Astrology and the Golden Dawn

Hermotimus

There is a point with the RWS deck and all the other Golden Dawn decks that I find extremely interesting. The original star chart of Golden Dawn Tarot documents known as "The Tree of Life as Projected in the Solid Sphere" note by S.R.M.D that appears in Regardie's Golden Dawn has something extraordinary built into it. I had an astronomer look at that chart and he stated that the chart of the stars was not accurate by our current stars, nor by the stars of the Golden Dawn's founding in 1888. He stated that the alignment of the stars as shown in the chart is off by more than 400 years and that it would be placed at the time the time of the publishing the Rosicrucsian Manfesto throughout Europe (15th century/early 16th century). I also find it interesting that S.L.M Mathers started out as an assistant to Eliphas Levi in locating and translating documents in the libraries of Paris, and that shortly after the founding of the Golden Dawn, Mathers was sent back to Paris to found the temple there perhaps as an excuse to search for additional documents in the Pari Libraries. I strongly suspect that the original star chart used by the Golden Dawn for the creation of their decks, was not the creation of the Golden Dawn but was the creation of an individual or a group of individuals in France shortly after the Time of the Rosicruscian Manfesto. Yet, Waite does seem to follow this template with regards to the Minor Arcana cards, with the exception of the court cards in the four suits.
 

re-pete-a

curious??? one wonders if the time frame wasn't connected to the era or persons that were being investigated,seeing they were resurrecting ancient information,before the golden dawn I doubt there was public acceptance of OTHER belief systems,the established ones were very quick to react...just an opinion
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HOW TO ROLL BLUNTS
 

Scion

If Mathers started off as an assistant he would have had to have done it by the time he was 20. And Levi wasn't doing a whole lot of research there at the end...

Mathers was born in 1854, a year before Transcendental Magic was published. Levi died in 1875. I've never heard that Mathers worked for Levi, although it's a lovely link story. Matherss spoke highly ofhim, but I doubt very much he ever spoke to him. I DO know that Mathers and Crowley were zealous fans of Levi's work and that it had an enormous impact on the GD.

Still, I'm interested in your friend's suggestion about the astronomy dating. Would love to know the specific details that led him to the conclusion...

