Feeling a little grey and under the weather, and with my Scorpio Moon acting up, I started to think about the lessons that the current leaders of Golden Dawn are teaching us.
Now, there are good leaders and then there are the bad ones. It is the bad ones that I am thinking about today; the ones that make me glad that I have no potential to ever become a leader.
In part, because they have a nasty habit of leaving lawyers on your doorstep. Not that I have anything against lawyers, one of my friends is studying to be a lawyer, it is just that my idea of a good time is not spending it in court.
Nor do I consider it a good time to have oneself, friends and family dragged though the mud. Character assassination is something that I experienced enough in High School; there was also a lot of it in my family.
Of course, to be a leader in today's Golden Dawn, you must pet sharks and fling like a monkey. That is the first thing that some of today's leaders have taught us.
The second thing that they taught us is that a leader in Golden Dawn can not have any honor. Nor can they afford morals. After all, they going to throw unmentionables at us, and leave things on your doorstep. And if you respond in kind, they will point out that you have no honor or morals.
They have also taught us not to share information with our own members. They have brought a whole new level of secrecy to the system. From now on, we must destory any member who leaves our lodges so that our sacred knowledge is not published as a public service, and proof that we ripping people off. Or we must publish it ourselves in self-defense (after all, the thing on the doorstep is trying to get a legal action together to make us cease operations).
But they are fair...never forgot that...if you allow them access to your secret materials, they will check them against their own documents, and declare you a brother. Of course, your documents may just meet their photocopier, and they may tell you that they have better documents and lineage.
They have taught us that being able to make it rain, to summon up angels, and actually know something about our tradition is nothing. Only the sacred lineage counts. And the legal right to use the name Golden Dawn.
Today, they are going after their fellow leaders because they are competition. Tommorrow, they will go after the writers because they help create competition. And the day after that, they will sacrifice and kill the Golden Dawn tradition because it creates competition.
And the most important thing they are teaching us is to make sure that we never appear to be leaders, or give any hint that we have the potential to be leaders, because they are swore to crush anyone who has the potential to be a leader. All that matter is our wallets, and the money that we can provide them in the forms of dues; love of our tradition does not matter; nor the ability to affect our world in a positive way.
The bad leaders of Golden Dawn are teaching us one and one lesson only: it is better to be the only one left and the tradition to die than to have it continue in the control of someone who might actually be in the game to help people with their spiritual development.
I am a happy little cynic, ain't I?
Monday, July 14, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
Tradition from last Thursday
One of the things that I worry about is the idea that older is better in occultism. And preferably old is best when it traces back to Moses. Hence, the whole idea of lineage, and the "Only True LVX Order."
The problem is with this is that ideas, which are fuel for the mind, and symbols, which are food for the soul, have limited shelf-lives, just like food for the body does. Some of the ideas and symbols used by Big Name Orders are as wholesome as the cans of survivor rations that are stored in my grandfather's fallout shelter. I am not willing to stick beef stew canned in 1961 into my mouth; why would I consider putting ideas and symbols such as Atlantis into my head and heart?
At one time, Atlantis was an useful symbol. Plato created it, probably basing its mythical disappearance on a real event, and used it as a prop for his idea of the Philosopher-King. For those who are unaware of his ideas and have no idea what he wrote in another of his works, The Republic, he thought that some people were more qualified to rule than others and that they should use force to remain in power.
Sounds a little like the ideas that have led to Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Jonestown, doesn't it?
His fiction of Atlantis was ignored for several centuries until the New World started to be explored when it gained a new purpose. It was a way to explain how animals and plants could be common to both the New World and the Old World despite a large ocean between them. Today, we know more about the land/ice bridge and no longer have any need of the theory.
But some occultists refuse to give it up. It is old; it has lineage, and it is more romantic than the theories that someone came up with last Thursday.
According to the lineage crowd if an idea can be traced to its source, like maybe Pat Zalewski, or did not have the kiss of approval by a Philosopher-King, then it is useless, untrue, and everyone should be forced into a better Order (today, the legal system is the force favored) with older and better ideas; there you will be told who is telling the truth and who is not, what to think and why to think it.
It is a perfect world based on a perfect idea carried down though time by a perfect tradition and taught by perfect officers. Perfect, that is, if you are a sheep. As for myself, I am a goat; and I am going to take a look at the idea from last Thursday and see if it is better.
