A “Godform” is an idea that comes supposedly from ancient Egypt, although it was first described by the NeoPlatonist Iamblichus slightly less that 2000 years ago. The basic idea was that when a priest attempted to speak and act and imagine themselves as a god of the Egyptian pantheon, this served to invoke that god. Iamblichus’ idea was that the repeated “Assuming of a Godform” gradually transmuted the priest so that when he did so he became more and more godlike in real-life.
The Golden Dawn took this idea and made it the rationale as to why its grade ceremonies work on a magical level, i.e. because all the officers are assuming godforms whilst they perform their roles. The GD goes further by turning the assumption of godforms into an actual magical technique which adepts learn both to better work the grade ceremonies, and to do their own meditation and compose and perform their own rituals.
The actual GD technique is an unpublished teaching, but a simplified version of it can be found in the Ciceros’ Self Initiation book.
A black hole, due to its inescapable gravity, is “death” to all matter which passes beyond its event horizon. Coincidentally, the black hole at the centre of this galaxy, otherwise known as Sagittarius A*, just so happens to be in the part of the sky to which the Golden Dawn attributes the Tarot Key “Death” (i.e. in terms of the “Tree of Life Projected in a Sphere” teaching of which I have spoken in the past). However, given that Black Holes leak “Hawking Radiation,” it would appear that Death is Not The End after all…
Stunningly handsome Thin bald wizard with short brown goatee sees through Time and into subtle dimensions…
You now have the opportunity to have answered all your questions about Magick and the Occult in general, and my own work in particular. I am starting a new project in which I will be creating a new series of posts for this website and my social media outlets on Magick, and I therefore welcome questions on
Abramelin
The Golden Dawn
Enochian Magick
Goetia
Astral Projection
Ceremonial Magick in general
etc etc etc
To have your question featured it should be asked in a format in which I can answer it in FIFTY WORDS OR LESS.
Post your question as a comment to this web post now! Thanks.
Say I take someone’s ritual to ask a spirit for one thing, and modify it to ask the same spirit for something similar but not identical, is it the same spell, or a new spell in its own right?
A lot of advanced magical practices call upon the magician to be able to create his/her own rituals: although mostly this will be a case of building upon established principles in which he/she has been trained – e.g. the magical systems of the Golden Dawn or Thelema. Hence in that sense, although original magical rituals are continuously being created, very few rituals are “totally original.”
In the Abramelin system, it is theoretically possible to ask one’s HGA to reveal a new “spell” (i.e. a magick square or spirit, or both) if one doesn’t already exist to suit one’s purpose. Which is just as well, because if this were not so, Abramelin would not be suited to the 21st century but would be stuck in the 15th century. HOWEVER, I believe that the secrets the HGA reveals come from a place outside Time, so the question “is it new or does it already exist” cannot properly be answered.
I have recently discovered an interesting titbit of information regarding Amoun Temple – the London based temple of the Stella Matutina, which was extant during the early part of the twentieth century. Specifically, what it used as its Vault of the Adepti.
Amongst the papers emanating from Amoun Temple was one written by Finem Respice (Robert Felkin) concerning the use of the Vault of the Adepti. The main body of the paper is identical with the version reproduced in Regardie’s Black Brick: however, it has a short but intriguing preface.
(It also has an after-word, describing the Third Order. I will not discuss this at this time, except to say that I consider Felkin’s take on it rather fanciful, and a perfect example of Floccinaucinihilipilification. I leave it here in case my readers get more from it than I did.)
Unfortunately we are unable for the present to have a permanent Vault, a permanent home for the Inner Order. It is the point at which I aim, and some day I hope we shall be able to afford an Inner Shrine.
Meanwhile, there is no reason why, when we are able for a few weeks to keep the Vault up, it should not be used by all who are eligible, and it has occurred to me that some remarks on its proper use may be appropriate at this time, as we do not intend to dismantle it till after Corpus Christi on June 15th. [1911]
G H Frater F. R. (Robert Felkin)
What this shows is that Amoun Temple did not have a permanently installed Vault of the Adepti. Instead, it appears that they only had one for a month or less each year, whilst the rest of the time it was either in storage or being used somewhere else (nb: this document is dated May 18th 1911, less than a month before Corpus Christi). During the short space of time that it was available, they worked all the Adept grades that were due that year, as well as the Corpus Christi Ceremony, in addition to affording time to Adepti to perform skrying in the Vault.
