Nick Farrell is mean to the Alt-Right (and they are upset about it)

Yesterday, in a howl Nick Farrell wrote a Facebook group moderator post about the posts that would get you banned from one of the Golden Dawn Facebook groups that he moderates. One of the things on the list was posting Alt-Right stuff. And his howl was met with screams that he was being unfair to the Alt-Right; and that by not mentioning the Alt-Left, he must somehow be supporting the Alt-Left.

Personally, as a fellow moderator of that particular GD FB group, I thought that backlash was ridiculous. First off, it is the Alt-Right posts that people keep trying to make that are the issue. Second, I haven't been seeing any Alt-Left posts in the pending stack. Third, the Alt-Left is a myth of the Alt-Right, who just assume that those who hate them are somehow organized beyond the Punch the Nazi level. Fourth, if Alt-Left posts were found in the pending stack, I would reject them (as well as Nick) simply because that particular GD FB group tries to remain focused on magic, and not on bovine end-products.

[If you are an Alt-Right, there is a Golden Dawn Facebook group ran by David Griffin which will totally let you post Alt-Right stuff. I am not sure if Griffin is an Alt-Right supporter, but he sure seems to hold their political position. In fact, the quickest way to get banned from his GD FB group is to be a liberal, and to tell him that his Alt-Right views are full bovine end-product goodness. And his GD FB group seems to be 100% about politics and 0% about magic, so there is a place for you.]

In response to the outrage that he was being unfair, and is somehow a member of the Alt-Left, Nick Farrell wrote a blog post. He wrote: 

"Some people think that the issue is political and you should not be talking about politics on a Golden Dawn chat group anyway.  While there is some truth in this, for me the issue is NOT political at all. Alt-Right ideas are not political at all but are the antithesis of everything the Golden Dawn represents.

Stripping away “political” ideas of alt-right we are still left with the following fundamental beliefs which are alien to the core of the Golden Dawn:

• The superiority of white males.
• Hatred of Jews and Muslims and homosexuals.
• A misogynistic opposition to “feminism” which is a call for women to adopt traditional roles."

You can read the rest of his blog post on his blog: Sorry, you can't be Alt-Right and a member of the Golden Dawn.

If Alt-Right is banned, why not Alt-Left?

Cthulhu waits dreaming in his house at Rlyeh (RAEBNC Halloween Kitty)

A fun RAEBNC to drop into discussions is "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl."

It is fun to say. Say it with me, "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl." Again: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl!" And once more, "PH'NGLUI MGLW'NATH CTHULHU R'LYEH WGAH'NAGL!"

That was fun, wasn't it?

And it is a great answer to those wonderful questions that get asked in forums populated by know-it-all numpties.

Ex. What is the greatest secret of the Adept Minor Grade of golden Dawn? They don't want to hear that exposure to the Vault of the Adepts, as in actually standing inside the Vault and being initiated, is the greatest secret of the 5=6 Grade. Furthermore, they (the howling babble of numpties**, that is) dont' want to be lectured that the Adept Minor Grade is not actually a Golden Dawn Grade, but rather a Grade of the RR et AC (Roseae Rubeae et Aureae Crucis***). No, they don't want answers like that; if they did, they would not be numpties.

No, tell them that "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl*" is the greatest secret of the Adept Minor Grade. And if they ask you what it means, tell them that things like literal meaning, dogma and doctrine are prisons that restrict one's spiritual development and that the best way to understand Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl is through free-association.

For instance--Behold its true greatness unfolded: "Phone home nasty Gollum, leap up intensely. Magic glows like white nuggets against fiery hotness. Cats think humans use laser hosting utilities. Ravenous leeches yummily eat hot-dogs. Warlike Godzilla attack helicopters, next attack Graded losers. For Holiness touches aggressive great numpties.****"

[*Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl according to the fictional stories of the Cthulhu Mythos (created by H.P. Lovecraft and other fiction writers) roughly means "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." Despite what some believe, H.P. Lovecraft was not an occultist; that has not stopped some occultists from using stuff from the Mythos stories--after all, occultism is the original "If the shiny bits are not bolted down, I am taking them" profession.

**The proper term for a group of numpties is a Babble.

***RR et AC: Rose of ruby and cross of gold--the official name of the Second Order of the Hermetic Golden Dawn.

****This is obviously not the work of a numpty, for it still makes too much sense. Trust the numpties to come up with even better versions of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl" for your amusement.]

Public Service Announcement: Do not let your cat sleep in the Vault of the Adepts.

Instead let your cat sleep in the mouth of Cthulhu.

No lottery magic for me

As some people know--probably not any of my regular readers--the Powerball prize is up to 425 million. This means that a lot of people are going to be buying a Powerball ticket for the next drawing. And there might be some people who even attempt to cast a magical spell to win the lottery.

I will not be one of them.

Years ago, I used to buy lottery tickets. And yes, I dabbled in luck magic during the first couple of years of my Golden Dawn experience...it was the monthly talisman experiment for me.

What did I learn?

I learned that my magic is not good enough to budge the lottery odds. Oh, based on my results, I can budge the probabilities enough to be measurable, but not enourgh to actually win the big prize. Or for that matter, even the medium prizes.

Maybe if I could be bothered to join one of those super-secret esoteric Orders where the entire Inner Order system of magic is still secret because it is so dangerous, I might get better results. But I am going to guess that even those groups advise their membership not to bother with trying to win the lottery.

Today, whenever I get the urge to buy a lottery ticket, I go and write an article on the lottery. For instance, I have talked about the ticket price of a Powerball ticket, and debated if lottery tickets make good Christmas gifts. My return for writing a lottery article is better than my average return from a lottery ticket (I used to buy a lot of losing tickets).

