Golden Dawn Blog by Frater Yechidah

For the first two parts of my LRP analysis, see here and here . The closing lines of the LRP, before the final QC, have been the cause of much debate and are the only part of the ritual that seems to have changed in the hands of different magicians over the years. Thus, today there are multiple variations of these lines, from the original "Before me flames the pentagram and behind me shines the six-rayed star" to the Crowley version of "For about me flames the pentagram and in the column shines the six-rayed star", and some slight variations of the two. All of them are perfectly valid, and there are justifications, usually in the form of gematria, for them all. This post will explore some of the variations and the reasoning behind them. First there is the original format employed in both the GD and SM and printed in Regardie's The Golden Dawn : "Before me flames the pentagram, and behind me shines the six-rayed star". On the surface this does not make...

In the second part of my LRP analysis I posted an image at the end of what I termed the "Breastplate of the LRP". It combines the four Divine Names into a small 4X4 Table, and, according to my meditations, relates to God as the Tetragrammaton (YHVH) ruling over the Twelve Tribes of Israel (the twelve remaining squares). At the time of sharing this image I had not yet figured out which Tribe would be assigned to which letter, but on a casual glance at the Tribes of Israel & the Zodiac Signs lecture given by Mathers for the Philosophus grade (later employed in Zelator in the Stella Matutina) I came to an interesting conclusion. This lecture gives a table of the 12 zodiac signs, the Twelve Tribes, 12 relevant angels, and the 12 permutations of YHVH. What I'm interested in here is the permutations, as they offer the key to assigning the Tribes to the Tablet given above. The astute reader may immediately notice something about the above table (barring the ...

For the first part of my LRP analysis, see here . Next we have the four four-letter names of God, used in the four quarters to charge the pentagrams. Firstly, this is an obvious reference to the four directions, the four winds, the four elements, and the four ancient figurative pillars of the world/universe (and their counterparts within the aura of the magician). It also hints at the four-fold nature of Malkuth, and thus represents the physical world. It has been pointed out before in many articles on this ritual that the Lesser Pentagram utilised in the traditional LRP is designed to invoke energy into or banish energy from the the four sub-quarters of Malkuth (represented by the four colours of this Sephirah: citrine = air, olive = water, russet = fire, black = earth), and thus the four four-letter names of God affirm this role. However, it also hints at stability, since the geometic figure of four is the square, the most solid of them all. This solidity and stability is thus a...

The LRP (Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram), in both its invoking and banishing forms, is the primary ritual employed by Golden Dawn magicians and comprised almost the entirety of traditional Outer Order magic (the rest being left for Portal and Inner Order). It was given to the newly initiated Neophyte 120 years ago, and is probably the most commonly used ritual in the magical community today, utilised by thousands inside and outside the Golden Dawn sphere. But what exactly does it do ? "It invokes or banishes," is the simple and limited answer, but this only explores one aspect of the ritual; and even if we were to merely explore this, what does it invoke or banish, and how? First, let us look at the pentagram itself, the signet-star of the ritual. It is a star of five points ( penta = five), which is most often depicted as referring to the four elements (Earth, Air, Water, Fire) and the quintessence, the fifth "element" of Spirit. Spirit is dominant when the pentag...