July Open Full Moon ritual blurb (new location for Hearthstone)

On July 7 2017, the July Open Full Moon ritual “Story time in Ancient Egypt” will be presented by Hearthstone’s board member, Morgan Drake Eckstein. With the help of volunteers, Morgan will tell us three stories set in Ancient Egypt, as well as talking about some interesting facts about the Egyptian civilization. Come join us as we sail down the Nile.

Reminder that this OFM ritual is happening at Hearthstone Community Church's new location:

Althea Center
1400 Williams St., Denver, CO 80218

Hearthstone will be meeting at the Althea Center for the reminder of 2017.

As usual, the doors will open at 7:00 p.m., with announcements starting at 7:30 p.m., and the ritual starting thereafter. Free to attend, but we recommend that you chip in a couple of dollars when the Church passes the hat to help offset the rental cost.

Does historical fiction need to be accurate? (Especially if I am the writer)

One of the things that I have been kicking around is a story set in Ancient Egypt. Now I will probably never write it because I have now mentioned it on my blog which usually kills off any project that I discuss...because of...I am not sure--it may simply be that my brain says "You have told that story already--move on."


Of course, it may also be my perfectionist nature, or maybe there is a voodoo doll out there of me with lots of pins in it, or the fact that I worry about how other people will react to my work--who knows.


The big question that I am asking about this project is "How much actual historical accuracy do people expect?"


If readers expect a hundred percent accuracy, then let's be honest, they will be sadly disappointed in my work--because I have never allowed the truth to get in the way of a good story. That is a nasty habit that I picked up from my father, who used to tell jokes about the Polish (including the famous short runway pilot joke).


There is also the little fact that my degree is in general history, and not a deep degree focused on any particular time period.


Plus to use the best research and knowledge available on Ancient Egypt costs an arm and a leg. Doing research, I learned that many of the books that would be particularly useful to me, have price tags in the hundred of dollars (and one topped a thousand dollars).


And then there is the other side of the question, which is "Do Golden Dawn members expect fiction written by an Order member to reflect the teachings of the Golden Dawn tradition, even when the current academic research says that the Golden Dawn lore is completely and utterly wrong?"


For the one person who just said, "What? Golden Dawn is not historically accurate? That can't be true--the Imperator of Golden Dawn insists that the teachings of Golden Dawn are one hundred percent true to the Ancient Egyptian mysteries because our Order lineage goes all the way back to Ancient Egypt and beyond."--Sorry, someone has lied to you.


But none of these questions matter because I am probably not going to do any more work on the project--because that is the curse of mentioning it--which I am quite sure will make my favorite critic happy.

One of my favorite scenes from Stargate: "Why do they keep reprinting Budge?"

Gods of Egypt movie trailer

Here is the official digital movie trailer for Gods of Egypt....which is Golden Dawn news because of---gods of Egypt!!!

Target worships Khnum (31 Days of Halloween Kitties Day 29 Year 3)

Kitty makes a cute Khnum.

If you have been on Facebook lately, you have probably seen this picture. Target is using it in one of their sponsored posts (aka an ad) about the holiday costume contest that they are running this year--"Dress up you pet and embarrass them on the internet." I really love this picture--kitty is dressed up as Khnum. I have to love that--my wife is a potter (her pottery store is represented in the sidebar gadget to the right of this post).

Binary shabtis (31-HP Day 7)

[A quick note to the readers from the Ultimate Blog Challenge: In Ancient Egypt, it was believed that the afterlife was much like the living world--tending fields, making beer, raising cattle, etc.--with there being plenty of work to do. In the living world, the Pharaoh had servants to preform these duties. The shabtis (stone and clay figurines) are meant to be the servants of the Pharaoh (and the richer Egyptians) in the afterlife, activated by a prayer to which the shabti would answer, "I will do it; verily I am here when thou callest." This concept may have made its way into the Jewish legends of the Golem (another entity that is made of clay. Essentially, a shabti is a servant. Now onto today's poem...]