Scion
 

Hermotimus

Dating of the star chart

The positions of the stars move over time. In terms of Astrology, the term Precession is used in this relationship, as in the precession of the equinox where the zodiac sign changes every 2000 years. For example, in the past century we transitioned from the zodiac sign of Pieces to the zodiac sign Aquarius. Remember the beginning of the "Age of Aquarius"? Another example is that Polaris will no longer be our north pole star in 20,000 years. Precession is the term that means that the stars change position over time and thus by having a star map of any particular time, you can date that time by using the positions of the stars. The two maps published in "The Tree of Life as Projected in a Solid Sphere" Note by S.R.M.D. which is included in Regardie's "The Golden Dawn" are datable to within a fifty years of when it was created. The astromoner used a planetarium and recessed the heavens until the stars matched the exact positions give in the map, then read the figure for the years that that map would cover. The largest amount of error would be plus or minus 50 years given the scale of the map provided in "The Golden Dawn." That date centers at approximately 1470 C.E. meaning that the map of the heavens used as the basis for the Golden Dawn tarot astrological symbolism was created sometime berween 1420 and 1520 C.E. You are welcome to check this information and the maps with any astronomer. But, the dating of that map shows that it was probably created at least 400 years before the founding of the Golden Dawn.
From that point we can conjecture as much as we want as to who created this star map and the astrological attributions that the Golden Dawn used for its Tarot Decks. The records clearly indicate that S.L.M.Mathers brought to W.Westcott Wynn and others documents from Paris and that those documents are among the founding and secret documents that the "Masters" revealed to the founders of the Golden Dawn. We also know that Mathers did a great deal of research and work in the Paris National Libraries. It is also fully documented that S.L.M. Mathers returned to Paris shortly after the founding of the Golden Dawn, and the writings of W.W. Wynn clearly indicates that he was to continue his research in the National Libraries in Paris as well as founding the Paris Temple of the Golden Dawn.
From this I am prepared to conjecture that the founding documents of the Golden Dawn were found by Mathers in the National Libraries of France located in Paris and that they were likely written at least 350 to 450 years before the founding of the Golden Dawn.
I am making the further conjecture that this time frame is at the time of the Rosicrucian Manifesto that was put out all over Paris and that it called for all men of good will and science to join together and share their knowledge with each other about the arcane arts. This Manifesto is the first public reference we have to the Rosicrusians and so I am conjecturing that the Rosicrucian Manifesto could very well have been the catalyst for the forming of a group of Adepts in Paris and that their work eventually found its way into the French National Library known as the Armoury or Munitions? I did some tracing of some of the sources of the documents used to create this National Library and one of those sources was a man known for his interest in science and the occult and that his library had been founded by his family in the 1500's and added to until it was donated to France and was moved to Paris. I am also willing to conjecture that the documents published by Eliphas Levi as his own work were documents from this same group of adepts that Levi found in the Library in Paris. A. E. Waite makes strong hints and suggestions in several places in his works and in his prefaces of Levi's works that he believed that Levi was not the source of this material but that he came upon this material already in existence. He says in one place that Eliphas Levi did not have the intellect or the knowledge needed to create the works which he published under his name. Given Waite's extreme reluctance to make ambiguous statements of any kind, the fact that he makes such a suggestion indicated to me that he had direct knowledge of the matter. Waite's position as Head of the Golden Dawn for many years put him in a position were he had complete access to all the documents, notes, letters, rituals and other items that the Golden Dawn had collected since its founding in 1888. I am willing to conjecture that he saw those original documents supplied by Mathers to W.W. Wynn and others and had a complete account of how Mathers came into possession of these documents.
Your are more than welcome to accept or reject any of my conjectures about the source of the documents that were used in the founding of the Golden Dawn. But the astronomical dating of that star chart makes it plain that at least one of the Founding Documents of the Golden Dawn was at least 350-450 years older than the Golden Dawn and that it was Mathers who brought those documents to London and that Mathers was working as a research and translator in the National Libraries in Paris prior to his trip to London and the founding of the Golden Dawn.

Hermotimus
 

re-pete-a

THe star chart may have been created in that time frame as you suggest,which also means that the information it refers to pre dates the chart,the knowledge is older than. Remember also that the habit of burning the liberyies of the conquered was common,so that histories could be manipulated ,the crusaders did'nt stop,they simply changed their tactics and carried on...They're still changing books now!!
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BABE SEX
 

Scion

Just now noticed these responses...

Hermotimus, it sounds like you have a point towards which you're working regardless of input, so I won't stand in the way of your flow. I'll just add a couple thoughts and facts that might prove useful.

The "out of date" star positions aren't actually a shocking discovery. The discovery of equinoctial precession is credited to Hipparchus in the 2nd century BCE. The truth is that most of astrology can be dated to Hellenistic preconceptions about the position of certain asterisms. More importantly, the Golden Dawn material, while synthetically fascinating, is demonstrably the product of a LOT of library work and few primary sources. Duplicated errors in transcriptions are so identifiable that in many cases we know exactly to which manuscripts Mathers and Westcott referred. Most famously, there are incomplete magic squares and sigils with glaring misprints that got woven into the GD curriculum and persist in LOTS of New Age piffle written by folks who don't do their homework.

In the case of those starmaps, most of the GD astrological material comes from a combination of Agrippa (by way of Barrett's plagiarized Magus) and French occult revivalists, who were idiosyncratic to say the least. It's always tricky to refer to drawings for historically firm data. Regardie's published maps are figurative illustrations, not calculated charts. Even so, it shouldn't come as a surprise that charts (if they could be verifiably dated) would point to a time in the 15th century, since that's exactly when Agrippa's material would've been sourced. One of the oddities of Hermeticism is the way intriguing sets of facts survived over centuries, even after they had become unmoored from their original contexts.

