The Golden Dawn

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 23 Dec 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

wandking	23 Dec 2004
I thought it might be neat to share some notes and ideas on an order that has a history that resembles a soap opera. Is there any interest here in The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn Rosae Rubae et Aureae Crucis, Temple of Isis-Urania, Lodge Number 3?

jmd	24 Dec 2004
Numerous wonderful stories have been written by quite a number of people, including, of course, Gilbert and Mary Greer... I would certainly be interested in reading insights anyone has on aspects of the HOGD and how this has played into the development and changes in Tarot during the 20th century.

Alta	24 Dec 2004
I am moving this to Talking Tarot, as it is not about a specific reading. It is certainly an important development in the history of modern tarot. Marion co-moderator of Your Readings

wandking	24 Dec 2004
Yes Greer is a good source on this type info: According to a book by Mary K. Greer, titled Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels and Priestesses released in 1994 CE, she affirms that in 1899 CE Mina Mathers, acting as the High Priestess Anari, gave an interview for an article called Isis Worship in Paris, where she said, "The idea of the priestess lies at the root of all ancient beliefs. Only in our ephemeral time has it been neglected. What do we find in the modern development of religion to replace the feminine idea, and consequently the Priestess? When a religion symbolizes the universe by a Divine Being, is it not illogical to omit woman, who is the principle half of it, since she is the principle creator of the other half--that is, man? How can we hope that the world will become purer and less material when one excludes from the Divine that part of its nature which represents at one and the same time the faculty of receiving and that of giving--that is to say, love itself and its highest form--love the symbol of universal sympathy? That is where the magical power of woman is found. She finds her force in her alliance with the sympathetic energies of Nature. And what is Nature if it is not an assemblage of thought clothed with matter and ideas which seek to materialize themselves? What is this eternal attraction between ideas and matter? Is it the secret of life. Have you ever realized that there does not exist, a single flame without the special intelligence, which animates it, or a single grain of sand to which an idea is not attached the idea, which formed it? It is these intelligent ideas, which are the elementals, or spirits of Nature. Woman is the magician born of Nature by reason of her great natural sensibility, and of her instructive sympathy with such subtle energies as these intelligent inhabitants of the air, the earth, fire and water." I must say at this point that Hebrews offer the plural name, Elohim for a supreme deity but this almost comes across as Gnosticism... Do any of you folks feel the Golden Dawn was a Gnostic order based on Masonic practices?

jmd	25 Dec 2004
This partly depends as to what is referred to as 'gnostic'. The HOGD was certainly partly based on the rituals and grades used in Rosicrucian Society to which the three founders were high ranking members. That it was 'gnostic' in the sense of seeking for direct spiritual knowledge is also clear - and the GD offers a strucured path that may hope-fully open some of the gateways. Personally, I do not see its framework or its structure as 'Gnostic' in that capitalised version of the term, even it it may also draw from Gnostic sources.

rosyelf	25 Dec 2004
Wandking, thank you for pointing me in the direction of WOMEN OF THE GOLDEN DAWN. I think I'll go and find a copy once the seasonal dust has settled. :)

roppo	25 Dec 2004
I believe the Golden Dawn's emphasis on the role of "Priestess" derived from Anna Kingsford -- Mathers and Westcott were both admirers of the mystic. And they saw great possibilities in the mystical partnership between man and woman, for example, Blavatsky & Olcott, Kingsford & Maitland, or Lead & Pordage of earlier centuries. I don't know exactly what kind of gnoticism they had in mind, but probably Kingsford's "Esoteric Christianity" came in first. And we must not forget Westcott came to possess some Levi papers through her (or precisely, via Spedarieri - Kingsford - Maitland). Well, I must confess I am a great lover of "GD soap" ! (lol)

wandking	25 Dec 2004
I probably shouldn't have capitilized the term, since such a wide variety of religious practices came to be known as gnosticism in the eyes of the Catholic Church. What i meant by gnostic is ANY belief system that perceives a balance between male and female energy in the supreme deity. In that quote I offered Mina sure seems to embrace those type beliefs... I just wondered if the order as a whole might have also held those beliefs.

