This paper was presented by the author on March 16, 2024 at the request of a secret cabal of creatives who are engaged in developing an original revival of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in Toronto, Ontario.
- Procul, O procul este profani.
- Bahlasti! Ompehda!
- In the name of the Mighty and Terrible One, I proclaim that I have banished the Shells unto their habitations.
- I invoke Tahuti, the Lord of Wisdom and of Utterance, the God that cometh forth from the Veil.
- O Thou! Majesty of Godhead! Wisdom-crowned Tahuti! Lord of the Gates of the Universe! Thee, Thee, I invoke.
O Thou of the Ibis Head! Thee, Thee I invoke.
Thou who wieldest the Wand of Double Power! Thee, Thee I invoke!
Thou who bearest in Thy left hand the Rose and Cross of Light and Life: Thee, Thee, I invoke.
Thou, whose head is as an emerald, and Thy nemmes as the night-sky blue! Thee, Thee I invoke.
Thou, whose skin is of flaming orange as though it burned in a furnace! Thee, Thee I invoke. - Behold! I am Yesterday, To-Day, and the Brother of To-Morrow!
I am born again and and again.
Mine is the Unseen Force, whereof the Gods are sprung! Which is as Life unto the Dwellers in the Watch-Towers of the Universe.
I am the Charioteer of the East, Lord of the Past and of the Future.
I see by mine own inward light: Lord of Resurrection; Who cometh forth from the Dusk, and my birth is from the House of Death. - O ye two Divine Hawks upon your Pinnacles!
Who keep watch over the Universe!
Ye who company the Bier to the House of Rest!
Who pilot the Ship of Ra advancing onwards to the heights of heaven!
Lord of the Shrine which standeth in the Centre of the Earth! - Behold, He is in me, and I in Him!
Mine is the Radiance, wherein Ptah floatheth over the firmament!
I travel upon high!
I tread upon the firmament of Nu!
I raise a flashing flame, with the lightning of Mine Eye!
Ever rushing on, in the splendour of the daily glorified Ra: giving my life to the Dwellers of Earth. - If I say “Come up upon the mountains!” the Celestial Waters shall flow at my Word.
For I am Ra incarnate!
Kephra created in the Flesh!
I am the Eidolon of my father Tmu, Lord of the City of the Sun! - The God who commands is in my mouth!
The God of Wisdom is in my Heart!
My tongue is the Sanctuary of Truth!
And a God sitteth upon my lips. - My Word is accomplished every day!
And the desire of my heart realises itself, as that of Ptah when He createth!
I am Eternal; therefore all things are as my designs; therefore do all things obey my Word. - Therefore do Thou come forth unto me from Thine abode in the Silence: Unutterable Wisdom! All-Light! All-Power!
Thoth! Hermes! Mercury! Odin!
By whatever name I call Thee, Thou art still nameless to Eternity:. Come Thou forth, I say, and aid and guard me in this work of Art. - Thou, Star of the East, that didst conduct the Magi!
Thou art The Same all-present in Heaven and in Hell!
Thou that vibratest between the Light and the Darkness!
Rising, descending! Changing ever, yet ever The Same!
The Sun is Thy Father!
Thy Mother is the Moon!
The Wind hath borne Thee in its bosom: and Earth hath ever nourished the changeless Godhead of Thy Youth! - Come Thou forth, I say, come Thou forth!
And make all Spirits subject unto Me:
So that every Spirit of the Firmament
And of the Ether.
And of the Earth.
And under the Earth.
On dry land
And in the Water.
Of whirling Air
And of rushing Fire.
And every Spell and Scourge of God the Vast One, may be obedient unto Me! - I invoke the priestess of the Silver Star, Asi the Curved One, by the ritual of Silence.
- I make open the gate of Bliss; I descend from the Palace of the Stars; I greet you, I embrace you, O children of Earth, that are gathered together in the Hall of Darkness.
- (A pause.)
