Golden Dawn Blog by Frater Yechidah

The Sigils of the Scales form an integral part of the symbol set employed by the Golden Dawn, combining with the Colours of the Scales to help pinpoint specific worlds, powers, and energies. Yet public knowledge of them has been limited, thanks to them being omitted from Regardie's tome, resulting in a major piece of the Order's corpus being left out of many people's work. So, what are the Sigils of the Scales? Here is an example of them below, from at the back of the Tarot papers of G.D. member M.W. Blackden (dated 7 June, 1899): (An aside: the Scales of Prince and Princess are sometimes referred to as Emperor and Empress respectively, while the list here names them in relation to the traditional Court Cards. The Prince Scale is also sometimes referred to as the Child Scale, or Scale of the Children of the Forces.) Like many parts of the G.D. corpus, we do not know their exact origin (indeed, Florence Farr seems to have looked for this elsewhere, at least in relation to th...

After the schism of 1900, Edward William Berridge (Resurgam) took over the London branch of the Order loyal to Mathers. This has been documented previously in some history books and online timelines as the "Isis Temple", and many have assumed that this was a new Temple, particularly with information suggesting it was "No. 11". The problem with this assumption is that there is contradicting evidence, which suggests it was actually still called "Isis-Urania", and thus was likely seen as a continuation of the Temple No. 3 founded in 1888 (Temples No. 1 and 2 being fictional). Consider, for example, the reverse of a surviving Admission Badge from this Temple, dated Sep 1910: Another example from the same collection (currently held in The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Cornwall, England):   Both clearly show "Isis-Urania-Temple". There are numerous other examples of this.   Further, on 18 January and 22 February 1902, letters by Resurgam (Berridge)...

The topic of the place of the Holy Guardian Angel in the Golden Dawn system has been raised numerous times, largely due to the fact that Mathers published what is seen by many as the seminal text on the subject, The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage , plus the popularisation of the concept through Aleister Crowley. The question, however, is whether this term and idea applies to the teachings of the Golden Dawn. Firstly, let us look at the term itself. Abra-Melin uses various terms interchangeably: "Holy Guardian Angel", "Guardian Angel", "Holy Angel", or, in some cases, just "Angel", all referring to the same thing. This is usually referred to today by most as simply "Holy Guardian Angel". However, in his Introduction, Mathers only ever uses the term "Guardian Angel". Neither the term “Holy Guardian Angel” nor "Guardian Angel" is overtly used, to my knowledge, in any original G.D. material. There is a S...

Pre-order The Complete Golden Dawn Tarot Deck DUBLIN, IRELAND – Kerubim Press, independent publisher of occult books, is proud to announce our latest project, The Complete Golden Dawn Tarot Deck , the most complete and accurate version of the Order’s Tarot designs to date. If you think you’ve already seen these designs, think again! Not only have many of the original drawings of the Major Arcana not been rendered accurately in published books or decks, but many of the higher Path cards have not been drawn to match the designs given by Mathers. Indeed, other decks have typically gone in vastly differently directions to the way the Golden Dawn deck was supposed to go. Spearheading this project is Frater Yechidah, who has been working quietly on these designs for a number of years. With his signature serious and detailed research (as proven by his previous projects in this area) and an aptitude for spotting the trails left behind by Mathers and company, Yechidah looks to...