wandking	25 Dec 2004
Could you expand on Kingsford's "Esoteric Christianity?"

roppo	25 Dec 2004
Well, let's try... "Esoteric Christianity" is the term Kingsford used when A. P. Sinnet with his book "Esoteric Buddhism" (1883) heralded the arrival of Blavatsky to England. It is worth quoting Kingsford's speech at the reception party to Sinnet on July 17, 1883. "...the guest of the evening, who sits beside me, is a Buddhist. i, the President of the English Lodge , am a Catholic Christian. Yet we are one at heart, for he has been taught by his Oriental Gurus the same esoteric doctrines which I have found under the adopted pagan symbols of the Roman Church, and which esoteric Christianity you will find embodied in "The Perfect Way". Greek, Hermetic, Buddhist, Vedantist, Christian -- all these Lodges of the Mysteries are fundamentally one and identical in doctrine" ("Life of Anna Kingsford", Watkins, London, 1913 . vol2,p.124) And she said human spiritual progress first took form in India, and "broke on Syria and on Egypt, where it gave birth to the Kabalistic and Hermetic gnosis". (ibid., p.126) Kingsford believed in reincarnation and said she was Mary Magdalen in one former life. All in all, a really remarkable woman, and very beautiful. As this is Tarot forum I would not go into a detailed discussion about A.K. She wrote about tarot a little, but her understanding on the subject seems to me a bit "off the mark". Wandking, I am under the impression that the Mathers's male-female conception was more akin to a Swedenborgian type - what is called "Seraphita marriage" a la Balzac.

fyreflye	25 Dec 2004
-delete-

wandking	25 Dec 2004
Besides spiritual non-sexual marriages, like the Mathers perportedly had, other things lead me to conclude the GD embraced Gnosticism. Waite describes The Magician as the card that “signifies the divine motive in man, reflecting God, the will in the liberation of its union with that which is above. It is also the unity of individual being on all planes, and in a very high sense it is thought, in fixation thereof. With further reference to what I called the sign of life and its connection with the number 8, it may be remembered that Christian Gnosticism speaks of rebirth in Christ as a change ‘unto the Ogdoad.’ The mystic number is termed Jerusalem above, the Land flowing with Milk and Honey, the Holy Spirit and the Land of the Lord. According to Martinism, 8 is the number of Christ.” Ogdoad probably refers to eight deities in Egyptian theosophy, which existed before the creation of Ra the Sun God. The eight deities, indicate four couples, which embody primeval forces of chaos but might also represent Gnostic Valentinian beliefs. This is not a isolated reference to Gnosticism by prominant member of the GD. The previous post mentions Crowley and I find it significant that he wrote a Gnostic Mass. As we all know GD exposure strongly influenced his life.

jmd	26 Dec 2004
Just some quick off-the-cuff notes to reply a little to some of fyreflye's comments. Firstly, and so as to place the sequence in some kind of historical order, Crowley was initiated into the GD by the Mathers in Paris after the order was already in problematic schism, and he was asked to go to London under Mathers's authority as the then head to make claims on this latter's behalf. It backfired (or did not go according to Mathers's intention). Crowley himself thought that some of the 'secrets' were no more than what every well read aspirant would already be familiar with... in any case, he later founded his own order, and later yet obtained documents from Reuss for the OTO for the UK. With regards as to why Wescott, Mathers and Woodman would have wanted to establish 'another secret society' given that they were already high ranking SRIA members, the reply is undoubtedly multifold. On the one hand, it is likely that any change they may have otherwise wanted to instigate within the SRIA would have been met by too strong an opposition. Not only the admission of women (which may or may not have been an easy alteration), but also the rendering of the rituals to conscious ceremonial magical rites, with overlays of Egyptian surcoats. It would indeed be easier to invite those one would want to work with, and write the rituals exactly as one viewed they should be written - and this whether or not the 'cypher' manuscript from which the rituals are said to be derived were in fact found as claimed. Given that the SRIA has the equivalent of a pre-order ritual(s) (the first three degrees of Freemasonry as pre-requisite), the 0=0 grade was likewise 'added' to the otherwise similarly named SRIA grades. The grades themselves are simply, of course, numbered according to an ascent on the Tree of Life, with the first of two numbers denoting the grade entered, the the second of the numbers the Sefirot into which the Temple is located (hence, 3=8 means roughly: third grade, located in the sphere of the eighth emanation, ie, Hod). If one has worked the SRIA grades, and one is also quite interested in esoteric workings, it becomes clear as to why some would indeed want to 'extand' or introduce another order based on similar principles and studies, but extanded and also including women. From their perspective, I would suggest that they did not create a 'new' secret society, but rather re-established into the physical plane the society that still but only partially (from their, not my, possible perspective) functioned in Freemasonry and various Rosicrucian degrees and grades.

