Monday, May 20, 2013

"The occult orders are full mostly of people who are for the time being in revolt against or not at home with Christianity." (Was/Is the Golden Dawn Christian?)

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"Theorists have not been at a loss to explain; but they differ."
Book Four, Part One

It has been observed that the groups and individuals comprising the Western Mystery Tradition can be roughly divided into two streams according to their relationship with Christianity: (1) those whose beliefs and practices are (at most) "only Christian in that they contain some Christianity but do not stress it", as opposed to (2) those who are "primarily Christian but draw on other pre-Christian sources."

The words in quotes are attributed to Gerald Yorke by way of Kathleen Raine's 1969 article Yeats, the Tarot, and the Golden Dawn. So far as I know, Raine's article is the only source for this quote, which she states is from a letter written by Yorke.

Here is the full text of the footnote from Raine's paper containing the quote:

On the question of the degree to which the Society was Christian the experts differ. Mr. Geoffrey Watkins believes that it was strongly so from the first. Mr. Gerald Yorke that A.E. Waite who rewrote the ritual extensively when he broke away from the original Order, was mainly responsible for the Christianization. "Where the G.D. called itself a Hermetic Order, Waite called his version a Roscirucian Order, and the Rosicrucians were always more Christian than the Hermetists. In the original G.D. the Christianized Rosicrucian material did not come until the 5=6 degree in the Inner Order. Here for the first time you find the Calvary cross, but with a rose on it instead of the figure of Christian." This quote from a letter fro Mr Yorke; who further writes: "Now Hermetic Orders as such are only Christian in that they include some Christianity but do not stress it. Rosicrucian orders on the other hand are primarily Christian but draw on other pre-Christian sources. In other words the Hermetists always try to become God in his anthropomorphic or in some instances theriomorphic form. They inflame themselves with prayer until they become Adonai the Lord ... whereas the Christian approached God the Father through Christ (Adonai) but never tried to become Christ, only to become as Christ. Thus the Hermetic (or pagan) approach is as Adonai to order the averse hierarchy about, the Roscirucian approach is to order them about through the grace of Christ or through the power of His name ... Now the G.D. used the pagan formule, the Hermetic formulae and pre- or non-Christian names of power, take from the Hebrew, Greek, Coptic, Egyptian and Chaldean sources. The Rosicrucian substitutes names from the Christian system, from the Christian Trinity, etc. Both systems combine when it comes to the archangels Gabriel, Uriel, Michael and Raphael. They also agree on the Cherubim, Seraphim, etc. The G.D. way of becoming the god is the dangerous one, as it leads at once to inflated ego, witness Mathers and Crowley, et al. The occult orders are full mostly of people who are for the time being in revolt against or not at home with Christianity. When they find that the occult, Hermetic pre-Christian way of doing things at its best is no better than the Christian way, they often find their final home back in Christianity or in Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism. For the major religions are major because they have stood the test of time better. Thus my conclusion is that the Hermetic way of the Golden Dawn is primarily Hermetic and not Christian, since it is reverting to pre-Christian methods and attitudes, but some of the members will have done it all in a Christian way way. I am fairly certain that these were the minority at any given moment and seldom remained in the Order all their lives. But this of course is a personal opinion."

I quote this valuable opinion of Mr. Yorke for the light it throws on the impoderables of an ambience, and emphasis within an Order at best ambiguous. Mr. Watkins's view of the predominance of the Christian emphasis may be founded on the fact that two of the founder-members (not Mathers) were members of the English Rosicrucian Order. As regards Yeats, we must be left wondering, as Thomas Butts wondered about Blake, whether his angels were black, white, or gray; but the colour of the angels themselves may perhaps lie in the eye of the beholder. In any case, from a Catholic point of view the Oder of the G.D. would stand condemned if only on the grounds of the vow of secrecy imposed upon its members.

In my own (decidely inexpert) opinion, the Golden Dawn was so unstable and short-lived precisely because its members included partisans of both camps, as well as others who wavered between the two. And the long term influence of the G. D. might also be due to this chimeric quality, which allows would-be adepts the freedom to project their own attitudes concerning the cult of Jebus onto the theological Rorschach test that was the original Golden Dawn.


7 comments:

Imperator David Griffin said...

How fascinating that you publish this article now. In reality, this debate continues in the Golden Dawn community even until today. In fact, I just finished an aritcle on this very subject only yesterday, provoked by another Golden Dawn leader arguing that the Golden Dawn is essentially Christian.

Articles like his, as well as the one you quote from, I find quite disturbing as a Pagan, because they merely perpetuate the false belief among many Pagans that the Golden Dawn is not a valid option for Pagans seeking Magical training.

This is certainly not the case in the Pagan led, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, outer order of the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha Omega, where we have an entirely Pagan Egyptian College as well as a traditional Golden Dawn one.

