Astrology and the Golden Dawn

Alta

Moderator note:

Thread moved to Hermetic from RWS Forum as the subject matter is more appropriate here.

Regards,
Marion
Moderator, RWS
 

roppo

That the starmap shows the sky of 400 years ago doesn't necessarily means the map was created 400 years ago. As to the astronomer in the Golden Dawn, William Peck (1862-1925, V.H.Frater Veritas et Lux) of Edinburgh Observatory was good enough for the task. His first book on the astronomy "The Constellations and How to Find Them" (Archibald and Peck, Edinburgh,1883) explains the precession and shows the diagram "North Polar Heavens 4,000 years ago". I believe Westcott or MacGregor Mathers consulted Peck when they drew the map.
 

Ross G Caldwell

As I understand it, the "Tree of Life As Projected In A Solid Sphere" just uses the Poles of the Ecliptic, as if the Earth were stationary and upright (not tilted and wobbling) with respect to the Ecliptic. In other words, the ToL and the cards are projected out onto a fixed field of stars - the precession of the Vernal Equinox (caused by Earth's wobble) is irrelevant.

You can see in these two images (there are many pictures of the circle of precession around the pole of the Ecliptic on the internet as well) that the pole of the Ecliptic is nestled in a curve of Draco's body. The path of the Earth's rotational pole around this point has no bearing on the placement of the ToL or the cards -

tarotsphere.jpg

(from Regardie, "The Golden Dawn" (Llewellyn, 1982), vol. IV, p. 219)

precession.jpg

(from Mark R. Chartrand III (ill. by Helmut K. Wimmer) "Skyguide: A Field Guide For Amateur Astronomers" (Golden Press, 1982) p. 27)

There is no dating necessary nor implied in the scheme, that I can find.

Ross
 

Hermotimus

I am enjoying this thread immensely and I have learned a number of things here from all of you. For that I thank You, but I still have my own belief and I haven't yet seen anything definitive enough to shake the dating of those maps or that Mathers created the material with the help of an astronomer. A close look at the maps themselves show that the break between the four quadrants around the poles and the adjustment of the position of the stars in relation to the minor arcana and their positions in the stars as associated with the Kabala shows the date of that map and I am willing to accept the word of the astronomer I consulted that such technology to do such a detailed representation was not possible before the 1950's still stands. I am open to much more information that you may have available, but I still have not seen anything to shake my conjecture that those maps were created in the 15th century and that Mathers brought them to the Golden Dawn from some as yet unknown source. But, given his previous work in the National Libraries of Paris, I am reasonably sure that the material did not originate with him and that it was not created and 'backdated' by the Golden Dawn later, but was 'found' by Mathers while he was in Paris.

Hermotimus
 

ravenest

I have only just found this thread and only have 10 mins of lunch time left.

But a few things.
1) why does presession change the position of the stars? I dont believe it does, it does change the reference we grid we use to devide up the heavens in equal 30 deg, segments starting from the equinoctal point (which IS precessing due to the wobble in the rotation of the earths axis and resulting in a circle being 'scribed' in the heavens by the north celestial pole.

2) See my wrirngs on this G.D, stuff (a lot of which I consider rubbish!) in my posts in thoth forums about Princesses and aces and thrones and north pole . etc.

3) Ross is right in that the GD system uses a 'north celestial pole' that isnt the one in use generally.

4) The ignornace of the GD extends to the fact that they attribute no cards so wver to the southern skies, considering that part of the world (which views them) backward primative and bereft of occult knowledge ( well, exuuuuuuuse me! there has been very advanced star lore down here for over 40,000 years!)

It is the Tree of Life projected onto a sphere of the heavens ( again as Ross pointed out) not the tarot, although they are linked and the GD shows card placements (which are wrong IMO).

gotta go
R.
 

Bernice

Another fascinating thread - a wonderful resource for me to refer to. These in-depth researches' (well, in-depth to me...) are so enlightening.

Thank you, everyone.

Bee
 

ravenest

Ed. - deleated.

I'm starting again below (or in another thread) ... slowly ... step by step.
 

Hermotimus

sources of the Golden Dawn materials

Scion said:
Hey Herm,

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.

Scion


I am very interested in your sources for much of the material you have been discussing in this thread. Up to this point, my sole interest in the Golden Dawn has been in the Tarot and specifically in the Tarot of Arthur Edward Waite abd Pamela Coleman Smith. I have spend years studying that Tarot and Arthur Edward Waite and the various published works on the Golden Dawn materials that relate to the Tarot as Waite used a lot of it as his sources in the creation of his deck. The material you have been presenting is new to me and I am interested in it. And I would like to hear more from you about this.