Levi's own history is fascinating, and his pivotal role in the occult revival is well worth investigating further, though again, the simplest explanation doesn't support a Rosicucian reading for his material. Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie contains some really goofy mistakes and bizarre contradictions. While you could explain those as someone misreading a lost codex of the mysteries, I'd rather give the man credit for his accomplishment: a solid attempt to fuse 1500 years of Hermetic thought into a coherent whole. That's no joke! I also wouldn't take Waite's word about anyone: Waite was famously nasty about other occultists even when he ripped them off shamelessly.

Another thing worth mentioning: Waite was never the Head of the Golden Dawn. In fact, he left shortly after joining in 1891, and then rejoined years later. He was (in due course) admitted to the R.R. et A.C... but by that point the Order was imploding and Waite was spiralling towards mystical Christianity. in 1904, Waite would later found his own splinter order (the first of several)... but that's another ball of wax. The main point is that even if the theoretical secret Parisian documents existed to be seen, he would not have been the person to see them.

Occam's Razor would indicate that the simplest answer is usually the correct one: we don't need secret order documents from the National Library because Westcott, Mathers, and Woodman (and Fraulein Sprengel for that matter) just did their homework. So there's no need for any stacked conjectures. But that's only my opinion...

Scion
 

Hermotimus

Scion said:
Just now noticed these responses...

Hermotimus, it sounds like you have a point towards which you're working regardless of input, so I won't stand in the way of your flow. I'll just add a couple thoughts and facts that might prove useful.

Occam's Razor would indicate that the simplest answer is usually the correct one: we don't need secret order documents from the National Library because Westcott, Mathers, and Woodman (and Fraulein Sprengel for that matter) just did their homework. So there's no need for any stacked conjectures. But that's only my opinion...

Scion

I would like to thank you, Scion, for bringing up a couple of points that I need to explore in more depth. I agree that I need to look a lot deeper into several points. One point that is in question is the source of those 'dated' star maps, that fact that they date to the time of the Roscicrucian Manifesto may or may not be coincidence and we know the work of Magus also comes from this time period. Yet the fact that the Golden Dawn did not include an astronomer at any point (according to any records I have found of membership rolls) and thus they would not have known that the star maps had a date built into them. We need a figure who could accurately chart the stars in the 15th century and was also had sufficient knowledge of the Kabala to be able to project the kabala into a very meaningful form and sufficient knowledge of both astronomy and astrology and tarot to create those two maps. Such individuals would be very few and very far between in the 15th century or at any other time. Yet we have no published works known to us by such an individual. Thus, finding that individual or perhaps several individuals working together will be problematical. The dating of the star charts cannot be in error and thus any conjecture we make about the source of those star maps must remain a conjecture until we find some published or unpublishing source of information that includes this type of material.

We already know that the Golden Dawn borrowed materials from a large number of sources and that Mathers brought some of that material to Westcott and others in London, immediately after he had been researching in the Library of the Munitions in Paris. Thus, I am making an assumption that those star maps came from that library or perhaps one of the other national libraries located in Paris. But, I think it is a solid assumption. If the source had been any other, then chances are the documents would have resurfaced either before or after Mathers 'found' them. The contents of the Library of the Munitions have never been fully catalogued because the French government has never given it sufficient money to attempt such cataloging, so much of what in that library and a couple of other National Libraries in Paris is as yet unknown and uncatalogued.

We know that the founders of the Golden Dawn did their homework, and we know that Eliphas Levi also did his homework, but we still do not know all the sources of that homework, especially in the case of Levi and Mathers. I find it hard not to conjecture that Levi found much of the materials he used in his books from manuscripts in the Paris National Libraries, the fact that documents have not yet resurfaced is not surprising. Once they are catalogued, they will still have to read by someone with knowledge of the works of Levi and of the Golden Dawn in order to recognize the significance of those documents.