wandking	26 Dec 2004
Prevalent dissension occurred among leading members of the society. After co-founder Dr. Woodman died in 1891, the organization never filled his vacancy. Mathers sought more control after death of that prominent member. Some thought Mathers a little eccentric if not a lunatic and asserted he never consummated marriage with his wife, Mina. He claimed she received teachings from mystical beings called the Secret Chiefs of the Golden Dawn, through alleged clairvoyance and supernormal hearing. Unstable finances resulted in Annie Horniman becoming a benefactor to the Mathers couple in 1891 CE, which prompted a move to Paris, where they established a new lodge. Mathers continued writing material for the London lodge. In Paris, he became obsessed with autocratic jealousy toward Westcott and Horniman stopped financial support of Mathers in l896 CE. In that same year, Mathers expelled Horniman but the London membership subsequently reinstated her. In 1897 CE, Westcott, who held office as coroner, resigned after ties to the order became public, resulting in political pressure. Irreparable schisms formed later, after Mathers revealed the questionable activities of Westcott in founding the order. The Secret Chiefs obviously failed to guide Mathers in political and social graces. In 1898, Aleister Crowley gained initiation into the society and progressed rapidly through the ranks. The next year he went to Paris and compelled Mathers to promote him into a higher level of the secret order and Mathers complied. The London lodge, under leadership of actress Florence Farr, rejected this promotion. When Crowley returned to England in disguise exclaiming he was the "Envoy Extraordinary," from Mathers in an attempt to gain control of the Second Order of the Golden Dawn, he wore Highland dress with a black mask and brandished a gilt dagger. During his effort, Crowley suffered a formal rebuff, complete with legal problems. It was an uneasy alliance between Crowley and Mathers and it deteriorated. Crowley considered himself a better magician than Mathers. Allegedly, this led to magical warfare between the men. Mathers sent an astral vampire to assault Crowley. Crowley counterattacked, sending a legion of demons after his ex-ally, now turned rival. Eventually antics by Crowley prompted his expulsion from the order. Crowley retaliated by publishing secrets of the society in his biannual magazine, The Equinox. Not long after forming in 2002, a revived order of the Golden Dawn condemned Crowley, stating, “Crowley's treacherous publication of this secret material, although of benefit to the wider esoteric community, was a disaster.” Several esoteric groups now bear the name Golden Dawn and many claim lineage from the original London lodge. Crowley and Regardie, although condemned for revealing Golden Dawn secrets likely held limited knowledge. Yeats, Waite and Horniman blocked Crowley from ascending to the Second Order and Mathers not long after promoting him clashed with the recent initiate. Regardie joined this group late, making his ascension doubtful. Subsequent writings show that although neither held comprehensive knowledge both men knew Golden Dawn secrets. Regardie asserted he revealed rituals to preserve them for posterity after the group dissolved.

The The Golden Dawn thread was originally posted on 23 Dec 2004 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.