2,000 Greater & Lesser Mysteries/2,000 Greater and Lesser Mysteries.iso/magic/mys01191.txt

Text File | 1994-06-10 | 5.5 KB | 105 lines

                            The Golden Dawn

     (Taken from the Book "Secrets of a Witches Coven" by Morwyn)

     ...During the same time, ceremonial magic, which followed
     the patterns of ficino, Mirandola, the Roscrucians, and the
     Freemasons, was evolving.  Alphonse Louise Constant (1810-
     1875), better known by his nome de plume Eliphas Levi, was a
     magician who borrowed from treatuses dating back to
     Paracelsus.  Trained as a preist but never ordained, he
     attempted to reconcile religeon, science, and mysticism in
     his writings.  He proposed that the adept could receive
     spiritual teachings from a high plane by tapping into what
     he called the "astral light of divine power" by force of
     will.  He was also the first to connect the twenty-two
     trumps of the major Arcana of the tarot with the Qabalistic
     Tree of Life.  Levi's influence on end-of-the-century
     magicians was immense.  Some people believe that Aleister
     Crowly was his reincarnation, since Crowley was born shortly
     after Levi died.

     Levi's works, which have been translated by A.E. Waite,
     reveal a highly imaginative interpretation of magic, so his
     claims should be taken with a grain of salt.  Among Levi's
     books are The Great Secret, This History of Magic, and The
     Book of Splendors.

     Another magician who contributed to the enrichment of the
     tarot was Gerard Encausse, better known as Papus.  Author of
     the celebrated book The Tarot of the Bohemians, he became
     chief of the order of the Rose-Croix, which was founded in
     France as an hermetic organization.  Papus equated the Tarot
     with the Bible and posited that an entire system of
     metaphysical knowledge was contained within the cards that
     sythesized the teachings of many cultures.  This view of the
     Tarot is still held widely today, and magicians and Witches
     meditate upon the cards to tap this knowledge, as well as
     using tarot for divination.  Papus influenced the works of
     Oswald Wirth, a key occult figure of the twentieth century.

     Both Levi and Papus fired the imaginationss of budding
     occultists all over europe and America.  Here their
     doctrines were disseminated by Albert Pike and Emma
     Hardinge-Britten.  Englishmen inspired by Levi and Papus
     include Francis Barret, whose book The Magus is a classic
     work in the field, and Kennith Mackenzie.

     Mackenzie had a friend whom he had entrusted a cipher
     manuscript for safe keeping.  Mackenzie died, his friend
     died, and a clergyman friend of the friend discovered the
     manuscript.  The clergyman in turn, passed on the manuscript
     to Dr. Wynn Westcott, who, with the help of his friend, S.L.
     MacGregor Mathers, deciphered it.  On the basis of these
     papers and other researchers, the two men founded the Isis-
     Urania Temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in
     March 1888.

     Wynn Westcott (1848-1925) was a London coroner and friend of
     Madame Helena P. Blavatsky, and the Christian mystic, Anna
     Kingsford.  He had also read extensively the works of Levi
     and the alchemists.  S.L. MacGregor Mathers (1854-1918), a
     London commercial clerk, was a friend of Westcott's and
     shared his absorption in the occult.  He studied Egyptology
     and other magical systems, including most of those touched
     upon in this brief history, and sythesized them with the
     Mackenzie manuscript into the basic tenets of their new
     occult fraternity.  For awhile the leaders claimed to have
     received their teachings and permission to found a new order
     from German Rosicurcian adept named Anna Sprengel.  But
     these allegations proved false.  The rites and rituals of
     the Golden Dawn owe their genesis to the geniuses of
     Westcott and Mathers.

     Various  branches were established in London, Paris, and
     Edinburgh.  However these organizations were plequed with
     internal disputes and the Order eventually dissolved.  Some
     believe that the disintegration occured because the
     initiates did not take care to protect themselves
     sufficiently from the powerful influences they invoked.
     According to Gareth Knight, Gerald Yorke, an author who
     wrote a history of the order declared that the protective
     training that failed to be assimilated by the initiates was:

     "the assumption that man has fallen from a condition of
     orinal grace which can only be remedied by a re-orientation
     of the will, in repentance and reconciliation, with God.
     Although lip service was given to this in certain teachings
     of the Golden Dawn there was unfortunately, a general and
     stronger tacit assumption that members of the Order were
     somewhat superior to the rest of the human race, and by
     virtue of secret ceremonies, knowledge and practices could
     elevate themselves to be considerably more superior."

     The importance of the Golden Dawn, besides teaching by
     example this lesson in human nature, is that the Order
     inspired many twentieth century occultists and thus played a
     significant role in the magical evolution of the present
     occult revival.  Interest in the teachings of the Golden
     Dawn has never flagged.