So, I am still left with those 'dated' star maps and the information on them about the kabala and the tarot. With regards to the Tarot, we know of no other writer prior to the work of the Golden Dawn made any attempt to relate any of the minor arcana cards to the decans of the astrological signs or to the quadrants of the heavens as in the case of the Aces, and the court cards. There were many attempt to relate the major arcana to astrology and the zodiac signs and the planets, but there is no document that ever hints of the minor arcana cards being assigned to the heavens in a similar manner. Thus, we have a unique combination of combining the Kabala, astrology and astronomy and applying that knowledge to the Tarot. I have found no one connected with the Golden Dawn who was up to the task of doing this, and there is no other document prior to the Golden dawn star maps that even hints at such a possible configuration. So, we need to look at the source of those star charts and the only information we have is the fact that they date from the 15th century and that they were probably found in the one of the French National Libraries in Paris. I think we can also assume that that document or documents had to have been found by Mathers, because we have no other record of any other member of the Golden Dawn ever working in serious research in those French libraries. So, the source of the document is a matter of conjecture and I am willing at this point to conjecture that the star maps, that were later used by the Golden Dawn, were probably created by an individual or group of individuals in the 15th century and that the only real event that we know of during that time period is the Rosicrucian manifesto. I do not conjecture that the the star map was created by Rosicrusians but that perhaps the manfesto by the Rosicurcians may have a catalyst for a group of individuals in France to meet and work together for a few years and that part of their work included those star maps.

Hermotimus
 

Hermotimus

Scion said:
Just now noticed these responses...

In the case of those starmaps, most of the GD astrological material comes from a combination of Agrippa (by way of Barrett's plagiarized Magus) and French occult revivalists, who were idiosyncratic to say the least. It's always tricky to refer to drawings for historically firm data. Regardie's published maps are figurative illustrations, not calculated charts. Even so, it shouldn't come as a surprise that charts (if they could be verifiably dated) would point to a time in the 15th century, since that's exactly when Agrippa's material would've been sourced. One of the oddities of Hermeticism is the way intriguing sets of facts survived over centuries, even after they had become unmoored from their original contexts.

Scion

I suggest you look at the maps and the accompanying note "The Tree of Life as Projected in the Solid Sphere" note by S.R.M.D. It is not figurative in any sense, the material is very specific and exact, both on the star maps and on the description of the constellations that accompany each of the cards in the 'note'. It is so specific that it cannot be figurative in any sense. The astronomer who looked at the material from the book and used that material to set up the star chart in the planetarium told me after looking at the star charts and reading the first few descriptions of the cards that the star chart was not accurate in terms of the present century. At which point he got interested and completed the work to determined the time that the map showed.

When he finished the work and showed me the chart and the dating I explained to him that the material was from an orgainzation known as the Golden Dawn that had been founded in 1881 in England. He told me that it was impossible for them to have created that map in 1881. Astronomers at that time did not have the tools nor the accurate observations needed to be able to accurately precess the stars to a given date. He said the the ability to do that was not available until the 1950's which was 20 years after Regardie's book was published and 70 years after the original material was used by the Golden Dawn.

The star maps are in no way figurative and could not have been created around the time of the founding of the Golden Dawn. Thus, they would have to have been created in the 15th century and then reused by the Golden Dawn at the later date.

Also there is no hint in Agrippa that he even knew of the tarot cards or had any interset in them. Nor is there anything in Agrippa to suggest that he had or used accurate charts of all the stars and constelations of the heavens. He did have knowledge of astrology and Kabala, but his knowledge of astrology was not complete enough from his published works to show that he could have been responsible for the star maps we find in the Golden Dawn material.
 

Scion

Hey Herm,

Many thanks for the clarification, but as fate would have it :) I've actually done a fair amount of research on the history of astrology, both as hard science and esoteric tradition. And I know "The Tree of Life as projected..." and the other Golden Dawn astrological material well.

As I said in my post above, precession has been known to astrologers for over 2000 years, and though recent advances in technology have made many mathematic and mechanical problems simpler, the entire operation of astrology involves the calculation of stellar positions. Also, I have never and would never suggest that Agrippa knew anything about Tarot. I would however point out that the Golden Dawn knew a LOT about Agrippa, albeit via Barrett's plagiarized material. And Agrippa used Albumasar and Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos and the Picatrix for his astrology: lots of hard cold facts for him to chew on. Your astronomer's ability to date astronomical positions that the Golden Dawn culled from Agrippa and point back to Agrippa's time doesn't actually tell anyone much.

