Hermetic and esoteric order of the Golden Dawn

[DBT]

Many years ago when I first started my studies in psychology at uni, I joined a group based on the hermetic and esoteric order of the Golden Dawn. One of the founders of the group was a British American, he had a very enigmatic name “Israel Regardie”. He had been a member of the original organisation. He taught us meditation, we had to hand paint our own pack of tarot cards. As we became more adept we were promoted to the next level from Neophyte to whatever, then we would learn through meditation the next card. He only spent a few weeks in the UK then went back home. After about 2 years he stopped coming, there was a rumour he had died. We never used the tarot for divination, it was more used as a visual path of meditation in relation to the Kabbalah. I left the group in about 1988, it was very enlightening.

[Nungali]

Are you saying you had personal instruction from Israel Regardie ? or where those things he taught the group and then they taught you ?

 

He is right 'up there' in my estimations , a great teacher in the modern western magical tradition !   Lucky you !

 

Painting your own deck is surely one way to get understanding of it .   I painted a full set of Enochian tablets ( G.D. style , ie with all attributions and glyph included) it certainly helped me get a handle on the system . I agree with you about use of tarot , its divinatory use is minor if one realizes its full potential !

 

It seems to me those things are well 'out of fashion' now  - a great shame IMO .

 

 

[DBT]

Israel Regardie came for a few weeks per year and taught us. He was an amazing guy. He taught us to recognise the keys to the doorways in a way only we knew how, by working on meditation and imagery. Experiencing the paths in our mind and linking it to our meditation. I once said to him “how can we possibly learn all this”, his reply was “if you can understand a grain of sand, you can understand a desert “.

[NaturaNaturans]

This thread id like to follow. Can I you, @DBT, how have you benefited and how did you Get started? How do you seperate the gold from the dirt?

[damdao]

LOL

"I learned from a guy called Israel Regardie, who happenned to know some guy called Crowley who in turn learned from an uncle called Mathers..."

What a band of acquaintances!!!

I second NaturaNaturans.

[DBT]

I am glad you find it interesting, I am a complete novice on here, I have no idea about following others. You are more than welcome to follow my posts. It’s hard to say if or how I have benefited from my training, I have learned to detach myself from what’s going on around me, only getting involved as and when I feel I need to. Please don’t go thinking I am an expert  in GD or indeed anything else. I rarely talk about my time with the GD group, it seems acceptable to talk of it on here, bearing in mind this is a Daoist forum. I got started with the GD group because I was studying psychology at uni, I wrote a thesis on the psychology of religion, I spent time with Hindu’s, Sikh’s, Buddhist’s, Witches, all sorts of religions. I met a woman in a witchcraft shop who invited me to visit  a GD group, I ended staying for 4 or 5 years. How do you separate the gold from the dirt, not quite sure what you mean. The purity of your work and your inner self filters out the dirt (Ain Soph Aur). I hope this goes some way to answering your questions.

[Nungali]

11 hours ago, DBT said:

Israel Regardie came for a few weeks per year and taught us.

 

WOW  !     Lucky you .  For me he is tops in the field !

 

He was an amazing guy. He taught us to recognise the keys to the doorways in a way only we knew how, by working on meditation and imagery. Experiencing the paths in our mind and linking it to our meditation. I once said to him “how can we possibly learn all this”, his reply was “if you can understand a grain of sand, you can understand a desert “.

 

I think that was because he had a real inner desire for gnosis . And when that 'energetically enthuses ' one , one's  horizons and capacity greatly increases . I remember one of his stories I relate to , its happened to me a few times . It was in his training and he became perplexed about something and asked his ( one of the ? ) teachers , he was pretty much told that you dont need to learn that to 'pass the grade ' . Israel was  a bit shocked, he wasnt there to 'get degrees under his belt ', he wanted to learn .

 

My experience was  when I was working in Biodynamic Agricultural company as a 'preparations assistant ' . The 'maker' had an accident at work and needed 3 months off  so I got an instant promotion.  I borrowed  Steiner's ' Agricultural Lectures ' and read the book over a few days .  Later, when I was saying some things I got weird looks , even from the 'Big Boss' , he wanted to know the source of the strange things I was relating to their products .  I cited a chapter in the book and he laughed and said " Oh no, you only have to know Ch 5,6, and 7  (or something like that )  to be able to make preparations ,

 

 

 

 

Edited August 26 by Nungali

[Nungali]

2 hours ago, DBT said:

I am glad you find it interesting, I am a complete novice on here, I have no idea about following others. You are more than welcome to follow my posts. It’s hard to say if or how I have benefited from my training, I have learned to detach myself from what’s going on around me, only getting involved as and when I feel I need to.

 

Would that be one of the results ?  

