If everyone is entitled to be an Adept

Today on Facebook, I was reminded of one of my favorite bugaboos. It came in the form of a conversation.

The conversation started out with some eager student asking a question. A couple of us old-timers answered. (By old-timer, I mean people with twenty years or more of Golden Dawn experience.) Then someone with less than a month of experience (and who is proud of the fact that they have not read a single book on Golden Dawn) came by and told the eager student that the old-timers were wrong.

Yes, the screaming you heard in the distance was me ripping out hunks of my beard.

One of the modern misconceptions that plague the modern day esoteric traditions is the idea that everyone is their own best teacher, that the answers you come up with by yourself are better than any answer that someone else can give you, and that the Adepts of the esoteric traditions have to accept every damn answer given...even if one of them is obviously wrong.

In other words, everyone is entitled to a ribbon saying that their answer is right and that they are the smartest person in the room.

By the way, this means that no esoteric Order can reject a single applicant or refuse to advance a student.

Welcome to the world where everyone is already an Adept.

Of course, if everyone is already an Adept, or at least entitled to become one no matter how little understanding of the system that they have, then I do not have to grade test papers, help answer questions, or even serve as an officer during initiations. After all, if one can have complete understanding of the system without ever cracking open a book, undergoing an initiation, or doing any of the work, then there is no need for the higher Grade members to actually deal with new students ever again.

Acknowledgement does not mean universal acceptance. 

Updating and modifying rituals

One of the things that you occasionally see someone make a fuss over is the fact that some of the modern lodges have modified the rituals that they are using. No longer are the rituals the same as the ones that Westcott and Mathers were using...hence, they are not correct according to some people.

Personally, I have mixed feelings over the matter of changing the rituals myself. I have learned a lot about ritual structure though having to modify the rituals that my lodge uses, but I was not happy about having to do it in the first place.

For instance, due to the inclusion of geomancy in the Zelator Grade, our Zelator Grade ritual had to be modified. The decision to bring geomancy down to the Zelator Grade wasn't even our decision; it was something that occurred in the greater Golden Dawn community, and new members started to expect to see it there. It was a curriculum reform done by someone else, due to the nature of geomancy, and put into print.

This curriculum change has probably affected everyone in the system. Other groups have picked it up, and used it also. But here is the kicker...this curriculum change disagreed with the Outer Order Initiation rituals.

In our case, once we figured out that the ballon had gone up, we decided to bring geomancy into the Zelator ritual. Of course, this violates the sacredness of the Cipher Manuscript where it is clearly stated that geomancy is not introduced until Theoricus...at this point, one could argue that the groups that do this are no longer Golden Dawn.

(And given the people who would argue this...well, I have to thank them...I do not want to belong to the same club as they do.)

And this is not the only type of change that has happened to the Golden Dawn rituals. Recently I have been reading a discussion about the 6=5 Adeptus Major Initiation ritual. There is a lot of debate about how long the 36 hours in the pastos is supposed to be. I have my own personal opinion based on my own experience and ritual skill.

It is the latter that one should look at the rituals though. In my opinion, it does not matter what the ritual script says; if you do not have the ritual skill to maintain the energy flow while doing it strictly by the script, then you need to consider modifying the ritual.

In many ways, the fact that the Golden Dawn ritual were set in stone so soon after their modern creation limits them. For instance, the original rituals presume that only the Hierophant and Co-Chiefs know the underlying godforms; it also presume that they are the only ones with the ability to create the shells for them. Many modern groups may not even have a single Adept when they start out: What do you do then?

One of the modifications that I like is the idea that all members can take part in the building up the godforms. This is especially true for a ritual like the 6=5, where there is that question of how long is a person supposed to lay in the pastos. (Yes, there are godforms associated with the reading of the hours; they have seven layers, just like all the other Grade rituals.) Instead of one person trying to hold these godforms together, you have a team doing it. Think of it as enriching the lodge.

My bottom line is that the rituals and curriculum of Golden Dawn needs to be able to change over time. If the system does not change, it becomes a dinosaur. And we all know what happened to them, don't we?

Hard copying manuscripts

In the good old days before the advent of the personal computer and the publishing of the Golden Dawn documents by Regardie, a member of Golden Dawn had to hand copy all the documents they wanted a copy of. It was simple. You filled out the form and the lodge (Order) loaned you the master copy of a document (ritual, lesson, address, flying roll, etc.) for a specified length of time, and you sat down and hand copied it.

