Why Bast for Temple patron?

One of the comments that I recieved on an earlier blog post asked,"Why did Bast Temple chose Bast as our Temple patron goddess?"

To be honest, it started out as an insider joke. Three of the original members of Bast Temple had been part of another group. It was a loosely formed study group, which had two levels (the beginners and the more advanced).

(If you are curious, the group was called the Evolving Order of Eclectic Ways. BIORC almost ended up being called the Evolving Order of the Golden Dawn as a result of this. One of the reasons that BIORC did not end up under the Evolving label was that the initials would have been the same as those used by the Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn [EOGD]. There are other reasons for BIORC to have been chosen as the rest of this entry will show...though many will argue they were not good reasons at all.)

One of the jokes that came out of the advanced circle was that the cats were really the Secret Chiefs. This joke slipped into the beginner circle which was led by two of the members of the advanced circle. This joke then slipped into the lodge as it was being formed.

Now I know a lot of people are going to be up in arms about this. And it does not matter...those who will be upset don't consider Bast Temple a real Golden Dawn lodge in the first place, therefore we do not have to maintain appearances just to please them. We can tell the truth; selecting our Temple Patron was the result of a joke.

But here is the kicker----despite the choice starting out as a joke, it worked just as well as if we were assigned this Patron from on-high.

For instance, each member of the original membership had at least one cat. May not seem important until you realize that we still have a Temple Kitty, who comes and checks out the new members (hence the question "Are you allergic to cats?"). The behavior of the cats are tracked by the voting members...the cats' opinions of applicants is often better than the humans.

This has lead to some interesting imagery used during lectures. For instance, the lecture where it is stated that the behavior of the Secret Chiefs in Golden Dawn history is much like the actions and behaviors of a cat. If you want to understand the Secret Chiefs, learn to understand the behavior of cats.

This choice of Bast and reason for it has some side-effects. For instance, we have learned that if you get upset by this set of jokes, then you are really not a good fit for membership in Bast Temple. Cat jokes are the least of the strange humor that one has to put up with as a member of Bast Temple.

The house that the meetings ended up being moved to during the second year of Bast Temple's existence came complete with its own feral cat colony. (For those who are curious: yes, the members of the feral colony were trapped, fixed and released [two males had to be put to sleep because of disease]. Today, they get a twice daily offering of food.)

As for the name BIORC, or more properly Ba Iset Order of the Rosy Cross, the reason for that is one of our members encountered a theory that Bast (Bastet) was really short for Ba Iset, the heart of Isis. Not a theory that one would place much weight on, but it has a nice ring to it, hence it being used as the Order name (just in case, we ever need it).

So there you have it, the reason for Bast to be selected as Temple Patron was that the goddess appealed to every cat owner in the group, and made for some really good humor. The fact that it serves as a signpost warning for those who would not be a good fit for entry in this particular Golden Dawn lodge is a nice side-effect.

(And in case, you are curious: a lot of magical work has been done with this godform. It may have started out as a joke, but it has become a rather interesting magical tool. It is probably safe to say that the Egyptian goddess Bast is pleased with our choice of Patron.)

Testing and Exams in Golden Dawn

Last night, I was reading the blog of Frater AIT; he was talking about how he feels about the strict tests that the Order that he belongs to does.

(I believe that he is a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Outer Order of the Alpha and Omega.)

Anyway, I wanted to post a comment on his blog that I have never been completely sure what the purpose of the strict testing was. I couldn't; even using the shift suggestion that someone mentioned, the "prove that you are a human being" submit button is inaccessible to me.

Of course, by the time I woke up this morning, my mind had dragged out the fact that perhaps the testing and exams that I have undergone are not any less strict than the exams he is undergoing. The difference is that I did not have to submit a written exam until I hit Portal.

But in the terms of strictness, now that I stop to think about it, I am not sure that I escaped with anything easier.

Now I am about to make an assumption about the HOGD/A&O here (or whatever branch that Frater AIT is a member of). If I am wrong...well, then I am wrong.

The assumption that I am going to make is that they are doing the strict paper examinations because they can not test everyone in actual lodge. Therefore, everyone gets tested though a strict written examination instead.

