Academic literature on the topic 'Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn'

This paper will situate the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (GD), within the context of the Western esoteric tradition. It will explore how the GD uses symbolism and ritual for self-development. To assess the GD as a system of transpersonal development it will be evaluated against transpersonal theory, particularly that of Ken Wilber. It may be useful for the reader to understand the affiliations of the authors: the first author is a member of the GD, the second is a psychologist with an interest in the transpersonal but is not affiliated to any esoteric order.

While Bruno and Louise Huber were developing their Astrological Psychology, they assisted with the foundation of the Arcane School in Geneva and worked for three years with Roberto Assagioli at his Psychosynthesis Institute in Florence. Their non-predictive method blends astrology with psychosynthesis as a way to self-realization that resembles the pillars of ascent of Kabbalah and Neoplatonism. Like Jung, Assagioli concealed his esoteric interests to preserve his professional reputation, and Huber astrologers do not usually class themselves as magicians. Nevertheless their engagement with the evolution of the will through the shifting borders of the mind and its memories by way of learning triangles in the Natal Chart, as well as Moon Node Astrology, is similar to the use of celestial magic as a way to self-empowerment practised by members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. This paper will examine the Hubers’ astrology within the context of Neoplatonic, Kabbalistic and magical philosophy.

Abstract Despite the centrality of the concept of God in Christian theology and Western philosophy for over two millennia, little attention has been given the concept of God in twentieth-century occultism in general, and in the writings of Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) in particular. In this article it is argued that Crowley’s multifaceted and sometimes conflicting approaches to God, are dependent on five main factors: (1) his childhood experiences of Christianity in the form of the Plymouth Brethren, (2) the impact of Empirical Scepticism and Comparative Religion, (3) the emanationist concept of God that he encountered through his membership in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, (4) the revelation of The Book of the Law and the claim of being a Prophet, The Great Beast 666, of a New Age, and finally (5) solar-phallicism as expressed through the Ordo Templi Orientis. These apparently contradictory strands in Crowley’s biography and intellectual armoury are in fact interlinked, and it is by studying them together that it is possible to identify the concept of God in Crowley’s magical writings.

Relatively little critical attention has been paid to Charles Williams’s ten year involvement in the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross (F.R.C.), despite the possibilities for interpretation of the often obscure imagery derived from this experience and applied to his novels and poetry. This paper reviews the F.R.C.’s rituals and meeting minutes in order to gauge the level of Williams’s involvement with the FR.C. and the mystical concepts communicated by its founder, Arthur Edward Waite. It also explores the order’s organizational, symbolic and philosophical roots, particularly the links shared with its parent order, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Having identified the historical and experiential contexts of Williams’s F.R.C. participation, the paper offers examples of the possibilities for interpretation created by greater awareness of the order’s ideas and practices. A number of Williams’s novels are explored in light of several occult concepts important to the F.R.C.—the ‘middle pillar’, the ‘higher self’, and the ‘end of desire’. This analysis indicates that comprehensive interpretation of Williams’s fiction and poetry is impossible without a thorough understanding of the ideas and symbols that he encountered in his ritual experiences. This analysis also demonstrates the importance of the modern occult context to Williams’s life and work.

The article gives the first extensive review of the multivolume ‘Hermetic Library.’ It is stored in the Research Division of Manuscripts of the Russian National Library. This collection includes translations from European authors from Ancient Greece to the 18th century. Some manuscripts of the ‘Hermetic Library’ collection were believed by the Order of the Golden and Pink Cross to belong to the legendary Rosicrucians. The Order of the Golden and Pink Cross emerged in the 18th century within the Masonic movement. Until early 19th century the Order, mostly focused on alchemy, developed as a branch of Freemasonry. In 1782 the Order of the Golden and Pink Cross opened its subdivision in Russia. Having survived a number of prohibitions, the organization of Russian Rosicrucians continued until early 20th century. The ‘Hermetic Library’ is the largest literary heritage of Russian Rosicrucians. The ‘Hermetic Library’ was started by educator and book publisher N. I. Novikov in early 19th century. It was Europe’s largest collection of alchemical and Rosicrucian works of the time. The library was to be kept secret and be used for education of the Order members. Two collections of the library fell into hands of different groups of Rosicrucians. The Moscow collection was kept in Arsenyev's family. The Petersburg collection passed from hand to hand; in late 19th century it was put up for sale. Only after 1917 the two collections of the ‘Hermetic Library’ were acquired by libraries of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The study of the St. Petersburg collection shows that it was copied and translated by several Rosicrucians. After Novikov’s death in 1818, two different groups continued the library, and volumes following the 30th differ in content and design. Novikov’s library included manuscripts on the development of alchemy from Ancient Egypt and to 18th century Europe. They included the most important Rosicrucian works. 35 volumes of the St. Petersburg collection include 191 works. The volumes were compiled to insure consistent training of the Order adepts. The article analyses the St. Petersburg collection of the ‘Hermetic library.’ Within the frameworks of an article it is impossible to review the contents every volume. It offers a summary of the history of writing and storage of the library until the 20th century and an overview of the volumes’ design and layout, which allows to judge the overall design of the library. It also compares the St. Petersburg collection and the Moscow one.