Quite apart from this document, which is in the archives of the Library & Museum of Freemasonry at Freemasons Hall in London, I have in my possession material from another source entirely which indicates that Amoun Temple worked all the Adept grades: Adeptus Minor 5=6; Adeptus Major 6=5; Adeptus Exemptus 7=4; as well as the Transmission of the Etheric Link. I presume that they must have done so using this arrangement: working them in a temporarily-installed Vault whilst they had it available. (I have seen no evidence that they worked the 8=3 and 9=2 grades, but that might be just be a shortcoming of the source of my data.)
This suggests a possible solution to modern Golden Dawn temples. Ideally of course one ought to have a permanently-installed Vault of the Adepti, but this implies that one is fortunate enough to have the venue suitable enough to house it. However, Amoun Temple itself only used a temporary Vault – and this was the temple of which no lesser person than W B Yeats was an alumni!
Unfortunately, Amoun Temple also listed Christine Marie Stoddard amongst its members, so one could argue that Amoun’s temporary Vault didn’t work 100% of the time. 😏
It would be quicker to list the similarities! Both are initiatory societies, with degrees (or grades), secret modes of recognition, passwords, and based around a sort of lodge system. This was mainly due to the fact that at the time the Golden Dawn was founded, it was the fashion to model any secret society on a lodge-system, whether it had anything to do with Freemasonry or not. It also helped that the founders of the Golden Dawn were themselves Freemasons, so they would have gone with what they were familiar with.
That being said, the main differences between Freemasonry and the Golden Dawn can be stated thus:
Firstly, Freemasonry (obviously) deals with the established Degrees of Freemasonry, but the Golden Dawn does not. This is important to remember, because Masonic Grand Lodges are critical of bodies which purport to be imitative of Freemasonry, and penalise people who belong to such bodies. The Golden Dawn gets round this by not attempting to imitate Freemasonry at all. Hence a Freemason could join the Golden Dawn without breaking any obligations, because the latter has got nothing to do with the former.
Secondly, although both Masonry and the Golden Dawn have a theme about searching for Light, they go about it in a completely different manner: the underlying narrative of the Golden Dawn in no way coincides with the Masonic “story.”
Thirdly, the Golden Dawn claims its rituals are Magical, and are performed in a magical manner: no such claim is made by Freemasonry in general. There is such a thing as esoteric Freemasonry where its practitioners claim that the degrees of Freemasonry are or can be magical, although they appear to be in the minority in relation to mainstream Freemasonry.
Fourthly, the Golden Dawn has a curriculum it obliges its members to study: and requires a member to pass examinations (written and, in the higher grades, practical) before advancing to a new grade. The Golden Dawn specifically focusses on the Qabalah, Ceremonial Magick, clairvoyance, astrology, tarot, geomancy, alchemy and hermeticism.
In Freemasonry this is not the case: to progress through Craft Freemasonry requires only the memorisation of a short piece of ritual. In Continental Freemasonry it is different, as candidates are required to write papers for each degree, although this is still unlike the examination system of the Golden Dawn. Moreover, Freemasonry hardly mentions anything like the Qabalah, although, again, esoteric Freemasons claim that the symbolism is right there though not recognised by mainstream Masonry.
Fifthly, the Golden Dawn was founded as a society for both men and women right from the outset. Mainstream Masonry tends to be male-only, although there is nowadays such a thing as Co-Masonry, which is viewed as outside the pale by purportedly “regular” Masonry.
I have not even begun to talk about all the cosmetic differences, such as different regalia, different rituals, different grade system, different temple lay-out, different officers, etc etc etc. Suffice to say that if one were in a Golden Dawn temple, there is no chance that one would mistake it for just another masonic ritual.
The first organisation to be called the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn opened in 1888 as an initiatory society dedicated to the study and practice of Ritual Magic, the Qabalah, Hermeticism, Astrology, Tarot and Alchemy. It was founded by people who wanted to have something like Theosophy, but rooted in the Western Mystery Tradition.
The original order ceased operating under that name in 1903, but continued in various forms until the late sixties or seventies.
However, in the late seventies / early eighties there was a move to revive the Golden Dawn, mainly thanks to the influence of Israel Regardie, and temples originating from that period still exist to this day.