- The Speech in the Silence.
The Words against the Son of Night.
The Voice of Tahuti in the Universe in the Presence of the Eternal.
The Formulas of Knowledge.
The Wisdom of Breath.
The Root of Vibration.
The Shaking of the Invisible.
The Rolling Asunder of the Darkness.
The Becoming Visible of Matter.
The Piercing of the Scales of the Crocodile.
The Breaking Forth of the Light!
Salvete, Fratres et Sorores!
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a secret society dedicated to the study and practice of occultism, hermeticism, theurgy, and spiritual development. It was active in England, Scotland, Paris, and, latterly, the United States and New Zealand. Its last temple, the Whare Ra (“house of the sun”), closed its doors in New Zealand in 1978. The G.D. was founded by three freemasons – William Robert Woodman (1828-1891), William Wynn Westcott (1848-1925), and Samuel Liddell Mathers (1854-1918), who styled himself “Macgregor.”
Woodman was a medical doctor and a horticultural expert who was also the Supreme Magus of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (S.R.I.A.), a Rosicrucian esoteric Christian order founded by Robert Wentworth Little (1840-1878) circa 1866, the Grand Sword Bearer of the United Grand Lodge of England, and a member of the Order of the Red Cross of Constantine, a Christian freemasonic organization. Derived from the 18th century German order of the Golden and Rosy Cross, the grades of the S.R.I.A., based on the Qabalistic Tree of Life, also became the basis of the hierarchy of the G.D. After Woodman’s death in 1891, his role as Supreme Magus of the S.R.I.A. was taken over by Westcott, after which the lineages of the S.R.I.A. and the Golden Dawn diverge. Mathers was also a member of the S.R.I.A.
William Wynn Westcott was also a medical doctor as well as a coroner, theosophist, and freemason born in Leamington, Warwickshire, England, the same town as Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), interestingly. Westcott was the initial driving force behind the Golden Dawn.
Samuel Liddell Mathers was an autodidact and a polyglot who studied English, French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Gaelic, and Coptic, who worked as a clerk. His wife, Moina Mathers was the sister of the vitalist philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941). An avid vegetarian, anti-vivisectionist, and non-smoker, he was also, perhaps paradoxically, a student of the theory of war, like the military historian J.F.C. Fuller (1878-1966), a disciple of Aleister Crowley. Mathers claimed to be descended from Scottish nobility, the Clan Gregor; he wrote or translated several books, including Practical Instruction in Infantry Campaigning Exercise (1884), The Key of Solomon (1889), The Kabbalah Unveiled (1887), and The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage (1897), The Lesser Key of Solomon (1904),and the Grimoire of Armadel (1980).
The Golden Dawn was based on a collection of sixty folios written in a simple substitution cryptogram from right to left, called the Trithemius cipher; hence they became known as the cipher mss. These purportedly belonged to a masonic scholar and bibliophile, Kenneth R.H. Mackenzie, who received them from his mentor, Frederick Hockley (1809-1885), a British occultist, scryer, and spiritualist, upon the death of the latter in 1886. The cipher mss. then passed to the Rev. A.F.A. Woodford, who in turn passed them onto Westcott , who decoded them in 1887. Westcott collaborated with Mathers, who, together, with Woodman, developed the outlines into a workable grade system for the so-called “outer order.” Mathers subsequently added a second Rosicrucian-styled order, called the Rosae Rubeae et Aureae Crucis (R.R. et A.C.), to the system. The cipher mss. are written in black ink on white cotton paper dated 1809, and describe a synthesis of the Western esoteric tradition. They included the name and address of a German Rosicrucian adept named Anna Sprengel, on a separate sheet of paper, to whom Westcott said he wrote, and ftom whom he obtained a charter to establish an English lodge of the ‘Gold- und Rosenkreuzer’ order of which she was a high-ranking adept. This story is however highly doubtful, esp. since the mss. include a reference to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which was not published till 1842, although it was deciphered in 1822, with at least seven alternative explanations of their origin and the identity of Sprengel which I do not propose to go into here. Based on these mss. and with the permission of Sprengel, the Isis-Urania Lodge was founded in 1888. Unlike freemasonry, the lodge admitted women. By the mid-1890s the order was very successful in Great Britain, with over a hundred members including such notables as the actress Florence Farr (1860-1917), the Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne, the poet William Butler Yeats, widely regarded as one of the major poets of the 20th century, Welsh author Arthur Machen, English mystic Evelyn Underhill, and the Buddhist Allan Bennett, who led the first Buddhist mission to the West in 1908.
