Inner Order Teachings of the Golden Dawn

271 Pages·2006·8.47 MB·English

by  Pat Zalewski

Inner Order
Teachings
of the
Golden Dawn
Inner Order
of the
Golden Dawn
Pat Zalewski
THOTH PUBLICATIONS
Loughborough, Leicestershire
Copyright O 2006 Pat Zalewski
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,
copied or transmitted save with written permission
of the Publisher, or in accordance with the
provision of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution
and civil claims for damages.
The Moral Rights of the Author have been asserted.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library.
Cover design by Tabatha Cicero
Additional diagrams by Tommy Westlund.
Printed and bound in Great Britain
Published by Thoth Publications
64, Leopold Street, Loughborough, LEI 1 5DN
First published 2006
ISBN-1 0 1-870450-48-5
ISBN-13 978-1- 870450-48-5
web address: www.thoth.co.uk
email: [email protected]
Contents
Introduction by Nick Farrell
Preface
CHAPTERO NE
The Universe
CHAPTER Two
The Table of Shewbread
CHAPTERT HREE
The Order of the Heptagram
CHAPTERF OUR
The Hermetic Cross
CHAPTERF M
Golden Dawn Alchemical teachings
CHAPTER SIX
Secret Teachings of the Zelator Grade
CHAPTERS MN
Practicus Adeptus Minor
CHAPTERE IGHT
Alchemy and the Tarot
CHAPTERN INE
The Moon and the Tarot
CHAPTER TEN
The Caduceus
Introduction
The resurrection of the Golden Dawn from moribund esoteric
curiosity to the living and working esoteric orders we see today,
has been the result of the work of very few people. That such a
few can have a key impact on the development of the spiritual
lives of thousands is a testament to their work, and the genius
behind the Golden Dawn tradition itself.
One of the main players behind this resurrection is Pat Zalewski,
who was one the first to show to the public that the Golden Dawn
is a complete system of magical training.
Unlike many who have come to the Golden Dawn system through
the books of Israel Regardie or Aleister Crowley, Pat trained under
some important magicians from the New Zealand Golden Dawn
temple Whare Ra. Not only did this Golden Dawn temple remain
vibrant after all the others collapsed, it offered its students some
of the best esoteric training ever seen. When it did finally die, in
the late 1970's some of its senior members went on to train others
in the tradition. Pat trained under Jack Taylor who was one of the
most experienced ritual magicians that Whare Ra produced.
Fortunately, I was able to see some of these Whare Ra magicians
in action, when I joined its side order, the Order of the Table Round.
Then, most of the ritual officers were ex-Whare Ra members
who applied their knowledge of initiation techniques to this different
ritual. While I have been a member of many different groups and
experienced many different initiations, I am yet to find a group
that could duplicate all that team of officers could do in a single
rite. That teaching I found when I read Pat's books for the first
time and it has been extremely useful for me in working my own
Golden Dawn group.
One thing that people should be aware of, the former adepts of
Whare Ra were not a loose lipped bunch. They took their oaths
extremely seriously and would not tell anyone anything unless the
person asked the right question or showed that they knew what
they were talking about. As a result, getting information out of
some of them was like getting blood out of a stone. The fact that
Pat managed to work with these people and gained their trust is an
indication of his stature.
Unfortunately a lot of these old Whare Ra adepts are dead now
and much of what Whare Ra has taught has been lost. In the case
of Whare Ra, much material was actually burnt by the chiefs when
the Order shut its doors. Fortunately, an esoteric order that stands
for 70 years leaves bits of paper everywhere, no matter how good
its esoteric security.
Pat was able to combine these, with the oral training he received
from the Whare Ra members, to make these teachings more than
just intellectual chewing gum.
When Pat started to write about the Golden Dawn system, there
were few who would have thought that they would see working
temples of the tradition. People sniffily said that now that the
Golden Dawn had all its rituals and papers published, its contacts
had withdrawn and its rites were meaningless.
Pat proved them wrong by setting up his own group in New
Zealand and, more to the point, it started to produce adepts. Pat's
work was mirrored by those in the US, including Chic and Tabatha
Cicero and the results were the same. Now there are countless
Golden Dawn temples working throughout the world, with more
members than the original founders could even dream of.
For many of the groups that started to work practically, it is
Pat's books that became 'must have' manuals.
However, as these groups evolved and their members started
attaining the higher grades, there appeared a slight problem that
many people were unaware of. What most people considered as
being Golden Dawn was actually only the outer order. The rites
that started at 0=0 and ended at 4=7 were only preparing the
candidate for more important work in the Rosicrucian based 'inner
order' which was called the Roseae Rubeae Et Aureae Crucis.
Since the largest amount of documentation about this order came
from one of its former members, Israel Regardie, we are limited
about what we know about this material, by what he knew or was
prepared to publish. Regardie only obtained the 5=6 grade and
there was much more work above that.
This has led some Golden Dawn groups to either create their
own material for an inner order, or look to other groups to provide
it with a ritual and teaching structure for the higher grades.
While the Regardie inner order material was not small, it is only
the tip of the iceberg for what was available. When a person
joined Whare Ra's inner order they were given a mountain of