The economic and sociopolitical factors related to the current Greek crisis are translated into intrapsychic and interpersonal mechanisms in order to explain the political phenomenon of Golden Dawn. I draw on psychoanalytic concepts to reflect on how the crisis has functioned as a mechanism for the production and control of individual and collective subjectivities. I argue that the crisis has created immense insecurity and has fuelled feelings of desperation, fear and anger. For some, these feelings have been displaced onto a substitute reality offered by a transcendent group represented by Golden Dawn; personal boundaries have loosened, and subjectivities have been absorbed by a large, collective “false self”. At the centre of the notion of this substitute reality is the fantasy of omnipotence, channelled through the mechanism of projection onto the leader of the group. History is used and misused in order to cement the psychic life of the group and as a compensatory mechanism for the felt national shame. Moreover, collective denigration, or even extinction, of immigrants serves to displace negative feelings and impulses onto the “other”. I borrow Freud’s contention that when evil is not condemned, raw and wild impulses are let loose –hence, the assassination of a leftwing rapper that has landed Golden Dawn in court.

In the years 2004-2006 in Kraków, phenological observations of climbing roses were conducted in order to determine the length and dates of their flowering period. The diameters of their flowers were also compared. Eight flowering repeating cultivars were selected for the experiment: 'Climbing Souvenir de la Malmaison', 'Dortmund', 'Golden Showers', 'Goldstern', 'New Dawn', 'Parade', 'Sympathie' and 'White New Dawn'. During the studies, the shrub roses were not artificially watered in order to create conditions similar to those prevailing in public green areas. It was observed that irrespective of the air temperature pattern in a given year, the studied cultivars did not bloom before 15 June. In 2006 high temperatures (above 20<sup>o</sup>C), which continued throughout the whole flowering period, caused its shortening, and the interval between the first and the next flowering in the season lasted longer than in the previous years. In the years 2004-2006, the cultivar 'New Dawn' bloomed the longest. In 2005 the studied cultivars produced larger flowers than the next year. The cultivars 'Dortmund' and 'White New Dawn' were characterised by the smallest diameter of flowers, whereas 'Climbing Souvenir de la Malmaison', 'Golden Showers' and 'Parade' were marked by the largest diameter.

William Butler Yeats appears to have begun his study of astrology even before he joined the Hermetic Society of the Golden Dawn in 1890. His earliest surviving astrological manuscripts date to 1888 or 1889, when he was in his early twenties; they record planetary elements and symbols in elementary lessons, probably undertaken among Madame Blavatsky’s theosophists. For the 1890s, his manuscripts show more emphasis on readings of tarot cards than on astrological predictions, although the tarot lay-outs are occasionally accompanied by horary charts drawn up for the moment of the reading. Yeats’s use of traditional astrology became much more extensive and precise during the Edwardian years, particularly in 1908, when he was using several different notebooks for astrological calculations. Notebooks survive much better than loose sheets, of course, and another, from 1934, preserves what seem to be the latest surviving horoscopes drawn up by Yeats himself, including his own secondary progressions for the following year; they appear to have been cast in September or October, about the time Virginia Woolf noted Yeats’s conversation about the occult in her diary: ‘He believes entirely in horoscopes. Will never do business with anyone without having their horoscopes.

AbstractShoals of golden shiners (Notemigonus crysoleucas) often swim along the perimeter of their large indoor tank at dawn and dusk, and can also be trained to anticipate food arrival by swimming directly towards the food source at midday. In this study all golden shiners in six shoals of 8-12 fish were individually marked with a visible implant elastomer, and shoal movement was video taped in order to determine whether some individuals consistently occupied front positions even when all shoal members were of similar size and experience. There were significant correlations between all three times of day (dawn, midday, dusk) in the mean position (from 1 = first at the front of the shoal to 12 = last at the back) occupied by each fish. In each shoal, 1-3 fish were leaders: all three daily times combined, they had more than twice the occupancy rate of the front two or three positions as expected from chance. In subsequent boldness tests there was a tendency (p = 0.096) for these leaders to pass through dark U-shaped tubes more readily than non-leaders. However, after being dipnetted and transferred to a refuge, leaders did not emerge earlier than non-leaders. Individual tendencies to lead may have been underlain by a motivation to feed (which may differ even in fish of similar size and experience) or by intrinsic mobility. On the other hand, a link between leadership and risk-taking remains to be established for captive golden shiners.

Pulling out the recession and organizing the post oil era : laying dawn political conditions. Having experienced the golden days of the oil era without having paved the way for the development of a longlasting economic growth, the Cameroonian economy strongly receded since the mid 1980’s. Effective monetary adjustments aiming at economic rationality and the achievement of macro-economic balance in order to make economic growth come true, are part of the national and international environment. From that time, the internal problem has been to find out the various links between managers and the State allowing the passage from logics of distribution and rent-seeking to logics of production and accumulation. It is also the issue of Cameroon’s come back on the international stage.