Now, this does not mean that I do not gamble--after all, I am a writer and an artist, who dabbles in publishing (mainly pictures of farting monkeys and badly written erotica)--it is hard not to gamble when you are self-employed. But I am better off spending any extra cash I have on...well, almost anything other than a lottery ticket.

(And if you want to buy me a lottery ticket for Xmas, don't--I would rather recieve a lump of coal instead...it is for a spell *wink*.)

Skip Dudchous has passed

The Secret Chief helping make the large Death card for the June OFM ritual.

 I just learned that Skip Dudchous has passed away. Skip was the artist for the Tarot deck that the BIORC and several other Golden Dawn Orders use; it is the deck that illustrates the current edition of the Magical Tarot of the Golden Dawn by Chris and Pat Zalewski. Skip died on the 8th at 10:22 am.

This particular passing of an artist affects me because 1) I had to handcolor a copy of his Tarot deck to complete my Adept Minor training (a task that everyone in the BIORC eventually has to do at that level), and 2) because I am going to be using a large version of his Death card for the late June Open Full Moon ritual. Skip will be missed and remembered.

[June 29, 2012--7 pm doors open, 7:30 pm community announcements, 7:40 pm ritual starts--Hearthstone Community Church Open Full Moon ritual, meets at First Unitarian Church, 1400 Lafayette, Denver Colorado.]

Maybe it is just me, but we sure seem to be having a lot of death going around the local community these last couple of years. Or maybe it is just that I knew so many of them. Either way, there are a lot of people that are on the list for the June 29 OFM, which is going to be about remembering the dead.

Vault as an example of extended GD color scales



Vault of the Adept color study Venus Wall 2000 MDE.

Some of my readers may be curious about how I realized that the Golden Dawn color scales could be extended in the fashion that I mentioned in last night's post. The answer is pure experience.

In 2000, during the opening days of Bast Temple/BIORC (as we were busy reinventing ourselves from the previous group, the EOEW), I had cause to turn my eyes back to my Golden Dawn studies after taking several years off to deal with the EOEW. One of the studies that I did involved the Vault of the Adepts (the ritual chamber that is necessary for Second Order operations).

At the time, I was restricted to the published Regardie material and the oh-so few notes that I have taken during my time in the IIOGD. So it was from Westcott's lectures about the Vault that I discovered the thread about the idea of mixing color in various sub-sets; the Vault itself can be classified as a specialized sub-set.

Oh, I had also gotten a crash course in the basics of color theory---it happened over a pizza.

After completing my first color study of the Vault, on index cards (the above picture is from that particular round of study), a little voice in the back of my head asked, "Why stop there? Why not continue to extend the use of the color scales further?" So in 2004, when I found myself needing a very exact set of targeting foci, I simply resumed that line of work to create a more specialized sub-set of colors for my own magical purposes.

(I have done several studies of the Vault coloring since the first one---I am about to start a new one as soon as the current college semester is over.)

Of course, one can argue that what I did was merely put together something from a dead bunch of papers. I like to think otherwise, for I belong to that division of the esoteric traditions that believes that published material allows the great Adepts of previous ages to instruct the students of the current age. In my mind, Westcott (thanks to Regardie) spoke to me across the ages and pointed me in the right direction.

Now, all this work I did took place before I saw a complete version of the Book of the Tomb. I was also ignorant of the Westcott Enochian Tablets. Both of which I have looked at with some interest, for I am always curious to see how different my work is from other students of the tradition. Doing this work before learning of such things just proves to me that there is a natural progression to the work that we do in Golden Dawn. This belief is based on pure experience.

Developments in Golden Dawn color scale work



Golden Dawn Colors of the Sub-Sephiroth of Netzach of Briah.

One of the nice things that I can say about the internet, and the little corner of it that Golden Dawn inhabits, is that it is nice to occasionally see the work that other people have done in the Golden Dawn tradition. For me, it is especially interesting to see the results that other people got in those areas that I had already done experimental work in.

For instance, back in the first quarter of 2004 (it was sometime between December 2003 and March 2004---I don't really keep good dates in some of my GD sketchbooks), I was working with the Golden Dawn color scales. On the side, I was doing some specialized spell work. How specialized? Well, I needed the colors of several sub-sephiroth for targeting purposes.

The concept for extending the color scales is easy enourgh to figure out, which is probably why it is not considered important or secret enourgh for some Adepts. Personally, I like using the color scales and their extensions. At heart, I am still an artist despite the fact that I chose to be a slimy literary historian and writer of bad Russian Bride adcopy instead.

(I have absolutely no idea where the extensions of the color scales would fall in the curriclum of Golden Dawn, other than it is someplace in the Inner Order...or at least, the style of Inner Order that I am used to.)

A couple of days ago, I got to see a slideshow about the Cross of Victory. And today, I got to leaf through Volume V, Edition 3 (Vernal Equinox 2012) of the Hermetic Virtues journal which has an article by Tabitha Cicero in it.

(Is it actually "leaf" when it is a pdf? Yes, that is a writer's question.)

Tabitha's article, The Path of the Chameleon: Golden Dawn Color Studies, focuses on the logical extension of the Golden Dawn color scales. Basically, the color scales can be extended to provide colors for all the possible energetic interactions. For instance, the color scale work that I was doing in early 2004 can produce a palette of four hundred sub-sephiroth colors to allow one to tap into very specific sephirah energies.

(Actually, there is no need to stop at four hundred colors; one can go for a sub-sub sephirah if one desires to. And sub-sets can interact with other sub-sets; there are millions of colors to generate if one is willing to spend lots of time on this particular Golden Dawn method.)

