Inner and outer

I wrote this essay years ago for the Horus Hathor Temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn  but I think it still stands - at least on a basic level.  People often forget that there is an inner aspect to ritual. 

Many people think if you do the GD ritual as if it were a perfectly performed play it is enough to archive spectacular magical effects.  Such people advocate turning the GD into a sort of Masonic order.  But with respect to those who do attempt to do Masonic rituals in an esoteric way, the GD is a MAGICAL order were the mere performance of a rite will simply produce a minor effect where there is an overt dependence on the superficial symbols of the rite.  If it were all about play acting we would be better off taking part in the Importance of Being Earnest with the local am-dram club.

You will have heard me talking about the ritual taking place in the Judgement Hall of Maat, none of this is mentioned in ‘the script’ it is  part of the astral or inner workings of the ritual.  Too many details about this I cant go into, but these involve the manipulation of different Egyptian godforms in a sort of twilight between the material and the spiritual realms.  The Hierophant builds up these godforms and causing them to vibrate at a particularly frequency by using calling their names in an ancient language.  This work I find makes it easier for me to see them clairvoyantly during the main working.  These godforms are ‘Golden Dawnised’ images of the Ancient Egyptian God in particular colours that are designed to enhance their power in the working.

Esoteric teaching says that there are three basic levels to the universe.  The first is the material, the next is the astral level which is at right angles to this one and is the realm of imagination and dreams.  Finally there is the divine level which is where the realm of the gods and goddesses or just God depending on your tradition.

Magical power comes from the divine level and therefore to call power into your rites you need to build an astral bridge between the group on the material and the divine.

What the hierophant does along with anyone else who is sitting on the top table in the East is visualising a halfway house on the astral in their imagination.  This temple is populated with Egyptian gods and goddesses and these act as channels for divine power. This halfway house is then placed over the top of the physical temple.

Some of the Gods are placed over the officers, other are just left passive conduits of power.

In the GD this godform work was considered top secret and would only be know to the highest grades in the group. The layout of the Inner Temple and the various depictions of the Gods and Goddesses used were kept in a single coloured scroll or book in some temples and which only those who did the visualising saw.  

Usually when a temple closed this scroll or book was the first to be destroyed to prevent anyone getting access to the group’s egregore.  For this reason anyone can perform rites that have been published, no one can claim to link to the original group. They build new godforms but they will never have access to the original egregore because these will never be the same or visualised in the same way.

The godforms provide the halfway force between the Earth and the spiritual forces you wish to attract, but the godforms we have formed does not yet actually draw much force to it.   The Heirophant has built a circuit and are is yet to power it up.  To do so the Heirophant ascends spiritually to the highest level they can and draws down spiritual energy into the thought-forms created.

At the point in the ritual where the Heirophant says: “By names and images are all things awakened and reawakened” you will notice that he does the sign of the enterer but does not do the sign of silence until a few seconds afterwards.  It is during this point that he or she is powering up the circuit.

On the nature of Gods, Spirits and Demons

 What follows is cryptic writing but inside it are Ideas which should give the reader concepts which I am playing with now.  

These are the realms and natures of spirits.

The One Thing is like light, in which darkness and shadow are one. To understand itself it created a mirror and divided itself into seven aspects and these formed the jewels of a crown for creation.  

From these jewels were born the seven proto-gods, the Elohim, who contained in themselves the seeds for the reflection of the One Thing. These proto-gods created matter so that it could reflect the Face of the One Thing.

They divided the reflection into two; the light and its shadow became separated. Thus, the colours of the Elohim where reflected through-out creation, from the lightest to the shadow.

Then these proto-gods made the astral form of themselves and called it Adam Kadmon and they sat on his head as a nameless crown of reflected light. 

This child of the Elohim partook of two different natures, and contained within itself the rainbow of creation from light to shadow. Adam Kadmon existed in a twilight world of light and shadow for in matter were the full range of the colours of the Elohim expressed.

Adam Kadmon saw the Elohim in all aspects of himself and he named them. The highest Crown it called them the Seven Celestial Gods and declared all the colours pure inside them. Then it proceeded to name all the gods between the light and the shadow. At the top Adam Kadmon declared, was a trinity of male, female and union.

Adam Kadmon noted that there were those Gods which were closer to his nature than others were. Colours, and beings which were similar to him. These he related to strongly, but they changed with his mood and development. Sometimes they were overthrown by a vision of the Celestial, sometimes they were dragged down deeper into his own shadow.  

Some gods were bound to this shadow by their rivals and their true meaning became lost to all but those who sought them in the Shadowlands. They were called demons, but they were no more evil than that aspect of Adam Kadmon. They were ruled by King, a Queen and a Prince.

Then there were gods who Adam Kadmon feared so completely. They were part of himself and part of his not-self. For he knew that there was an infinity of being above the crown of light and below the shadow crown which were above his understanding -- beings which could only be defined by what they were not. They were nameless shadows beyond Erebus whose darkness ebbed and flowed like a black ocean between the subjective and the objective. When the waters rose, the shadows darkened and when they retreated, the shadows lightened. Likewise, when the nameless crown did brighten, so the light became dazzling.

There were also those spirits who were born of the Kingdoms of matter in which Adam Kadmon lived and these he called elementals and he was their manipulator using them to change his universe until it suited him.  Sometimes he would call upon the powers of his Gods to help him and other times he would bind them with his own power.

There were the fragments that Adam Kadmon had cast off; aspects of itself had fulfilled their destiny. Some, which partook of its highest aspects, merged their fates with the God which corresponded to it, others became Gods, and fewer managed to raise themselves beyond the trinity of light and darkness. Others became one with their family line and existed at their own level within the mind of Adam Kadmon.

And it shall be so until Adam Kadmon has truly reflected the Elohim and shall merge with them and he shall then merge with the One Thing, which will have understood itself.