Busy today, very, very busy,
So many pixels to lift,
So many pages to read,
So many posts to release,
Too much to do alone.

Hail, binary shabti!
I need information!
"I will do it, says shabti.
I will send forth spiders
And find the information for you."

Hail, binary shabti!
I need to post while away!
"I will do it, says shabti.
Store you excellent post
And I will send it forth at the appointed hour."

Hail, binary shabti!
I don't want to talk to angry girlfriend!
"I will listen, says shabti.
And tell her that you are busy...
...even if all you are doing is watching TV."

Hail, binary shabti!
I need to make some money!
"Good luck with that, says shabti.
Outside of taking order and collecting money,
There is not much I can do for you, you lazy git!"

Belly of Nut

So I decide to write about the extra days of the Egyptian calendar...and then I put it off and off...because I obviously need extra days to write it myself (there is also that small matter of falling into and crawling out of a depression). And at the last moment, when my mind is finally boiling, I lose the internet. Yes, it is going to be one of those posts.

Originally, this blog post was thought of as part of the Tarot Blog Hop. But by now, I should have been removed from the list. (Oh goody, I hear a cat throwing up.) So in theory, some of you were supposed to be coming from Joy Vernon's blog http://joyvernon.com/Blog/in-the-belly/ and then proceeding to the US Games' blog http://usgs.typepad.com/blog/2013/02/imboc-tarot-blog-hop.html and all I have to say is so much for that theory. By now, given the time, I should have been removed from the master list, and work-arounds should be in place. (I am not really sure...because the journalist in me is more concerned about finishing this post than checking the damage report.)

Please visit both Joy and US Games. I am quite sure that they were more up on the ball than I was.

Now, to try to finish the post...of course, this is going to involve whacking the internet with a stick...more than once. (Really?! Don't I already look unprofessional?! And the internet is still phasing in and out...some trickster god loves me.)

In the Ancient Egyptian calendar, there was 360 days originally. Historically, this led to a small problem of the calendar not matching the actual time of the year. It would not have been so bad if the Ancient Egyptians had not tied their festivals and planting to the 360 day calendar. After awhile, a long while (centuries and centuries), the calendar said that one should be planting in the middle of winter or the dry heat of summer (I always forget which one--having just three seasons throws me for a loop also).

So here we have one of the first recorded instances of a calendar designed for religious purposes being terribly out of sync with the local realities. (The modern day example of this is the attempt to use the British Traditional Wicca holiday schedule in Australia...I will leave that one to your imagination--mainly because I live in Colorado, and my image of the scene involves several feet of snow...which I do not think that they get in Australia.)

So the Ancient Egyptians attempted to fix the calendar by adding five more days to it. These days were given religious significance by linking them to a myth that Thoth (Tehuti) won them from the moon god Khonsi in a game, and linking them to the birth of the five most troublesome deities of the Egyptian religion--Osiris, Horus (think Horus the Elder and not the son of Isis and Osiris), Seth (Set), Isis, and Nepthys.

And the calendar was still slightly wrong. Of course, one wonders the difference between "wrong" and "slightly wrong"--which sounds like the difference between "pregnant" and "slightly pregnant." Anyways, the calendar was still a quarter a day too short, therefore still out of tune with the local reality. But at least, it was a step in the right direction.

(At this point, I am going to hit save because the wind is picking up--just in case.)

(And back to writing this. Good thing, I already have that BAD reputation as being a clown and comedian...because I am not sure what people are going to think that only see parts of this post as it is being written...I normally try to cut out some of the thought process [insanity] out of the final edit.)

Now, if I was to just think about what is in my belly at the moment, without the aid of any divination tools, I would have to say forgotfulness, laziness, panic (oh, lots and lots of panic and anxiety), doubt, and stupidity. Or as I like to label, "depression and its aftermath." Then again, that is every day for me.

(I would go into more detail...but I imagine reading about depression is depressing.)

(And now, I hear two cats wrestling. Or at least, I hope that it is wrestling.)