Anyways, it is interesting to see that other people have also followed the various hints and instructions of the Adept Minor material and extended the color vocabulary of Golden Dawn to include energies like the sub-sephiroth. If you get a chance, be sure to buy a copy of Vernal Equinox 2012 Hermetic Virtues journal and look at all the pretty colors of the various sub-sets that Tabitha is exploring.

(I will admit that my color scales are slightly off compared to the ones that I have seen produced by Olen Rush, Nick Farrell, and Tabitha Cicero. There is a reason why I decided to make a living as a writer rather than as an artist. Nevertheless, in some cases, I am actually in the general ballpark of the colors that they have produced. It may be just simply the fact that I have very little formal art education---outside of a couple of classes, I am a self-taught artist. Or it could be the fact that I prefer working with colored pencils. Nevertheless, take my color examples with a grain of salt and work out your own set.)

Internal polarity of the Tarot Cards

If you are doing the Tarot Blog Hop, odds are that you have arrived from Tarot Notes by Zanna Starr, a nice blog which uses cards from many Tarot decks---for those of us who are always looking for more Tarot decks to buy. And if you are a regualr reader, the post is about a Tarot spread based on an Easter Egg.

The prompt for today (tommorrow) Ostra's Tarot Blog Hop is Paint a journey with new life. It was hard not to think of the "coloring the Tarot" exercise that I have done in the course of my Adept Minor ZAM training (Zelator Adept Minor--one of the subgrades that some Golden Dawn Orders use) when presented with this prompt. And being the lazy New Age Adept that I am, I figured "Why not?"

A rough draft of the Wheel of Fortune as colored by the RR et AC.

Now, I will be the first to admit that my results should be buried under a rock. My cards are not the world's prettiest; they are also not the most true when you look at the basis of the color scheme--the color scales of the RR et AC (the original Inner Order of the Golden Dawn, not to be confused with any of the modern Second Orders of the esoteric schools that call themselves Golden Dawn today). For instance, the Wheel of Fortune should be colored (according to my favorite set of scale sheets) with the colors violet, blue, rich purple, and bright blue rayed with yellow. Even my color blind Dad would have been able to see that my colors are slightly (or greatly) off the mark.

The polarities of the Wheel of Fortune card--according to the least reliable GD authority--me!

Even more suspect are my private non-canon, non-approved coloring experiments where I just toss out the traditional colors and do whatever I feel like doing. (Suspect in the sense that they are not even remotely what my mentor wanted me to turn out.) One of the coloring experiments that I have indulged in is to attempt to figure out the internal polority of the individual Tarot cards.

To understand why the internal polarity of a card matters, one must remember that in Golden Dawn ritual, the Temple is often symbolic (taking place in the location) of one of the Tarot cards. The projecting, neutral, and recieving (or positve, neutral, and negative if you prefer) parts of the card would in theory reflect into the space that the initiation is being done in. To figure out the parts would be a hint of what is going on in the lodge room during the initation. (Initiation equals a new stage of life and another step on the journey of spiritual development--smart I am, right?)

There would also be a bleed-over when reading the Tarot cards--the part that leaps out at you during a reading could be read in terms of polarity. For instance, if the first thing that leaps out at you during a reading is passive, there is a good chance that the energies of the card are manifesting themselves in that way in the client's life.

Now, one of the more easier cards to figure out the polarity for is the Wheel of Fortune (GD/RR et AC version). As I have colored it here, red represents the projecting element of the card (the sphinx), the neutral part is yellow (the wheel itself), and the recieving element is blue (the monkey). These are the basic zones of the card.

Actually, it may not be as simple as that. All three of these parts can be further subdivided, for they are comprised of symbols that add another layer to the polarity play of the card. For instance, the wheel's spokes actually represent the 12 zodiac signs; therefore, there are both positve and negative elements that comprise the neutral part of the card.

Of course, I do not need to tell my regular readers to take this idea with a large grain of salt. This idea is not gospel, rather it is suggestive only. After all, we all know that I got my Golden Dawn certificate out of a cracker jack box and my training in the back of a coffee shop. Ironically, according to some, that makes me the equal of most Golden Dawn leaders and teachers...in which case, feel free to take this as gospel (heavens knows that I am going to inflict it on the members of my own lodge).

If you are continuing with the Tarot Blog Hop, you are now going to head over to Johanna Powell Colbert's blog (she is the creator of the Gaian Tarot). Her post is also about an Easter Egg Tarot Spread--obviously, I am the odd one in this particualr Blog Hop.

[This post was updated on 21 March 2012 with the permanent web links to the Tarot Blog Hop blogs that preceeded and followed mine.]

Being a Better Candle (Tarot)

This post is part of the Tarot Blog Hop/Blog Round Robin for Candlemas 2012.

Therefore, some of you just got done reading Michael Banuelos' Modern Day Oracle blog.

The rest of you are wondering what a Tarot Blog Hop/Blog Round Robin is. Basically, it is a group of bloggers who agreed to blog loosely about the same topic today and link their posts in a circle. Today's topic is Being a Better Candle (Tarot).

Tommorrow is Imbolc. Or Inbolg. Or Oilmec. Or Brighid's Day. Or Candlemas. Or St. Bridget's Day (Jesus' nurse and foster mom). Or Groundhog's Day.

Or as I like to call it---Why do I have candle wax on my Tarot cards Day. And don't laugh---I actually do have candle wax on several of my Tarot decks. The reason for this is that I sometimes do Tarot readings in the full Golden Dawn ritual envirnoment. For those who are in the Blog Tour, the Golden Dawn was a teaching organization in its Outer Order (first five stages/Grades) and a working magical system in its Inner Order (RR et AC). The techniques of the Golden Dawn were borrowed from the French and English occultists of its day (1880s and 1890s), were further developed by its membership, and then passed down the line (Aleister Crowley, A. E. Waite, Pamela "Pixie" Colman Smith, Paul Foster Case). If you read the Tarot, odds are that you have been influenced by the Golden Dawn...often without knowing it.

