Order of the Golden Dawn

[Matt1]

No, I don't believe there is any "official" lineage although there are plenty of claims. Although Regardie wasn't a member of the original Golden Dawn the Stella Matutina is consider a "successor" organization and so holding the inheritance of the original Golden Dawn. When the group disbanded he received all of the materials and information and hence the book, The Golden Dawn, was born. Many modern groups only go up to Adeptus Minor because that's only as far as Regardie got and there is some debate surrounding the higher grades.

I was just on "http://www.golden-dawn.com" and on their main page now they claim to have the rites and rituals to attain Ipissimus 

... For the first time ever, the complete, 3 order Golden Dawn Magick System is available to anyone who is bold enough and dedicated enough to learn it...
 
You no longer have to end your Magickal training at Minor Adept,
as has been the case for 100 years.

The Secret Masters have finally revealed the rites and rituals
to attain even Ipsissimus (10=1) ...


And he goes on to explain why, etc. I wonder what those of you who know more about this than I think about this. 

I have had a look at this order when i was interested in the GD but i found them to be fairly gimmicky based upon the way they present themselves online and through video media. It almost comes across as a sales pitch rather than an pathway to spiritual initiation. That being said i have no real connection with the order and cannot give any detailed view, but normally the first signs are often fairly telling.

If you are interested in joining an order you could perhaps try and look into the Builders of Adytum or the Servants of Light, they are fairly well developed schools based upon my research, coming from a Paul Foster Case linage and an Dion Fortune linage. You also have the Regardie linage coming from the Cicero's and the O.T.O from Crowley.

I was a member of the SOL for a short time, i found them to be fairly professional and the correspondence course offered looked detailed, they offer mentor correspondence courses online. If it is the Kabbalah you are most interested in for archetypal study, i recall Will Partiff offering an correspondence course , i found his book highly accessible and modern in comparison to some of the older Textbooks based from the Victorian age or some that are stuck in that rhetoric.

The SOL course is does come with a Christian bias though.

[Sabou]

No, I don't believe there is any "official" lineage although there are plenty of claims. Although Regardie wasn't a member of the original Golden Dawn the Stella Matutina is consider a "successor" organization and so holding the inheritance of the original Golden Dawn. When the group disbanded he received all of the materials and information and hence the book, The Golden Dawn, was born. Many modern groups only go up to Adeptus Minor because that's only as far as Regardie got and there is some debate surrounding the higher grades.

I was just on "http://www.golden-dawn.com" and on their main page now they claim to have the rites and rituals to attain Ipissimus 

... For the first time ever, the complete, 3 order Golden Dawn Magick System is available to anyone who is bold enough and dedicated enough to learn it...
 
You no longer have to end your Magickal training at Minor Adept,
as has been the case for 100 years.

The Secret Masters have finally revealed the rites and rituals
to attain even Ipsissimus (10=1) ...


And he goes on to explain why, etc. I wonder what those of you who know more about this than I think about this. 

I have had a look at this order when i was interested in the GD but i found them to be fairly gimmicky based upon the way they present themselves online and through video media. It almost comes across as a sales pitch rather than an pathway to spiritual initiation. That being said i have no real connection with the order and cannot give any detailed view, but normally the first signs are often fairly telling.

If you are interested in joining an order you could perhaps try and look into the Builders of Adytum or the Servants of Light, they are fairly well developed schools based upon my research, coming from a Paul Foster Case linage and an Dion Fortune linage. You also have the Regardie linage coming from the Cicero's and the O.T.O from Crowley.

I was a member of the SOL for a short time, i found them to be fairly professional and the correspondence course offered looked detailed, they offer mentor correspondence courses online. If it is the Kabbalah you are most interested in for archetypal study, i recall Will Partiff offering an correspondence course , i found his book highly accessible and modern in comparison to some of the older Textbooks based from the Victorian age or some that are stuck in that rhetoric.

The SOL course is does come with a Christian bias though.

I feel the same way, their home page is now essential a sales pitch and that makes me a bit hesitant. They also state that they are the only true continuation of the Golden Dawn and how he has a nice big house, The partner of his dreams and a jaguar sports car because of the work (which is fine) but, that is not what I'm there for. 

I did look at the SOL and Will Parfitt's course and they look promising. SOL stood out to me right away, though after looking at the price being in pounds and the Canadian dollar being only worth half of that, they are not cheap In the slightest. 

[BlatzAdict]

i find it hard to say that the discipline is there, i always believe these groups to want money more than actual true spiritual attainment.

i remember hearing about a group that didn't require meeting in the astral but instead you just needed to sign a form and do a ritual.

i don't like or agree with that style of doing.. really cheapens the experience. in my opinion.

[Matt1]

My opinion on the WMT is that its always been booked based. The original Jewish Kabbalah is booked based with the Zohar and this knowledge was then developed into a syncretic philosophy by Giovanni Mirandola. The majority of the Occult understandings we have in the west originate from Heinrich Agrippa a student of Mirandola's work. If we look at the Golden Dawn it seems to be based upon the personal research of freemasons/rosicrucians rather than any direct linage to an order. I don't believe a subject as fringe as the occult cant truly have any authority like some of these orders claim.

It is my belief that the study of the Kabbalah and Magic in the western tradition does not need to be done through an order but can be done by personal research and experimentation as this has been the way it has been developed since the original translations of mystical texts from antiquity in the middle ages. That being said i do think that an order can create a group mind effect which will allow perhaps for a greater success or quicker development, but surely the bulk of all spiritual work is done privately by ones self.

I see the Golden Dawn as simply the hard work and experimentation of a group of spiritual seekers. If we understand the basics of magic, in my understanding this can be said as the development and use of, the Will, Desire, imagination, polarity ,faith to create changes in consciousness in conformity with ones will in a way that is not commonly accepted by academic science.

The reason the Kabbalah seems to have been used from my research is that it becomes like a filing system or a coat hanger for all meta-knowledge and meta-data which can then be contemplated and practically used with various esoteric techniques which have been taken from spiritual practices from around the world.

Ra said that the basic work of the white magician is to develop visualization skills and the foundation was to still the mind in meditation. If we then look at this from a technical view point it be said that the simple practice of concentration on an subject such as the breath and then to use that development of will onto a desired goal or objective outcome would be a work of magic. You could say then that the single pointedness of coherency is the key. What starts out as desire becomes will which becomes faith which then is directed in the minds eye and the outcome is the polarization in consciousness towards the given service to others or self.

Now that i think about it, its nothing really more intensive than law of attraction. Its simply a more developed use of it. I just think it takes a life times or multi able incarnations for it to work rather than any over the top philosophy or hierarchical order.