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.

How is MOAA not a Golden Dawn group

After years of trying to convince me that I am not Golden Dawn, it seems that people now want me to belong to their small pond and take the Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea with them. Their argument is that we are using the Golden Dawn rituals and teachings so we MUST be Golden Dawn.  Fortunately life is not that simple.

At a practical level, we can look at why MOAA is NOT Golden Dawn. The Golden Dawn shunts on very clear tracks you did something, you passed a test you got a grade, you got to the top, you hung around a bit and taught others. We do not do that…

Perhaps, we need to define what Golden Dawn means. The Golden Dawn was the first order of a three-levelled creation. When it started, it was a masonic style order which allowed women to enter. It was not a magical order and lacked many of the foundations to make it one. When Samuel Mathers tried to make it into a magical order it died in 1900.

The Golden Dawn Rituals are bland and masonic. MOAA does not use the Golden Dawn rituals. It uses a ritual based on the much more magical Whare Ra rites which have adapted those rituals to suit modern magical needs. We have not shortened them or voided any of them, although some parts have been rewritten. We see the outer order as part of a magical process of transformation. We have removed a couple of officers which were there for masonic, rather than magical, reasons and use inner structures and visualisation as part of our work. This was alien to the Golden Dawn.

Officers are required to work with and develop their own godforms. This was not part of the Golden Dawn which believed that everything had to be built by the Hierophant and the chiefs. 

Using the Whare Ra rituals, we are in a different place from the Golden Dawn in any event. Where Ra developed many techniques for its rituals which were unpublished and we use some of these, but we also use modern LATER methods which were developed from Dion Fortune’s tradition.

It is my belief that these provide the missing link that much of what Whare Ra lacked. This means that the energy is different from a Golden Dawn working. We do not use eastern terms or methods. This makes us different from Whare Ra.

Our Portal ritual is ONLY “similar” to the Whare Ra one. Frankly, that ritual was a mess and needed to be rewritten.

The second order 5-6 ritual has been reworked. While many people have praised Mathers’ 5=6 the second and third parts of the ritual do not work properly.

Our Second Order has a different name and different rituals. This concept is alien to the Golden Dawn which saw the 5-6 as sacrosanct.

Our training is much more practical. It has the same rote learning of basic information, but you cannot get to the top by passing a few tests. You have to work with the forces of each initiation.There is also a substantive amount of practical experiences and exercises. This was alien to the Golden Dawn where you would automatically get to the top by passing exams. There is no rush to get to the top. It takes two and a half to five years to go through the outer order of MOAA. This is at odds with the Golden Dawn.

We are also experimental. We encourage people to try things they can manage, we allow people to experiment and see what they get.

Secrecy is not the same as silence. We have some things which we keep secret for practical reasons but we value the Mystery of Silence.

In the second order, material is not generated from other groups and we do not believe any contact requires to provide the Chief adept with a big pile of information yet. In fact everyone works with the contact to their own level of awareness and ability.

Adepts are expected to carry out their own research to add to the tradition. Although I teach, I am not going to be the only one nor do I want people hanging on my every words as a leader. This is against the Golden Dawn which says that only people at the higher grades are worthy.

Contacts and gods are not to be served but worked with. This idea is alien to many occult traditions.

So in terms of hierarchy, the idea that you need a Chief Adept, desperate for attention, swanning around pretending that they are in contact with some visible or invisible chiefs is an anachronism of the Piscean age. This puts us at odds with the Golden Dawn which says the Chief Adept is a god and if you disagree with him, you are in schism.

All religions are treated as important. We are more like Ancient Alexandria mixing Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Hebrew and Christianity. We believe that it is impossible to work that tradition if you do not have some concept bigger than you are. The Golden Dawn was Christian – heretical and accepted other godforms– but still Christian.

We are not concerned with our past or our tradition. We research these things and learn from them, but the value of a paper is not how old it is, but what it a Magician can do with it. This is very alien to the Golden Dawn.

Therefore, when people claim that the Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea is Golden Dawn we can safely say… no we are not. We just use some of its techniques.

What we will be is something bigger and something a little more inclusive.  It is really exciting, while at the same time liberating to say "I am not a member of the Golden Dawn."

The Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea is not a Golden Dawn Group

For a long while I have described the Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea as a traditional Golden Dawn group. From today it is not and we will stop describing ourselves in that way.

