Hall
Chapter Eleven: Solitary Z2 Workings
Z2 Yod: Planetary Evocation Ritual
Z2 Shin of Aleph: Invisibility Ritual
Z2 Shin of Mem: Transformation Ritual
Z2 Shin of Shin: Gathering the Divine Sparks, a Spiritual Development Ritual” [via]
Golden Dawn Rituals and Commentaries by Pat Zalewski, edited by Darcy Küntz, from the Rosicrucian Order of the Golden Dawn, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.
“This is not another beginner book on Magick that so many large publishing houses tend to print. This book was designed for the intermediate and advanced practitioner of the Order of the Golden Dawn. Pat Zalewski was fortunate enough to work with original members of the Stella Matutina and was taught the inner secrets of the Adepts. Now for the first time, these secrets are being published so that those who could benefit from this knowledge will learn as Zalewski had done with his mentor, Jack Taylor. Also being released for the first time is the connection between the Admission Badges and the Temple floor diagrams. Zalewski also discusses in-depth the God-form assumption techniques he learned. Many significant lessons are contained in this book that you will not get from any other source.” — Darcy Küntz, back cover
An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for July 2nd, 2014
Endangered Site: Chinguetti, Mauritania: The rapidly expanding Sahara Desert threatens a medieval trading center that also carries importance for Sunni Muslims — Jeanne Maglaty, Smithsonian
“Many Witches are unaware how deeply involved Gerald Gardner was with Ordo Templi Orientis. How Gardner came to think of himself of head of the O.T.O. in Europe, however briefly, shines a light on Gardner’s wide contacts in the esoteric communities, the last days of Aleister Crowley’s life, and the chaos caused by the Second World War.”
“Many sociopaths wreak havoc in a covert way, so that their underlying condition remains hidden for years. They can possess a superficial charm, and this diverts attention from disturbing aspects of their nature.”
The following case history illustrates how people can be systematically targeted until they feel they can barely trust their own sense of reality – what we call ‘gaslighting’. Sociopathic abuse is targeted abuse. It can wreck lives. Victims can become survivors, but at huge cost.”
“Let’s look at what we term the Socio-Empath-Apath Triad, or Seat. Unremitting abuse of other people is an activity of the sociopath that stands out. To win their games, sociopaths enlist the help of hangers-on: apaths.”
“If I were to ask you what the average male pagan looked like, you’d probably have him down as a bearded, middle-aged, cloak-wearing, tree-hugging, mead-swigging, part-time nudist who’s a bit paunchy around the middle and whose favourite film is The Wicker Man.
And you’d be right.”
“Last spring Vincent Brady sold most of his belongings, moved out of his apartment and struck out on the road to document the night sky. But instead of taking your typical long-exposure shots, Brady designed himself a custom camera rig that’s allowed him to capture stunning 360 panoramic images of the stars and Milky Way moving in concert.”
“Include as much of life as you possibly can: Fall in love. Break your heart. Risk. Open. Seek justice. Create. Dance. Listen. Fuck. Desire. Will. Act. Live.”
“Overall, [Peter Dodds, et al., of the Computational Story Lab at the University of Vermont in Burlington] collected 50 ratings per word resulting in an impressive database of around 5 million individual assessments. Finally, they plotted the distribution of perceived word happiness for each language.
The results bring plenty of glad tidings. All of the languages show a clear bias towards positive words with Spanish topping the list, followed by Portuguese and then English. Chinese props up the rankings as the least happy. ‘Words—the atoms of human language — present an emotional spectrum with a universal positive bias,’ they say.”
“The poet Sylvia Plath’s work is full of the moon, and this is just the beginning of her nod to the occult. Her 1956 marriage to the poet Ted Hughes added astrology, tarot, Ouija boards, hypnosis, meditation, folk-magic, witchcraft, and crystal ball scrying to her repertoire of extra-curricular spiritual activities.
The facts have been out there all along on Sylvia Plath, but until now no one had thought to view them seriously and collectively.”
“Often I find that, when I am facing a new challenge, perhaps one that I find daunting for some reason, the simplest solution is to apply basic principles. This is especially true in magick. In the Golden Dawn the most important rule of thumb is referred to as ‘invoke the highest first,’ which is a reference to one of the clauses of the Adeptus Minor obligation: ‘I furthermore solemnly pledge myself never to work at any important symbol without first invocating the highest Divine Names connected therewith.'”
“Every body wants to taste
a little something carbon-based
Sex is proof the Holy Ghost
crawls around in stuff that’s gross
YeahThere’s a serpent in my body
right below my belly
When I crave an apple
you are redder than an orchard”
Puff the magic sun! Solar material bursts off the sun's atmosphere: http://t.co/MqNuUapTXn @NASASunEarth pic.twitter.com/j72f2u9avl
— NASA (@NASA) June 27, 2014
“In the period following Crowley’s death the state of organized Thelema largely fell to nothing. In his excellent The Unknown God Martin P. Starr provides an excellent account of Crowley’s O.T.O. heir, Karl Germer’s attempt to hold together the existing Thelemites with little effect. As a result of there being no centralized Thelemic authority quasi-Thelemic groups would form.”
“The discovery included a two hundred-year-old glass bottle that once contained the ‘Elixir of Long Life’. Now the research team have tracked down the original German recipe used to create the elixir for fending off death. […] the potion contained ingredients such as aloe, which is anti-inflammatory, gentian root, which aids digestion, as well as rhubarb, zedoary, and Spanish saffron – ingredients still used by herbalists today.”
“After the untimely death of Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke back in 2012 […] there has been much speculation about what would happen with the Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism (EXESESO) that he ran at the University of Exeter. Since 2005, EXESESO has offered one of the three official university programs for the academic study of esotericism in Europe (the others being in Amsterdam and Paris), and produced a steady stream of MAs through its distance learning program. After an internal evaluation process at Exeter University, in dialogue with the Theosophically oriented Blavatsky Trust who funded the centre, a final decision has now been made to shut EXESESO down.”
“Overall, the story of Zeppelin was like something out of an X-rated version of the Bible; with Plant as the messianic, bare-chested prophet from Wolverhampton and Page as the Aleister Crowley devotee who sold his soul to the devil for magic chords to the Delta blues.”
“The sands of the Sahara have all but swallowed Chinguetti, a near ghost town found at the end of a harsh desert road in Mauritania, West Africa. Its majority of abandoned houses are open to the elements, lost to the dunes of a desert aggressively expanding southward at a rate of 30 miles per year. While predictions suggest this isolated town will be buried without a trace within generations, Chinguetti is probably the last place on Earth you would look for a library of rare books.”
“While it might not seem an obvious pairing, reading [Gary] Lachman’s book as a biography of Crowley (rather than an analysis of his importance) alongside Hughes-Hallett’s Gabriele d’Annunzio provides an opportunity to both compare and contrast these two controversial figures who reportedly were acquainted with one another in their lifetimes (d’Annunzio was 12 years older than Crowley and died nine years before him). It also gives the reader an opportunity to consider what’s truly bad or evil, and think about the quest for pleasure or power. Few figures in the last century will inspire you to ponder those ideas like the figures profiled in these two books.”
If you’d like to participate in the next Omnium Gatherum, head on over to the Gatherum discussions at the Hrmtc Underground BBS.