The Secret Chiefs are a universal archetype, also referred to as “the esoteric order” or “the Elder Brothers,” “Hidden Masters,” “Unknown Superiors,” “Mahatmas,” “Elite Cohens,” etc. but in the context of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn the immediately relevant precedent is Karl von Eckartshausen’s (1752-1803) Cloud Upon the Sanctuary (1796). Von Eckartshausen was a German Catholic mystic, author, and philosopher, who studied philosophy and civil law in Munich and Ingoldstadt. Eckartshausen was briefly associated with the order of the Illuminati, founded by Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830) in 1776, but resigned due to Weishaupt’s advocacy of rationalism. Aleister Crowley credited his reading of The Cloud Upon the Sanctuary, recommended to him by A.E. Waite, with his aspiration to enter into communion with the Secret Chiefs of the third order of the Golden Dawn, which he referred to as “the Silver Star” (S.S.) and culminated in his attainment of the grade of Magister Templi. He also adapted this book as an introduction to his own order of the A∴A∴. However, in this discussion I will refer to the original text, in the English translation of Isabel de Steiger (1909).
The book consists of six short letters. Eckartshausen says
a more advanced school has always existed to whom this deposition of all science has been confided, and this school was the community illuminated interiorly by the … society of the Elect, which has continued from the first day of creation to the present time; its members… are scattered all over the world, but they have always been united in the spirit and in one truth; they have had but one intelligence and one source of truth, but one doctor and one master; but in whom resides substantially the whole plenitude …, and who alone initiates them into the high mysteries of Nature and the Spiritual World.
This community of light has been called from all time the invisible celestial Church, or the most ancient of all communities,
which he describes at some length in the second letter:
It is necessary, my dear brothers …, to give you a clear idea of the interior Church; of that illuminated Community … which is scattered throughout the world, but which is governed by one truth and united in one spirit.
This enlightened community has existed since the first day of the world’s creation, and its duration will be to the last day of time.
This community possesses a School, in which all who thirst for knowledge are instructed by the Spirit of Wisdom itself; and all the mysteries … are preserved in this School for the children of light. . . . Perfect knowledge …[is] the object[s] of instruction in this school. It is from her that all truths penetrate into the world, she is the School of … all who search for wisdom, and it is in this community alone that truth and the explanation of all mystery is to be found. It is the most hidden of communities yet possesses members from many circles …. From all time there has been an exterior school based on the interior one, of which it is but the outer expression. From all time, therefore, there has been a hidden assembly, a society of the Elect, of those who sought for and had capacity for light, and this interior society was called the interior Sanctuary or Church. All that the external Church possesses in symbol, ceremony or rite is the letter expressive outwardly of the spirit of truth residing in the interior Sanctuary.
Hence this Sanctuary composed of scattered members, but tied by the bonds of perfect unity and love, has been occupied from the earliest ages in building the grand Temple through the regeneration of humanity…. This society is in the communion of those who have most capacity for light, i.e., the Elect. The Elect are united in truth, and their Chief is the Light of the World himself …, the One Anointed in light, the single mediator for the human race, the Way, the Truth, and the Life—Primitive light … ,[and] wisdom….
The interior Church was formed immediately after the fall of man, and received … the revelation of the means by which fallen humanity could be again raised to its rights and delivered from its misery. It received the primitive charge of all revelation and mystery; it received the key of true science, both divine and natural.
