Lady Garrote
a darkened mix of fantasy, reality and spirituality
paranormalists, the golden dawn and the masons
Having a recap on the Golden Dawn in general from the sparse internet information that seems to be available, I noticed several things that seem to apply to individual psychics or famous 'paranormalists' (a much less frightening word than 'Occultist'!).
First up, a number of them seem to have been quite poor in the monetary sense no matter how well connected (or had periods of poverty) - look at some the 'the Greats' here. A number of them died of incurable diseases or had strange deaths. I won't list the details on this blog, but a little digging brings this fact to the fore. Something that people tend to overlook is that if you are not careful, doing psychic work can make you ill yourself. There is no guarantee that spells will work, they may go wide and ill wishing can just as easily go back to the sender as to the person who they meant to receive it. This fact is mentioned by a number of 'Greats' gone by, in this field.
The paranormal is exceptionally interesting but it can also be dangerous, because it is not entirely compatible with a person who is in 'human mode'. That is why, like fire it needs to be treated with care.
A lot of the original Golden Dawn work appears to originate from fraternity groups (imagine if sisterhoods had called themselves maternity groups!) obviously as set up by members of a famous brotherhood The Freemasons. I once attended a special recreation night for families and friends of a Masonic Lodge in Leeds. It was a Saturday night and we were guests of the lodge's Worshipful Master. As such we got a few privileges - like a special room to put our coats have a rest or freshen up in!
Before going to the lodge, we'd been to the Worshipful Master's house first and expressively, he had a genuine suit of armour standing halfway up the stairs that I remember, even now as appearing to move on its own.
Anyway, back at the lodge, it transpired that we were all going to be obliged to play a serious card game, with a partner each and also with a sort of score card. A large number of card tables were already waiting for us in the Masonic Lodge 'Throne Room' which looked like a Court House with a black and white squared carpet on the floor exactly like a chess board. Two sets of pairs were required to sit at the tables, play a set of cards and then move round to the next table and play against the next pair. I hadn't a clue what I was doing, but my partner and I somehow managed to win the whole game, whatever that was and were both awarded a prize. It was quite bizarre to be playing cards in such surroundings, though having to play cards at all and such a long game too was terribly boring!
The lodge itself was really atmospheric, probably a large old Victorian house. There were photographs of Masons, past and present, on the walls in ceremonial pinnies. Once again, it was quite understandable how ceremonial esoteric groups had derived inspiration from Masonic fraternity ceremonies and culture in the 19th and early 20th century.
