Monday, February 1, 2010

What rituals is BIORC testing

In the blogosphere, occasionally you run across a conversation that is being conducted across several blogs as different bloggers decide to write about the same subject, and play off of each other's writing. This is part of such a conversation. The first part appeared on Frater AIT blog, sadly removed a few days ago; in return, I put in my two cents. This entry is a response to an entry over on Mishkan ha-Echad (Dean Wilson) which in return is a response to my response to the now-deleted original post by Frater AIT; all this is about Testing and Examinations in Golden Dawn. If you followed all that, grats.

So given testing in lodge, what rituals are we testing?

The short list for Bast Temple at the moment reads:

Outer Order Attending Lodge Member

0=0 Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram


1=10 Middle Pillar Ritual


2=9 Incense/Tincture/Herbs and Stones

3=8 Divination (four types---astrology, Tarot, geomancy, and one other)

4=7 Simple Talisman and Charging

Inner Order Attending Lodge Member

Portal---The Building of the Tree of Life in Aura

Note that this is merely one third of the examination; the other two parts are concerned with the member's knowledge of the Grade (Initiation) Ritual and the associated Knowledge Lecture.

Personally, I think that these items are fair to test a member on, given that they are a member of the modern Golden Dawn. Dean Wilson really understands the point of lodge testing. As always, there is a different set of items for correspondence members; plus this list of rituals is subject to change as we learn what works and what doesn't work.

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