But when men multiplied, the frailty of man and his weakness necessitated an exterior society which veiled the interior one, and concealed the spirit and the truth in the letter. Because many people were not capable of comprehending great interior truth, and the danger would have been too great in confiding the most Holy to incapable people. Therefore, interior truths were wrapped in external and perceptible ceremonies, so that men, by the perception of the outer, which is the symbol of the interior, might by degrees be enabled safely to approach the interior spiritual truths.
But the inner truth has always been confided to him who in his day had the most capacity for illumination, and he became the sole guardian of the original Trust, as High Priest of the Sanctuary.
When it became necessary that interior truths should be enfolded in exterior ceremony and symbol, on account of the real weakness of men who were not capable of bearing the Light of Light, then exterior worship began. It was, however, always the type and symbol of the interior, that is to say, the symbol of the true …spirit and in truth.
The difference between spiritual and animal man, and between rational and sensual man, made the exterior and interior imperative. Interior truth passed into the external wrapped in symbol and ceremony, so that sensuous man could observe, and be gradually thereby led to interior truth. Hence external worship was symbolically typical of interior truths …
The external worship … would never have been separated from interior service but for the weakness of man which tends too easily to forget the spirit in the letter, but the spirit … is vigilant to note in every nation those who are able to receive light, and they are employed as agents to spread the light according to man’s capacity, and to revivify the dead letter.
Through these divine instruments the interior truths of the Sanctuary were taken into every nation, and modified symbolically according to their customs, capacity for instruction, climate, and receptiveness. So that the external types of every religion, worship, ceremonies and Sacred Books in general have more or less clearly, as their object of instruction, the interior truths of the Sanctuary, by which man, but only in the latter days, will be conducted to the universal knowledge of the one Absolute Truth.
The more the external worship of a people has remained united with the spirit of esoteric truth, the purer its religion; but the wider the difference between the symbolic letter and the invisible truth, the more imperfect has become the religion;… Then the external form entirely parted from its inner truth, when ceremonial observances without soul or life remained alone. … all the symbols and … all the ceremonies… contained the impress, as it were, of the great esoteric truth of the Sanctuary…
Now … the whole of the symbols of external worship formed the science of the Temple and of the Priests … because the mysteries of the most sacred truths became external through revelation alone. The scientific acquaintance of this holy symbolism was the science … to bring man back to his origin.
One sees plainly by this pure idea of religion in general that unity in religion is within the inner Sanctuary, and that the multiplicity of external religions can never alter the true unity which is at the base of every exterior. … In the interior the spirit lived. There was, therefore, in the ancient alliance a school of prophets and of priests, the one occupying itself with the spirit in the emblem, the other with the emblem itself. …the prophets were in interior possession of the inner spiritual truth which was represented exteriorly by the symbols ….
The external Church of the ancient alliance was visible, the interior Church was always invisible, must be invisible, and yet must govern all, because force and power are alone confided to her.
When the divine external worship abandoned the interior worship, it fell, and … the letter could not exist without the spirit, that it is only there to lead to the spirit, and it is useless and even rejected … if it fails in its object.
As the spirit of nature extends to the most sterile depths to vivify and preserve and cause growth in everything susceptible to its influence, likewise the spirit of light spreads itself interiorly among nations to animate everywhere the dead letter by the living spirit. … as living proofs the interior community of those who are capable of receiving light was united by one spirit and one truth in all times and in all nations.
To these agents of light from the one inner community was united the Chief of all … in the midst of time as royal priest after the order of Melchizedek.
The divine agents of the ancient alliance hitherto represented only specialised perfections …; therefore a powerful movement was required which should show all at once—all in one. A universal type appeared, which gave the real touch of perfect unity to the picture, which opened a fresh door, and destroyed the number of the slavery of humanity.
