105 lines
5.5 KiB
Plaintext
105 lines
5.5 KiB
Plaintext
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The Golden Dawn
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(Taken from the Book "Secrets of a Witches Coven" by Morwyn)
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...During the same time, ceremonial magic, which followed
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the patterns of ficino, Mirandola, the Roscrucians, and the
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Freemasons, was evolving. Alphonse Louise Constant (1810-
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1875), better known by his nome de plume Eliphas Levi, was a
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magician who borrowed from treatuses dating back to
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Paracelsus. Trained as a preist but never ordained, he
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attempted to reconcile religeon, science, and mysticism in
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his writings. He proposed that the adept could receive
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spiritual teachings from a high plane by tapping into what
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he called the "astral light of divine power" by force of
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will. He was also the first to connect the twenty-two
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trumps of the major Arcana of the tarot with the Qabalistic
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Tree of Life. Levi's influence on end-of-the-century
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magicians was immense. Some people believe that Aleister
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Crowly was his reincarnation, since Crowley was born shortly
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after Levi died.
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Levi's works, which have been translated by A.E. Waite,
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reveal a highly imaginative interpretation of magic, so his
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claims should be taken with a grain of salt. Among Levi's
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books are The Great Secret, This History of Magic, and The
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Book of Splendors.
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Another magician who contributed to the enrichment of the
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tarot was Gerard Encausse, better known as Papus. Author of
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the celebrated book The Tarot of the Bohemians, he became
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chief of the order of the Rose-Croix, which was founded in
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France as an hermetic organization. Papus equated the Tarot
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with the Bible and posited that an entire system of
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metaphysical knowledge was contained within the cards that
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sythesized the teachings of many cultures. This view of the
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Tarot is still held widely today, and magicians and Witches
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meditate upon the cards to tap this knowledge, as well as
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using tarot for divination. Papus influenced the works of
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Oswald Wirth, a key occult figure of the twentieth century.
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Both Levi and Papus fired the imaginationss of budding
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occultists all over europe and America. Here their
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doctrines were disseminated by Albert Pike and Emma
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Hardinge-Britten. Englishmen inspired by Levi and Papus
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include Francis Barret, whose book The Magus is a classic
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work in the field, and Kennith Mackenzie.
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Mackenzie had a friend whom he had entrusted a cipher
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manuscript for safe keeping. Mackenzie died, his friend
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died, and a clergyman friend of the friend discovered the
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manuscript. The clergyman in turn, passed on the manuscript
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to Dr. Wynn Westcott, who, with the help of his friend, S.L.
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MacGregor Mathers, deciphered it. On the basis of these
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papers and other researchers, the two men founded the Isis-
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Urania Temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in
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March 1888.
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Wynn Westcott (1848-1925) was a London coroner and friend of
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Madame Helena P. Blavatsky, and the Christian mystic, Anna
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Kingsford. He had also read extensively the works of Levi
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and the alchemists. S.L. MacGregor Mathers (1854-1918), a
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London commercial clerk, was a friend of Westcott's and
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shared his absorption in the occult. He studied Egyptology
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and other magical systems, including most of those touched
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upon in this brief history, and sythesized them with the
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Mackenzie manuscript into the basic tenets of their new
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occult fraternity. For awhile the leaders claimed to have
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received their teachings and permission to found a new order
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from German Rosicurcian adept named Anna Sprengel. But
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these allegations proved false. The rites and rituals of
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the Golden Dawn owe their genesis to the geniuses of
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Westcott and Mathers.
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Various branches were established in London, Paris, and
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Edinburgh. However these organizations were plequed with
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internal disputes and the Order eventually dissolved. Some
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believe that the disintegration occured because the
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initiates did not take care to protect themselves
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sufficiently from the powerful influences they invoked.
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According to Gareth Knight, Gerald Yorke, an author who
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wrote a history of the order declared that the protective
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training that failed to be assimilated by the initiates was:
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"the assumption that man has fallen from a condition of
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orinal grace which can only be remedied by a re-orientation
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of the will, in repentance and reconciliation, with God.
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Although lip service was given to this in certain teachings
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of the Golden Dawn there was unfortunately, a general and
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stronger tacit assumption that members of the Order were
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somewhat superior to the rest of the human race, and by
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virtue of secret ceremonies, knowledge and practices could
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elevate themselves to be considerably more superior."
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The importance of the Golden Dawn, besides teaching by
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example this lesson in human nature, is that the Order
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inspired many twentieth century occultists and thus played a
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significant role in the magical evolution of the present
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occult revival. Interest in the teachings of the Golden
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Dawn has never flagged.
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