MOAA will no longer look to the past for any particular knowledge or security, but to its future.  And rather than trying to pour new wine into old skins we will be more secure in our own independence and ability to move in our own direction.   

The word “Golden Dawn” has come to mean the tradition which encompasses all its off-shoots including the modern renditions of the Stella Matutina, Smaragdum Thallasses and the AO.  However most of these traditions do not run anything like the original Golden Dawn and have been chained to an egregore which is largely hostile to and undermines their activities. 

The Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea, with its emphasis on experimentation and developing the magical tradition is completely at odds with this “golden dawn” egregore. In fact in our opinion this particular egregore has done its best to commit suicide over the last 20 years.    Its use by Greek Fascists has placed another nail in a coffin which has been sledgehammered by people trying to turn it into a cult or a business, or by kids, armed with a copy of Regardie trying to set up Magical Orders without knowledge or ability.  

It should not be necessary to summon the ghost of a long dead and dysfunctional order to prop up an order which in most cases works much better.  Self-confident groups which have something real to offer do not need to evoke the past to describe what they are doing now or in the future.

The Aurora Aurea Vault

In any event the historical Golden Dawn egregore is nowhere near as magical as the groups that replaced it and is a quasi-masonic shadow of the modern groups that bear its name.   In our view the use of this egregore actively works to undermine the ability of good groups to function within the 21^st century.

That is not to say that the “Golden Dawn” methods do not work.  Indeed the Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea will continue to use the rituals and general structure of the Smaragdum Thallasses (Whare Ra) order, which was descended from the Golden Dawn but resolved its egregore problem by rewiring itself. 

The Whare Ra Vault

As Smaragdum Thallasses found its own roots to a hermetic source independent of the Golden Dawn, so has the Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea.  We have developed our own contacts and method of using the Smaragdum Thallasses system and have our own set of goals which we feel would be constrained by continuing to adopt the old Golden Dawn egregore and name.

Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea will also be seen as being part of a wider “golden dawn community.”   To most people looking at our system we would probably appear to be a bunch of “Golden Dawn people” who emphase magical techniques, but at a deeper level, particularly within our second order, we are not and I feel it is time to make that clear.

In many ways this statement makes us “new” and will be the beginning of work we will be doing to distance ourselves from the “golden dawn” egregore and evolve our own connect with the source behind it.  We will be updating our websites and material accordingly.  While Aurora Aurea is Latin for Golden Dawn, placing it in a “dead tongue” means that it goes to a “different place” and or own lineage and egregore.

 MOAA continues to be a traditional magic order, but is not a traditional Golden Dawn order.

The goals of the Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea:

1. Fuse the Inner and Outer plane traditions of the Smaragdum Thallasses (as expressed by the Dion Fortune tradition and the pure Golden Dawn).

2. To develop a scientific and individualist approach to magic.

3. Restore a balance between religions within magic so that a person might develop their own religious understanding free from any dogma.

4.   To provide magical training to those who are ready using the latest communication methods.

5. To experiment with new methods of magical expression and to share that information.

6. To eliminate any discrimination within occultism on the basis of sex, religion, race, sexuality or beliefs.

7. To establish better communication between Western Mystery traditions to the enhancement of our own.

8. To encourage each student to develop their magical gifts to the best of their ability so that they can take a pivotal role within an evolving humanity.

10. To assist a student and adept in the attainment of their own spiritual destiny.

11. To continue to study and adapt the Smaragdum Thallasses system.

12. To create a magical order where practical techniques are given priority over intellectual understanding.

Issued in the Hour of Venus on the Day of Venus

20 December 2013

The Osiris Scroll

After much arm twisting I am releasing the Osiris Scrolls as a strictly limited book on lulu.  It is a small hardback book and will be limited to 50 copies so it will be a collector's item.  It can be bought here  http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Magus007

From the blurb:

The Osiris Scroll is a  modern magical technique based on the bedrock of the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.  This work was compiled by the Chief Adept of the Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea Nick Farrell.

This is cutting edge modern magic which works and is based on a manuscript which was only available to the adepts of his order.

Using vision techniques, this book takes the reader though a through a series of magical ordeals before finally uniting them with their Divine Self.

This book is a practical handbook and not for the beginner as it offers Self Initiation into the Mysteries of Osiris.

NOTE:  These all sold out.  I might do some similar projects.  If those who got the copies want to tell me if they survived I will be interested.