 

I have to say I was surprised to read that . For myself, I got great value and benefit   from the system and initiations I did in a similar system  .

 

Please don’t go thinking I am an expert  in GD or indeed anything else. I rarely talk about my time with the GD group, it seems acceptable to talk of it on here, bearing in mind this is a Daoist forum.

 

Not exactly , to 'split hairs' this is  an esoteric and occult forum hosted by a Daoist website     Its sorta understood that this forum is for the western esoteric and occult , so this subject sits very well here .

 

I got started with the GD group because I was studying psychology at uni,

 

Aha !   Like Mr. Regardie  ?   I believe he studied psychology   and incorporated it into magical practice / meditation ?   There are some old threads around here about that .  And some on the validity of practice with or without that, and some  looking at the psychology within magick ( with people like Crowley )

 

I wrote a thesis on the psychology of religion, I spent time with Hindu’s, Sikh’s, Buddhist’s, Witches, all sorts of religions.

 

Sounds interesting .   I did  studies  in comparative religion ,  some main interests are ancient Zoroastrianism , I have been involved with hermetic groups ,  indigenous traditions ,  Baha'i religion,  Wicca ,  ( not so much Christian traditions  - I learnt about that in my 'upbringing' ) , a little with Tibetan Buddhists (long ago ) , and some Sikh's , more recently  ( we have a nearby Gudwara - they are actually building a second  bigger one in the same town .  )  

 

- its fairly eclectic in 'Oz' . Still sometimes its a little surprising to be driving through Aussie landscape and nature and come across ;

 

 

Woolgoolga Gudwara.

 

 

or

 

Sri Venkateswara Temple ,  Helensburg .

 

 

I met a woman in a witchcraft shop who invited me to visit  a GD group, I ended staying for 4 or 5 years.

 

What years where these ?

 

How do you separate the gold from the dirt, not quite sure what you mean. The purity of your work and your inner self filters out the dirt (Ain Soph Aur). I hope this goes some way to answering your questions.

 

It might be a tricky question to answer as you found a good teacher  and organization .   I think the 'gold and dirt' question comes from that . Some people want to approach the subject in a different way than the way you 'entered' , in that they are searching for a  system or teacher , but there is a lot of 'dirt' out there and a lot of  either 'wrong' or irrelevant teachings .

 

Edited August 26 by Nungali

[DBT]

I am not exactly sure of the years but it must have been around 1980-86. Possibly earlier.

Edited August 27 by DBT

[DBT]

 

[DBT]

13 hours ago, DBT said:

 

Back in the early 80’s this was our meeting place. Rituals took place in the woods. It has been vandalised unfortunately.

[Nungali]

Okay  (  I wondered why that video was posted here) .  Do you mean your GD group met in there ?

 

You did GD rituals   'in the woods'  ?    Nah , you must mean some other 'group '  .    Pagan / Wiccan  ?

[DBT]

We met in the cavern for meditation during the warm weather, we had a wooden hut in the woods with several rooms including an ante room. We moved to an old village hall near Hednesford. There is no trace of the wooden hut now, the village hall has been replaced with a community centre.

[Nungali]

And (again )  was this  GD rituals and initiations ? 

[DBT]

No, sorry this was before I was introduced to GD. The rituals held in the wooden huts were Wiccan. I posted the video because I thought people might find it interesting.

[snowymountains]

10 hours ago, DBT said:

No, sorry this was before I was introduced to GD. The rituals held in the wooden huts were Wiccan. I posted the video because I thought people might find it interesting.

(bold is mine)

 

What are the historical roots of Wiccan rituals? Are the wiccan rituals something new or they're deep rooted in history?

Rituals sometimes are even inherited from previous religions which the newer religions replaced, and hence sometimes a ritual is practiced for thousands of years. Some of them are very tried-and-tested.

[DBT]

I am sure there are people on here far more qualified than I to answer your question. I am sure Wiccan rituals go back to pre medieval times. I remember a ritual for crop planting, having to stand with your arms to your sides and jumping as high as you can in unison with everyone else. The idea was to show the crops what to do. Even today where I live people still chant Celtic words when picking berries etc (isolated villages up in the hills). Hope this helps.

[Nungali]

23 hours ago, DBT said:

No, sorry this was before I was introduced to GD. The rituals held in the wooden huts were Wiccan. I posted the video because I thought people might find it interesting.

 

Okay, clear.   The cave reminded me of friends that came back from the UK  and had done some  stuff with the 'Fellowship of Isis'. They said that ( whoever runs it )  had a castle and in the basement was a huge room dirt floor and had a stone circle in it that they did ceremony and initiations in .

 

 Me :   .........       ....   they built a castle around a stone circle ?

