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| The Demise of the Golden Dawn by Richard Collet |
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| (Page 1) (Page 2) (Page 3) (Page 4) | The Great success of the Golden Dawn, a Hermetic society presenting the mystical Kabbalah, Alchemy, Astrology, Tarot, the medieval occult sciences, and Gnostic and Neoplatonic philosophy; in a systematic and organized manner, was that it found an eager audience and never had fewer than 300 members during the decade 1890-1900. It brought about the current interest in Tarot and Astrology, as well as certain kinds of New Age and ‘channeled’ literature. It presented the greatest single challenge to Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society, even allowing that many were members of both. Great Britain, having conquered India, found itself being ‘invaded’ by very profound, subtle Indian systems of theology, philosophy and yoga. The Golden Dawn set out to present a ‘western’ path of self-discovery and spiritual growth.
Even with the publication of WB Yeats’ pamphlet “Is the Golden Dawn to Remain a Magical Order?” the process which would lead to its fissuring into several sects was well under way. The overbearing manner of Mathers, who claimed sole linkage and audience with the Secret Chiefs (the Golden Dawn’s equivalent of the Transcendent masters, the Great White Brotherhood, or the Mahatmas of Theosophy) lead to his alienation and increasing isolation from key persons within his Order. I think Mathers did have psychic linkage with certain Chiefs of some kind, but they were minor Spirits, and were ultimately unreliable. Both his absolute certainty and his disregard of social skills pointed to this.
Yeats advised remaining loyal to Mathers through the breakup period, seeing this the best of several unfortunate options. But the disparate elements within the order, continued to move apart. Yeats wasn’t interested in the GD’s historical authority, but in its methods.
The current opinion among scholars of this period is that it was Mathers’ overbearing, dictatorial manner which lead to the Golden Dawns breakup. Of the various factions, Felkins Lodge, Stella Matutina (Morning-Star), went on a psychic search for the Sun Masters. Brodie-Innes’ Amen-Ra #6 in Edinburgh gave rise to the Cromlech Solar Temple. Florence Farr and Alan Bennett went off to Sri Lanka to practice yoga and Buddhism. Waite, who brought Tarot to popular culture with his beautiful Pre-Raphaelite deck, purged all magical work from his new ‘Holy Order of the Golden Dawn:’ Egyptian Gods were purged, replaced by Christian Angels. Another branch from MorningStar became the Guild of St Raphael, a healing society absorbed into the Church of England. And other factions went in other directions.
But my studies discovered other, more subtle but more powerful mistakes, which date back to the very theoretical foundations of the Order itself. What I wish to explain is the impact of moving 5 of the 7 planetary attributions of the Sephirot (Divine Emanations) of the traditional Kabbalistic Tree of Life. For example, the Moon was related to Malkuth, Clearly visible on Kircher’s 1652 Sephirothic Tree of Life diagram,(fig 1) Mercury assigned to Yesod on the central pillar, Venus to Hod and Mars to Netzach (victory). The Sun is assigned to Tiphereth, Jupiter to Chesed, and Saturn to Geburah (Pachad, fear). So moving the Moon to Yesod causes each subsequent planetary attribution to move up by one, so that Saturn is bumped up into Binah, one of the 3 Supernals, abandoning the other planets in Yetzirah. The new Golden Dawn assignments did not change Sun or Jupiter.
Saturn, isolated in Binah from the other planets left in Yetzirah could not do its important work of proper structuring, and discipline, in Skrying in the Spirit Vision, for example, and thus was lost to the Golden Dawn. The Sephirot Netzach, Victory, obviously Martian, became the home of Venus. Venus was moved up so Mercury had to be moved to Hod to take the place of Venus. And moving Mercury, the Androgyne, off of the central Tree Trunk or Pillar and over onto the Feminine Pillar to Hod, Glory, surrenders the insight of Mercury as the androgyne, the union of opposites, the Mysterium Coniunctionis.(1) It looses Mercury as both reconciler of opposites, and the primordial Divine union of the nature of these opposites, such as Christ and Lucifer before they were separated. Such a Divine union or restitution of incompatible opposites can only take place on the Central Pillar of the Tree of Life, because the Tree embraces everything, both good and evil.(Isaiah 45:7 and Amos 3:6) The Golden Dawn was thus severely hobbled from the beginning. The reconciliation of seemingly incompatible natures could not take place in it. | | | (Page 1) (Page 2) (Page 3) (Page 4) |
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