So I presume that this is not what is actually driving me. Or maybe this unholy five of the great monster depression is what drives me.

(At this point, a phone call happens--involving the subjects of money and depression...and the debate of whether my depression is chemical or just bad programming.)

Back to the post writing...which writers and bloggers know is hard to get back into (supposely when you are still partially depressed and panic ridden).

But what if these are not actually the things that drive me?!

Fortunately, I have Thoth to help me. Thoth in the form of a Tarot deck (and I have no idea which deck this Tarot deck is...doesn't matter, I hope). I can do a divination to see what is deep in my belly, driving me forward (hopefully forward--I might be going around in circles).

Using the suggested questions that the organizer of this particular Tarot Blog Hop suggested--"What is in my belly? What is in my Spring? What shall I Birth in this season?"--I pull some cards.

(And disturb a sleeping cat by shuffling the Tarot deck.)

The Hermit, Three of Wands, and Ten of Cups. And they are ALL REVERSED.

The Hermit card of this particular Tarot deck is rather dark (again, I have no idea which deck this is). The only bits of light are the Hermit's lamp and a glow on the horizon...sunrise? sunset? I am guessing that it is supposed to be sunrise. (As a member of Golden Dawn, I am supposed to associate the Order with sunrise...but given my most famous interactions with the community, there are moments that I think sunset is more appropriate.) Given the three cards together it might be something that I just accomplished...or maybe failed to accomplish.

(One of the problems with reading Tarot cards when you are slightly depressed is the fact that one tends to fall towards the gravity of the darker and more depressing possible readings of the cards. Perhaps, one should not read the Tarot cards while depressed.)

The second card (and remember that these cards are all reversed--I photographed them upright just to make it easier to look at for my readers) is the Three of Wands. This is a card of waiting. On the horizon, there are two little boats. Being reversed, I would argue that perhaps one should not wait for their ships to come in...because it is probably not going to happen.

The final card is the Ten of Cups...and being depressed (slightly or greater), one cannot help but feel despair that one will never be happy again. And in my own personal universe, I can't help but notice the turtle that the little girl is poking (the last project I was working on was "Meet Turtle Monkey"). Being reversed, this card does not comfort me at all.

Of course, as I said, one should not read Tarot cards when under the depression or anxiety, the readings tend to be not helpful, and just emphasize the fact that one is not in a functional state of mind.

So what is in my belly? Yes, that is right--the five children of the dark mother depression.

I think that it is going to be a long dark spring for me.

(And I am too depressed to write--I think that a nap is in order. And my wife just walked in the door, and the phone is ringing again.)

As I noted earlier, this post was originally part of the Tarot Blog Hop, which means that some of you were supposed to come from Joy Vernon's blog, and proceeding to the blog of US Games. Feel free to pretend that I actually was part of the Tarot Blog Hop and visit their fine blog posts. (I presume that they write fine blog posts...they have to be better than this one, right?)

Mooning the Sun (Tarot Blog Hop)

BIORC Sun Card--copyright 2012 MDE (All Rights Reserved).

Hi everyone! Some of you are my regular readers--and some of you doing the Tarot Blog Hop (here is a link to the masterlist just in case, there are any breaks in the Hop). If you are coming in from the regular readership, then you are pobably coming here through the padded room at the Lunar Restroom for Retired Secret Chiefs (no, you say--what do you mean when you say that I am making stuff up?!). Those from the Tarot Blog Hop, have came here from Jordan Hoggard's Tarot in the Land of Mystereum blog (or from the masterlist if there is a break in the Hop).

Today's Tarot Blog Hop theme is Celebrate the Sunrise.

For me, a lot of my observances and celebrations of the sun and its cycles are colored by the fact that I am a Wiccan. This is something that extends to the other members of the Order and lodge that I belong to (though the correct label for them is pagan).

I tend to think of this blending as "mooning the sun." For a religion that focuses on the moon, Wicca pays a lot of attention to the sun. There are Wiccans who do the annual drumming up of the sun. Four of the eight big Wiccan holidays are directly related to the main turning points of the sun's cycle, the two Equinoxes and two Solistices.