The law of love began when the image emanating from wisdom itself showed to man all the greatness of his being, vivified him anew, assured him of his immortality, and raised his intellectual status to that of being the true temple for the spirit.
This Chief Agent of all, this Saviour of the World and universal Regenerator, claimed man’s whole attention to the primitive truth, whereby he can preserve his existence and recover his former dignity. … all that should come to pass in the future to all the Elect.
He linked the chain of the community of light among the Elect, to whom He sent the spirit of truth, and confided to them the true primitive instruction in all divine and natural things, as a sign that He would never forsake His community.
When the letter and symbolic worship of the external Church of the ancient alliance had been realised … new symbols became requisite for external use, which showed us through the letter the future accomplishment of universal redemption.
The rites and symbols … were formed after the pattern of these unchangeable and fundamental truths, announcing things of a strength and of an importance impossible to describe, and revealed only to those who knew the innermost Sanctuary.
This Sanctuary remains changeless, though external religion receives in the course of time and circumstances varied modification, entailing separation from the interior spirit which can alone preserve the letter. The profane idea …changed the exterior edifice, and covered with the shadow of death all that was interior light and life. Hence divisions and heresies, and the spirit of Sophistry ready to expound the letter when it had already lost the essence of truth.
Current incredulity increased corruption to its utmost point, attacking the edifice … in its fundamental parts, and the sacred interior was mingled with the exterior, already enfeebled by the ignorance of weak man.
Then was born Deism; this brought forth materialism, which looked on the union of man with superior forces as imaginary; then finally came forth, partly from the head and partly from the heart, the last degree of man’s degradation….
In the midst of all this, truth reposes inviolable in the inner Sanctuary.
Faithful to the spirit of truth, which promised never to abandon its community, the members of the interior Church lived in silence, but in real activity, and united the science of the temple of the ancient alliance with the spirit of the great saviour of man—the spirit of the interior alliance, waiting humbly the great moment … in order to give every dead letter external force and life.
This interior community of light is the reunion of all those capable of receiving light as Elect, and it is known as the Communion of Saints. The primitive receptacle for all strength and truth, confided to it from all time… is in the possession of the science of the Saints.
By it … agents … were formed in every age, passing from the interior to the exterior, and communicating spirit and life to the dead letter as already said.
This illuminated community has been through time the true school of … spirit, and considered as school, it has its Chair, its Doctor, it possesses a rule for students, it has forms and objects for study, and, in short, a method by which they study.
It has, also, its degrees for successive development to higher altitudes.…
This school of wisdom has been forever most secretly hidden from the world, because it is invisible and submissive solely to divine government.
It has never been exposed to the accidents of time and to the weakness of man. Because only the most capable were chosen for it, and the spirits who selected made no error.
Through this school were developed the germs of all the sublime sciences, which were first received by external schools, then clothed in other forms, and hence degenerating.
This society of sages communicated, according to time and circumstances, unto the exterior societies their symbolic hieroglyphs, in order to attract man to the great truths of their interior.
But all exterior societies subsist through this interior one giving them its spirit. As soon as external societies wish to be independent of the interior one, and to transform a temple of wisdom into a political edifice, the interior society retires and leaves only the letter without the spirit. It is thus that secret external societies of wisdom were nothing but hieroglyphic screens, the truth remaining inviolable in the sanctuary so that she might never be profaned.
In this interior society man finds wisdom and with her—All—not the wisdom of this world which is but scientific knowledge, which revolves round the outside but never touches the centre (in which is contained all strength), but true wisdom and men obeying her.
All disputes, all controversies, all the things belonging to the false cares of this world, fruitless discussions, useless germs of opinions which spread the seeds of disunion, all error, schisms, and systems are banished. Neither calumny nor scandal are known. Every man is honoured. Satire, that spirit which loves to make its neighbour smart, is unknown. Love alone reigns.
Want and feebleness are protected, and rejoicings are made at the elevation and greatness which man acquires.