It was slow and tedious, even in the days when people were still used to doing things this way. After doing it a couple of times, one begins to sympathize with the monks who did this for a living before the printing press was invented. One understands the marginal comments of relief, and curses uttered when someone damaged or stole a book.

And it is a thing of the past. Yet there are times that even today it serves a purpose.

I have personally ended up typing rituals and lessons out of books (for me, having something in Word makes my studies easier, especially the type of studies that one does in ZAM and beyond); it is tedious even now that I am better at typing. Despite the difficulty (I started out as a "Biblical typist"--"Seek and ye shall find"), it is worthwhile doing.

There are things I would have never noticed if I won't have been typing them up into Word. "Did he really mean to say this? And if so, why? What would be the point of doing it like that?"

Maybe I am the only one that needs to approach the material like this. If so, I apologize to those who brought the Revised (Three Officer Version) Neophyte Ritual.

There are some who consider the price tag on that book to be too high. And it is if you already belong to a lodge that has enough members to do the version that Regardie published. But there are some students of Golden Dawn who live nowhere near a functioning lodge, and do not know enough people to petition for a Warrant to establish one. It is for them that the modified ritual is meant for.

And I want them to type it into Word. I don't want the book to meet the photocopier, and I don't want numerous copies to be printed out UNLESS someone took the time to hand copy (AKA type) it. After they do that, I figure that they are going to run off copies for the three other people that they gather to work the ritual. At that point, I don't care.

The ritual is meant to be used. And considering that I am not personally there, I did what I could to make sure that some of the lessons that I learned would pass onto them. One of which is that handcopying a text helps you actually read what is on the page--not what you think is on the page, but the actual words that are there. The book is purposely expensive to make sure that it is easier for someone to type it up than it is for the other three to spend that much money on copies of the ritual.

And besides the ritual (as are all Golden Dawn rituals) is an "open document." It is subject to change as it is used. Over the years, the ritual evolved from the original version of it. I expect the same to happen as new groups of people start to use it. Each of us brings something new to the tradition, and our footnotes and comments should make their way into the texts of our tradition.

[Updated: June 21, 2013--Changed the link for the Three Officer version of the 0=0 ritual from the Lulu sales page to the Smashwords sales page.]

How long should one be in Golden Dawn?

One of the disturbing things that I notice about the modern branches Golden Dawn, or at least something it is distrubing to me, is the fact that many treat the Golden Dawn system as something you do for a certain amount of time and then stop after you reach the end of the system.

Part of this trend is that many people have no experience with the non-Golden Dawn Orders. Traditionally in such Orders as the Freemasons, the Elks, and the Lions, one is a member for life. This is especially true of the Freemasons--even if you cease to attend lodge and quit paying dues, you are still a Freemason. You may not by in good standing; but unless you are expelled, you are still a Freemason.

And at one time, even if you were not a member of a non-Golden Dawn Order, you knew someone that was. While I was attending High School, one of my next door neighbors was a member of the Odd Fellows. The town, Brush Colorado, also had a Lion's Club. I didn't think anything was unusual about that. And a hundred years ago, it wasn't that strange.

We forget that a cenury ago, the Orders were striving. Forty percent of the adult population were a member of one Order or another. That wasn't just old white dudes; women and minorities had their own Orders.

It is different today. My grandmother was a member of the Modern Woodmen of America, an Order which purpose is to provide insurance policies to its membership. For me, it is easier to do business with State Farm. This lack of experience with the phenomenona of the Orders and the type of people who join them handicaps our system.

Another handicapp which contributes to the tendency to consider one membership in the system as a temporary thing is the truncated revealing of the system. While the publishing of the core documents of Golden Dawn by Israel Regardie saved the system from extinction, it has also had the effect of freezing much of the system into a form that gives itself to chasing a title and then leaving the system.

In many ways, I consider myself lucky to have found my way into Hathoor Temple before I was exposed to much of the published material. For the members of Hathoor Temple, one was a member for life. Recieving the Grade of Adept Minor was not the end of your involvment with the Order; for them, Golden Dawn was a living, growing system.

It was because of this long view that their curriculum was an expanding one. This tradition carried over into Bast Temple when it formed. I encourage members of the system to take the long view and treat Golden Dawn and its offshoots as an organization that one will be a member for the entire length of their lifetime.