ALL SOLD OUT

Diagrams in the Golden Dawn

Few of the diagrams of the Golden Dawn are used in the Modern Golden Dawn initiation rituals.  This is because many modern Golden Dawn orders were based on the rituals printed by Israel Regardie just before the Second World War in his Golden Dawn book.
The Bristol temple was going through a phase of removing parts of the ritual it did not understand or felt were cumbersome and the versions of the rituals that Regardie experienced were these cut down rite. The candidate still saw the diagrams, they were given to him or her during their course work and that was felt to be enough.
When deciding on the rituals of the Magical Order of Aurora Aurea I felt that we should return to the Whare Ra rituals. Whare Ra was the last surviving order of the Golden Dawn, closing its doors in the late 1970s. I worked with some of the people in that temple after it closed and know the magical depths they managed to find within the Golden Dawn system.
Going through the old rituals, I was surprised at quite how many of the diagrams there were which have to be presented to the candidate. Some were obvious, some I had seen and some were a complete mystery. Some diagrams even appeared to be repeated or the information duplicated across several grades. In each case the diagram was explained by the officer, often extending the length of the ritual considerably.
Part of me started to agree with Bristol and think they should be edited out. After all how can a candidate who has undergone an initiation that means anything actually stand, let alone comprehend the subtleties of a dozen diagrams.
I had been following a few threads on the various diagrams and decided that what ever happened they were important for a reason unknown and the Magical Order of the Aurora would use them in its initiations.
One thing we did do was to use the godforms associated with the diagrams to over shadow the candidate during the speeches and to link the diagram to the candidate's sphere of sensation. I thought that this would be fairly tame and a sensible magical use of the them.

However during psychic observations of the use of the diagrams in the initiations we started to notice that they were doing something more than we thought. Firstly the godforms appeared to be teaching the candidate something in connection with the tablet while the speeches were taking place. Secondly the godforms appeared to use the tablets magically to change the candidate's sphere of sensation. In several cases we heard a clicking sound when some people were exposed to the tablets as their sphere of sensation was re-orientated.
This was interesting so I returned to the rituals to note where some of the confusing diagrams apppeared. Perhaps the strangest was the Geomantic Diagrams which were scattered throughout the GD rituals. However if these diagrams were part of a huge psychic operation which is taking place on the candidate's sphere of sensation over several rituals their function becomes more than simply providing intellectual information. Geomancy works with the Earth spirits so in the initiation it is sealing and earthing the different components of the psychic operation. This is particularly so in the 4=7 when the candidate is shown something which tells them how to build an Earth talisman. Pat Zalewski was the first to spot the fact that when Mathers converted the the Cipher manuscripts so that the geomantic symbols used in the talisman were Rubeus and Puer. It made sense in some respects in that the path where the candidate is exposed to this particular talisman is on a Luna path and Mathers wanted to hint at the feiry Mars aspect of the Moon. The fact that he changed it is crucial because it says he recognised that the presentation of the diagram would have a magical effect. Unfortunately he was being a little too clever by half. The author of the Cipher documents said that the talisman should be Rubeus and Admissio. The fusion of these two geomantic symbols would be to negate the destructive aspects of Rubeus and allow the positive flow of love. This path after all is a move towards Netzach and very appropriate to the idea of the Moon under the influence of Mercy.
So it appears to be fairly clear that an operation is taking place here and not simply the masonic presentation of intellectual knowledge.

Berridge's AO diagram of Nebuchadnezzar

Take another example. Several times the candidate is shown various versions of the geometric shapes, in different guises. The information could be worked out the first time you see the diagram so why do you get a reprise for the second and third times. My suggestion would be that this is giving the sphere of sensation instructions in an energy form that it can use them to communicate but also crystallising parts of the sphere of sensation so that they fit to those shapes.
All this is fairly good magic covered under a dry intellectual shield. If the diagrams, such as tarot, have the effect of shaping the sphere of sensation then it becomes crucial that they are used and presented to the candidate.
But the diagrams also have another function in the temple. When they are not being showed to the candidate they act as invisible stations for power. This makes their placement important as it is possible to see lines of force between them. Remember that in an initiation the temple represents the candidate's sphere of sensation so these focal points become crucial.
With these diagrams being restored to the position of magical weapons their power becomes obvious. However this does raise some pretty obvious questions. The first is why did the Bristol temple think that ditching the diagrams was a good idea?
It is quite likely that in various times in its history the Golden Dawn has degenerated. The magical meaning behind the rites has been lost. While Felkin's Whare Ra remained on the ball there was no-one to check what the “provinces” were doing. There is an inherent trend within the Golden Dawn to kill off its magic side, or at very least, not study it. When this happens an order goes through the rituals and the motions of a working order without it being one. Diagrams, which superficially appeal to the Intellect are easily dismissed for what they appear to be, rather than what they really are.

