The
Golden Dawn has an unusual attitude to Gods, which can be best
described as an intellectual abstraction which is disconnected from
their god status.
 |
| Osiris |
During
a 0=0 ceremony, the Heirophant creates a battery of Egyptian
godforms which matches the Book of the Dead. These were closer to
thought forms, because in most cases the officers, who were
unorthodox Christians, would not have considered them “real” in
any sense of the world. Each god would be dressed in a specific way
which would allow them to reflect the colours and powers of the
Golden Dawn system, rather than any attachment to ancient Egypt.
These
godforms acted like thought forms which effected change within the
candidate's sphere of sensation by virtue of the fact that they
resonated to certain ideas.
 |
| Horus the Elder |
For
this to work, Mathers had to make up a couple of godforms to get what
he wanted. Thus you end up with godforms for the Dadouchos
and Stolisties
which are
extensions of Maat, but were unknown in Ancient Egypt. Over the
centuries we have come to understand a lot more about Ancient
Egyptian gods and some of the ones in the Golden Dawn ritual have
different meanings from their real counterparts. For example
Aroeris, or Horus the Elder, who the Golden Dawn connects with an
active form of Osiris has really nothing to do with him. Aroeris was
a pre-dynastic sky god who He
was
the son or husband of Hathor and
was considered to be a creator god and the archetypal king. He was
the brother of Set, and Osiris and was a creator
god, the falcon who flew up at the beginning of time.
His right eye was the sun and his left eye was the moon and images
of the "Eye
of Horus" were considered to be powerful protective
amulets. His speckled feathers formed the stars and his wings created
the wind.
True,
he was associated with wars with Set, he became more Solar, and
merged with the latter when the Isis and Osiris legend took hold of
Egypt. But he was was a completely different God and certainly not a
“more active Osiris.” If you were going to say that Horus was a
counterpart of anyone on the floor of the 0=0 it would be the Hireus
and not Osiris.
This
would be unimportant if you relied on the Godforms as simply thought
forms. However, occult philosophy has also developed over the last
100 years and thinking about Gods has changed.
 |
| Dion Fortune |
Some
of this work was carried out by Dion Fortune and the line which
extended from her, manifesting through Bill Gray, Alan Richardson,
Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki, and Josephine McCarthy.
The
current thinking is not that these forms are abstract beings, but
rather they are living entities which continue to function long after
their worship is stopped. While they do not require worship from
occultists, they still want their work to continue and, with the
correct handling, are useful to us. These
are intelligent vortexes of power which can genuinely transform.
Many magicians have approached these gods for help with their magical
projects. Sometimes they agree, sometimes they don't. Sometimes
they say they would like to, but the work does not fit properly with
their powers. Others fit a role really well when you do not expect
it and an aspect of their power which was previously unknown becomes
obvious.
With
the rise of the neo-pagan movement, many Golden Dawn magicians are
coming to the system with a religious connection of some kind with some of these
Gods – Bast, Sekmet, Anubis and Isis are pretty popular. This is
starting to prevent the use of such Godforms as the abstract
thought-forms envisaged by Mathers. An experienced officer who works
with Anubis on a daily basis creates a much stronger Kerux than one
who does not.
 |
| Maat |
The
loss of the intellectual thought-form idea is not such a bad thing.
The Gods themselves have a useful part to play within the 0=0 and can
make the ritual more theomagical and it would be better to encourage
the development of contact with these ancient Gods to improve the
ritual.
However
this then creates a problem in that some of the intellectual patches
that Mathers installed within the rituals suddenly do not work.
True, you can still think of the active and passive aspects of Maat
as Dadouchos
and Stolisties,
although seeing them as separate godforms is inaccurate. It is
better to bring in more accurate fire and water goddesses. Likewise
you cannot see Osiris as Aroeris because he is standing up.
On
the plus side, the group starts to tap into something which has been
built by countless worshippers over a long period of history.
A
lot more work still needs to be done to see if these godforms can be
dressed within the more narrow conceptions of Mather's thought-forms.
If they agree, and they can follow the ritual, then you are creating
a much more powerful form of initiation and developing the more
Theurgic aspects of the Golden Dawn.
This
is an area for research. There will be many who say that the Golden
Dawn system of godforms is perfect and does not need touching. But
in my view it is one worth looking at.