While it may seem strange to us now in our unscholastic, Babbitt-y era, an educated Victorian with an interest in celestial mapping would have been able to calculate star positions pretty accurately with little more than an ephemeris and an astrolabe. With such simple technologies was the world navigated. Additionally, the Golden Dawn material to which you're referring was printed in the midcentury... well within the bounds of modern technology that could be applied to material from less mechanically blessed times to produce helpful visual aids for a long-ago lecture by a GD founder.

I have to point out: those star maps don't say a single thing about the Tarot; they merely suggest a placement for the Otz Chiim across the celestial globe. They don't indicate anything about Qabalistic theories of Tarot in the 15th Century, because Tarot (and Qabalah) was not seen or used that way in the 15th century. There is fragmentary evidence of Tarot's early use in hearth magick and divination, but not one of the extant occultists (Trithemius, Agrippa, Ficino, Bruno, Fludd, Kircher, or any of the anonymous compilers, etc) mentions Tarot, even in connection to divination... a topic about which most of them wrote at length. (K,C,)Qabalah and Tarot were not connected in the Renaissance, and small wonder: Judaism is fundamentally and morally opposed to divination and depiction of the supernal. It's the Christians who like holy comic books. Barring a cursory mention by the Comte de Mellet in Monde Primitif about there being 22 Hebrew letters and Trumps, the Qabalah/Tarot hookup doesn't happen 'til Eliphas Levi. And bottom line: even if those maps had the heavenly sphere pocked with an entire deck like paper stars, it wouldn't prove anything because the document to which you're referring was created BY and distributed TO the Golden Dawn... the very folks who popularized the use of Tarot as a magickal item.

For the record, several occultists attributed the Tarot minors to astrological divisions before during and after the lifespan of the Golden Dawn. Etteilla mapped the minors (differently than the GD) across the decans over a century prior. Paul Christian had a very strange decan system that found little traction (though his coining of the terms Major and Minor Arcana to refer to the Trumps and pips caught on). And Papus pursued something similar to Etteilla's decan system, and published it in 1889, less than a year after the GD was founded. But... I still can't figure out why you believe that "no one connected with the Golden Dawn... was up to the task of doing this, and there is no other document prior to the Golden dawn star maps that even hints at such a possible configuration." Huh? Do you have access to some long ago IQ tests we don't know about? The Golden Dawn included some of the most talented, intelligent, charismatic people of their time. If their incapacity in the face of all the evidence is just your personal opinion, fair enough... but back it up. More importanlty, if you aren't aware of these other astrological traditions then you are revealing more about your ability to do basic research than anything about Tarot or its history.

Most critically, you should be aware that the Tree of Life used by the Golden Dawn (& depicted on those charts) has not ever been the standard glyph for traditional Kabbalists, and only became equated with "Hermetic Qabalah" after the GD appropriated it from Athanasius Kircher's 1653 Oedipus Aegypticus (the Kircher 2 Tree being based at least partially on d'Aquin's version in 1625). So IF someone from the early Italian Renaissance was mapping the Kircher2 Tree onto the celestial globe 200 years previously, then it must have arrived via time machine. Ergo the creator of that chart must exist after Kircher's Christian Cabala has been adopted by Hermetic syncretists, which puts us back square in the 19th century.

But all of that is academic.

There is a basic logical leap I think most people will have a hard time making for you. The Golden Dawn founders bent over backwards to fabricate an "ancient" link to the "Rosicrucian adepts." They cyphered and obfuscated and outright lied to their members. We know this. It's documented exhaustively. Hell, they cribbed material from every occult resource in the British Museum and forged letters in German from the ersatz "Frau Sprengel" and got busted for it publically before everything went south. If the Golden Dawn DID have legitimate ties to a secret occult order of remote antiquity, why fabricate all that other folderol? And if Mathers' Hermetic source was in Paris, how did he get conned in Paris there at the end by shameless scam artists like the Horos couple, dragging the Order into a rape and fraud case that exposed rituals to the newspapers? :confused: The trouble with your theory is that it not only doesn't fit the known facts, it ties itself in knots (Error-boros) to create incredible conjectures that ALSO don't fit the known facts...

