"But enough has been said, I hope, to show the student not to accept superficially any phase of the Rituals and the teachings, but to subject them to the most exacting scrutiny."- Israel Regardie, Introduction to the 2nd Edition ofThe Golden Dawn
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
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"But I must warn you of one particular disgrace. You know that people of low mentality haunt fortune-tellers of equal calibre, but with more low cunning. They do not really want to know the future, or to get advice; their real object is to persuade some supposed "authority" to flatter them and confirm them in their folly and stupidity.
It is the same thing with a terrifying percentage of the people that come for "teaching" and "initiation." The moment they learn anything they didn't know before, off they fly in a temper! No sooner does it become apparent that the Master is not a stupid middle-class prig and hypocrite—another edition of themselves, in short—they are frightened, they are horrified, they flee away on both their feet, like the man in the Bible! I have seen people turn fish-belly pale in the face, and come near fainting outright, when it has dawned upon them suddenly that magick is a real thing!
It's all beyond me!"
-Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears
;)
I have to agree with this post wholeheartedly! Everything within the GD system must be open to intense scrutiny so that not only does the student learn, but also the teacher.
The initiations and symbolism therein are multi-leveled (tiered) and facetted. There are layers of depth within each ceremony which can go as deep as the student or teacher wish to go. Of course, at each new tier or facet, our understanding is supposed to be enhanced and expanded.
The things is that often the depth seems to peter out and new, non-GD material is brought in to explain something within the GD. This sort of thing has to be guarded against over use as there are somethings from other traditions that appear on the surface to relate to GD topics, but on closer and deeper examination really do not apply beyond there own system. In essence, this can often lead to a blind alley as far as some teachings go. (The fact is that there are some such avenues of study that do yield results, so nearly all such avenues and alleys must be explored so that we are better educated in our own tradition).
In LVX,
Samuel
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