If America invented Golden Dawn

Secret Chief Wisdom #76: The American flag makes a wonderful bed for one's massive ego.

Today, someone (let's call him George Washington) made a comment that got me thinking about something: Exactly what would Golden Dawn look like if it had been an American invention?

First off, there would be absolutely no chance that what George Washington is fighting for, his ideal of what Golden Dawn is, would be what the Americans would have invented. No, it would be something very different.

I can't imagine that an American Golden Dawn would have paid much attention to any esoteric tradition that started on the European continent, nor anywhere else before 1776. The whole idea that wisdom is handed down guru to guru is alien to the American idea that anyone can rise up to the greatest of heights of power. And if there would be anything about a secret tradition, it would be like the image of the noble Red Indian as used in the fraternal societies; images used to prop up the American myth of independence and freedom.

There would be no national Order, not alone a international Order. No, very state would have its own little Grand Lodge. Cross the state line and you are in a different jurisdiction.

Furthermore, the emphasis on lodge attendence would be non-existent. No, you would recieve all your lessons through the post office. (My proof of this is BOTA and AMORC.) As long as you keep sending in your dues, you keep recieving the weekly lesson. The oral tradition would be completely absent.

An American Golden Dawn would supply you with decent health insurance at a reasonable rate. There would be lots of networking opportunities for those looking for employment and business deals.

An American Golden Dawn would be deep in spiritiualism. Table tapping, ring and disc, and seances would be the height of American Golden Dawn spiritual techniques, and the magical tools would be straight out of Pennslyvania Dutch hexcraft. Everything would be clothed in the Bible; there would not be an Egyptian god in sight, not even in the Adept Extemptus material.

In an American Golden Dawn, all officers would be elected. The budget and membership figures would be known by all members. We would also have Golden Dawn license plate holders for our expensive cars.

And best of all, the Zelator Grade initiation would not cause the initiate to have financial and health hardships. No, America is about money; both the Law of Attraction and the Master Key System are American inventions. Heck, making money would be the height of the American Golden Dawn system (again, I point to BOTA and AMORC as proof--though it should be noted that I read the material through the eyes of a happy little cynic). Spiritual development? Magical development? These are only necessary if they help you earn more money and take it to heaven when you die.

The only thing that George Washington has right is the fact that an American Golden Dawn would have a Grand Lodge (the Nevada Grand Lodge of the Righteous Golden Dawn) in Las Vegas, which is the symbol of what Americans most want--money, sex, drugs, and lots of gambling.

Sorry, but Golden Dawn, just like Wicca, is a British invention. There is no way that those two systems could have developed anywhere else in the world.

If you feel differently, please go to the blog of George Washington and leave your comments there; after all, his massive ego can handle the attention of being told that he is absolutely right.

Concord and Peace of the Three

S.R. just posted an appeal for peace in the Golden Dawn community. Having experienced the Denver Witch War of the 80s and having been an "active bystander" in the flaming Golden Dawn feud of the last decade (only half of its length), I doubt peace will actually occur. I honestly do not see any chance for peace in the Golden Dawn community until one of the camps steps completely away from the Golden Dawn label, especially considering how wide the gap is between the perception of the two parties of what Golden Dawn is about.

As proof that such a peace is possible, S.R. notes that he was taught that Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers (Head of the Rosicrucian Order of the Alpha et Omega), Dr. Robert William Felkin (Head of the Stella Matutina), and Arthur Edward Waite (Head of the Holy Order of the Golden Dawn) met and agreed to mutually recognize each other's Orders.

This is only partially true. A "working truce" occurred, but there is no evidence that it ever was a formal meeting and recognition between the three. And it fall apart quickly.

Initially, there was a concord between the Stella Matutina and the Independent and Rectified Rite (Waite). This concord broke because Waite discovered that Felkin was communicating with J.W. Brodie-Innes, Mathers, and Westcott. Waite could not tolerate peace with Mathers or any of his supporters.

And officially, there is a lack of peace between the three Orders.

When the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross formed in 1915, after the Independent Rite suffered a series of schisms, its constitution said "The Independent and Rectified Rite, with its dependencies, if any, in so far as now in activity, and the Stella Matutina Temple, together with its dependencies, are not in communion with the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, and cannot be Visited or Joined."

Likewise, the 1916 New Constitution of the Stella Matutina says, "Members of any other Temples applying for admission, must be clearly warned that they will be required to give a definite pledge not to work in future with or under D.D.C.F. [Deo Duce Comite Ferro--Mathers], S.R. [Sacramentum Regis---Waite], Sub Spe, or Dr B. [Brodie-Innes]." Furthermore, in the section about the conditions where expulsion of memebrs is talked about, besides mentioning that six members were expelled when the Order broke with D.D.C.F., it says, "I have had to ask one Member to resign, because she told me she intended to join S.R.'s new Society."

And people outside the Concord of the Three did not foresee lasting peace between them. For instance, Westcott presumed that after his death that the Three, along with "Crowley and Co." would "make claims on my G.D. properties and may each make public claims derogatory to my historical interests in the G.D. and Isis [Urania] Temple."