papers and work to get on with. They were given a lot more
information in later grades.
However, Whare Ra was not just a paper based order. There
was a lot of oral and practical teaching that accompanied that
material. This not only unlocked the secrets of the Golden Dawn
system, it also provided the magician with a life time of esoteric
work.
In this book, Pat has provided both the unpublished paperwork
and the oral teachings that reflect, not only his lifetime's work in
the Golden Dawn, but the combined experience of Whare Ra's
best ritual magicians.
Studying this book will give many Golden Dawn groups a hint of
what it is like to be a working GD temple and, more importantly,
help evolve the deeper aspects of the tradition.
In releasing this material, Pat will no doubt attract the attention
of the Internet-based would-be Grand Magi of the Golden Dawn,
who, to justify their own lack of importance in the grand scheme
of things, will call him oath breaker or otherwise question his right
to publish such teachings. Over the years watching these types
attempting to make themselves gods with their vacuous
pontifications before their ephemeral and transient students, I can
only say that it is just as well that the tradition has some level
headed, straight talking people like Pat around to inspire it with
proper teaching materials. This book is exactly what you need if
you are practically working within the Golden Dawn tradition.
Nick Farrell
Sofia, Bulgaria
August 2005
Preface
W
hen I was first initiated into the Golden Dawn, Jack Taylor, a
former Hierophant of Whare Ra temple in New Zealand,
told me that he felt that the 5=6 level, as used by Whare Ra
and the Stella Matutina was barely adequate for further
advancement. Many of the teachings of the grades of 6=5 and
7=4 at Whare Ra were deficient. Minor lectures were handed out
with virtually no teaching other than on the mechanics and inner
mechanisms of ritual. While this was no small thing in itself it was
lacking some of the finer points.
In the Golden Dawn there were two levels of the 5=6. These
were the Zelator Adeptus Minor and the Theoricus Adeptus Minor
grades. Lectures for these were drawn up by Mathers and Westcott
and circulated to the Adepti. When the split in the Golden Dawn
occurred, then the Alpha et Omega temples continued with the
Mathers system of the sub-grades. The framework or structure
of them was simple. Zelator Adeptus Minor grades related to the
Neophyte Ritual. The Theoricus Adeptus Minor rank related to
the 1=10 Ritual and so on. The 4=7 ritual related to the Philosophus
Adeptus Minor Rank. The 6=5 grade studied the Portal and the
7=4 studied the 5=6 Ritual.
The basis for all the Mathers papers in this instance were lectures
on the Elemental grades, like the Z1 and 23, only explaining the
mechanics of each of the elemental rituals instead of the 0=0. At
Whare Ra, they decided to give this out in the form of an
'Allocution7 and this was attached to the Elemental grade rituals.
What Felkin gave out, was just as informative as that done by
Mathers. At Whare Ra they had more information about the
elemental grades than that which those in the Golden Dawn did by
the time they got to 5=6. When I reached the Inner Order, Taylor
told me to go over the rituals and especially the diagrams and to
re-introduce the sub grades of the 5=6. My basic thesis for that
was in my previous book Golden Dawn Ritual and Commentaries.
I have always been of the opinion that what happens in any
else's temple is their business, including their study curriculum. I
have had more than one temple head ask me about the teaching of
the 6=5 and 7=4 ranks. One claimed he was a 7=4 and then in the
same breath was asked if I had any 7=4 papers - as he was never
given any.
Some temples went up to the 5=6 level with the grades above
that being given mainly though for Ego inflation. In the end, the
Whare Ra Temple in New Zealand ended up like that, although
they did some terrific ritual work. I have worked with people from
Whare Ra who got up to 6=5 level and though they were short on
scholarship they were big in ritual ability. I realised that everything
came back to the practical mechanics of ritual, and what they
taught at Whare Ra was right, but it was not good enough. The
intellectual aspect had to be understood as well. Taylor knew this
and pushed me into this area relentlessly.
People like to know the 'why' of things, and that is one of the
reasons I progressed and extrapolated the Mathers concept of
grade requirements, using his Theoricus Adeptus Minor level (and
other papers I have been privy to) as a template for higher ones.
The grades requirement for the 5=6 should be as full as possible,
and the study of the sub grades I think is a step in the right direction.
That requires going back into the Elemental rituals and looking at
them in more thorough context than previously anticipated. When
you look at the work of the God forms and the subtle anatomy and
how it is utilised in ritual one can only wonder at what more there
is left to discover with the Golden Dawn system.
In Secret Inner Order Rituals of the Golden Dawn there is
outlined the course structure I used between 1982-83 (though the
book was published in 1988) on sub grades of the 5=6. This was
inferior and was intended merely to take the Theoricus Adeptus
Minor teaching and spread them out over the 5=6 level. It was
experimental, something I did not use long and it was changed by
the time the book was published. Later I decided to go the way
Mathers intended and experimented a little, now I have taken it
back to the original MathersIWestcott formulae.
Included in this book are most of the previous unpublished
teachings of Mathers for the Theoricus Adeptus Minor grade of
the old Golden Dawn. The one manuscript that has been published,
though it is hard to get, is a paper that Mathers used called 'Homer's