We must not, however, imagine this society resembles any secret society, meeting at certain times, choosing its leaders and members, united by special objects. All societies, be what they may, can but come after this interior illuminated circle. This society knows none of the formalities which belong to the outer rings, the work of man. In this kingdom of power all outward forms cease. … the Power [is] always present. The best man of his times, the chief himself, does not always know all the members, but the moment when it is the Will … that he should accomplish any object, he finds them in the world with certainty to work for that purpose.
This community has no outside barriers. He who may be chosen … is as the first, he presents himself among the others without presumption, and he is received by the others without jealousy.
If it be necessary that real members should meet together, they find and recognise each other with perfect certainty.
No disguise can be used, neither hypocrisy nor dissimulation could hide the characteristic qualities of this society, they are too genuine. All illusion is gone, and things appear in their true form.
No one member can choose another, unanimous choice is required. All men are called, the called may be chosen, if they become ripe for entrance.
Anyone can look for the entrance, and any man who is within can teach another to seek for it; but only he who is fit can arrive inside.
Unprepared men occasion disorder in a community, and disorder is not compatible with the Sanctuary. This thrusts out all who are not homogeneous.
Worldly intelligence seeks this Sanctuary in vain, fruitless also will be the efforts of malice to penetrate these great mysteries; all is undecipherable to him who is not ripe, he can see nothing, read nothing in the interior.
He who is ripe is joined to the chain, perhaps often where he thought least likely, and at a point of which he knew nothing himself.
Seeking to become ripe should be effort of him who seeks wisdom.
But there are methods by which ripeness is attained, for in this holy communion is the primitive storehouse of the most ancient and original science of the human race, with the primitive mysteries also of all science. It is the unique and really illuminated community which is absolutely in possession of the key to all mystery, which knows the centre and source of all nature and creation. It is a society which unites superior strength to its own, and counts its members from more than one world. It is the society whose members …one day will be the Regent Mother of the whole World.
Westcott claimed that his correspondence with Sprengel ceased in 1890 due to her death. Allegedly, her German associates refused to collaborate with Westcott, who stated that they disapproved of Sprengel’s English charter, and all contact with them ended. Absent Sprengel, there was no longer any “magical link” with the “secret chiefs” of the order, which created a crisis in the G.D. which was resolved by Mathers claiming to have established his own link with the “secret chiefs” of the third order of the G.D. On this basis he established the R.R. et A.C. Westcott later claimed that the materials for the second order came from a continental adept known only as Frater Lux et Tenebris (“light in darkness”), although Regardie says that they derived from the clairvoyant mediumship of Moina Mathers.
Westcott resigned from the order in 1896 or 1897, due to his association with the G.D. being discovered by his employers, who threatened to fire him in his job as coroner if he did not give up his association with the G.D. Mathers however was an eccentric firebrand, and the membership became increasingly dissatisfied with his autocratic personality, especially after scandalizing them by his admitting the notorious Aleister Crowley to the second order. Yeats in particular despised Crowley, who declared that the G.D. was not a reformatory. Crowley, for his part, referred to Yeats as a “dishevelled demonologist.” In the course of these disputes, Mathers claimed that the cipher mss. had been forged by Westcott and that he and he alone had direct access to the secret chiefs of the order. In response Mathers was deposed as chief at a general meeting of the members of the London lodge on March 29, 1900. After a series of disputes the order splintered into a faction led by occult scholar A.E. Waite and M.W. Blackden, who elected to retain the name Isis-Urania, and the Stella Matutina, led by Dr. Robert Felkin, to which Yeats belonged. A few temples, including J.W. Brodie-Innes’s (1848-1923) Edinburgh temple, remained loyal to Mathers, but their numbers were small. Mathers subsequently died in 1918, at the peak of the influenza epidemic, and by the end of the 1930s the order was pretty much moribund, with only a few active temples. The order papers were subsequently published by Israel Regardie in 1937, violating his oath of secrecy.