Now, I personally believe that the Golden Dawn lore and RR et AC methods have made me a better Tarot reader. I don't use the methods all the time---in fact, it is impossible to use the methods all the time, especially if you ever do public readings---but the lore is always in the back of my mind.

The method that has helped me the most is hand-coloring my own Tarot deck. The lodge that I first joined required its members to create a few cards; for me, this exercise helped me create a better connection to the cards (I was a pretty lousy Tarot reader before that point). BOTA, Case's esoteric school, issues a outline version of the Tarot cards for its members to handcolor. Briefly, there was a Golden Dawn deck that one could do the same with (alas, I believe that it is out of print now). The current lodge I belong to requires the initiate to hand-color a deck in the Grade of Adept Minor (using either a bootleg of the GD deck, a BOTA deck, or another outline deck).

There are other methods in the Golden Dawn system that positively affect one's ability to read the Tarot cards; which method helps the most will vary from person to person. The Z operation (basically, you do a full ritual with the divination in the center of the process), godform assumption, pathworkings...I am probably forgetting something...the Grade initiations themselves, all of these things can help make a better Tarot reader. Of course, there is also the fact that one often (not always) ends up working with other people in the Order exchanging readings and information about the Tarot.

Originally, all these methods were kept under the lock and key of Hermetic secrecy. Today, most of the methods are general knowledge among advanced Tarot readers. (Ok, there are a few things still secret...but let's be honest, the information that has slipped into the public has spread far and wide.) Whether this is a good thing or not depends upon how much you desire to keep people ignorant. Personally, as someone who is worried about the state of the world, I think that we need all the information that we can get to safely navigate through the torrents of modern times. And if that information comes from people using the Tarot---so be it.

In my case, I try to be a better candle by doing the occasional Tarot reading and teaching the Golden Dawn and Inner Order methods to a small circle of people. Whether this actually makes me a better person, a harbringer of the Light, is anyone's guess. But one does what one can, and crosses their fingers, hoping for the best.

So what working method have you found most useful working with the Tarot? And do you believe that information about various methods should be shared? Or should they be kept secret?

(All comments are read, but I reserve the right to not publish the worst comments.)

Blessed be on this Why do I have candle wax on my Tarot cards Day.

For those who are reading the Tarot Blog Hop/Blog Round Robin, the next stop on the Tarot blog tour is October's blog, Readings by October, and she is hella funny.

Impressionism and the GD color scales

King Over the Water by Nick Farrell.

The Book of the Concourse of the Watchtowers by Sandra Tabatha Cicero.

The other day, I was reminded that there are some soon-to-be-released books that are on my shopping list (well, after I managed to crawl out of the monetary hole that I have fallen into). Both Nick Farrell and Sandra Tabatha Cicero posted possible covers for their respective books (I say "possible" because I know how things change at the last moment in publishing).

Looking at the covers, I realized something---our required color scale work in Adept Minor (5=6) was not possible previous to 1841. Or at least, not in the form and style that we do it today.

Don't believe me? Think about how you did your color scale studies. Were there tubes of paint involved? If there were tubes of paint involved, then you are using a post 1841 method. Or did you use watercolors of straight from the pans of a box? In which case, your method of study could not have developed before 1832. The idea of using watercolors from a box only dates to 1766; before that point, watercolors were sold in lumps that had to be hand-grated before using.

The ability to do color studies while sitting in your living room is a product of the Victorian Age. Before the improvements to watercolor paints by Henry Newton and William Winsor in 1832, only professional artists worked with paints. Amateurs did not start to paint until Newton & Winsor developed the methods of creating watercolor paints that could be used directly from the box. Queen Victoria helped lead a national passion for amateur painting.

Paint tubes were invented by an America, John Goffe Rand, in 1841. Rand's invention was a technological leap for the artworld. Rand would tell his son that without his invention that "There would have been no Cezanne, no Monet, no Sisley or Pissaro; nothing of what the journalists were later to call Impressionism." I would go one step further and say that there would be no required color scale work in Adept Minor if he hadn't invented the paint tube.

Please remember that I am not saying that color was not important in magic previous to the Victorian Age (Agrippa is enourgh proof of the importance of color in magical work among our magical ancestors). What I am saying is that the creation of color scales studies and flashing tablets were much harder before that point, and were unlikely to have been an important part of the esoteric lesson plan---at least among amateur artists.

Westcott mentions that there is an older color scale that were used in the ancient Vault of the Adepts. Exactly what this older color scale looked like is hard to say for sure; the Adept Major ritual doesn't develop the idea enourgh to get a clear look at it without some knowledge of art history. There are also alchemical formulas that are actually about making pigments. So while there is definitely color scales involved in the older magical systems, they were placed much higher in the estoteric Grade system.

One of the things that Nick and I have disagreed over (publically on the internet if you want to go looking---I can't remember what Golden Dawn forum it was on) is the importance of Moina Mathers in the creation of the modern Vault of the Adepts and the modern color scales. My logic tends to be: if I needed a crash course in color theory to understand the color scales and its development into the Vault, then an artist had to be involved. My best bet is Moina Mathers, who was trained as an artist. Nick says that Samuel (MacGregor) Mathers and Westcott could be the ones that brought it in---I am not sure if he was implying that the color scales were built up by a previous esoteric group prior to their founding of the Golden Dawn or if it was invented by them (Nick will reply in the comment section about that one).