By the way, three of these four are built right into the Golden Dawn system...all Golden Dawn Orders can claim to be involved in the ancient pagan mysteries if they still observe these three events in their annual ritual cycle.

On the other hand, one could argue that the Golden Dawn pays little attention to the moon...unless you count the number of members who are Wiccan and pagan and/or check the phase of the moon before doing any major magical work.

Life as we know it on this planet would not be as it is if it wasn't for the interplay of the sun and the moon. Our planet has been blessed to have a large moon and a solar orbit that places it in a comfortable (or as comfortable as you can get in this universe) zone that supports life.

The best illustration of the play between the sun and the moon comes from Ancient Egyptian mythology. The original calendar in Ancient Egypt was 360 days, which was divided up into ten day periods (the 36 decans). This calendar would rapidly grow out of sync with the actual seasons of the year. The mythology of Anciet Egypt actually records an attempt to correct the calendar and explain "mytholically" what was happening.

According to the myth, the Earth God Geb made love to his sister, the Sky Goddess Nut. This act upset Nut's father so much that he forbid her to give birth during the days of the normal calendar. Nut. being pregnant with quintuplets, called upon Thoth to aid her. Thoth goes to the moon and plays dice with the moon; in this manner, Thoth wins five extra days to allow for the birth of Nut's children (Osiris, Horus the Elder, Set, Isis and Nephthys). By this act, Thoth starts to become a moon God.

The interesting thing about this myth, besides the interplay of the solar and lunar calendars, is the fact that the moon, over the course of billions of years, have changed the length of the day on earth, therefore changing the number of days in a earth year. Therefore the myth mirrors a scientific truth.

I was reminded of this story when I was creating the version of the Sun card that illustrates this post. Originally, I meant for there to be two cats sitting on the wall (because I have a problem with Sun cards with creepy children in them)--but by the time I was done, they had morphed into monkeys or baboons, a symbol of Thoth. The baboons of Thoth are said to celebrate the sunrise every morning by giving out loud cries. One can say that the Ancient Egyptians celebrated the sunrise by having monkeys moon the sun.

If you are proceeding with the Blog Hop, your next stop will be The Hermit's Lamp (Andrew McGregor).

Scotsman in Ancient Egypt

A Scotsman in Ancient Egypt.

The other night I was watching the first Blackadder series. For those of you who have no sense of humor, Blackadder was a British comedy done back in the Dark Ages of television. In the episode, I was watching the main character, the infamous Blackadder (played by Rowan Atkinson) is busy trying to get a Scotsman killed. One of his ploys is to involve the Scotsman in a play set in Ancient Egypt.

One of the audience members watching the play turns to another and asks, "What is a Scotsman doing in Egypt?" At this point, I just lost it. You see, I have occasionally wondered this myself about someone else. Yes, I am talking about Samuel L. Mathers.

The short answer is that Mathers like many in his generation was enchanted by the lore of Ancient Egypt. Periodically, Egyptology has surges of renewed interest. The late Victorian period was one of those times. And unlike previous times, the late Victorain Age had the advantage that they could actually consult the actual words of the Ancient Egyptians.

After the closure of the last temple of Isis around 400 BCE, the ability to read the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs was lost. The lore of Ancient Egypt was lost beyond those parts that had already made their way into the Hermetica and Greek histories. Periodically, someone would claim to have broken the code behind the ancient hieroglyphs, but today we know that they were completely wrong.

This all changed in 1799, when French soliders found the Rosetta Stone while dugging a defensive trench duing one of their many wars with the British. After the war, the British claimed the Rosetta Stone as part of their war spoils. Over the next fifty years, scholars used the Rosetta Stone to figure out how to read the Ancient Egyptian language.

