What is Golden Dawn?

Hi! I was working in a metaphysical bookstore in L.A. and one night a woman came in who talked to me about the Golden Dawn (she was a member) and urged me to learn about it. She mentioned that Dion Fortune (who is a favourite metaphysical author of mine) was a member.

What are the tenets of the Golden Daw? History? What is the Golden Dawn like? What are some practices?

Wanting to learn,

T.S. Eliot? I think you must mean W.B. Yeats. If you truly meant Eliot, I would be interested in your source, as this is the first mention that I have read about Eliot being a member of the G.D., and would find this of great historical significance.

Thanks,

Hello Adam, The Golden Dawn was started in the 1880's by a small group of high-grade Masons who included William Westcott and Samuel Liddel Mathers (who later called himself McGregor Mathers and a few other titles.) Their original initiatory current was supposed to be derived from a manuscript found in a second hand bookshop (I think it was a bookshop anyway.) The manuscript purported to be a Rosicrucian document from Europe which included the name and address of one Frau Anna Sprengle. She was contacted and (again apparently) gave permission for the original charter. The group was later contacted by members of the Rosicrucians in Europe denying this affiliation. Of the original three founders, Mathers emerged as the leader and the other two moved into the background. Mathers was a brilliant magician and was the heart of the esoteric revival in England. He and his wife Moina were instrumental in the initiation and nurturing of many of the great (and not so great) magical personalities of the late 19th century. Some of these included the actress Fanny Farr, the poet William Butler Yeats, and, lest we forget, himself-Aleister Crowley. The initial Lodge engendered an number of other spinoff Lodges in the 1890's including some in America and at least one in New Zealand which outlived many of the more centrally located European lodges. The Order splintered somewhere around 1899-1901 when the more staid members who had in some cases joined up because it was 'the thing to do' and had very little magical talent could not take the installation of Alaister Crowley over them by Mathers, who had by now in an early split gone off to live in Paris. With the departure of Mathers and the exclusion of Crowley, the heart had gone out of the working part of the order and within another twenty years especially after the death of Mathers in the influenza epidemic of 1918 the Order had become moribund. This was the 'Order' into which Isreal Ragudie was initiated in the late 1920's or early 1930's. He had been a personal secretary to Aleister Crowley in Paris and had become interested in esoteric subjects early on. He changed his name to Regardie and added Francis becoming Francis Isreal Regardie. He found the order in disarray, with no real initiatic power. In violation of his oaths of secrecy (for which many never forgave him) he felt that the only way to save the teachings was to disseminate them. He published his seminal edition of 'The Golden Dawn System of Magic' in four volumes in the early thirties and he lived to see it become one of the most quoted (and stolen from) magical books ever written. This has been a thumbnail history of some of the high points of the Golden Dawn. The actual magic of the Golden Dawn is another thing entirely; and deserves a larger and more extensive canvas to paint its picture.

[ a good series of comments and references editted...]

] Anybody who can find any practical use for this disreputable hodgepodge ] of ideas has my admiration. Somehow, the G.D. founders (the real ones, ] Mathers and Westcott, not the fictitious Frauline Sprengle of Germany) ] managed to make it all hang together, at least enough to capture the ] interest of a guy like Yeats, who was no fool. In fact, Yeats was asked ] to leave Madam Blavatsky's group ('Theosophists' because he was given ] to making practical experiments... Later, he used much of the G.D. doctrine ] in his own system described in 'A Vision,' and said to have inspired or ] influenced dmuch of his later poetry. Despite this, a lot of the ] G.D. is the most outrageous claptrap and balderdash.

Hmmm. I think one must remember that the world has moved on by a hundred years so we all have greatly different insights to those that prevailed at the time. None-the-less, there were some remarkable insights quite apart from the inherent beauty of the initiatory system. I think there were some aspects of the GD sysnthesis which one could fairly question, some aspects which were built in which one wondersabout, but 'disreputable hodgepodge' and 'outrageous claptrap and balderdash' seem a bit bold. Did you have anything particular in mind?

] Questions: Is there anything of value in all this stuff? If so, what is it: ] esthetic, mythological, psychological, philisophical

Some brave questions! The value (as I perceive it) of the Golden Dawn system lies in the Initiatory System that underpinned it, aspects of which can be found in the Flying Rolls, but were not widely taught through the more published teachings. I suspect they were quite elitist about 'hidden teachings'. The system is also demonstrated through the rituals themselves, which provide a core methodology of esoteric development and teachings for those that learn the language, which is taught through the 'Knowledge Lectures'.

I don't know about 'Intelligent people', but anyone who bothers to make enquiry into themselves and their relationship to the universe in which we live will find many of the answers framed in the teachings of the GD. I also admit that much of it is spurious claptrap, or at least, window- dressing. But if we weren't in need of window-dressing to attract us to this stuff, we wouldn't have needed it in the first place - we'd already be adepts

As to the final point, I believe that we are moving towards a whole new structure of thought and perforce, organisations, social and esoteric. The cataracts over which we are shooting will bring many experiments up, and some forms will fail, others will take off. That's evolution. My bets are laid on networking structures, which is why I'm working in one! And that's why groups aren't as 'organised' at the moment. It's going to be years before the dominant model takes hold.

As to 'talent' - the workers are hidden in the workshop.

In the Great Work

Frater PPE (5=6)