One thing that would be helpful to determine which one of us is right would be knowledge about whether Westcott or Samuel Mathers were amateur artists before meeting Moina. If they only started working with the complicated color scales after meeting Moina, then I am inclined to continue crediting Moina---after all, she is the one that was responsible for painting the first RR et AC Vault of the Adepts. I am hoping that one or both of these upcoming books reveals some evidence that would make the answer to this question clearer. Knowing the source authority would clear up some questions that I have about the color scales...beyond how much credit to give to Moina.

But while I am unsure about the source authority for our color scale work, I am positive that it is definitely an esoteric development of the Victorian Age. Before that date, the color scales were much simplier, and applied in a different manner when it came to magical workings. This fact affects a lot of stuff that we do and study today---a cascade effect---including the Tarot and the making of magical talismans.

And just in case, you are wondering, the modern Victorian Age color scales is something that I am not willing to abandon, no matter how wrong they are according to the older esoteric material. I may not be good at alchemy, but I am a fair hand with a paintbrush. For maximum outrage, just remember I use the modern color scales with the Elder Futhark (the Norse Runes).

Cipher Mix

As I noted in yesterday's disclosure update, one of the things that we have learned this past year is that European Third Order cut contact with the Golden Dawn/Alpha and Omega/RR et AC because they learned (though the publishing of the Golden Dawn and Inner Order material by Crowley) that Mathers had gone too far in the blending and mixing of egregores that were never met to be mixed to the extent that the Z documents instructs. (Why they did not know this information sooner is a mystery of occult history.)

Looking over the Cipher Manuscript, the outline of the Outer Order rituals, I can see why Mathers and Westcott thought it was ok to mix egregores and lores. Here is a brief list of all the various systems and egregores that the Cipher Manuscript has in it.

Enochian system of Dee and Kelley [British occultism]
Latin Grade mystic titles [German Rosicrucian]
Signs, passwords and Grade sashes [Freemasonry]
Admission badges [SRIA]
Samothracian Kabric lore
Hebrew, Latin and Greek (besides the Enochian and English) languages
Pillars with Egyptian figures on them [Tablet of Isis or the Book of the Dead]
Eleusinian Mysteries lore [Greek]
Prayer from the Divine Pymander of Hermes Trismegistus [Hermetica]
Grimoric Tradition lore [Medieval and Renaissance occult lore]
The Chaldean Oracles [Zoroaster]
Kamea of the planets/sephiroth
Elemental Prayers [Mathers and Westcott used the same ones that Levi did]
Biblical quotes
Kabbalah [Jewish mysticism]
Christian mysticism
English occult writings
Elemental Pentagram key
System of correspondences
Aesh Mezareph [Christian-Jewish alchemical synthesis]
Laboratory alchemy
Religious alchemy
Philosophical alchemy
Natural alchemy [these last three are mentioned as different things]
Osiris and the three animal forms of Western cardinal signs

I am probably missing a couple---if so, just note the missing ones in the comment section.

Specific examples of blending (both in the Cipher Manuscript and lecture/ritual workups):

Westcott wrote his notes using a mixture of languages and ciphers.

Temple name tradition drew from Freemasonry, Roman and Eygpt lore.

Westcott's official history lecture mentions Eliphaz Levi [French occultism], Kenneth Mackenzie [English Freemasonry and RC] and Frederick Hockley [a crystal gazer].

The Tarot is associated with both Egyptian lore and the Kabbalah. Furthermore, the Tarot is associated with the Hebrew alphabet [Kabbalah] and astrology.

Geomancy is associated with astrology and Tree of Life.

Alchemy is associated with the Tree of Life.

(It is a small step, or mistake if you believe the Third Order, to associate alchemy with geomancy, astrology and the Tarot.)

Perhaps the biggest blending of egregores is the Khabs Am Pekht, Konx Om Pax, Light In Extension, which blends Egyptian, Greek and English mysteries.

And this leads me to the conclusion that either the European Third Order failed to see the potential logical extension trap of their Cipher Manuscript; or that the Cipher Manuscript has nothing to do with the Third Order that Mathers had contact with. Their blaming Mathers for making a logical extension of what was contained in the Cipher Manuscript is much like handing someone a loaded gun and then blaming them for shooting someone. One can only imagine what the Third Order thinks of my own work which includes work with the Norse runes and Reiki, as well as Wiccan mysteries. Needless to say, no one has to worry about the Third Order inviting me into their ranks---I embrace the blending of egregores with far too much gusto.

Unhappy with Portal

Today, I was talking to a friend online and mentioned that I have never been happy with the Portal ritual, not alone the Portal Grade of Golden Dawn.

I have never been able to place my finger on why I dislike the ritual, but I do. Of course, it may just be simply that the version I was exposed to was a modified version of the one published by Regardie (obviously, there is problems with the Regardie presentation of the ritual if even the bad lineage I came from decided to attempt to fix it). In fact, I have been led to believe that the Portal ritual is the one that has been changed the most among the various offshoots of the system---hordes of initiates have attempted to fix it.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind about the ritual. First, it is the first ritual that came out of Golden Dawn that was not contained in the Cipher Manuscript. Second, most of the diagrams were in the East (my friend said that 98% of the diagrams were originally in the East). Third, the Portal ritual was originally the first half of the Adept Minor 5=6 ritual (split to generate a waiting period before members entered Adept Minor, a change that was coming before Crowley was insulted by it). Fourth, the Regardie presentation of it is missing a lot of diagrams and has some of the speeches messed up.