The problem is with this is that ideas, which are fuel for the mind, and symbols, which are food for the soul, have limited shelf-lives, just like food for the body does. Some of the ideas and symbols used by Big Name Orders are as wholesome as the cans of survivor rations that are stored in my grandfather's fallout shelter. I am not willing to stick beef stew canned in 1961 into my mouth; why would I consider putting ideas and symbols such as Atlantis into my head and heart?
At one time, Atlantis was an useful symbol. Plato created it, probably basing its mythical disappearance on a real event, and used it as a prop for his idea of the Philosopher-King. For those who are unaware of his ideas and have no idea what he wrote in another of his works, The Republic, he thought that some people were more qualified to rule than others and that they should use force to remain in power.
Sounds a little like the ideas that have led to Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Jonestown, doesn't it?
His fiction of Atlantis was ignored for several centuries until the New World started to be explored when it gained a new purpose. It was a way to explain how animals and plants could be common to both the New World and the Old World despite a large ocean between them. Today, we know more about the land/ice bridge and no longer have any need of the theory.
But some occultists refuse to give it up. It is old; it has lineage, and it is more romantic than the theories that someone came up with last Thursday.
According to the lineage crowd if an idea can be traced to its source, like maybe Pat Zalewski, or did not have the kiss of approval by a Philosopher-King, then it is useless, untrue, and everyone should be forced into a better Order (today, the legal system is the force favored) with older and better ideas; there you will be told who is telling the truth and who is not, what to think and why to think it.
It is a perfect world based on a perfect idea carried down though time by a perfect tradition and taught by perfect officers. Perfect, that is, if you are a sheep. As for myself, I am a goat; and I am going to take a look at the idea from last Thursday and see if it is better.
Book Review: The Rulership Book (Rex E. Bills)
"The Rulership Book" by Rex E. Bills is not properly a book, at least not in the sense that one would sit down and actually read it cover to cover; but it is a book that should be on the bookshelf of every serious astrology student. Consisting of a set of rulership lists for the planets, signs and houses, The Rulership Book is more like a telephone book than anything else. Yet just like a telephone book, it has its uses. To read the rest of the review, click here.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Book Review: Secret Societies (Sylvia Browne)
Many people believe in the abilities of Sylvia Browne, world famous psychic medium, and treat her every word as gospel. But does she know the truth about secret societies? In her book, "Secret Societies...And How They Affect Our Lives Today," Sylvia Browne claims to reveal the truth about secret societies and what they are really up to.
Secret societies have been around as long as human civilization. They were present in Ancient Egypt and Greece, the Roman Empire, with significant flare-ups throughout history to the present day. Many secret societies, mystery cults and schools, have died out and completely disappeared because their members took the concept seriously, leaving us guessing what their rituals, mysteries, and motives were.
Most people assume that any society that keeps secrets is up to no good. Sylvia Browne explains why this assumption happens:
To read the rest of this review of Sylvia Browne's "Secret Societies...And How They Affect Our Lives Today," click here.
Secret societies have been around as long as human civilization. They were present in Ancient Egypt and Greece, the Roman Empire, with significant flare-ups throughout history to the present day. Many secret societies, mystery cults and schools, have died out and completely disappeared because their members took the concept seriously, leaving us guessing what their rituals, mysteries, and motives were.
Most people assume that any society that keeps secrets is up to no good. Sylvia Browne explains why this assumption happens:
To read the rest of this review of Sylvia Browne's "Secret Societies...And How They Affect Our Lives Today," click here.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Differentiation of egregores
(Note: Some readers may have read this already. I thought that the issue is important enough that I shared it on one of the Golden Dawn forums.)
A common event during the birth years of Orders, especially those which arise out of schisms, is the founder of the Order writing a document(s) that states why their Order is different and better than the other Orders that one could join. Part of the reason for this is economical politics (all Orders of a certain type and style tend to draw off the same possible membership pool), and partly is due to ego issues (the founder of a new Order is normally doing it because he thinks that he is more capable of running an Order than the people he just broke away from).
That is what we see happening on the surface level; but there is something else going on that many people may not be aware of, which is how this is affecting the egregore of the group.