One of the changes in the esoteric scene brought on by the decoding of the Ancient Egyptian language was that for the first time in two thousand years, actual Ancient Egyptian ideas could be used in the Western Mystery tradition. The Cipher Manuscript of Golden Dawn has a reference to the images from Ancient Egypt (the subject of a future blog post), and Golden Dawn would be the first esoteric Order to use actual Egyptian words in their rituals since the time of the Ancient Egyptians.

This fact attracted students who were interested in such things to the Order. One of these students was Macgregor Mathers, which passion led him and his wife, Moina, to create a set of rituals celebrating the Ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses while they were living in France.

Of course, using the first generation of translations resulted in the Golden Dawn lore being hopelessly out of date by the time you get to our day and age. This has led the Golden Dawn being looked at with contempt by the modern-day scholars...then again, the modern day scholars tend to also frown on magical experiements, so it is not like we were going to get any of them as members in the first place. But it has also led to Golden Dawn (RR et AC) Egyptian lore and techniques to function differently than those used by the Ancient Egyptians. The gods and goddesses of Ancient Egypt tend to "speak in an English accent" (not literally), or maybe it is a Scottish accent, when they are filtered through the Golden Dawn matrix. Parts of the Golden Dawn system, to use the modern insult for the method used, started out as a "recreation" of the long dead Egyptian mysteries.

So what was a Scotsman doing in Egypt? Simple, he was busy looting the tombs of the dead, just like the English and French were doing. Sad, but true.

(If you feel the punchline is wrong, you know the drill---leave your comments in the comment section. Not all comments are approved, but I do read all of them.)

Ngrams Egyptian gods and godforms

Yes, another Ngram post. Last one I promise hope. I will admit that I am curious about some of the graphs that the Google Labs Ngram Tool is kicking out. For instance, I wonder about sections of the one I did on various Egyptian Gods and Goddesses. And there is also the one on godforms that makes me wonder.

Egyptian Gods and Goddesses 1500 to 2008

Egyptian Gods and Goddesses 1800 to 2008

Godforms---what is up with some of these spikes?

Egyptian Gods and the Golden Dawn

The Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt have a special place in Golden Dawn. And in return, Golden Dawn has a special place in modern paganism revival, especially when it comes to those of us who have embraced the Egyptian deities.

To understand why, one must remember that the world lost all direct knowledge of the mythology and religion of Ancient Egypt around 450 CE (or 450 AD if you prefer that notation style). With the closing of the last Temple of Isis, and the loss of the ability to read the hieroglyphs (and other Ancient Egyptian scripts), all that remained of the ancient beliefs of the Egyptians were those parts that had already made their way into Greek and Roman systems.

These bits of myth and lore filtered down though the ages. Golden Dawn inherited part of their Egyptian lore from this stream, call it the "Greek---Roman---Hermetic---Alchemical---Rosicrucian---Freemasonry---Theosophical" stream if you feel like it. This stream was definitely not pure. For instance, attempts to decipher the hieroglyphs were based on the idea that each symbol was a whole idea upon itself. A simple name could become an entire paragraph. The stream also ignored the fact that the Ancients were as interested in counting the number of oxen as modern man is interested in counting small bits of green paper (or red or blue or whatever color your country has developed a fetish for).

It is the other half of the Egyptian stream that is given more value by many. While certain ideas were lifted whole from the GRHARFT stream (I am so not writing that out again), Golden Dawn was in an unique position. In 1799, the key to deciphering the hieroglyphs, the Rosetta Stone was discovered. While it took fifty years to bring the first translations to fruitation, by the time Golden Dawn was formed in 1888, the newly created Order was able to use actual quotes from the mythology of the Ancient Egyptians.

In fact, Isis-Urania, the first Temple (lodge) of the newly formed Hermetic Society of the Golden Dawn, was the first group to use actual ideas, sayings and words from the Ancient Egyptians since the closure of the last Isisian Temple.

(Now, there are some who will feel the urge to correct me at this point, claiming that the Order is much older, and is the child of a tradition from the GRHARFT stream that managed to preserve actual ideas and rituals from Ancient Egypt intact...to them, I say, "I am telling this story, not you." We will talk about my astonishing lack of respect for the official history of the Order another day.)