Reblogged  from 2010

A rough guide for avoiding bad magical groups.

Joining a magical group is remarkably easy in the 21^st century. It seems strange that you can read all about magical groups on the internet and think they are as common as muck. But real good quality ones are as rare as they ever have been. Finding one good one can still be a life's work. There are many people who go from Order to order looking for something and never really finding it. Sometimes that is the universe trying to tell you that you are not ready for a real magical order. You might be looking for the wrong things, or cannot really handle the sort of training that a real magical group puts you through.  However you can save yourself some time by using some wisdom.

The idea of a coven or a magic order still has a lot of merit as they can be hot houses to learning.  But if the leadership is wrong then you could be suffering from bad experiences that you will talk about until you drop.   What follows are tips to help  work out if a Order is good or bad.

Is it too easy for you to join?

Groucho Marx once said that he would never be a member of a club who accepted him as a member.   If a group wants members, for whatever reason, they might be too keen to lower their standards.  Remember if they lower them to admit you, then there is a good chance that they have done so in the past and most of their members are not the sort of people who should really be doing magic.  Magic is not a easy path, so joining an occult group should not be easy either.  Real magical groups see people as things they have to train and a long term project. They generally should not be too concerned about getting extra people if they have enough to do their work projects. If a group seems too keen for you to join, say by paying for you to come and be initiated, you should avoid them. This means that they are desperate to boost their membership. An esoteric group should always be looking for quality over quantity. You might think that the reason a group wants you is because you are a wonderful esoteric candidate with heaps of knowledge. However to a real magical group lots of experience and pre-knowledge is a hindrance. You have to learn from scratch in any order you join so any intellectual baggage you might be carrying will have to be dropped before you join.

Does the group try to sell itself to you.

In the 21^st century many groups have a web presence or a place to contact them. However a group steps over the line when it tries to sell itself like a product.   It is mostly recognised by the overblown language on their website which is pitched to stereotypes about what Muggles think magic is.  The sort of thing which promises secrets, power, mastery of the universe, cures for cancer etc.  Here are a list of common ones:

“We are the ONLY magical school teaching the TRUE and ANCIENT TECHNIQUES”

“Orders have to receive a dispensation from the Masters on the Inner Planes who are known on in the West as the Secret Chiefs.  We have been told that our Order is the only one to receive our Contact’s dispensation in the 21^st century.”

“All others are frauds and cannot offer our secret techniques.”

“Other groups are envious that they do not have our sources of Secret Teaching and training.”

The list could go on, but you get the idea.  To get a high Google ranking you have to do a lot of shady self-promotion. This involves going onto lots of blogs and waxing lyrical about your order and encouraging all your students to mention you often on their blogs. It is possible to know who some members of magical orders are because often they are writers, but if you start to know too much you have to be careful. Self-promoting groups are trying increase their membership to make money (and sometimes sex). They are also often trying to build an esoteric cult around their actions.

Does the group block a particular group from membership and why?

Magical Groups should not stop anyone from entering on the basis that they are the wrong sex, colour, sexual orientation, physical disability, or hold different religious or political views from the members.   Magical training is possible for everyone and it does not matter what shape you are, or what you prefer to bonk (or how).

That does not mean that they HAVE to accept everyone. Some groups do not allow people to belong to other orders, or have a blacklist of groups that they will not allow members to join at the same time.  This is often not because they are bad, or evil (although it can be), it is just that they have different symbol set from the group and it would lead to some confusion.    This is particularly true of different Golden Dawn orders.  While MOAA gets on well with most of them, all emphasis different aspects of that tradition, or do some things differently.   Nor does a group want to hear “well in my other Golden Dawn order we insist on the [insert teaching here].”  

Honestly I do not believe it is possible to be a member of two different groups anyway as the workload should make it impossible. 

Does the group allow you to skip grades on the basis of your previous experience?