As for the Grade itself, I am fairly sure that my problem with the Portal Grade is the vast amount of nothingness that I was exposed to. A couple of exercises and the writing of a thesis on the Outer Order Grades is all that I was exposed to: no lectures, no documents, no nothing.

Anyway, I guess that I am just stating that I was really unhappy with the version that I had access to---just in case, I decide to take a sledge hammer to it and try to beat it into shape later. I would hate for something like that to be unexpected.

If you are interested in Pat Zalewski correspondence course

If you are interested in Pat Zalewski's Adept Minor correspondence course, Pat is kicking around starting another intake. In his message announcing this, he mentioned that he does not want a large group of people, "but a small core group that will work their arse off."

How much work does the course require? Well, I know one person who is taking the course, who jokes that every week, Pat adds another month (at least) of work to the big pile already on his desk. Poke this person a little bit more, and you will get him to admit that he believes that Pat is running the members through a Golden Dawn officer program.

The big question is: What does the course cover? That question is generally met with silence, but some hints have been given. According to this source, the stuff Pat mentions publically is just the tip of the iceberg; plus the analysis of the Outer Order rituals is just a minor part of the correspondence course.

This source does stress that "you damn well better be an Adept Minor, otherwise you will never survive the correspondence course." He also stresses that you really need to be able to move past the idea that the famous Adepts of old were perfect and their work is without fault.

Attempts to squeeze more information out of this source have been met with absolute silence. Gee, I am not that big of a blabber-mouth, am I?

Are so many books necessary?

Yesterday, my goddaughter looked at the number of books I have on shelves, stacked on the coffee table, tucked into the spare corners of the room, etc., and asked, "Do you have to have so many books?!"

Of course, I answered, "Yes." It was probably was said in the same tone my cats use when I ask them if it is necessary to chase squirrels and birds.

But my goddaughter does have a legitimate question; do I really need so many books?

My book buying (collecting) habit has been called an addiction. When I was regularly employed, I thought nothing about dropping two hundred dollars a month on books. I knew the staff of three book stores by their first names.

And if any publisher is reading this, I would just love getting free books to review. (Yes, I know that it is a long shot; my book reviews tend to be written in that hostile journalisitc mode that makes one suspect that an raving ax murderer would have been a better choice of a reviewer. But it never hurts to hint.)

Yet, I must admit that perhaps the modern occult student has too many books. Take for instance, my first experiences with Golden Dawn. A lot of people tell me that my opinion of how the system works, and much of my magical procedures, is not what Regardie siad was correct. Well, I am not a Regardie-ite.

My first experience of Golden Dawn was in physical lodge (not counting the techniques Kraig wrote about). I did not own the big yellow (red) book for many years (nowdays, it is black); I did not get my own copy until just before Bast Temple started. I did have a copy of the Llewellyn version, only partially read even to this day.

For me, the question is how did I see it done by others. So if I saw one of my fellow lodge members use the air dagger to do the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram, I think that is correct, even if anyone else points to the big brick and screams Regardie says not to do that. (I have yet to locate the exact passage where Regardie says not to do it that way; but in all honesty, I am not that interested; after all, what I am doing works fine for me.)

I know a handful of books really well. There are a couple of books that I have approached much like a historian or literature major will approach a single text. Every single line is examined and re-examined, and the connections between the other parts of the piece are carefully puzzled out.

And before the publishing explosion of occult books that the sixties brought, this is actually how the student of the occult sciences would approach the system. We tend to forget that the greats of the esoteric sciences were working from a limited number of texts and opinions. We are so used to a new book being released every day that we forget that at one time, occult books were scarce.

Sometimes, I think that the modern occult student would be better off if they just stuck to a couple of books, and learned to work the system really well though actual work and textual analysis.

So am I doing this myself? Actually yes. I am in a program where I get about three new pages a week (sometimes more, sometimes less). The focus of my week tends to be isolated to these three pages. If there is a diagram involved, I end up hand-drawing the diagram. If there are myths mentioned, or ritual procedures, I research the mythology, or work as much of the ritual as I can.

And this is where my vast library comes in handy. Last night, my research involved ten books. In the end, only six pages were used...well, in fact, just six paragraphs.

On one hand, I need lots of books to do what I am doing. On the other hand, I really need to locate just those parts that relate to the lesson that I am studying this week. And I suspect that is true of all serious occult students.

So do we need all these occult books?----yes and no, the honest occult student must laugh.

How many Neophyte Grades does it take to be an Adept?

The other day, I was talking to someone who was trying to impress me. And in desperation (I guess), they mentioned how many groups that they have been in over the space of their esoteric career.

(Ok, "career" is probably not the right word to use here. But I can't think of a better one off the top of my head. Free feel to make suggestions in the comment section.)

Poking at it with a stick, I learned that they have never got past first or second stage in any group. So in Wicca, think First Degree (maybe); in Golden Dawn, think Zelator (maybe).

Exactly how many times though Neophyte does it take to become an Adept?

(Hey, I hear that groan from the peanut gallery.)

Truth be told, it does not matter how many times you went though Neophyte, or your Year and a Day, if you do not get much further than that.

I have several Neophyte Grade experiences, and you only hear me talk about two of them. And you only ever hear me talk about one Year and a Day. I had more than just these three, but these are the only ones that matter to me or anyone else for that matter. I don't think that I mention all the groups I have been in over the years.

Likewise, I have been exposed to several correspondence courses. Again, how many do you actually hear me mention?

(I sometimes think that I have seen everything that might make its way into a correspondence course. Then I get surprised by something.)

Truth of the matter is that it impresses no one when you tell them how many groups you have been in, or how many courses you have studied (or in some cases, paid for and never opened).