The structure of the Golden Dawn is based on the original Qabalistic doctrine of the Tree of Life (etz chayim), a universal archetype which is found throughout the myths, religions, and philosophies of the world, such as Yggdrasil and Genesis. It is the sacred, cosmic, or world tree that connects heaven, earth, and the underworld and interconnects all forms of creation.
The concept of the “Etz Chayim,” or Tree of Life, is deeply rooted in Jewish mystical tradition, particularly in Qabalah. The origins of the Tree of Life can be traced back to the early medieval period, although its symbolic roots may be even older.
In Qabalistic teachings, the Tree of Life is a complex and multi-layered symbol representing the structure of the universe, the Divine emanations or sephiroth, and the paths of spiritual ascent and descent. It serves as a symbolic map of the cosmos, the soul’s journey, and the relationship between the divine and the material realms.
The earliest known systematic presentation of the Tree of Life appears in the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation), a foundational Qabalistic text believed to have been composed in the third to sixth centuries. The Sefer Yetzirah is one of the oldest and most important Qabalistic texts. It explores the mystical significance of the Hebrew alphabet, the creation of the universe, and the structure of reality through the concept of the sephiroth (divine emanations, attributes, or qualities) and the manipulation of letters and numbers, represented as nodes on the Tree of Life. In the system of the Golden Dawn, based on Mather’s translation of The Kabbalah Unveiled the ten sephiroth re denominated as follows:
Kether, the Crown
Chokmah, Wisdom
Binah, Understanding
Chesed, Mercy
Geburah, Strength
Tiphareth, Beauty
Netzach, Victory
Hod, Splendour
Yesod, the Foundation
Malkuth, the Kingdom
- to which is added the false or illusory sephira of Da’ath, Knowledge, located between Binah and Chesed.
Over time, the symbolism of the Tree of Life became further elaborated and expanded upon in subsequent Qabalistic literature, including works such as the Zohar and the writings of the medieval Qabalists. These texts offer intricate interpretations of the Tree of Life‘s symbolism, exploring its connections to divine names, mystical experiences, and the workings of creation.
The Tree of Life has also been influential beyond Jewish mysticism, with variations of its symbolism appearing in various esoteric and occult traditions, including Hermeticism, Christian mysticism, and modern Western esotericism.In these contexts, the Tree of Life often serves as a universal symbol of spiritual growth, enlightenment, and the interconnectedness of all things.
The Outer Order of the Golden Dawn consists of five grades or degrees of initiation, based on the Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross, a German Rosicrucian organization founded in the 1750s by Hermann Fictuld (1700-1777), an alchemist and freemason. The Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross specialized in the study of alchemy. Fictuld traces the origin of his order to the Order of the Golden Fleece, a prestigious Catholic chivalric order founded in Bruges in 1430 by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy.
The grades of the G.D. are denominated Neophyte, Zelator, Theoricus, Practicus, and Philosophus, the latter including a subgrade called Dominus Liminis. These correspond to the lowest sephiroth of the Qabalistic Tree of Life: Malkuth (Zelator), Yesod (Theoricus), Hod (Practicus), and Netzach (Philosophus), with the preliminary grade of Neophyte being unattributed. In addition to the initiatory rituals, aspirants were expected to complete both theoretical study and practical tasks, adumbrated in five “knowledge lectures” so-called, as follows. There is significant overlap between the grades. The basic idea is that one is supposed to perfect each psychic function in an ascending series, until one is prepared to enter the second order of the R.R. et A.C. Here are the actual practices in summary form, based on the mss. Thelemites may be surprised by the apparent similarity to Aleister Crowley’s A∴A∴, but the major difference is that Crowley further developed and explained the original system and insisted on the thorough and complete mastery of each step, in a logical step by step order,[1] whereas the G.D. focused mainly on theoretical study, esp. in the outer order, with a few exceptions such as Allan Bennett and Mathers himself. Thus, Crowley complained that most of the members of the G.D. were actually unprepared for authentic initiation. However, everything is there in potentia.