Now the term “egregore,” in the oldest references that I have been able to trace it to, referred to the occult theory that each nation had an angel (god) which was its patron and guardian. This term and concept later ends up being applied to a mystery of the esoteric Orders.
Now the truth of the matter is that any group of people that gathers together will generate an egregore. Book clubs, businesses, military units, soccer fans, football fans, in fact any gathering of people will create an egregore. Most egregores are temporary things; unfortunately, they are the most primitive and the most dangerous in many ways. Riots tend to be caused by primitive egregores which is why trained Adepts tend to avoid large crowds.
It is possible for Initiates to keep themselves out of spontaneous egregores, and to be able to stand back and observe the effects of the larger ones. It is a skill like any other and can be taught; the base line information on how to do it is hidden in basic lodgekit.
Now in Golden Dawn, we use our egregore all the time. We use it for extra power during ritual, use it to help guide us, and to store excess energy for later. Call it a god, call it an angel, call it an energy bank. Except that we are not all using the same one.
Each Order has its own uber-egregore (I am open to suggestions for revision of this term, but it says what I want it to say) which acts as a template for the egregores that its daughter lodges create. This is one of the first things that an Order creates, knowingly or unknowingly. (This is not to be confused with the Arch-egregore that sits above all of them, and supports the tradition itself.)
And the founders of Orders do their part to differentiate their uber-egregore from the others. In part, this is done though changing the name of the Order, its rituals, and teachings, so that it doesn’t match other Orders.
The reason for this differentiation is that every time a member of the Order generates excess energy in a ritual, the egregore absorbs it. Think of it as a direct deposit device. It knows what energies to absorb and which to ignore by how the energy was generated. And members of Orders learn to generate energy in very specific ways.
(This is by the way one of the reasons that lineage and hierarchy is important; lineage is the wiring of an initiate to send excess energy to a specific egregore based on a specific uber-egregore, and one’s position in the hierarchy helps determines how much access that one has to the energy that has been previously stored.)
So for instance, when Paul Foster Case issued his statement that Enochian led to bad things, that statement helped led to the BOTA egregore ignoring the energies raised by Enochian methods (provided of course, that all the Enochian has truly been removed from the system) and not storing that energy. It would lead to a certain amount of paranoia about the energies in later members (which makes me wonder about Case himself).
You can also see differentiating statements in the works of Mathers, Fortune, and Crowley. I, myself, wrote a couple of statements at the beginning of Bast Temple that ended up affecting the system.
The differentiation of the egregores and the Orders leads to all types of interesting effects. But the most important is that the energies raised by my lodge do not flow into the energy bank of another group.
Now, I would like to explain why I have been thinking of this lately. There has been a lot of noise about differences in techniques and ethics practiced by different groups (in fact, the Denver community now has three lodges, all with a different opinion about the matter). And some people think this is a bad thing.
It is not. I am grateful for these differences. As long as these differences exist, everyone interested in Golden Dawn can find a group suitable for them. It is only when these differences disappear that we will end up with a monolithic single Order, and a whole bunch of people will be excluded from the tradition. Ironically, I would be one of the ones excluded, due to my pro-gun, pro-militia, pro-choice, and semi pro-death penalty opinions. There is also the issue of my big mouth. And quite honestly, I like being part of Golden Dawn.
A common event during the birth years of Orders, especially those which arise out of schisms, is the founder of the Order writing a document(s) that states why their Order is different and better than the other Orders that one could join. Part of the reason for this is economical politics (all Orders of a certain type and style tend to draw off the same possible membership pool), and partly is due to ego issues (the founder of a new Order is normally doing it because he thinks that he is more capable of running an Order than the people he just broke away from).
That is what we see happening on the surface level; but there is something else going on that many people may not be aware of, which is how this is affecting the egregore of the group.
Now the term “egregore,” in the oldest references that I have been able to trace it to, referred to the occult theory that each nation had an angel (god) which was its patron and guardian. This term and concept later ends up being applied to a mystery of the esoteric Orders.
Now the truth of the matter is that any group of people that gathers together will generate an egregore. Book clubs, businesses, military units, soccer fans, football fans, in fact any gathering of people will create an egregore. Most egregores are temporary things; unfortunately, they are the most primitive and the most dangerous in many ways. Riots tend to be caused by primitive egregores which is why trained Adepts tend to avoid large crowds.