This is a trick to try and establish an Order as quickly and widely as possible.  The premise is that the Order will acknowledge the grades of the leaders of a forming group so that they can form a new order under their banner.    However anyone with common sense will realise that they are not getting anything from the Order that they are joining.  True they might have access to intellectual training, but they will not have experienced what the magic order is supposed to be doing!    As an idea it only works on idiots who like the idea of holding high grades in an order, preferably without doing any work for them (cough masonic types).    When you join an order, you start at the lowest level of that group and then you let it do its magic on you.  You do not do it to form another group for them, or just to have a flashy badge.   Never join an order that allows you to take several grade initiations in the same day or in a short period of time.  They do not understand how the grade system works and you will not get anything out of it.

Does a group accept you without meeting you or pay for you to visit them to be initiated?

If you meet someone you can know much more about them and know if they are going to fit into your group mind and if they are going to make it.  You cannot tell that over a Skype call, even if you have the video chat on.  The fact that a group skips this important meeting (and some even insist you turn up at several of their public meetings first) indicates they do not really care if you fit or not.  Paying for someone to travel to a place to be initiated smacks at desperation. 

Does a group offer to give you status on the basis of an “astral initiation.”

Astral initiation takes place at a high level when the person is experienced enough to go out of their body to receive it.   It is rarely given by a physical being, and only in unusual circumstances.

Lower grade initiations cannot be performed magically, because the candidate needs to experience certain things psychologically and physically.  I was fairly open minded about the idea of astral initiation at this level but I heard too many stories which showed it to be bogus. The technique involved telling the candidate to sit passively at the time of the initiation while a group of officers initiated a talisman (or astrological chart) with their name on it.   One of the tests for an Astral initiation is that the candidate picks up images or feelings from the rite.  I have not met anyone who has come up with anything which compares to a 0=0 experience.

Astral initiation performed in this manner is designed to raise funds from distant members and enable training.  There are much better techniques than passive “astral initiation” which can have a dramatic effect on the candidate, however the groups that use them always insist on a future physical initiation.

Are the leaders who interview you too young?

I started magic when I was 17 and studied really hard at it for many years.  I do not think I really understood anything until my 30s and started to teach when I was in my late-30s,  I have become a lot better since my 40s. 

 My mid-twenties were spent cramming knowledge and dealing with the fall out, I was also trying to build my career.   I cannot see how anyone under the age of 30 can be an esoteric teacher.  You can know enough intellectually in your 20s, perhaps, but you certainly cannot pull in the magic.  Even Jesus, who was supposed to be a prodigy (and apparently the Son of God) did not start teaching until he was 30. 

In your 20s you think that running an occult group is important.  In fact we find that too many younger members think that this is a priority.   Occult leaders should have their arms twisted before they form a group because it gets in the way of real work.  MOAA has enough work in it to last a lifetime, pissing around worrying about people forgetting to bring their red socks to rituals is not something a sensible person would want – unless they are too young, arrogant, and have not had enough magical experience.

Does the group attack others?

Good esoteric groups do not publically attack others.  Even a saint loses their temper in the presence of an internet troll (which is why some good teachers refuse to have an internet presence) and this does not usually mean there is something wrong with them.  As a rule of thumb, the groups that are being attacked, are usually the ones that are doing something, those who are doing the attacking have nothing to offer.  There are some exceptions.

 One group, fortunately disbanded, had an initiation test for its adepts.  This involved either attacking an ex-member’s property or “supporting the order” by setting up webpages defaming rival groups.  There was an inner circle within this group which was dedicated to making magic attacks against those who the leadership thought were trying to attack them.

Real occult orders get on with other occult orders.  They accept that they are different and are happy with that.

Does the group tell you what other similar groups do?

I have heard lots of things that apparently MOAA does from people who have talked to other groups.  I find it fascinating that they claim to know what happens in our rituals.  I don’t know (or care) what they do, so how can they know what is happening in ours?  The latest one is that Nick Farrell has “changed everything” and that the godform of the Hierophant is apparently Hermes!  It is no secret that MOAA has a Heirophant which uses an Osiris godform (when he is sitting down) just like 99 per cent of the Golden Dawn orders out there (the Open Source Order which uses a different inner structure).  All groups (even those who claim to be fundamentalist GD) have changed something.  This is because even if you had the original scripts of the GD, you would have no idea how those rituals were performed.  Nor do you have any idea how much modern thinking has corrupted that teaching. Generally saying that another group is "doing it wrong" when you can't be certain what they do, means you are trying to convince people that your way is the only way.

