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.

Star Trek Ritual

The Golden Dawn cipher manuscripts were used to create the Golden Dawn rituals.  They provided the skeleton for all the rituals from 0=0 to 4=7.  However Mathers was looking at the ritual through a late Victorian Masons eyes, he could have easily have created a different ritual.  What would have happened if the Cipher manuscript had been found in the Star Trek universe?    Newly created from the cipher manuscripts is the Star Trek opening (and it really is created from the ciphers with a little tweaking). 

Officers of the Golden Dawn robed up for the ritual.

All assemble put on uniforms, communicators, etc.

Captain: Officers of the Bridge, assist me to accelerate this ship to warp speed.

Communications officer: Hailing all hostiles to leave the sector:

Captain: Security see that the ship is properly shielded and protected.

Security Officer: I have scanned the sector and have found no enemy vessels. The ship's shields are fully functional, captain.

Captain: Who are the bridge officers.

Head of Security: They are the Captain, the First Officer and the Head of Security.

Captain: What do they have in common?

Head of Security:  They all are members of Star Fleet and obtained top grades. They also have American accents and are men.

Captain: What are the other officers?

Head of Security: The Communications officer, the Science officer and the Medical officer.l  The Cheif Engineer is at his station off the bridge.

Medical Officer: I am in the South the point of over emotion and arm waving.  I carry the tricorder which makes a sound like wibbly woo and I scan the candidate to see he does not have klingons.

Science Officer: I am in the North the point of coldness and logic and I wear the pointy ears and the symbol of raised eyebrow.  I look into the little box and I scan the potential candidate with cold facts.

Communciations Officer: I am inside the door, and I talk to strange beings with my clunky earings. I announce that beings are ignoring our hails, and that the universal communicator is broken.

First Officer: I wander freely about the bridge and reconcile the science officer and the medical officer.  It is my task to lead the away teams, but also to rescue the captian when he insists on going on an away team.   I shoot first and ask questions later.

Security Officer:  My place is in the west and I wear the red teeshirt of office, which means that I am usually the first person to die.  I carry a phaser which is usually set to kill.

Captain:  My place is in the super comfy chair with the buttons and I rule the bridge. I am power, light, mercy and wisdom and I rule the ship in the name of Star Fleet.

Science officer purifies with cold Logic and Science.  Raises tricorder and says: 
"The needs of the many out way the needs of the few it is logical."

Medical Officer consecrates with emotions.  Raises tricorder and says:
"Damn it, man, I'm a doctor, not a physicist!"

Captain:  Warp speed
Everyone lines up in the North East and circumabulates three times.

Captain: We are at warp factor three let us give reference to our creator. Face screen and say:

Holy art thou Gene Roddenberry
Holy art thou who created the Star Trek Multiverse
Holy art thou who created the mighty  “The City on the Edge of Forever” episode
And also the terrible Wesley Crusher (shake head slowly)

|Captain: Communications officer I ask that you declare that the ship is at warp speed.
Communications officer: In the name of the Captain I declare that the ship is at warp speed and the Kingons flee away.

Captain  Phasors

Securty  On

First Officer Stun

Security Boldly

First officer GO

Captain: Where

Security: no one

Captain: Has gone

First Officer: Before

Make signs at captain's chair and make a vibrate a shhhhhhh noise.

A Golden Dawn Lingo translation guide

A long time ago a friend of mine Clive Harper published a list of what people in the Servants of the Light really meant when they said certain phrases.  I thought I would update it for the Golden Dawn tradition. I might add to it

What Golden Dawn people mean when they say the following things:

This is a Golden Dawn oral tradition:  I made it up.

• This is a Golden Dawn tradition:  Don’t blame me I didn’t make it up.
• This is a Cabbalistic tradition:  Don’t blame me, god made it up.
• The Golden Dawn used to do it this way:  My old temple used to do it this way.
• They are an independent order: No one wants to go near them.
• They are an independent temple:  We only count them as members when we want to look like a big order.
• We have a Golden Dawn lineage: Our chief once met Israel Regardie in a bar.
• We are the only ones with a Golden Dawn lineage: We have no lineage.
• We do not care about Golden Dawn lineage: We have no lineage.
• We have AO lineage: We do not think you are quick enough to research that we have no Golden Dawn lineage.
• We follow Paul Foster-Case’s approach to the Golden Dawn: We hide in the cellar when any mentions anything about Enochian.
• We follow Anne Davies approach to the Golden Dawn:  We claim that we are the successors to the Golden Dawn in the hope that people will join us.
• We follow Chic Cicero’s approach to the Golden Dawn:  We have the biggest and prettiest wands.
• We take an Alchemical Approach to the Golden Dawn: We don’t know what we are doing so we cover it up with impenetrable quasi-alchemical terms which sound good and mean nothing.
• We prefer to follow a Wiccan approach: We do not do exams and our chief adept has been arrested for indecent exposure.
• We follow the Sun approach:  We don’t care who rules us so long as she has big tits.
• We follow a more pagan approach:  Our meetings start two hours late.
• We teach sex magic in the higher grades:  If you are pretty, you will go from 0=0 to 7=4 in a year and be sexually assaulted by the Chief Adept or the second Adept in the post ritual Jacuzzi.
• We are Open Source:  We never do anything unless it has been blessed by Richard Stallman.
• We follow the masonic approach:  Our temple members are all over 60, we don’t do godforms or magic, we have a dinner afterwards and refer to women as “the ladies.”
• They are influenced by Crowley:  They have wife-swapping parties after temple.
• They are overly influenced by Crowley: They have wife-swapping parties after temple and never invited me.
• It is in the black brick edition:    I am making it up and do not want you to check.
• It is in the doorstop edition:  I am making it up and really do not want you to check.
• It is in Zalewski’s book: I am making it up and I really, really do not want you to check.
• (S)He performs black magic:  He performs actual magic and it scares the shit out of us.
• (S)He is taking a sabbatical:  He was caught poking one of his students and is having to lay low for a while.
• (S)He has been told to practice the Abramelin method and report back: We wanted to expel him/her but we thought it was better to tell them to do this and hope they never came back.
• I am the re-incarnation of Mathers and you are the re-incarnation of Mina: I really hope you are impressed, do not know your history and want to sleep with me.
• We agree with what Regardie said about psychotherapy before joining:  You are nuts and need a lot of therapy before we let you in.  
• All our new teaching is in the 6=5 and 7=4:  We are using photocopies from the Regardie book, the only people who hold 6=5 and 7=4 are the Chief adept and his mate and it will take you 20 years before you find out and by then we will have shifted all the secret teaching to the 8=3.
• The answer to your question is above your grade:  I don’t know.
• This ritual was above your grade: Who the hell let you do the bornless one?
• That was a hard ritual: God I need a drink.
• That was a heavy pathworking:  I dozed off in the middle what happened?
• It is unusual for us to get that effect:  The candidate’s head does not normally rotate and nor does ever get hit by projectile vomit.
• That was an unusual method of consecration: We didn’t think anyone could get the stolisties cup up there.
• We normally don’t allow the Heirus to do the sign of the enterer on the circumambulation: The sheshkababed hegemon and Kerux was difficult to explain to the nice policeman.
• (S)He fails to understand Golden Dawn history:  (S)He does not do what I tell him.
• (S)he does not respect the Order: (S)He fails to see how I ever got a 7=4.
• He is autocratic: I am autocratic.