The joke that the HOGD/A&O makes is that they are the Harvard (or is it Oxford?) of the Golden Dawn tradition. I believe them. Sounds too high class for my tastes.

I have came from the Community College/Technical School branch of the Golden Dawn system. Our exams were not written; they were conducted in lodge at the drop of a hat.

Let me stress that point: testing was done in lodge and at random times. There was no cramming for your Grade advancement exams because you had no clue when they were actually going to be conducted.

You had to prove that you had a sufficient level of knowledge about the Grade's knowledge lecture, the Grade ritual itself and the practical working assigned to that Grade. (Those in Bast Temple will recognize the system; it is the same one we are still using.)

You did not have to be perfect, but you had to roll up your sleeves to pass.

(I think that the reason that it did not have to be perfect was simply that you were going to be tested in the form of a pop quiz involving actual power tools. You did not have time to make it perfect; you had to do the work using only what was actually inside your head. Sounds like real life almost, doesn't it?)

Given what I went though, I think that I might have optioned for the strict written examinations if I had the choice. But don't get me wrong, in hindsight I do not neglect being able to pass my exams the way they were conducted. After all, I am more of a magical mechanic than magical scientist/scholar. That is by my very nature, and has nothing to do with the loddges I have ended up in. There are reasons why people like me are barred from Harvard and Oxford; quite simply, I am not a good fit for that type of system (think of me as being just one step away from white trailer park trash).

Frater AIT, on the other hand, seems to be a good fit for the Order that he is in. I am willing to bet that a decade from now (if he is still involved in Golden Dawn) that he will be proud of the way that he was tested; and even if he can not put it in words, he will see the value in the way he was tested.

Quote of the day: Combating Fear

Here is a quote from Douglas Todd that he used in a reward winning commentary. You can read the whole commentary over at the Vancouver Sun website.

It is beneficial to name our fears, individually and societally -- especially if we've been trying to keep them secret. That way we can recognize which are real and which are imagined.

But facing fears requires not freaking out. It calls for recognizing that life is risky -- and no leader can offer us absolute protection.

Dealing effectively with dread requires remaining grounded even when things are difficult. In today's culture of fear, in other words, staying calm amounts to a political act.

Watching train wrecks and cleaning them up

Now I must admit that I have nasty habits. For instance, occasionally I like watching the train wrecks of the blogosphere, internet forums, websites and newsletters. You know what I am referring to: those posts and pages where it does not take a cracked crystal ball to know that things are going to come back to haunt someone or another.

I am not proud of the fact that this stuff occasionally amuses me; I am just stating that I am aware of this personality problem.

I have seen several flare-ups lately. Yesterday, I was reading a post where someone cited a recent blog post talking bad about the Order that they are in. Now I will not go into details, other than note that the post was a couple of weeks old already, and most of us have moved onto something else.

But it illustrates a problem with the entire system. What you say, especially if you write it down, lives on forever. The hottest blog post today (as in the most read) could have been written months or years ago; the same hold true of webpages and articles.

There are also the matter of lectures, newsletters and books written before the age of the internet. If a single copy is still in existence, silly things that were said can rear their head at any time.

The biggest problem with all this stuff is that your ideas and opinions are set in stone.

There are some papers in Golden Dawn that I cringe when I read them. The worldview that was in play were warped, or they were written with incomplete knowledge, but the papers are still there. Some of them are not flattering.

The internet has made this problem worse. Not only do you have to worry about things officially published, you also have to worry about every single member of your Order and circle. All it takes is one nutjob to get the whole lot of you labeled the same way.

It is why I laugh when I see people get on the "let's clean up the internet" bandwagon.

I am not saying it is a bad idea...I am just not sure if people understand how big the project really is.

For instance, let's say I changed my mind about something. Now I am a small petty man with a big loud voice. I have a couple of blogs, several forum memberships, email, a couple of bad websites, and something resembling a printing press; and I am not afraid to use them.

Just to clean up my blogs, I would have to go though over six hundred postings. Six hundred posts going back three years. Add to that the bad websites, the forum posts, and the random email...the task rapidly becomes overwhelming.

Even if I did sit down to clean up my own end of things, it would take forever.