Hermotimus
 

Scion

Thanks for posting your request in the thread, Herm.

As I mentioned in my PM, I love recommending books and I love research.

The trouble is, there are literally hundreds of books you should read if you want to get a substantive handle on the topic. There are about 30 or 40 books that will cover the GD and its members in a way that will make their activities and motivations clearer. But more importantly, (though you seem to think otherwise) there are literally hundreds of sources upon which they drew (and upon which THOSE sources drew) because these topics have a way of interconnecting. I can start you off with a few good beginnings from my own library with some material you should have under your belt just as a matter of course before you start theorizing:
The Golden Dawn by Israel Regardie
The Golden Dawn Source Works: A Bibliography by Darcy Kuntz
The Magicians of the Golden Dawn: A Documentary History of a Magical Order, 1887-1923 by Ellic Howe
Eliphas Levi and the French Occult Revival by Christopher McIntosh
Eliphas Levi, Master of the Cabala, the Tarot and the Secret Doctrines by Thomas Williams
The History of Magic by Eliphas Levi (as well as his Transcendental Magic, actually)
Sword Of Wisdom: Macgregor Mathers and The Golden Dawn by Ithell Colquhoun
The Golden Dawn Scrapbook: The Rise and Fall of a Magical Order by R.A. Gilbert
The Golden Dawn: Twilight of the Magicians by R.A. Gilbert
A History of the Occult Tarot 1870 - 1970 by Decker & Dummett
The Astrology Of The Golden Dawn (Golden Dawn Studies Number 10) by Darcy Kuntz (note that this book represents LATE astrology, which means the book is mistitled: Pluto is referenced, which dates this material after 1930)
Secrets of the Golden Dawn Cypher Manuscript by Poke Runyon
Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley by Richard Kaczynski
Yeats the Initiate by Kathleen Raine
The Golden Dawn American Source Book by Darcy Kuntz
What You Should Know about the Golden Dawn by Israel Regardie
Golden Dawn Enochian Magic by Pat Zalewski
Magical Tarot of the Golden Dawn by Pat & Chris Zalewski
Enochian Chess of the Golden Dawn by Pat Zalewski
The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern by Alex Owen

... that'll get you going. I'll hone this down in a direction if you let me know what looks interesting.

More importantly, some hardcore study in the history of magick would serve you well in formulating your theories about GD origins. And by that I don't mean new age publishing or things you find in a public library, but solid scholarly review that will give some grist for the mill: Lehrich, Thorndike, Fenger, Kieckheifer, Walker, Couliano, Szonyi, Betts, Yates, Pingree and any of the Warburg Institute scholars etc etc. If you're focussing on the Rosicrucians or the Martinists then Levi, Papus, Pitois, McIntosh, Yates deserve extra attention as do the (legitimate) freemasonry historians. I can put together a recommendation list there as well if you can give me an idea of the area upon which you'd like to focus. This is a HUGE topic. But again, it won't be light reading and (to be blunt) it won't be worth a damn if you go in expecting it to match a preconceived theory.

Now... if you begin reading all of this material with the a priori notion that the Golden Dawn "stole" material from any source that came before them then you'll get nowhere. Christianity "stole" 98% of its rituals and theology from Roman mystery cults and every philosopher in history "steals" from earlier thinkers. That's the basic mechanic of scholarship and civilization: standing on the shoulders of your forebears.

Hope this is useful in some way.

Scion
 

Hermotimus

additional threads on the golden dawn material

Have you ever read any of the material written by Anna Bonus Kingford and/or Edward Maitland and others who worked in the area of Hermetics in the 1800's. I have done quite a bit of study of Kingford's work as well as some the later hermetic work done by later Golden Dawn Members, such as Paul Foster Case. But I have found almost nothing concerning Hermetics in the material of the original GD and yet the modern GD includes "the Hermetic Order," though having looked through their published materials, I don't think that the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn knows the difference between hermetics and perhaps a Hermit crab. I am interested if you are aware of any sources used by the early members of the GD with regards to Hermetics. I suppose I should mention that I do not consider alchemy to have anything to do with hermetics.

Another area that has been of interest to me has been the British Society for Psychical Research and the work done by its members even before it foundation. Do you see any real influence of the Psychical Research work on the Golden Dawn materials at the earliest stages of the organization.

Hermotimus