Isn't it sensible to look at the evidence and posit that the founders of the Golden Dawn synthesized a lot of esoteric material to create an occult order in the late nineteenth century? All the texts they used and hierarchy they adopted, all the "cutting-edge" science and archaeology that got incorporated, all of the comparative mythology and orientalist imperialism dates their curriculum to that exact moment in time. By insisting that Mathers must have "accidentally found" the Golden Dawn material and it must have been from a "Unfathomed Library" where shadowy "Rosicucian Adepts" must have stashed it, you're ignoring the possibility that he was involved in or privy to its creation. Ditto Levi "finding" his singular ideas fully formed in an uncatalogued "Mysterious Manuscript." So these conjectures start to seem like a tissue of over-the-top Dan Brown credulity supported by scant research and Alice in Wonderland reasoning: verdict first, trial after.

Scholars already know what their sources were... that is to say, we know what they studied and the origins of the various strands of thought. Their occult syntheses were original and their own. Why couldn't these men have had the (contradictory, imperfect, strange, idiosyncratic, infectious) ideas themselves? Heaven knows they incorporated enough wacky, ridiculous, untutored mistakes in their writings indicative of people painting in bold strokes with partially comprehended material. If the knowledge was given to both of them by a "Secret Brotherhood" why is it so full of errors and contradiction? Unless in turn, that Rosicrucian order was populated by plagiaristic, deluded, semi-schooled megalomaniacs... and frankly where did THEY find it? Someone had to think of it. Someone has to have the idea at some point. Situating something in antiquity only guarantees its age, not its accuracy. Personally, I'd rather give Mathers and Levi (and all their ilk) credit for what they accomplished. They changed the world.

All this starts to remind me of armchair scholars who've decided Shakespeare can't have written his plays because he didn't go to university... After all (I always think to myself), everyone knows that going to university makes you into Shakespeare. :rolleyes:

But again, as I said, you're obviously working towards something preconceived; I just think you may be clinging to post hoc ergo propter hoc logic in the absence of solid research. I love conjecture, but I also hold it to the same standard to which I'd hold any idea. I think you might want to consider less baroque possibilities.


Scion
 

Rosanne

Hi Hermotimus

The Tree of Life as Projected as a Solid Sphere is credited to "S.R.M.D.", indicating that its author was Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers- his magical motto was S Rioghail Mo Dhream (Gaelic: "Royal is my race").

Are you saying that Mathers copied or stole the idea, but made a mistake because it indicated a time that was much earlier- so it could not have been his idea?

This is what I believe this 'Celestial Heavens projected as if a solid Spere' is..
The ancient Abrahamic astronomy tells us that the Cube/thence sphere of Space is formed from the three dragon axis of the universe, the ecliptic axis, the galactic axis and the planetary equinox axis. In projecting the Tree of Life on the Cube/sphere of Space, we find that the ecliptic axis connects the top and bottom face of the cube while the galactic and the planetary connect opposite edges on the horizontal plane.
If we also think of each axis as uniting a pair of faces on the Cube/Sphere of Space, then our three celestial axis, the ecliptic pole, the galactic pole and the equinox sunrise, form a perfect cube within a cube on the mid-point of the twenty year cycle, the fall equinox of 2002. (You make the cube into a sphere)We can see this by remembering that the earth cube/Sphere is formed on each equinox. As the equinoxes precess backward against the fixed stars, the earth cube/sphere slowly rotates. The fixed locations of the Sphere/Cube of Space form a space/time constant with which the earth cube/Sphere comes into alignment once every 13,000 or so years.


Would it not work out as the celestial pole been either Thurban or Polaris no matter when it was created? The head of Draco would still be the Ace of Cups no matter when the star map was created- the cube/Sphere would just turn?
I am not as schooled in astrology as Scion, but I am interested in the stars, and I cannot see your argument other than Mathers took someone else's ideas for himself- but he may have worked it out by himself in relationship to Tarot- why not?
I am not disputing what you have said- just trying to work out what you think happened.
~Rosanne