Golden Dawn Blog by Frater Yechidah

A widely-shared view of the goal and method of the Golden Dawn's Outer Order, in particular, but also the system as a whole — which I have also shared at one point — is to improve the self, to go through an alchemical process of change (often seen today in psychological terms), which typically involves breaking down one's life, one's fears, one's desires, one's weaknesses, and one's strengths, into Elemental aspects, which are then explored, strengthened, addressed, or balanced in each of the Elemental Grades (at least from the modern perspective). While entirely admirable, and not without a measure of success — as experienced by many who have followed this approach — this conflicts with some of the official instructions given on how the Order (at least in its original incarnation, and subsequent form in the A.O.) approached things. Consider, for example, this extract from Flying Roll XX ("The Constitution of Man", a lecture delivered on 23 September 1...

As we remember the suffering of the Jews, and other minorities, at the hands of the Nazis, let us also consider that members of esoteric societies were also persecuted, and often were seen as a political threat to Hitler. As many as 200,000 Freemasons are believed to have been murdered by the Nazis, and Hitler issued orders to ban and dissolve Freemasonic lodges, as well as "Freemason-like organisations," including the Golden Dawn and the OTO. Freemasons were forced to wear an inverted red triangle in concentration camps, marking them as political prisoners. On a list of almost 50 "forbidden organisations," issued in 1936, we see the following: Hermetischer Orden der Goldenen Dämmerung This is German for "Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn." Of course, by this stage the original Order no longer existed, but the name still had a powerful resonance, and there were several temples from the various offshoots still active. Wherever ther...

In celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the consecration of the Vault of the Adepti of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn by Francis Israel Regardie... The ages pass like crumpled pages in a book, Some still pristine within the annals of our mind; A century to come and go is all it took For much of magic to be lost, and now we find That somehow it is here again for us to know. The birthright of our hungered spirit lingers still, The fruit of inner trees we weather, nurse and sow That we might come in contact with our higher will. The light glows stronger now, despite time's leaden hold; The magi stir from deep within their temple tombs — What once was but a metal has become fair gold, And where an ancient garden was, a rose now blooms.