Sharing the Golden Dawn Tradition

Francis Israel Regardie earned fame and notoriety when he published many of the rituals and teachings of the Golden Dawn, heralding a new period in the Order's complex history.

In his book My Rosicrucian Adventure (since republished as What You Should Know About The Golden Dawn), Regardie shared his views about the preservation of the Golden Dawn system by sharing it with the wider world.

"...it is essential that the whole system should be publicly exhibited so that it may not be lost to mankind. For it is the heritage of every man and woman – their spiritual birthright."

It is difficult to say what would have happened if Regardie had not published his book. Some temples closed their doors, while others continued relatively undisturbed. Yet it is largely through Regardie's work that most modern Golden Dawn students came across the system, and it is also mostly through Regardie (and Crowley) that the Order's teachings have permeated the wider Western Mystery Tradition.

So then for those of us fortunate enough to belong to magical orders and/or have access to a plethora of unpublished documents from over the years, it begs the question what we can do to help fellow Fratres and Sorores grow their knowledge of the system so that it may better inform their practice.

In his post on this year's Pantheacon, Donald Michael Kraig wrote the following:

"In his earlier workshop, Chic had shown photos of that Vault, something that, traditionally, never should have been done. In this workshop about his relationship with Regardie, he stated that he, like Regardie, believed that the information on the system needs to be shared, not hidden away. As a result, Chic revealed that in forthcoming books, he and his wife are going to be revealing some previously secret and unpublished Golden Dawn knowledge and techniques (rather than keeping them private to aggrandize power and money for themselves)."

We have already seen some of this sharing with the wider community with the publication of a number of books recently that reveal some of the rituals and teachings of the Golden Dawn, the Stella Matutina, and the Alpha et Omega, but since there are hundreds of unpublished documents still gathering dust in private collections, I think it is fair to say that this is only the beginning.