This ritual horrified the noted Golden Dawn historian R A Gilbert who, according to anecdotal evidence, condemned it as being “ disturbing in character.” It involves the evocation and binding of evil spirits (“ Creatures of the Flashing Fire, And Rushing Air… Dwellers in the Howling Wilderness ” etc) as well as the invocation of the good. Having gone through this text myself and come to an entirely different conclusion, I must assume that Gilbert had taken offence not at the ritual itself, but at a Phantom which he had conjured up from his imagination. As it were. Ahem !
You now have the opportunity to read a never before published original ritual of the Golden Dawn – as well as other great scholarly contributions on the GD – in the new edition of “The Light Extended: A Golden Dawn Journal,” edited by Frater Yechidah for Kerubim Press.
I myself have edited and transcribed the piece entitled “Ritual for the formation, building and consecration of a body wherein to travel, manifest and act in freedom from the bounds and limitations of matter,” a ceremony composed by an Adept of the original order circa 1898 – 1900. In my article, I argue that this represents a practical attempt to make use of magical formulae restricted to Practicus Adeptus Minor – and is hence more advanced than the greater part of original Inner Order material previously available. Previously this existed only in the archives of the Library & Museum of Freemasonry in Great Queen Street London: it is here being made available to the wider international Golden Dawn community for the first time.
“The Light Extended” is now available in paperback from Amazon and all good booksellers. To get your copy, please the links below. Thanks!
I stared at the broken fragments in despair: what could have caused my precious Chalice to shatter? I felt particularly galled since it had accompanied me for at least twenty-five years in one form or another. I had to face the unfortunate fact: if I wanted to continue practising ceremonial magick, I would need a new Water Cup
New Water Cup
I immediately decided that in order to do this properly, I would have to cut no corners and consecrate a new Cup in the traditional manner, using the ritual for the consecration of elemental weapons in full form. An unexpected benefit of doing so arose in the form of being able to appreciate this ritual with the benefit of many more years experience. In other words, when an Adeptus Minor first consecrates his tools, it will be not long after he has attained that grade, and hence, presumably, still rather naïve. Whereas I was coming back to it with the benefit of what I had learnt since.
Nowhere was this more obvious than in the realisation that when consecrating the Tools, the new 5=6 is expected to use Enochian magick, the full details of which he is only expected to learn after he has finished consecrating the same Tools!
The actual ceremony is pretty straightforward in structure. There is a general opening: following which there is a three-part invocation for each of the Tools – Wand, Cup, Dagger and Pentacle. The first part is a Qabalistic invocation of the element in general, by appealing to the Hebrew Divine, Angelic and Elemental names most of which are contained in the outer order knowledge lectures.
The second part is Enochian: the Adept is imbuing or linking the Tool with the properties of the specific parts of the Enochian Watchtowers. Firstly: the three secret names of God born upon the Banners of that respective quadrant, as well as the King. The three names (from the Linea Spiritus Sancti) command the spirits of the Tablet in general, whilst the King, whose name spirals around the centre, creates the Invoking Whorl which rouses those spirits to action in the first place. Secondly, the Six Seniors, who represent the planetary energies at work in that Element. Thirdly, the spirits of the individual lesser angles who are each represented by the primary Kerub associated therewith.
When one makes this invocation, one is facing the relevant Enochian Watchtower over the altar on which the Elemental tool is currently resting. Despite the fact that no Enochian calls were being used at this point, I could still sense the presence of the link being made between the Watchtower and the Altar / tool – and the presence of these Enochian beings – simply by calling upon them confidently.
The third part of the invocation is to take the Elemental Tool on its “maiden voyage” as it were, by performing a Supreme Invoking Pentagram Ritual of that particular element whilst using it. This I interpreted as a regular Supreme Invoking Pentagram ritual, but with the addition of an extra Elemental Pentagram to invoke the relevant Lesser Angle of each Watchtower.
After all the tools are consecrated, there is a general closing, with the lesser banishing rituals. As on this occasion I had only consecrated one Tool, I performed an extra Supreme Banishing Ritual Pentagram of that particular Element, before wrapping it in silk – and placing it in a box to make sure it would not suffer the same result as its predecessor.
As for my new Water Cup, the hardest part was carefully drawing out all the sigils that I would need to paint on the thing – and use in the ceremony when making the Qabalistic invocation.