Bast Temple Curriculum

The subject of the week seems to be curriculum.

First, Pat Zalewski posted a posting about change in Golden Dawn on his forum: Golden Dawn Group. That is a curriculum issue for as he states, "With the various GD groups using [new] material to fill the void at the Inner Order level, an entire infrastructure is needed to support it." Well-defined steps and levels are necessary according to him to prepare people for the new material. In other words, a curriculum.

Then today, I was talking to someone who wanted to know our curriculum. Which is hard to describe considering that lately we have been focused less on paper lessons, and focused more on Temple Ritual work. I have yet to figure out how to describe the importance of Temple Ritual, other than say it ties into our Inner Order curriculum.

This is not a new problem. I could only show the first intake of members the importance of the rituals by making them practice. The same is still true today. It is fair to say that I teach the way that I was taught. Doing was more important than theory.

The closest thing Bast Temple has to an official curriculum is the summary that was done for the original contact sheet (public flyer). It said:

Neophyte (0=0)"newly planted"
Learns the basic symbols of the elements, astrology, and kabbalah. Also learns basic lodge protocol and lodge-kit.

Zelator (1=10)"zealot"
Continues studying of astrology and kabbalah. Starts the study of alchemy. Learns about the various elementals, Earth of Malkuth in Assiah, and Malkuth of Malkuth in Assiah. Studies the theory of geomancy.

Theoricus (2=9)"student"
Continues studying of alchemy and kabbalah. Also continues studying of astrology, including how to erect astrology charts. Learns about the various kinds of spiritual entities, Air of Malkuth in Assiah, Yesod of Malkuth in Assiah, and the Moon.

Practicus (3=8)"practitioner"
Continues the study of kabbalah. Learns about the lineal figures, magic squares, sigils, Water of Malkuth in Assiah, Hod of Malkuth in Assiah, and the planet Mercury. Starts the study of the Golden Dawn Tarot.

Philosophus (4=7)"lover of wisdom"
Continues the study of kabbalah, alchemy and the Golden Dawn Tarot. Learns about Fire of Malkuth in Assiah, Netzach of Malkuth in Assiah, and the planet Venus. May chose to study the electionals of isopsephos ("Greek kabbalah") and the tattwas.

Today, that summary is a little out of date. It was written when the lodge had deeper ties (reciprocal recognition of Grades) with the Hermetic Sanctuary of Maat (Hermetic Order of the Stella Matutina). We were trying to match our requirements with theirs. Today, it is more of an issue to figure out how to properly stage (prepare members) for the incoming changes of the Inner Order material.

Naturally, given the fact that I am involved, a lot of the changes are written on the backs of pieces of paper. Some of the material already exists in our documents (there are currently over two hundred and fifty items that have been issued to at least one member of the lodge); other parts of the material are still deep in the planning stages.

Like for instance, the following planned lessons for the Forty-two Assessors:

Adept Minor Neophyte (5=6 AMN): Z documents
Adept Minor Zelator (5=6 ZAM): Assessors' placement and purpose in ritual
Adept Minor Theoricus (5=6 ThAM): Enochian attributes of the Assessors
Adept Minor Practicus (5=6 PrAM): Coloring of the 42 Assessors
Adept Minor Philosophus (5=6 PhAM): [nothing has been noted for this subgrade yet]
Adept Minor Adept (5=6 AMA): Assessors' use in minor talismanic work
Adept Major (6=5): Use in "Justice" workings
Adept Extemptus (7=4): Use in "personal development" [spiritual] alchemy
Magister Templi (8=3): Comparsion between Outer Order and Inner Order judges

It will be awhile before most of these lessons are written. For one thing, as much of the seven layers (Physical, Etheric, Astral-Emotional, Lower Mental, Higher Mental, Causal {Archetypical}, and Spiritual) information as can be gathered must be assembled before the lessons can be written.

In the end, I think my problem with being able to sum up the curriculum rests in its scope and how much of it has yet to be charted out. Hopefully, I do a better job of it the next time the question arises.

[Updated--June 21, 2013--removed the link to the Hermetic Sanctuary of Maat (HOSM), for it was a dead link to a group that no longer exists; the HOSM still exists; it is merely the self-initiation web support site that no longer exists. Eventually, the BIORC will provide some support for self-initiates.]