Angel Magic of the Bonorum

What follows is a paper I wrote in 2002 and ended up in Hermetic Virtues quite a while ago.  I  updated it in 2009 to include references to what we were doing in MOAA (we included part of this in our course work when we opened our 1=10 that year).  Sorry for submitting something so ancient but I am a bit busy writing about the Shem Angels for a new book at the moment) 

When Samuel Mathers included Enochian within the Golden Dawn system, he used a manuscript called Sloane 307 which he found in the British Museum.  The document post date's Dee by some years and is a practical way into the later Dee work.   There was a belief that Sloane 307 represented a magical tradition using Enochian dating back to a closed circle around Dee.

Unfortunately for Mathers this was not the case.  Sloane 307 lacked some important material from the first five of Dee's diaries and was probably based on a person who had gone through the published version of “A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed Between John Dee and some Spirits” by Meric Casaubon and cobbled together a working magic system.  Casaubon had managed to find all Dee's Diaries other than the first five books and edited these to fit his theories about how occultism could make a sane and clever man go mad.
The early Dee diaries give information on the assembly of the table, the seal of truth and the Heptarchia system of Angels.   All important if you are going to recreate Dee's system of Magic but less widely used by Golden Dawn magicians.
In the 1920's one of the leading lights of the Golden Dawn in New Zealand, Ewan Campbell visited the UK and conducted some research at the British Library on the Dee manuscripts.
Whare Ra member Percy Wilkinson told me that Campbell realised there was a lot missing from the conventional GD Enochian system and came back with lots of copies of the diagrams.  According to Pat Zalewski, Campbell was tipped off by Langford Gaston who was the head of the AO, so it might mean that Order was conducting a similar review of the Enochian system within the GD.
Mathers was aware that the material existed.  He had written a paper called “The Seven Days of Creation Applied to the Seven Branched Candlestick” which has been lost.  In his book Golden Dawn Enochian Magic, Zalewski has done a fine job in recreating what that document would have looked like.   However it is a work for adepts in the Golden Dawn system and provides a lot of detail which in the Outer Order is not needed.  However there is something in the Angels of the Bonorum which would be very useful to those beginning the path of magic and connected to the 1=10 grade.   In the Magical Order of Aurora Aurea we feel it will give the Zelator a basic form of 'low' magic which they can use to fulfil their needs in the Outer Order while a the same time performing the Higher Magic of the grade work.  You will be tested on the names and attributions of the Kings and Princes of the Bonorum but will be not required to demonstrate magical use of the system.
The Angels of the Heptarchia and these appear to be the Yetziratic levels.  They are essentially the Briatic Archangels as they manifest in Yesod.
  The names for these Angels were split between seven tablets (see diagram one) .  Each tablet represented something 'earthy' which is also connected with the Nephesh of humanity:

1. Wit and Wisdom with the magical image of a book.  This is intellectual knowledge.
2. The drive to rule and administer people with the magical image of a crown.
3. The desire for material comfort. Business and trade, represented by the magical image of robes.
4. The element of Water, with the magical symbol of a four footed animal.
5. The element of Earth, the magical symbol of herbs
6. The element of Air, the magical symbol of a fan
7. The element of Fire, magical symbol of flame in the hands

The angels were formed by combining one letter from each tablet. They have aspects of each of them and therefore can control over every aspect of the Nephesh of a person, and that of the whole of the world.
There are 49 Angels;  seven kings (Kether of Yesod), seven princes (Tiphareth of Yesod) and 35 governors (Yesod of Yesod).
The seven Kings are:

Baligon: (Haniel)
Bobogel: (Raphiel)
Babalel: (Kamael)
Bynepor: (Zadkiel)
Bnaspol: (Michael)
Bbapsen: (Tzaphqiel)
Blumaza: (Gabriel)

The seven kings carry the 'idea' of manifestation into Yesod.  The Princes job is to make it happen and they have a similar function to planetary intelligences.

Their names are: Bornogo (Venus), Befafes (Sun), Butmonom (Mars), Blisdon (Jupiter), Brorges (Mercury),Bragles (Saturn) and Bagenol (Moon).

The Governors have a similar function in this system to the spirits and they work at the closest level to material substance.