I would highly recommend that you read my latest article, entitled:

SRIA or Alpha Omega: Is the Golden Dawn Christian or Nonsectarian?

at:

http://hermetic-golden-dawn.blogspot.com/2013/05/sria-or-alpha-omega-is-golden-dawn_19.html

Golden Dawn Imperator
David Griffin

Anonymous said...

Great article!

I downloaded A.E. Waite's, "Book Of Ceremonial Magic" (I think that was the title), hoping to learn about fin de siecle Paganism and ceremonial magic.

What I did find was lots of stuff that any modern Christian witch would likely practice.

Aetius

Apuleius Platonicus said...

David, I personally don't accept the magical/mystical dichotomy that plays a very important role in your analysis. Other than that, though, we obviously agree that Wildoak is misrepresenting the G.D. tradition, and, more broadly, that he seriously misrepesents the whole history of Western occultism/esotericism by denying the central role of "Pagan" survivals in pretty much all forms of Magic, Mysticism, Occultism, etc, throughout the last 2,000 years of western history. The Pagan influence is even quite prominent in those forms of occultism that are overtly and even aggressively Christian. Take Wildoak, for example. Here is an admitted, and even proud Christian (worse still, an Anglican) whose latest book has the Goddess Isis on the cover, and whose title sounds intentionally idolatrous. And in his own self-congratulatory description of the book on his website (http://magicoftheordinary.wordpress.com/by-names-and-images/), Wildoak never, not even once, mentions Christianity! Nor does Christianity ever once come up in the discussion of the book in the comments section on that page.

In the book itself, Wildoak states of the G.D. "The order itself was not Christian. Throughout the ceremonies and rituals, a great many non-Christian deities are invoked ..."! This shows that Wildoak is at least smart enough to realize that he needs to downplay the whole Christian thing when he trying to sell books.

Apuleius Platonicus said...

Hi Aetius! Yeah, I, too, have "been there, done that" with Waite.

Imperator David Griffin said...

Dear Apuleius,

I am rather astonished that Peregrin has finally admitted his conversion to Anglican Christianity in 2011.

In my dealings with Peregrin since 2011 in debating the survival of essential remnants of ancient Paganism, Peregrin has rhetorically posed as Pagan and as an impartial champion of academic truth, while claiming that academia has definitively disproven any and all ancient Pagan survival.

Peregrin's rhetorical position has all along been that of a trojan horse, attempting to debunk any and all Pagan survival as a settled matter proven by academia. He loves to quote Hutton's early positions while writing in a voice that appears Pagan so as to get his message through to Neo-Pagan ears.

I have called Peregrin out on this over and over - and in reply - Peregrin has repeatedly denied his Christianity.

I am glad that Peregrin at least is now finally out of the closet once and for all as a Christian.

All of his previous, propaganda-like articles attacking Pagan survival now finally make perfect sense.

I anxiously await Peregrin's rationalization for his continued practice of MAGIC, which is by condemned by Christianity as a mortal sin, and even grounds for excomminication.

More importantly, why on earth does Peregrin write books like "By Names and Images" promoting Magic judged Satanic by other Christians?

David Griffin

Apuleius Platonicus said...

I cannot speculate on Wildoak's motivations, but my own opinion is that Magic, and Black Magic (in the truest sense) in particular, has always been at the heart of Christianity. The whole enterprise of Christianity appears to be based, and rather explicitly so, on the malevolent spiritual technology of soul-harvesting. When looked at this way, the Christian attitude toward Pagan Magic is simply a very obvious case of what the Jungians call "projection". Since they are themselves purely Black Magicians dedicated to the corruption of human souls, they automatically assume that all magic is like that. To be clear, I am not suggesting that Wildoak is himself a sinister Black Magician. It is more likely that he is just a pompous fraud. But one never knows.

Imperator David Griffin said...

Apuleius Platonicus writes in reference to Peregrin Wildoak's "By Names and Images":

"Here is an admitted, and even proud Christian (worse still, an Anglican) whose latest book has the Goddess Isis on the cover, and whose title sounds intentionally idolatrous...And in his own self-congratulatory description of the book on his website, Wildoak never, not even once, mentions Christianity! Nor does Christianity ever once come up in the discussion of the book in the comments section on that page.... In the book itself, Wildoak states of the G.D. "The order itself was not Christian. Throughout the ceremonies and rituals, a great many non-Christian deities are invoked ..."! This shows that Wildoak is at least smart enough to realize that he needs to downplay the whole Christian thing when he trying to sell books."

It shows even more than that. With this book Peregrin seeks to create an ethos of Pagan authority in the service of a crypto-Christian hidden agenda. Paregrin's true mothves are now apparent.