grgr (34): "the order of the golden dawn" (747)

[Lorentzen / Nicklaus]

 "christopher s. hyatt: can you say more about the golden dawn?

 francis israel regardie: the golden dawn was founded by, and was an offshot of, 
some early masonic rosicrucian organizations in england. that is, they were so 
called rosicrucian orders that limited their membership to high grade masons. 
there isn't too much evidence to indicate they knew a very great deal about 
esotericism as such. at least that is one of the common criticisms; i'm not sure 
about that. if mathers and wescott and woodman came out of the societas 
rosicruciana in anglia, if they came out of that, they were pretty well 
informed, so i think it would be fallacious to assume that they were merely 
masonic dilettantes as claimed by the arch-heretic critic, ellic howe. what it 
stood for, was what similar organizations throughout the ages have stood for, 
the teaching of a form of esotericism which expressed the spirit of the age. now 
by esotericism we mean a form of teaching which can be found in every clime, in 
every country, in every religion, as when jesus said to his disciples, 'to the 
multitude i speak in parables, to you i speak in plain ordinary language.' well 
the ordinary language was the esotericism, and the parables are the nonsense 
that the lay folk accept about religion or philosophy and all the occult 
sciences. the golden dawn, in some manner, managed to obtain access to various 
phases of the occult arts, some of which have been known earlier, in fact many 
of them can be found in the british museum. but, even so, mathers and wescott 
gave them a new twist that made them more intelligible and more readily grasped 
by the modern man. apart from that, however, there was a very great deal of 
teaching that didn't come from the british museum, that didn't come from ancient 
manuscripts, that in some manner which i don't purport to understand, or wish to 
explain at the moment, they had access to great quantities of teaching that was 
unique to the golden dawn. for example, the enochian system, so called, was 
known before, in very rudimentary form. but as dr. head once pointed out, dee 
and kelley obtained a great deal of material, but they hadn't the faintest idea 
how to use it. under the stimulus of the genius of the golden dawn, primarily 
mathers, this was transformed into an encyclopedic synthesis that included every 
minute portion of the current golden dawn teaching, and was made into a workable 
systematic whole.           

csh: what is the practical purpose of the golden dawn?

fir: what is the practical purpose of so many modern systems? that is to render 
a person whole. to give them more insight into their meaning, into their 
significance, into their functions as human beings, this is their goal. where 
they came from, where they are now, and whither they are going. it's a method of 
developing a whole person, who is aware of all the hidden facets of his whole 
nature and knows how to bring them into play at will.

csh: it seems to be a very lofty goal. how does the golden dawn attempt to 
accomplish this?

fir: it attempts to accomplish this by certain exercises, by meditations and by 
ritual. all three of them were combined in a very skillful manner, so that the 
student who really was, let us say, a person capable of initiating his own 
progress, ob being a self-starter, would be able to take this vast body of 
knowledge and apply it to himself and thus, to use one of the phrases in the 
adeptus minor grade, to gradually unite himself to his essential divinity und 
thus become more than human."

(christopher s. hyatt, ed.: rebels & devils. the psychology of liberation. 
 tempe 1996: new falcon. pp. 150f.)


kfl
  
                 ps: - regardie: "... there is nothing in man, absolutely 
                       nothing, which cannot be used in order to further the 
                       great work, to further his own psycho-spiritual 
                       development into an integrated, illuminated human being. 
                       there were several passages in some of the rituals and in 
                       some of the documents of the golden dawn, which speak of 
                       the 'evil persona', the qlippoth, the so-called evil 
                       elements of man. when mastered and put in their proper 
                       place, they may serve him as a mighty steed, a powerful 
                       beast whereupon he may ride to wherever he wants to go.

                       hyatt: that viewpoint sounds very similar to jung's and 
                       reich's ideas.

                       regardie: exactly. there is little difference. the 
                       rejected elements are always latent and when given enough 
                       provocation and stimulus will always rise up to haunt the 
                       individual when he least expects it. therefore they have 
                       to be faced, dealt with, and incorporated into the very 
                       heart of one's being.