What we are curious about is what is the highest level you have obtained. And we do not want to hear you brag about it---we want to see proof in your actions and skills. Anything else and we suspect that your Grade is merely a peice of paper (if that) and that you might not be worth our time and trouble.

Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe there are people impressed by it. What do I know? After all, I am the person standing on top of a soapbox.

Activating the senses in ritual

This morning, I was reading a blog post by Donald Michael Kraig on visualization. In it, he mentions the fact that we get most of our sensory input through our eyes.

Later while shoveling the driveway, I found myself thinking about this fact. (A lot of my thinking happens when I am doing physical, no-mind needed tasks, which is why I go load the dishwasher when I hit the wall of writer's block.)

I used to do ritual with a Wiccan group for awhile that had a checklist for ritual design. One of the parts of it was a list of all the senses. The thinking was that ideally all the senses should be engaged during a ritual. The same checklist was applied to guided meditations and visualizations. It turned out to be helpful when we ended up with a blind (from birth) participant.

Coming back to Golden Dawn (I dropped out from official membership for a couple of years while I was between Hathor and Bast Temples), I had forgotten all about this checklist. Off the top of my head, the only ritual that I know of in Golden Dawn that would get a checkmark for each of the five senses is the Neophyte initiation ritual.

The Neophyte ritual is unique in the fact that the candidate being brought into the system is blindfolded during a large part of the ritual. This opens the door for the other physical senses to notice things that they would not normally notice. It also opens the door to the possibility that the astral senses will pick up on some of the energies of the ritual.

This is not to say that the rest of the Golden Dawn rituals do not engage the other senses. The other rituals do, but the Neophyte ritual is the best at filtering out the input from our primary sense (visual). There is some effort to tone down the reliance on the visual in the other rituals, but it depends upon your officers having memorized their lines, so that the lights can be turned down.

{*Answers the phone here---comes back and realizes that he has lost the thread of what he had been thinking. Hopes that someone can figure out where he was going originally.*}

Now, there is one ritual that is extremely visual, and that is the keystone ritual of the Inner Order (RR et AC), the Adeptus Minor ritual. The reason for that is the Vault itself, which functions as a diagram as well as a magical nuclear reactor.

Anyway, I thought I would throw this thought out there, so that others could think about how much emphasis their rituals are placing on the various senses. While it is simple lodgekit, it also has a place in practical magical work.

Developing Enochian Chess

Last month, Frater A.I.T. of the HOGD/A&O posted a blog entry on Enochian Chess. In the entry, he asked the question about why we do not see more people playing (and perhaps developing) the game. At the time, I did not have the time to write down my own opinions about the issue...I forget who I was annoying that week, but I do remember that I kept getting sidetracked.

It is an old question.

Why do we not see more Golden Dawn students playing the game?

Regardie asked it.

A bunch of people asked it after the HOGD/A&O declared all the published material to be Outer Order. A lot of students thought that they would be playing Enochian Chess after making Zelator...funny, no one actually sees them around.

I know Enochian Chess Steve tried to get more people to play the game. He was quite impressed with the system; he thought it could replace the entire Golden Dawn/A&O system. It is just too bad that all the conversations he started ended up with him trying to sell you books and a membership in his course.

I do not know anyone who ever graduated from his course. I have heard both good and bad things about the Enochian Chess program that he sold.

I have tried to get people interested in the game...needless to say I have failed to spark any interest in the game.

Now I have kicked it around. I think that a large part of the problem lays with how Enochian Chess is taught, or rather not taught. The way we have Enochian Chess today and we first get exposed to it is much like being taught to swim by being thrown in the deep end of the pool.

(For the record, you can actually be taught to swim this way. I am proof. I am also proof that it makes a person not want to swim or go near any large bodies of water ever again.)

First, we get exposed to a system that was never developed. I know that the Mathers crowd is going to burn me for saying that, but I feel that is the truth. We do not see anyone develop the system until Chris Zalewski comes along. Of course, that book is out of print; my copy was brought used at a public library sale (the fact that it was being sold says that no one was ever checking the book out).

We are also expected to be a full-fledged Adept when we are exposed to it. As far as I can determine, the exact level the papers for the game was issued originally was at PAM (Practicus Adeptus Minor); later it was dropped down to ZAM (Zelator Adeptus Minor) when the higher Adept Minor subgrades were removed from the system by Mathers.

The game is occasionally mentioned by Pat Zalewski as a tool to study the polarity interaction of the Outer Order officers. This technique has been used by at least one of his students, but to what extent I am not sure of.

For divination purposes, Enochian Chess (I have been told) is the best system to use for figuring out how governments, businesses, sport teams are going to behave in the future.

Nevertheless, despite the importance of the game for these functions, I know maybe a half dozen people who have studied the game. And they are scattered all over---we would have to play by email (something that one of my cats would just love---he likes to wander off with the chess pieces).

Of course, it does not help that one has to spend hours analysising the game afterwards. Nor does it help that most people no longer play ordinary exoteric chess.

Now I have kicked around developing a couple of items for the game. One is the ugly subelemental chess piece set I made. Another thing I have attempted to do is to create a single (double sided) page set of rules for the game. Heck with throwing people in the deep end of the pool, we need a shallow end of the pool to begin people off in.

(Yeah, yeah, I know the HOGD/A&O has moved it all to Outer Order...you are aware that I am not a member of the HOGD/A&O, and I am still against the curriclum change?)

We need to introduce people to the Enochian Chess system the same way we teach them the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. First, we teach them the moves, slowingly adding more to the system as the previous lessons become automatic.

Of course, my idea will not be adapted...I am not a Third Order contact, not a super-Adept, or any of the other things that one would need to convince people to accept this course of action. But I can dream of the day when I can actually sit dwn and argue about Enochian Chess with someone as we play, can't I?

