That particular point is one that I often run in to disagreement on, so that is to be expected. Perhaps we have different understandings of what an egregore is, although I find nobody ever has the same thing in mind. It can be associated with a space, but also with a whole tradition, or even a person in my experience. People create their own egregores all the time.
Rituals are like chemical formulae or musical chords, if you change even one part you are going to get a different result. Some may think otherwise, I am not going to tell anyone they're wrong, but it's not how I've come to understand it.
You can connect with the universal archetypes of the symbols without necessarily hitting the exact configuration for that particular egregore. I'm just of the impression that only actual initiates of the Golden Dawn would know the correct form that links to the egregore of the temple.
This isn't to look down on other versions or their potential, just more of a mechanic.
The Ciceros have created a whole path of "self-initiation" which by tradition isn't considered possible, so there's been lots of disagreement on these points. I wouldn't be one to say who is right or wrong.
I guess, like Ra, I believe the egregore of such groups like the Golden Dawn or Rosicrucians or Freemasons, etc, are narrowband and not so easily tapped in to.
Those books could be considered books on bidding for sure, although as you note they weren't actually written by any of them, only translated. However, the members of GD have been of all sorts of individuals. Some have been much more traditionalist than others, so it's not really right to talk about GD "as a whole" in my mind because ultimately it has been a fraternity made up of people. The Sacred Magic of Abramelin is a peculiar case though, on one hand you could think of it as bidding, but since the ultimate goal is to banish the entities from your life rather than gain power of control over them it's a bit murky where that would fall exactly. It's more like an elaborate GTFO.
That being said, while Mathers was one of the founding members, I believe Dr. Wescott had more to do with the actual coursework than Mathers, and indeed Mathers' defense of Crowley may have been the original temple's undoing. There's no doubt that when magical personalities converge together it can sometimes expand out of control.
Rituals are like chemical formulae or musical chords, if you change even one part you are going to get a different result. Some may think otherwise, I am not going to tell anyone they're wrong, but it's not how I've come to understand it.
You can connect with the universal archetypes of the symbols without necessarily hitting the exact configuration for that particular egregore. I'm just of the impression that only actual initiates of the Golden Dawn would know the correct form that links to the egregore of the temple.
This isn't to look down on other versions or their potential, just more of a mechanic.
The Ciceros have created a whole path of "self-initiation" which by tradition isn't considered possible, so there's been lots of disagreement on these points. I wouldn't be one to say who is right or wrong.
I guess, like Ra, I believe the egregore of such groups like the Golden Dawn or Rosicrucians or Freemasons, etc, are narrowband and not so easily tapped in to.
Those books could be considered books on bidding for sure, although as you note they weren't actually written by any of them, only translated. However, the members of GD have been of all sorts of individuals. Some have been much more traditionalist than others, so it's not really right to talk about GD "as a whole" in my mind because ultimately it has been a fraternity made up of people. The Sacred Magic of Abramelin is a peculiar case though, on one hand you could think of it as bidding, but since the ultimate goal is to banish the entities from your life rather than gain power of control over them it's a bit murky where that would fall exactly. It's more like an elaborate GTFO.
That being said, while Mathers was one of the founding members, I believe Dr. Wescott had more to do with the actual coursework than Mathers, and indeed Mathers' defense of Crowley may have been the original temple's undoing. There's no doubt that when magical personalities converge together it can sometimes expand out of control.