Sigils for the element of Water, drawn from the Rose Cross Lamen
Once I had done that, painting the Cup itself was quite straightforward: I used a small tin of orange enamel paint, purchased from an art supply shop; and a tumbler made of blue glass which I had picked up from a charity shop. Total cost of materials approximately £5, and a couple hours of my time. I also printed out the consecration ceremony, making sure that I had figured out the correct pronunciation of the Enochian names involves, so I would not have to resort to guesswork or stumble over a bunch of eldritch consonants in the critical moment.
In conclusion, I cannot help but think of the various arguments for and against whether it is possible to self-initiate into the Golden Dawn tradition. To my mind, the path of the Adeptus Minor itself starts off as a regular initiation, followed by a series of Self-Initiation Rituals in all but name: i.e. when one consecrates ones own lotus wand, rose cross lamen, magic sword, and elemental tools, one is deliberately taking one’s spiritual destiny into one’s own hands.
What I have to say might sound so shocking that sheer cognitive dissonance will cause many readers to react by crying aloud and saying “No! It can’t be so!” Or: “Surely Alex you must be mistaken?” It is a small detail from Enochian Magick, but important enough to derail one’s entire appreciation of the system if one were to overlook it. It is this:
Everyone who has being doing Enochian Magick relying solely on Aleister Crowley’s texts has been doing it wrong.
Why? Because there is a fundamental mistake in published versions of Liber Chanokh.
The attribution of the Elements to the individual squares of each of the lesser angles has great importance in determining the astrological, tarot, geomantic and qabalistic attributions thereof, as well as each ruling godform. Ultimately, it will affect the vision that one will have if one were to attempt to scry into each square.
The Golden Dawn’s rationale for assigning the elements was stated by Israel Regardie thus:
“Referring to the other squares of the lesser angles, in the Kerubic Rank the outside square is always attributed to the letter corresponding to Element of the Lesser Angle. In the Tablets of Air and Water, the Name read right to left in the upper two quarters; in the two lower quarters it reads from left to right. In the Tablets of Earth and Fire, left to right in the upper, but in the two lower quarters right to left.“
To summarise, the directions would look like this:
Whilst the Elements of the columns would be arranged thus:
However: what appears to have happened is that in published copies of Liber Chanokh, and in versions of the Tablets derived therefrom, the elements appear to have been arranged thus:
The order of the elements in each lesser angle, according to Liber Chanokh.
Spot the difference? This makes it clearer – note the third row, which corresponds to the upper portions (Air and Water lesser Angles) of the Earth and Fire Tablets.
(left) Golden Dawn; (right) Liber Chanokh. Note the third row down.
What appears to have happened is that Crowley (or his illustrator) appears to have interpreted the directions like this:
(left) Golden Dawn; (right) Liber Chanokh. Again, note the third row down.
What is Crowley’s explanation for him ordering the elements in this way? Whilst Regardie set out his rationale in the quote I reproduced above, Crowley however says:
“3. Kerubic Squares.
The upper sides pertain to the element of the Tablet, the lower sides to the subelement. Right- and left-hand sides in this case correspond, according to a somewhat complex rule which it is unnecessary to give here. …
4. Lesser Squares.
The upper side of each pyramid is governed by the Kerub standing on the file above it. The lower side is governed by the Kerub also, but in order descending as the are from right to left above.”
Crowley, Liber Chanokh
“Unnecessary to give here” ! If only it had been given, Crowley’s readers would have found the discrepancy without assistance! If one refuses to believe that Crowley could possibly have made a mistake – perhaps because the aforesaid cognitive dissonance is too much to bear – then the only other conclusion one can draw is that Thelema uses a different version of the Enochian Watchtowers to the Golden Dawn. It is certainly a mistake to think that one can use both the Golden Dawn and Thelemic versions interchangeably.
Sol Ascendans - The Website of Alex Sumner 
Death
A black hole, due to its inescapable gravity, is “death” to all matter which passes beyond its event horizon. Coincidentally, the black hole at the centre of this galaxy, otherwise known as Sagittarius A*, just so happens to be in the part of the sky to which the Golden Dawn attributes the Tarot Key “Death” (i.e. in terms of the “Tree of Life Projected in a Sphere” teaching of which I have spoken in the past). However, given that Black Holes leak “Hawking Radiation,” it would appear that Death is Not The End after all…
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January 24, 2024 · 2:16 pm