Problems with the Golden Dawn and its offshoots

"I can call spirits from the vasty deep!"

"Why, so can I or so can any man:
But will they come, when you do call for them?"

- Wm Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1

This little snatch of dialogue between Glendower and Hotspur in Shakespeare's drama shows how ancient is the desire to control the world through supernatural means. From the earliest writings in the Bible to the present day, the supernatural world has become an obsession.

Today, every teen seems to want to have "magic powers". Thanks to the
 plethora of fantasy TV and films, the myth that we can obtain power over others and over events by simply uttering magic words or casting a spell has become very pervasive. The recent surge in interest may have started with Harry Potter, but unfortunately it didn't end there.

When Gurdjieff met Alistair Crowley, the notorious Golden Dawn "magician", he entertained Crowley at the Prieure in Paris. At the end of his short visit, Gurdjieff told Crowley to leave and never to return, because he was "all filthy inside".

Ever since, the Work has been very careful to screen out those seeking such powers, and warns new students that the path of ritual magic is harmful to their development. But why, exactly? Don't we all use rituals and visualizations in our daily lives? What's wrong with taking it further?

The short answer is that the ultimate aim of the Work, and of all the religions that Gurdjieff recognized as genuine, is to align our small will with the Will of God, the Most Holy Sun Absolute, so that we can assist in the evolution of our planet and solar system and in the process become ever more enlightened. In doing so, we have to make our Personality passive and our Essence active. False Personality must be eliminated, as it has no place in religion or in the Work and our Imaginary I must be discarded so that we may one day reach the level of Real I, the sacred temple within each of us where alone we may meet God.

All Work teachings are designed with this aim in mind. False Personality and life aims - the desire for money, possessions, power, sex, and so on - have no place in the Work. It's the same with Christian, Jewish and Sufi teachings, the paths I know best. New Sufis are warned not to seek "siddhis", or magical powers such as clairvoyance, influence over others, or material benefits, by using magic rituals, and if they persist in practising them they are told to leave their Order. I once witnessed two people being expelled from a Sufi conference precisely because of this. They were quite well known figures in the world of "magic", and Pir Vilayat told them publicly they were not genuine seekers but spies, and must leave at once. They did.

In the Work, life aims are not our Third Force, although as we develop insight and control over our own different I's we will naturally find it easier to reach life goals. But here, too, would-be magicians are not tolerated. In Haifa, I witnessed the public expulsion of one such student; in London, I was present at another, that of a member actually in my own Work group. He had sought to use the "magic powers" he had cultivated in Golden Dawn type rituals in order to seduce women. He was found unworthy to continue in the Work, because, as my teacher explained, "The Work doesn't want such types and has no place for them".

So-called magical rituals are aimed at making the practitioner feel powerful. The groups which encourage them are full of individuals who believe that they need to harness supernatural powers in order to fulfil their dreams. In real spirituality, however, whether it's the Work, a traditional religion, or a Twelve Step group, it's the other way round: we must accept our utter powerlessness, our nothingness, our dependence on God, before we can begin to become enlightened. Golden Dawn type groups encourage the reverse.

Many seekers who find their way into "magical" groups are motivated simply by the wish to learn more about esoteric subjects and increase their understanding, and if they don't stay too long with the society, and if they avoid practising ceremonial magic, they can emerge unharmed. But simply being a member of such an organization exposes them to the subtle promotion of magical rituals, and if students remain with them too long they may well succumb to the attraction, and set off on a harmful path.

Many websites exist today which attempt to lure in vulnerable individuals with the promise of material success. They cloak themselves in spiritual language, but actually encourage a materialistic outlook. In this respect they remind one of the more obnoxious tele-evangelists who tell viewers that if they send in their money to the Rev. So-and-So, and pray for prosperity, God will make those viewers rich!

Ritual, of course, is an important part of religious ceremonies. It helps create the right atmosphere for worshippers to become aware of God, to reach their deeper I's. Counsellors may also use rituals  to help clients achieve psychological freedom and insight. But there is nothing supernatural about such therapeutic use. Participants are not required to call up spirits, or forsake their own religious beliefs.

The rituals and the methods the Golden Dawn style groups use try to change the individual's circumstances from without, rather than from within. Students of ceremonial magic align themselves with material forces and associated spirits, and as they get more deeply into the practices they strengthen their False Personalities.