Being first to revive the actual Egyptian religion does have its costs. Much of the Egyptian lore of the Golden Dawn is firmly stuck in the era of E. A. Wallis Budge. This annoys many people. And personally, I will admit that I wonder how the founding members of the Hermetic Golden Dawn and RR et AC would have dealt with some of the more interesting modern findings.

But despite the base lore being outdated today, what Golden Dawn developed is still state of the art today.

(By state of the art, I mean how the modern Adepts use the system, not the original membership. In many ways, the way that the techniques were originally used were the equivalent of using a refrigerator to store sand.)

The most famous use of the Egyptian Gods and Goddesses by the Golden Dawn was though the use of "godforms." The idea behind godforms is simple; godforms are a container built up though Willed Imagination to serve as a conduit for magical forces (or energies if you prefer).

Now, not everyone likes the idea of the Egyptian godforms. One of the most vocal Golden Dawn critics believes that it is an attempt to enslave the Egyptian deities under the power of IHVH. Given the fact that this critic seems to belong to the religion of the month club, I feel safe in ignoring their opinion. Especially given the fact that my own personal experiences indicate that the Egyptian deities are a force onto themselves, a force that seems not to be impeded by the use or lack of the Hebrew names of power in ritual.

Think of the godforms as a shell/program used to access magical energies, as well as a circuit breaker (fuse) and means to prevent possession by the magical energies.

Now the majority of information about the use of godforms from the original Order is contained in the Z documents. The godforms are used to empower the Neophyte initiation ritual (the entry Grade of the Golden Dawn system), as well as aspects of an Adept's private work. By logical extension, all the initiation rituals and work of the working magician should be done with the help of godforms.

(Not everyone agrees with the logical extension. Each to their own---I know my own personal preference for magical work.)

There are some problems with the use of godforms to empower rituals in the Golden Dawn system. If one goes purely by the Z documents, only Adepts are allowed to know about the godforms, therefore all officers of the system should be Adepts. This idea if it was completely true would have prevented the revival of the Golden Dawn system. Based on personal experience, the godforms are a lot easier to build than the Z documents state---in fact, the Egyptian deities seem to be attracted to Golden Dawn ritual, no matter what the Grade level of the people doing the rituals.

Furthermore (again personal experience), talented members below the Grade of Adept can often sense the godforms, therefore occasionally someone below the level of Adept must learn enourgh about the godforms and Egyptian deities to avoid thinking that they have gone utterly insane. In fact, I suspect (but cannot prove) that the Z document placement of the godforms, and well as their use, came about though the perceptions of talented members from the original Order. I do not believe that the use of godforms was a secret handed down from the GRHARFT stream, but a breakthough in magical technology discovered by the first initiates of the Golden Dawn.

(Pagans and Wiccans reading this will understand this thought if they have ever been surprised by the arrival of deities called in ritual by non-initiates. The old gods were merely sleeping, awaiting a new generation to remember them.)

Those who feel like arguing with my personal experiences should keep in mind that I have worked in less-than-ideal conditions, much like the conditions that the first initiates of Isis-Urania would have experienced. Either I am super-talented or the Z documents are slightly misleading (take your pick).

One final thought about the godforms, the Z documents and related Order papers are merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the godforms. Each godform has seven layers which are merely the building plans. Each Adept will develop their knowledge of the godforms in their own unique manner.

The end result of Golden Dawn bringing in Egyptian mythology into the system, besides some of us hearing the deities speak with a slight English accent, is that when the Wiccan and paganism movement started to develop, Wiccans and pagans were able to borrow some of their initial magical and spiritual working techniques from a system that had sixty years of experience working with the Egyptian deities already.

[The views and opinions presented in this blog post are merely those of Morgan Drake Eckstein. They do not represent the official opinions of any major Golden Dawn Order. All protests about MDE's disregard for secrecy will be read, but might not be approved for publication.]