‘Yet since the wise should know all that is to come, it is right that you should not be ignorant of something else. A time will come when it appears that the Egyptians have worshipped God with pure mind and sincere devotion in vain. All their holy worship will turn out to be without effect and will bear no fruit. For the gods will withdraw from earth to heaven and Egypt will be deserted. The land which used to be the seat of religion will be abandoned by the gods and become void of their presence.
Asclepius
It pisses me off having to defend the Golden Dawn/Order system given that I moved on from that and the Cabbalah thing a few years ago, however the arguments people make against orders are simply the wrong ones which is why the issue does not move forward.
Generally speaking the Order system would still work if people studied and were dedicated and capable at working as a community and if leaders of groups were the best at teaching and studying rather than playing politics.
I was talking to someone the other day who said a junior member of their temple was assigning work to chiefs and insisting on events being organised for them. Once being young in an esoteric group meant you sat quietly and listened… now like hungry birds students sit their with their mouths open squealing until their group supplies you with the information they want and will do nothing with.
While the numbers of people whose idea of research is listening to some guy’s internet comments and never doing any real work or study and teachers are interesting setting up groups to shag and earn money then the order system is fucked.
The Order system has come under attack because of its clunky out-of-date masonic style approach. Yet there is little wrong with the order system. The Golden Dawn teaching is not that bad and is flexible enough to be adapted to anything (if its teachers are experienced in it themselves).
However the alternative is not working either, to be a self trained magician you need an extraordinary commitment and discipline. Yet here is a lack of discipline in students after turn of the millennium and the only decent Internet teaching is largely carried by those who were trained (or trained themselves) before that date.
Esoteric material is supposed to be experimented with and yet few want to try new things, they are too busy having fundamentalist arguments over their “tradition of the week.” One week they will be the gatekeeper for one tradition, next they will be claim to be an authority on another. Fewer people are reaching the point where they can say with confidence “I can write and do a ritual.” If they do perform one, the standards are slow low that a ritual which would have once been called a failure is now touted as a success.
With some exceptions magic has become the domain of the pedantic idiot who is not interested in learning but more interested in showing how “clever they are” and it will be these people who humanity will be left with – armchair experts who trained themselves from YouTube videos to be living gods. Lots of potentially good teachers have given up because there is no structure of support or they cant be arsed with the grief.
At the moment I have three book projects on the go (one for beginners and two advanced) and I can’t be arsed writing them. That is likely to change, but at the moment I think what is the point?
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