(Occasionally, I will admit that I wonder if that is not the idea in the first place. If someone is busy cleaning up, then they can't annoy you until they are finished.)

I would also have to worry about the fact that someone else might have saved my bad statements, either in pixels, PDFs or hard copies. There is also the fact that some of my articles can not be removed from the internet by me...basically, I would have to file out forms and beg administers to remove the stuff...if I do not have time to do this, why would anyone else have time to do so?

(This completely ignores the fact that many of these articles I am still making money from...another reason why some stuff will never disappear from the internet.)

If it looks impossible just to clean up my own house, then I am not sure that I would hold out much hope for any section of the internet to be cleaned up.

And that ignores the print world which would even be harder to clean up. For instance, a lot of old opinions about the Jews and the Haitians have recently cropped back up from books printed under the seal of certain Orders. And awhile back, it was opinions about homosexuals.

The bad part is not that these Orders published the material, and may continue to do so because of the occasional gem hidden among the filth; it is the fact that people actually believe these really bad opinions.

I do not care how much you think a certain segment of the population richly deserves the disasters that occur to them; I think that you are wrong. Especially when large number of other people are also caught up in the disasters.

Back to trying to make the point...given the size of the task of cleaning up the internet, and the libraries of the world, the only way I foresee being able to remove all the questionable material is to start completely over.

Gone the internet.
Gone the forums.
Gone all emails and letters.
Gone all the journals.
Gone all the newspapers and books of the world.

If we want to clean it up, we must destory everything written and start completely over.

Then again, I am a happy little cynic, ain't I?

Picture Paths and their Sephirah source

The other day, I gave a list of the paths and the sephiroth that they originated from.

Leafing though one of my notebooks, I found a diagram of this pattern that I did sometime between October 2000 (when Bast Temple started) and June 2003 (I cannot be more exact than that...bad record keeping on my end).

I am posting it here for those people who think more in visual terms.

An interesting thing about this diagram is that it illustrates why some Kabbalists insist that Tiphareth existed before Chesed.

Pope tells the Priesthood to blog for God

Yesterday, I read a couple of articles about Pope Benedict XVI telling priests to use the new media of blogs and video podcasting to spread the word of God.

And I laughed. I know that it was wrong to laugh, but I am still not sure that the Pope understands the internet and how it works.

For instance, Pope Benedict XVI said that "Priests present in the world of digital communications should be less notable for their media savvy than for their priestly heart."

I can make a prediction here. Any Priest that succeeds at following that advice is only going to spread the word to those who already believe. I am sorry if I offend, but those in spiritual traditions need to be as media-saavy as the hucksters on the internet.

I understand what the Pope was trying to say. He wants the Priesthood to focus on being spiritual healers first and foremost; but if they want to make any headway against those they feel are in error, they need to be as media-saavy as the hucksters are, if not better.

Recently, I have spent some time on trying to figure out the tricks of successful bloggers. It is something that I think all leaders of the younger esoteric groups are doing. Wicca and the newer Golden Dawn groups embraced the internet wholeheartedly years ago. We do not need to be told that this is were we need to reach people if we want our traditions to grow.

What the Pope said is an ideal, one that I wish would actually result in those groups that were working in the Light could use. But I know too much about history and how the new media works to believe that it is useful advice if a group wants to spread its message and increase its membership.

Source Sephirah sets of Tarot cards

The other day, I mentioned the fact that the background for Empress, Emperor and the Hierophant card was one big continous picture in the Initatory Tarot of the Golden Dawn. What I did not mention (because it did not occur to me until a couple of hours later) is that these three cards are considered a set by Golden Dawn if you consider their source sephirah. I have not seen any work done along these lines (or at least none published), so I thought I would list the source sephiroth and the cards that arise from them.

Kether: Fool, Magician and High Priestess

Chokmah: Empress, Emperor and Hierophant (High Priest)

Binah: Lovers and the Chariot

Chesed: Strength, Hermit and the Wheel of Fortune

Geburah: Justice and the Hanged Man

Tiphareth: Death, Temperance and the Devil

Netzach: the Lightning-blasted Tower, the Star and the Moon

Hod: the Sun and Last Judgment

Yesod: the Universe (the World)