 

Them ;  No, apparently a few generations back someone pulled apart a stone circle and moved it into their basement . "

 

 

We where fortunate in having a lot of land for such activities ; a huge riverside festival site  with state forest on the other side .  We made a large (can take 300 people )  ritual circle  in the middle section years back , I made the  4 elemental altars  for it .  Up the other end , one year we had a huge Maypole and ritual there . The east end has a riverside  'meditation sanctuary ' hexagonal building with three sides of it open to the river .

 

A festival is coming up this spring  I been down there a lot on the tractor, ride on mower . whipper snipper , trying to get some nice grass happening for it   ; 

 

https://events.humanitix.com/lovefest-bellingen-2024

 

Spoiler

Everyone will have their 'love cosmo spiritual'  self on ... me ?   I'll be doing what I did last year .... crawling through their compost and picking out  bits of plastic bags and other non compost .   Seriously, down on hands and knees in a pile of  half rotted food scraps nearly a meter deep .   Not many people manage their waste properly ... it something they ascribe to but ..

 

Last year I ended up with the biggest compost heap I ever made  with the results , 'lovepost'      I have a huge healthy potato crop growing in it .  Maybe I sell some back to them this year ? 'Love potatoes '  ?

 

This time I hope to educate them on the process and have  the other ingredients on hand so people cam make the compost as they go

 

[Nungali]

13 hours ago, DBT said:

I am sure there are people on here far more qualified than I to answer your question. I am sure Wiccan rituals go back to pre medieval times. I remember a ritual for crop planting, having to stand with your arms to your sides and jumping as high as you can in unison with everyone else. The idea was to show the crops what to do. Even today where I live people still chant Celtic words when picking berries etc (isolated villages up in the hills). Hope this helps.

 

That was a tricky question -  unless Snowy meant the specific ones that your group did .   As Wicca can range from common modern Wicca , which is a recent development , to (as he said )  very old and sometimes very different traditions , sometimes held in family lineages . The first very exoteric, while the second esoteric and some virtually unknown .
 

Spoiler

Usually 'Wicca'   means the modern thing .  A curious beast  ;   a 'matriarchal '   group  that is run by a woman ,  who in turn are run by a head woman ,  originally started by a man  ( Gerald Gardiner  , and probably in cahoots with Alistair Crowley   and certainly  with  parts lifted from the OTO rituals and  their Gnostic Mass )  - ' Gardinarian Wicca ' ,  modified down (away from the Crowley influence ) by a woman , then modified back by a man  ( who just combined that with Crowley stuff ) to make 'Alexandrian Wicca'  and then modified by a few others , including the ;'environmental era '  by people such as 'Starhawk ' and adopted environmentalists ( like John Seed ) 

 

Eg . 

John's 'Invocation to Gaia '  ;

---

We ask for the presence of the spirit of Gaia and pray that the breath of life continue to caress this planet home.

May we grow into true understanding ― a deep understanding that inspires us to protect the tree on which we bloom, and the water, soil and atmosphere without which we have no existence.

May we turn inwards and stumble upon our true roots in the intertwining biology of this exquisite planet. May nourishment and power pulse through these roots, and fierce determination to continue the billion-year dance.

May love well up and burst forth from our hearts.

May there be a new dispensation of pure and powerful consciousness and the charter to witness and facilitate the healing of the tattered biosphere.

We ask for the presence of the spirit of Gaia to be with us here. To reveal to us all that we need to see, for our own highest good and for the highest good of all.

We call upon the spirit of evolution, the miraculous force that inspires rocks and dust to weave themselves into biology. You have stood by us for millions and billions of years — do not forsake us now. Empower us and awaken in us pure and dazzling creativity. You that can turn scales into feathers, seawater to blood, caterpillars to butterflies, metamorphose our species, awaken in us the powers that we need to survive the present crisis and evolve into more aeons of our solar journey.

Awaken in us a sense of who we truly are: tiny ephemeral blossoms on the Tree of Life. Make the purposes and destiny of that tree our own purpose and destiny.

Fill each of us with love for our true Self, which includes all of the creatures and plants and landscapes of the world. Fill us with a powerful urge for the wellbeing and continual unfolding of this Self.

May we speak in all human councils on behalf of the animals and plants and landscapes of the Earth.

May we shine with a pure inner passion that will spread rapidly through these leaden times.

May we all awaken to our true and only nature — none other than the nature of Gaia, this living planet Earth.

We call upon the power which sustains the planets in their orbits, that wheels our Milky Way in its 200-million-year spiral, to imbue our personalities and our relationships with harmony, endurance and joy. Fill us with a sense of immense time so that our brief, flickering lives may truly reflect the work of vast ages past and also the millions of years of evolution whose potential lies in our trembling hands.

O stars, lend us your burning passion.

O silence, give weight to our voice.

We ask for the presence of the spirit of Gaia.

 

"