It is possible for Initiates to keep themselves out of spontaneous egregores, and to be able to stand back and observe the effects of the larger ones. It is a skill like any other and can be taught; the base line information on how to do it is hidden in basic lodgekit.
Now in Golden Dawn, we use our egregore all the time. We use it for extra power during ritual, use it to help guide us, and to store excess energy for later. Call it a god, call it an angel, call it an energy bank. Except that we are not all using the same one.
Each Order has its own uber-egregore (I am open to suggestions for revision of this term, but it says what I want it to say) which acts as a template for the egregores that its daughter lodges create. This is one of the first things that an Order creates, knowingly or unknowingly. (This is not to be confused with the Arch-egregore that sits above all of them, and supports the tradition itself.)
And the founders of Orders do their part to differentiate their uber-egregore from the others. In part, this is done though changing the name of the Order, its rituals, and teachings, so that it doesn’t match other Orders.
The reason for this differentiation is that every time a member of the Order generates excess energy in a ritual, the egregore absorbs it. Think of it as a direct deposit device. It knows what energies to absorb and which to ignore by how the energy was generated. And members of Orders learn to generate energy in very specific ways.
(This is by the way one of the reasons that lineage and hierarchy is important; lineage is the wiring of an initiate to send excess energy to a specific egregore based on a specific uber-egregore, and one’s position in the hierarchy helps determines how much access that one has to the energy that has been previously stored.)
So for instance, when Paul Foster Case issued his statement that Enochian led to bad things, that statement helped led to the BOTA egregore ignoring the energies raised by Enochian methods (provided of course, that all the Enochian has truly been removed from the system) and not storing that energy. It would lead to a certain amount of paranoia about the energies in later members (which makes me wonder about Case himself).
You can also see differentiating statements in the works of Mathers, Fortune, and Crowley. I, myself, wrote a couple of statements at the beginning of Bast Temple that ended up affecting the system.
The differentiation of the egregores and the Orders leads to all types of interesting effects. But the most important is that the energies raised by my lodge do not flow into the energy bank of another group.
Now, I would like to explain why I have been thinking of this lately. There has been a lot of noise about differences in techniques and ethics practiced by different groups (in fact, the Denver community now has three lodges, all with a different opinion about the matter). And some people think this is a bad thing.
It is not. I am grateful for these differences. As long as these differences exist, everyone interested in Golden Dawn can find a group suitable for them. It is only when these differences disappear that we will end up with a monolithic single Order, and a whole bunch of people will be excluded from the tradition. Ironically, I would be one of the ones excluded, due to my pro-gun, pro-militia, pro-choice, and semi pro-death penalty opinions. There is also the issue of my big mouth. And quite honestly, I like being part of Golden Dawn.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Book Review: Inner Order Teachings of the Golden Dawn (Pat Zalewski)
One of the difficulties in studying the Golden Dawn tradition is that many of its Inner Order teachings have been lost, unpublished, or sometimes never even fully completed, forcing the modern day esoteric Orders that have been built from the Outer Order information (compiled and published by Israel Regardie) and the Adepts connected with these groups, to create their own Inner Order teachings, a major problem for some; Pat Zalewski in his book "Inner Order Teachings of the Golden Dawn" addresses this problem.
The book, not to be confused with Zalewski's earlier book, "Secret Inner Order Rituals of the Golden Dawn" (1988), mainly consists of THAM (Theoricus Adept Minor) lectures written by one of the three co-founders of Isis-Urania, the original Golden Dawn lodge (Temple), Macgregor (Samuel Liddell) Mathers, along with papers written by Pat Zalewski that supplement the Mathers' material. There is also information about the diagrams studied in the PRAM (Practicus Adept Minor) subgrade, alchemy and the Tarot, the Lunar Diagram on the Tree of Life, and the Chief Adept's (Caduceus) Wand, all of which were written by Pat Zalewski.
To read more of this review of Inner Order Teachings of the Golden Dawn, click here.