Based on all this, if there was ever a meeting between Mathers, Felkin and Waite, the resulting peace did not last very long (and I really doubt that the meeting actually happened). And can you really picture Mathers agreeing that anyone else was legit?!

As for a possible peace between the two current Golden Dawn camps, I will not hold my breath; for the one side will only allow peace when the other side acknowledges their absolute right to rule the entire tradition, and the other side refuses to allow themselves to be repeatedly trashed as being less than fully Golden Dawn. That is how I see it. If you disagree, you know where to comment.

Pet Peeve Oral Tradition as Documentary Proof

One of my big pet peeves is people who say that we cannot judge the history of the occult and the esoteric traditions by the paper trail alone. You know the people---those who insist that unless we know what the oral traditions were, we cannot know what was actually going on.

And always, they know what the oral tradition was, therefore their pet theory is right despite the fact that the paper trail tells a completely different story.

Now, I am not saying that the oral tradition does not exist. I am saying that the concept of the oral tradition is being abused nine ways to Sunday. There is a difference.

Take for instance, the oral history of my own family. This semester I got to work on a project that dealt with the oral history of my family. I got assigned to interview three family members about my family history, then write a small paper about it (I recieved a low A).

What did I learn? That when all four of us had heard a story or explaination for something, none of the four stories would agree with one another. I also learned that the stories being told to the younger members of the family were not the same stories that the older generation recieved.

Conclusion---you cannot trust the oral tradition.

Now, I would love some parts of the oral tradition of the Western Mystery Tradition to be true. Unfortunately, the very parts I would most like to see proven correct are the very parts that I suspect are the most false. And so it goes.

The reason I am thinking about all this is the fact that the Open Full Moon ritual that I am going to be conducting in June is going to be based on the telling of stories. And some of the stories are going to be changed to suit the purposes of the ritual that I am doing. I am currently at the stage where I am fine-tuning certain elements of the stories, much like my father used to tell the same jokes over and over while changing certain parts to heighten the effects of the joke.

Think about it. If I know that I change parts of stories to suit my own purposes (and what is the oral tradition if not a collection of stories and some rather strange ideas), then what prevented the previous tellers of the stories and traditions from doing the same?

Oh, I know there were all much more noble souls than I was. And if you believe that, please leave your email address in the comment section because there are some people who would like to sell you a nice bridge to nowhere---after all, they know the true oral tradition of the mysteries---they would never lie to you.

Roots of Golden Dawn: Part 6

Oral v. written tradition

One of the great debates that affect what we view as the roots of Golden Dawn is whether Golden Dawn is essentially an oral or a written tradition.

I must admit that I have a bias. Earlier in my magical career, I ended up in a group that was essentially an oral tradition group. And in my less than humble opinion, things had gone very wrong in that group.

The leader basically gave lessons to his current favorites; if you were not on that list, you got next to nothing. And to get and stay on his list, you had to give absolute obedience, homage (his opinion was the only correct answer) and lots of money. Women had to...ahem...lets not go there.

So for me, the whole idea of Golden Dawn being at root an oral tradition sets off loud alarms; I am biased against it based on previous group experiences.

But what if the oral tradition is part of the Golden Dawn system? really deep down at its roots?

The idea behind the oral tradition is that the most important parts of a system, if not all of it, are not ever written down. Ever.

Exactly how much of the Golden Dawn system is not written down is questionable. For instance, I have ran across several webpages for groups claiming to have access to the oral traditions that say that thousands of pages of information are not written down and only transmitted though the oral tradition.

Ok, the writer in me wants to know how do you know how many pages it is if it is not written down. I am a happy little cynic, ain't I?

The oral tradition supporters are naturally opposed to the members of the written tradition. The idea of stuff being written down seems to alarm the oral traditionists.

Members of the oral tradition point to Regardie and Crowley as examples of what can go wrong when most, if not all, your material is in written form. In all fairness to both writers, one needs to ask what they didn't publish---the answer to that tends to put them both in a more favorable light.

I must admit that the oral tradition is great for any system that depends upon absolute secrecy to exist. It is also great for those leaders who should not be leading in the first place, those who use their respective groups and traditions as sources of ego strokes, power bases, personal ATM machines, and for other perks that are best left unsaid even in the darkest of alleys.

And yes, supporters of the oral tradition are right when they say that all it takes to destroy a tradition that depends upon absolute secrecy is to publish the secrets.

But Golden Dawn was never a completely oral tradition, nor has everything been written down. Much of what we have of Golden Dawn are student notes; some of them are brief, and others are the full record of a lecture.

It is much like what happens in colleges and universities: students take notes during the lectures; some take down every word that the professor says, other merely jot a few keywords.

One of the best examples of every word being written down are the lectures on the symbolism of the hall pillars. These were just lectures that someone wrote down every word of. And if they wouldn't have, we would not have this information today.

But that is not the most important thing to remember. The most important thing to remember is that all oral traditions are just one missed heart beat away from extinction.

All it takes for an oral tradition to get weaker and less valuable is for the only person that knows a certain mystery to die before passing that bit of information onto someone else.

And ultimately, that is why I encourage people to write things down. It ensures that the knowledge is preserved.

I told you that I had a bias.

~~~To Be Continued~~~