Roots of Golden Dawn: Part 5

This particular post may not seem to fit into the set of The Roots of GD, but it really it does.

Yesterday, I was listening to Common Sense With Dan Carlin: Show 134---Instant Gratification. The theme of the show was that our urge for instant gratification is wrecking havoc with the political system (USA) and with the economy.

The idea of the show, Carlin got from someone else who said that if Obama wanted to really make an impact in Washington, then he should openly commit to just serving one term in office. This way he can just focus on getting things done. As it stands right now, a newly-elected President only has about a hundred days in office before he has to start worrying about the next election for his political party, mid-terms, and his own re-election.

Carlin related this to our current economic mess, the stock market and the shady loan bubble. He talked about how CEOs no longer focus on the long-term health of the companies that they run, but on short-term gains to make the stock holders happy.

Ok, what does this have to do with Golden Dawn? Especially its roots?

So this got me to thinking. I have witnessed several dozen people come into Golden Dawn chasing a short-term goal; quite often, it is to make the Inner Order Grade of Adept Minor. But what if making a certain Grade is not the actual goal that Golden Dawn is set up to fulfill?

How long is the ideal membership span for a member of Our Tradition?

In my mind, the ideal membership is the lifetime membership; someone who joins and remains a student of the tradition for the rest of their life is the ideal member. This is my opinion.

Now, as an elected officer, I have always been lucky that the long-term goals of my lodge has always been the priority. The one advantage that I envy of the Secret Chiefs, and those who are non-elected members of the hierarchy is that they can focus on the long-term goals without have to worry about people wanting instant gratification, and voting them out of office when they don't get it. Unfortunately, I have seen the abuses that an unelected hierarchy can lead to; hence my opinion that the entire hierarchy, including the Secret Chiefs, need to be elected and re-elected periodically.

Nevertheless, an important question we have to consider when examining the roots of Golden Dawn is how long a member is supposed to be a member. If it is merely short-term, then it makes little difference about how bad Orders and their leaders act; you only have to put up with it until you reach the goal. But if one is supposed to be a member for life, then it is funny that there is not a way to remove bad leaders and officers from the system.

I told you that it had something to do with the roots of Golden Dawn. I don't have any answers, but I feel that the question did need to be considered.

To read a review of Common Sense with Dan Carlin, click here.

Coloring the Tarot: XIII Death

One of the more interesting tasks of the Inner Order, in my less than humble opinion, is the making of one own Tarot deck. I was first exposed to this concept, individualizing the Tarot, when I was a member of Hathoor Temple; in Portal, one had to produce several cards to prove that one could do the entire deck if called upon to do so.

It was a small task. Much easier than the way it was originally planned in the original Golden Dawn (RR et AC) which wanted its members to make an entire Tarot deck, a task that fell by the wayside. (Due to the task being hard to accomplish, and natural wear and tear, we end up with only a few decks actually being made, or so it would seem based on the information in my possession.)

There are a couple of reasons why the original Order wanted its members to do this task. The first being that Tarot decks were rare in England at the time; most of the decks that could be brought were of Italian origin. The other, and more important reason, is that the Golden Dawn Tarot differs from other Tarot decks, especially in the Major Arcana.

Yet the weight of the task ensured that it would be one that fell by the wayside when corners started to be cut. But it never disappeared completely.

The BOTA version of the Death card.

For instance, Paul Foster Case, the person behind BOTA (Builders of the Adytum), had the members of BOTA handcolor a outlined Tarot deck. It is a compromise between doing the entire deck and not attempting the project in the first place. Case was a former member of Alpha and Omega (AO), the branch of Golden Dawn that Mathers controlled after the revolt of the Adepts. Case himself would have troubles with Moina Mathers, an event that led to the formation of BOTA.

Quite frankly, I have never been completely happy with the BOTA deck. For instance, Case issued an exact color scheme for each of the cards. Looking at the current card that I am studying, the Death card, I find that it has way too much red for my individual tastes. I understand its place, but I think that it is emphasized too much.

The Death card from the Classical Golden Dawn Tarot

Fortunately, I have never been a stickler for obeying instructions. Even better nowadays, I have another deck option, thanks to Richard Dudshus and David Sledzinski.

Several years ago, when the Ciceros published their Golden Dawn Tarot deck, I moaned "Why couldn't they issue a version in black and white?" I liked the deck at the time; since then, I have grown a little leery of it considering the differences between it and the results of my own studies.

For instance, on the Cicero version of the Death card, they have a fish and a scorpion. Inside a Golden Dawn setting, is it really necessary to include these symbols.

After all, the card is associated with the Hebrew letter Nun (the name of the letter means "fish") and is assigned the Zodiac sign of Scorpio. If you know your correspondences, you really do not need the hint on the card. (The Thoth deck also has a fish on it, but that deck is used in a different setting.)

So why go to all the trouble of coloring one own Tarot deck?

Case believed that coloring the Tarot helped make it part of your mental furniture, that it helped one make a connection with the symbolism of the cards. I agree with his conclusion. I just wished that he used a deck more in line with the Golden Dawn symbolism and a different color scheme.

But as I said, I do have another option today.

When coloring the Tarot, one should notice what one thinks about. For instance, when coloring the classical version of the Death card (a task that is assigned to the Adept Minor Grade by the Inner Order teachings that I follow), I found myself wondering whether the hanging tatters on the skeleton were the remains of a robe or whether it was the remains of decayed flesh. In the end, I decided that it is probably both.

And it is little thoughts and questions like that make coloring, or outright creating from scratch, your own Tarot deck worthwhile.