- Neophyte: Mental concentration (ekagrata, dharana), posture (asana), and breathing (pranayama), including mindfulness of the breathing and the Fourfold Breath. Vibration of divine names. The magical voice. Rituals of self-consecration, banishing, and invoking. Development of the magical imagination. (Assumption of god forms may be added here.)
2. Zelator (Malkuth, earth): Self-identification.
3. Theoricus (Yesod, Luna, air): Mantra yoga. Rising in the imagination.
4. Practicus (Hod, Mercury, water): Control of emotion (detachment).
5. Philosophus (Netzach, Venus, fire): Aspiration (bhakti yoga). Self-sacrifice. Discovery of the True Will. Control of speech and mind. (These elements would be greatly developed by Crowley in his recension of the G.D..)
Dominus Liminis (spirit, quintessence). Thesis. Control of the aura or sphere of sensation. Deep breathing. Placing the Tree of Life in the aura (Middle Pillar Exercise). Tattwas. Divination – astrology, geomancy, Tarot. Dream yoga. . Practises the Middle Pillar exercise of the Tree of Life. Practises control of the aura. Practises a concentration exercise based on the tattwas. Practises geomantic and astrological divination. Scries and travels in the Spirit Vision.
A surprising feature of the Golden Dawn system of initiation, esp. in view of Mathers’s antipathy to theosophy and Asian mysticism, is its inclusion of Asian elements, including yoga, esp. asana, pranayama, and dharana (these are not Crowley’s innovation!),[2] mantra yoga, the Tattwas, which are a pan-Indian Tantric concentration exercise of some notoriety. Indeed, the basic concept of generating a “mental body” or Body of Light[3] is fundamentally Buddhist, referred to in the Pali Canon, and achieved its apotheosis in the Dzogchen system of the rainbow body introduced by Padmasamhbava to Tibet,[4] with roots in early Buddhism, although it is also universal. In fact, Tibetan Buddhism exhibits many similarities to the Western esoteric tradition, such as the system of the nine yanas, which parallel of the grades of initiation based on the Tree of Life.[5]
The work of the Outer Order culminates in initiation into the second order of the R.R. et A.C., in which one aspires to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel/Augoeides and is also introduced to Mather’s distinctive rescension of the Enochian system of John Dee and Edward Kelley, further consideration of which would take us beyond the scope of this talk.
There is an end of the speech; let the Silence of darkness be broken; let it return into the silence of light.
[1] Suggestive in fact of the Tibetan approach. Something that is often forgotten is that Crowley and Allan Bennett were also taught in Ceylon by a Tibetan. Thus, like Blavatsky, Crowley too had his Tibetan connection.
[2] Crowley popularized the Yoga of Patanjali (200-400 CE?) in his Book Four (1912), but in fact the nucleus of these instructions is found in the original “knowledge lectures” of the G.D.
[3] A.k.a. subtle body, astral body, body of glory, spirit body, luciform body, augoeides, astroeides, celestial body, etc. In the G.D. it is called “the Sphere of Sensation,” Interestingly, Crowley refers to the “Holy Guardian Angel” and the Augoeides as though they are interchangeable.
[4] Including “cutting through” (trekcho), tranquility/insight meditation (shamatha, vipashyana), pristine awareness (rigpa), guru yoga, deity practice (rigdzin dupa), dream yoga, and body of light or rainbow body (jalu). The formulation of the Body of Light is of course the fundamental practice in the Western esoteric tradition.
[5] Including discipleship (sravakayana); self-realization (pratyekabuddhayana); self-sacrifice (bodhisattvayana); self-purification (kriyayoga); karma yoga (caryayoga); subtle energy (yogatantra); transformation of ordinary awareness (mahayoga); non-dual realization (anuyoga); and non-conceptual realization (atiyoga).
The Secret Door 