Path: shell.portal.com!svc.portal.com!uunet!in2.uu.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!mbha.demon.co.uk From: Mark Ryan Newsgroups: alt.occult.kabbalah.golden-dawn Subject: Re: What is Golden Dawn? Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 20:47:30 GMT Lines: 70 Approved: dave@mbha.demon.co.uk Message-ID: <9603262047.ao08531@news.demon.net> X-NNTP-Posting-Host: mbha.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-Path: mbha.demon.co.uk In article <4isvep$gu0@news.berk.net>, jack writes: |> Adam Wasserman wrote: |> |> >I have run accross refernces to GD in books and magazines that I read, but |> >have no clear picture as to what the nature of the discipline is. |> |> >Could anybody post a GD-for-beginners article? |> |> >Adam |> >-- |> >no .sig (sigh) |> |> the G.D.)Golden Dawn) was at the end of the ninteenh century a secret |> socity of adepts(magians) wich included among others Aliester |> Crolwley, S.L. Mcgregor Mathers and t T.S Eliot(to name but a few) |> alot of there teachings were handed down to other systems dow the |> years,such notables as the late Isreal Regardie wrote a 4 set book |> called " THE GOLDEN DAWN", also a tarot deack also called the golden |> dawn deck released publickly after regardies death(problab;y the most |> complete deck since crowleys thoth deck Acutally, I think you mean Y.B. Yeats, not T.S. Eliot. Eliot would have disapproved, if he had been born at the time. Yeats's Order name was D.E.D.I. (Daemon Est Deus Inversus). He belonged to the G.D. and its successor the for at least 20 years. For more on Yeats and the G.D., see -- The Unicorn by Viginia Moore The Mystery Religion of W.B. Yeats by Graham Hough Some other notable G.D. members: Maude Gonne -- Irish Actress George Russell (AE)-- Irish poet and artist Arthur Edward Waite -- Englist occultist (and author of the Tarot deck incorrectly attributed, above) Dr. Wynn Westcott -- English pathologist and occultist Sources for G.D. tradition, from oldest to newest-- Egyptian magical papyrii -- mostly just Egyptian trappings for rituals The Hermetic tradition -- many ideas, especially that of correspondence between microcosm/macrocosm Jewish mysticism (the Kaballah, etc.) -- heavily drawn on for system of correspondences and paths, including degrees of initiation Neo-Platonism -- Great Chain of Being, reincarnation Rosicrucianism -- used for rituals, symbols Renaissance speculation (e.g., Giorgano Bruno, Ficcino) Dr. Dee's Enochian system, "Angelic" language "Grimoire" magical manuals 18th and 19th Century magicians, e.g., Eliphas Levi 19th Century spritualism Anybody who can find any practical use for this disreputable hodgepodge of ideas has my admiration. Somehow, the G.D. founders (the real ones, Mathers and Westcott, not the fictitious Frauline Sprengle of Germany) managed to make it all hang together, at least enough to capture the interest of a guy like Yeats, who was no fool. In fact, Yeats was asked to leave Madam Blavatsky's group ("Theosophists") because he was given to making practical experiments... Later, he used much of the G.D. doctrine in his own system described in "A Vision," and said to have inspired or influenced dmuch of his later poetry. Despite this, a lot of the G.D. is the most outrageous claptrap and balderdash. Questions: Is there anything of value in all this stuff? If so, what is it: esthetic, mythological, psychological, philisophical--or what? If not, why does the subject keep croping up every few hundred years, and why does it interest so many otherwise intellegent people? Lastly, why is the current crop of "New Age" devotees so much less organized and talented than their counterparts 100 years ago?