Golden Dawn Blog by Frater Yechidah

A commonly-asked question is if the Pentagram employed in the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram (LRP) is associated with the Element of Earth. There is much confusion about this, which is understandable, given the myriad sources on the matter, and often arguments emphatically for and against.  It may surprise some who have learned otherwise that the answer is actually yes (though with some nuances). While copies of the LRP given to Neophytes do not reference the Elements at all, calling these simply an "Invoking Pentagram" or "Banishing Pentagram" (which makes sense, given they have not yet experienced the Elemental Grades), Adept material does refer (either explicitly, or by intimation) to the LRP Pentagrams as being of Earth. For example, here is a description from Ritual B (Ritual of the Pentagram): "In the Invoking Pentagram of Earth the Current descendeth from the Spirit to the Earth. In the Banishing Pentagram the Current is reversed. The Sigil of [Taurus] s...

  DUBLIN, IRELAND – Kerubim Press, independent publisher of occult books, is proud to announce our latest publication, The Complete Knowledge Lectures & Side Papers of the Golden Dawn , the most thorough and authoritative version of the Outer Order curriculum of the original Order of the Golden Dawn to date, encompassing the grades from 0=0 through 4=7, marking the first time this material is fully and accurately available in print. If you think you’ve already read these papers, think again! Current published versions, in both print and online, are either the later Stella Matutina versions or are riddled with errors, missing entire sections and numerous diagrams, while some papers are rare or have never been published before (including the full instructions for the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram, which are not found in Regardie’s book). All of this is corrected in this new, comprehensive edition. Additionally, Frater Yechidah has painstakingly compared numerou...

Many people wonder why the various names used in the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram were chosen over other alternatives, particularly when it comes to a name like AGLA, a notariqon of Atah Gibor leh-Olam Adonai ("Thou art mighty forever, O Lord."), which appears to have largely been selected because it has four letters. It is not difficult to understand the idea that since there are four directions, and thus there must be four names, that this motif would be continued in the formation of the names themselves. It is, after all, a continuation of the mystery of YHVH, the first name employed. But there is another reason that these must be four-letter names. If we look at the Hebrew names for the four directions, we have the following: Mazrach (מזרח) for East, Darom (דרום) for South, Ma'arav (מערב) for West, and Tzaphon (צפון) for North. The astute student will immediately notice that these are all four-letter names. Thus the most resonant names for the four...

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...