The Golden Dawn
“being a satanist, why would you study golden dawn material ? are the two philosophies similar in some aspect that would allow the their different approaches to magic to work in harmony? please enlighten me on that. – dirk”
I did not seek to learn about the Golden Dawn [hereafter, refered to as the GD] with the intention to see how it related to the practices of satanism. What I did find is that there are some elements which are similar, such as the Hermetic elements and cardinal directions that are used in Satanic Ritual. I found that the rituals and methods of the GD were a middle-path practice, compared to Satanism which is a left-hand path practice.
Some of the rituals were method of assuming god-forms so that a transformation can occur. It is a type of magic that is focused on theurgy, which is a method of invoking gods for the use of magic. The same thing could be done in satanism, invoking a god or a demon in order to produce magic results. One way that the GD influenced occultism is through the grade system, a heirarchy that has rituatls for steps along the way. Some satanic orders have adopted heirarchal systems like this.
One aspect of the GD that might interest some Satanists is the study of the Qliphoth which is covered within some of the GD materials, and through Crowley’s Liber 231. And if that weren’t enough the GD had created a system of magic associations that are used by many magicians in their work. Crowley also expanded on this idea with Liber 777, another reference that is used by different kinds of magicians.
The study of the GD was important to me because it enabled me to have an expanded view into the history of magic and i learned about the inflence of Hermetics on occultism.I also wanted to study methods of ritual magic and the GD methods are, for the most part, ritualistic. I think that Satanists shouldnt be afraid to explore other stystems of magic from an academic point of view to that a greater understanding of occultism can be acheived.
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About The Author
Venus Satanas
My name is Venus Satanas and this is a bit of copy about me. I have been a Satanist since 1992, and I am the author of SpiritualSatanist.com, author and administrator of the Left Hand Path Books Review Blog, and creator of educational videos on Satanism at Youtube. That's not telling you much, so find out more about me here
I also am interested in this topic as i am going through an inner-conflict where i cant seem to get away from Christianity yet i can see occultism in Christianity and wish take the GD path. Something you forgot to mention is that the type of magic practiced by the GD has one purpose – Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.
You were mistaken about many things in your video. There are many Golden Dawn orders today, for example the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the outer order of the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega, descending directly from S.L. MacGregor Mathers. You can find us at http://www.golden-dawn.com
I recently got ahold of that enormous book that you showed in your video about the GD. One memorable quote in the introduction is:
“One of
the great messages of the New Age is that of eclecticism – if it works, use it!”
As a Satanist I abide by this philosophy in most cases. I don’t refuse to study christian materials simply because i’m not christian.