And worse, there really are supernatural powers - evil, malignant psychic entities - which exist on other planes and which can obsess and take over the unwary practitioner.

Groups affiliated with the Golden Dawn and its offshoots often claim to be serving "the Light", or some such vague concept. But they never specify what the aim of this "light" is, and such a "light" is most certainly not the light of God.

In the Work, in true religions, as in any genuine, esoteric school from earliest Egypt to the present day, the aim is to do the Will of God on earth. That God is a benevolent, compassionate Being who wants the very best for His followers' spiritual development. He may endow us with various supernatural gifts as we grow in our knowledge and understanding, in order that we in turn may be of greater service to others, but He is most definitely not an archetype or spirit to be summoned up at will for selfish purposes. He is not at our command; we belong to Him, not the other way round.

All true esoteric teachings, as well as the great religions, stress the role of suffering in helping us to make spiritual progress. Suffering is not only an inescapable part of life,  it is also the very means by which we grow. We have to sacrifice our unnecessary suffering, Gurdjieff taught, and to accept the conscious, voluntary suffering which comes to us when we see ourselves as we really are. Christ gave us the supreme example of sacrifice through love. When we imitate Him, we create a very fine spiritual substance which the Work calls "higher hydrogens", and which is necessary for our own progress and that of the universe. There is no other way but suffering in which we may create it.

No Golden Dawn type path would ever consider suffering and remorse of conscience to be part of their teachings. Their members want only to escape from such states. But without this suffering, our Essence cannot grow and we cannot reach Real I.

Magical rituals and the beliefs that go with them encourage the building up of False Personality at the expense of Essence. Eventually, such a path will make spiritual progress impossible.

The Golden Dawn and their imitators offer the unwary student a sham path to a sham god. They claim to be spiritual, but in fact worship materialism and a material spirit. At best, practitioners of magic rituals find themselves leading lives shorn of real spiritual comfort, at worst ending up in the clutches of the Father of Lies.

The most notorious ritual magicians in the 20th century were, of course, Alistair Crowley and Adolf Hitler's Nazi occult clique. Witnesses of Hitler's appearances have described how they saw him taken over by a powerful spirit as he addressed his audiences.  I'm describing extreme cases here, of course, but the danger of occult possession is ever present when people dabble in such practices.

Followers of this way risk losing all possibilities of spiritual progress in this life and in future lives. This is what is meant by the legend of "selling one's soul to the devil". It really can happen.

As Hotspur concludes, "And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil -
                                        By telling truth. Tell truth and shame the devil."

Indeed.


POSTSCRIPT :

Some weeks after writing this post I received an email from someone who did not agree with what I'd written about the Golden Dawn-type societies and their members. This person had taken some courses with one of these organizations and found them helpful. They had subsequently left the society, had never practised any of their rituals, and thought I had unfairly castigated the type of organization with which they'd studied. Naturally, what I've written in this post would not apply to someone like my correspondent, who'd had only minimal involvement with that society and did not feel it had harmed them in any way, but had helped them in their spiritual search.

But had they persisted with the organization concerned, they could well have been drawn into the ceremonial practices which are so dangerous.

I consulted an Orthodox Jewish rabbi in Jerusalem, a respected religious leader who teaches kabbalah to carefully selected students, and he pointed out that among the many dangers associated with such rituals is the possibility of becoming addicted to them. He confirmed they are strictly forbidden by the Torah, i.e. by Jewish law and tradition. Nobody should practice them, and if they did, he would expel them from his class.

If someone wants to study esotericism, it's much safer to do so with groups who don't encourage ritual practices at all, or by oneself, with the many aids to study available in bookstores or on the internet today.

If you're in the Work, then the best way to study would be with members of your Work group under the direction of an authorized teacher or a senior member, as I've done in the past.

To protect one's future spiritual possibilities, one should avoid all "magic rituals" and the groups who promote them. Otherwise one risks compromising one's mental health and cutting off future progress. This is why no Work group and no genuine, spiritual path would ever encourage or permit them.

If anything I've written in this post has caused offence to readers, I apologize. It was not my intention to hurt anyone's feelings, but to warn them in strong terms to keep away from a dangerous practice and the people who promote it.