The book, not to be confused with Zalewski's earlier book, "Secret Inner Order Rituals of the Golden Dawn" (1988), mainly consists of THAM (Theoricus Adept Minor) lectures written by one of the three co-founders of Isis-Urania, the original Golden Dawn lodge (Temple), Macgregor (Samuel Liddell) Mathers, along with papers written by Pat Zalewski that supplement the Mathers' material. There is also information about the diagrams studied in the PRAM (Practicus Adept Minor) subgrade, alchemy and the Tarot, the Lunar Diagram on the Tree of Life, and the Chief Adept's (Caduceus) Wand, all of which were written by Pat Zalewski.
To read more of this review of Inner Order Teachings of the Golden Dawn, click here.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Hierarchical backlash
Lately, I have been watching a lot of bickering between some of the Golden Dawn leaders, teachers, and writers. It is pretty normal as far as I am concerned. And when one got nasty, it merely pointed out that he was the type of Adept that I came up the ranks surrounded by.
(For those who do not know my background, I do not believe in the saintly Adept, who believes in thinking that kind thoughts will change the universe. Why? Because the Adepts in my mother lodge were not of that kind, rather they were people capable of great anger who thought that members of the RC occasionally have to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty if we want to see changes in the world.)
For me, the reactions were normal when you account for human nature and politics. There is also one other thing that I am accounting for that many people may be overlooking.
And that is that if you hold an active place in the Hierarchy, you suffer a certain amount of backlash when things impact your egregor. If people attack your branch of the tradition's way of doing things, and your egregor reacts as if it is being attacked, then you react as if you are being attacked. It is one of the side-effects of being part of the system, and something you have to watch constantly as an officer. And there are certain officers of the system that are almost guaranteed to react when changes happen to the egregor of their group, and when it is criticized.
I know this from personal experience. I have, on occasion, occupied one of those offices.
Unfortunately, not a lot of people seem to be aware of this side-effect. So when an officer reacts badly, they rack it up to them being a jerk. Before racking it up to that, one should step back and ask if it is completely their reaction, or could part of it be the egregor acting like a drunk in a bar.
(I am sorry, but personal experience has taught me that the egregores of the various Golden Dawn groups act like mentally unstable drunks on the bad days. I don't like the imagery any more than you do. It is just that one needs to be aware of this.)
When I start acting badly, and most people have seen me explode for no apparent reason, I have to ask myself:
1: Is this my bad upbringing? Could this be my mother talking?
2: Is this the egregor, the group mind, of my branch and lodge reacting?
3: Or is this me?
In most situations, it is always best to count to ten kabbalistically before firing off a response.
And having experienced this side-effect first hand, I have to wonder how much of this latest spat is politics, backlash, and personal reactions. I have my bets, but can't prove anything.
(For those who do not know my background, I do not believe in the saintly Adept, who believes in thinking that kind thoughts will change the universe. Why? Because the Adepts in my mother lodge were not of that kind, rather they were people capable of great anger who thought that members of the RC occasionally have to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty if we want to see changes in the world.)
For me, the reactions were normal when you account for human nature and politics. There is also one other thing that I am accounting for that many people may be overlooking.
And that is that if you hold an active place in the Hierarchy, you suffer a certain amount of backlash when things impact your egregor. If people attack your branch of the tradition's way of doing things, and your egregor reacts as if it is being attacked, then you react as if you are being attacked. It is one of the side-effects of being part of the system, and something you have to watch constantly as an officer. And there are certain officers of the system that are almost guaranteed to react when changes happen to the egregor of their group, and when it is criticized.
I know this from personal experience. I have, on occasion, occupied one of those offices.
Unfortunately, not a lot of people seem to be aware of this side-effect. So when an officer reacts badly, they rack it up to them being a jerk. Before racking it up to that, one should step back and ask if it is completely their reaction, or could part of it be the egregor acting like a drunk in a bar.
(I am sorry, but personal experience has taught me that the egregores of the various Golden Dawn groups act like mentally unstable drunks on the bad days. I don't like the imagery any more than you do. It is just that one needs to be aware of this.)
When I start acting badly, and most people have seen me explode for no apparent reason, I have to ask myself:
1: Is this my bad upbringing? Could this be my mother talking?
2: Is this the egregor, the group mind, of my branch and lodge reacting?
3: Or is this me?
In most situations, it is always best to count to ten kabbalistically before firing off a response.
And having experienced this side-effect first hand, I have to wonder how much of this latest spat is politics, backlash, and personal reactions. I have my bets, but can't prove anything.
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