Governers of Venus
Bapnido
Besgeme
Blumapo
Bmamgal
Basledf

Sun
Basmelo
Bernole
Branglo
Brisfli
Bnagloe

Mars
Bazpama
Blintom
Bragiop
Bermale
Bonefon

Jupiter

Balceor
Belmara
Benpagi
Barnafa
Bmilges

Mercury
Baspalo
Binodab
Bariges
Binofon
Baldago

Saturn
Bormila
Buscnab
Bmninpol
Bartiro
Bliigan

Moon
Bablibo
Busdana
Blingef
Barfort
Bamnode


In addition to this Dee mentions the names of 42 ministers for each planet.  These are more spirits and their names can be found in the Heptarchia Mystica of John Dee edited by Robert Turner.  Their use is a beyond the requirements of a Zelator.
The Angels of the Bonorum are Planetary and are connected to days of the week and equally the days of creation. These are arranged in terms of Planets and thus everything can be placed on the diagram of the seven-branched candlestick diagram  which is presented to the candidate in the 1=10 ritual.

 When a candidate is exposed to the seven branched candlestick diagram their sphere of sensation takes in an impulse from the Briatic level, this then flows downwards to the Yetsiratic level where the Bonorum angels work to bring through the divine image to the physical levels.    They do this through manipulating those energy centres in the sphere of sensation that are under their planetary control.  The the East these are called

Chakras but the corresponding system in the West are the spheres on the Tree of Life.

If we look a the ritual we find that the description of the seven branched candlestick mirrors what we have looked at in regards to the Angels of the Bonorum .

We are told in the ritual that the the seven branched candlestick relates to the Mystery of Elohim, the seven Creative Ideas and that the seven Circles, which surround the Heptagram, represent the 7 Planets and the 7 Qabalistic Places of Assiah. And the 7 Lamps before the Throne on another Plane. Within each circle is a triangle to represent the Three-fold Creative Idea, operating in all things. On the right hand side of each, is the Hebrew name of the Angel who governs the Planet; on the left side is the Hebrew name of the sphere of the Planet itself, while the Hebrew letter, beneath the base, is one of the duplicated letters of the Hebrew Alphabet, which refers to the 7 Planets. The 7 Double Letters of the Hebrew Alphabet,
But the ritual also gives us other clues to the meanings of these angels.  It points out that each Angelic King controls seven directions Zenith, Nadir, East, West, North, South.
So then what can we do with this knowledge.  After all it is all very well saying that you can make a direct link between John Dee's and the Angels of the Bonorum and the Seven Branched Candlestick but what good is it to us to use these angels?
Dee was given the use of the Heptachic angels very early on in his magical career, long before he started messing around with any Enochian tablets.  It seems to me that this low level yetsiratic form of magic is designed to work with the lower aspects of the self and in particular how we interact with our material world.
Practically then it is a system of Earth magic which works on the person's sphere of sensation and onto the physical levels.
It is interesting that this is the one system of magic that Dee gives an example of a talisman and it is also significant that it is a healing talisman.  It could equally have been magic for money or job, or anything to do with the second, third, and fourth houses of the astrological chart - in short anything to do with the Earth element and the the 1=10 grade.
In the 1=10 grade the candidate is supposed to start working on the physical levels as a precurser to their magical work.  Normally the effects of the grade are to stuff up their finances and force them to look at life in a less escapist way. Illnesses are also fairly common in this grade.  But these are all negative experiences, things which should not happen if the magician was working to bring about change in the correct manner.
The Heptarchic Angels give the student a way of working with these energies and participating in the transformation.

Azoth Art is a key part of modern occultism

What follows might be seen by some as an advert for Azoth Art.  But I am a little concerned that an important online craft company might go under thanks to the wonders of Google and the search engine industry.
For some reason Azoth Art  has disappeared from the search engines and its owner Cathy is fast finding that her work is drying up.  It is taking some time to sort the mess out too.

Azoth Art's banners

To those who do not know Azoth is responsible for most of the sewing within the Golden Dawn community.  To my knowledge all the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea all use robes, nemsis, sashes, banners and other things made by her.  
She is quick, accurate and has saved hours of frustration and blood for those of us who cannot sew.  She has also helped us develop items which would have been difficult to make but were important to the development of our Second Order. Cathy’s stuff is well made too.  I still have a set of banners which were given to me 20 years ago and have survived regular use and travelled to workings in four countries.
Everyone knows how difficult it is to find a good reliable supplier for the hardware of a temple, so it is important that everyone support those suppliers who are there.    Anyway if you cant find Azoth on Google click the link here