I'm not sure if you have the data sources for the
Golden Dawn to ever determine things like this. You'd need diaries and other
records for the individuals.
No, I certainly don't have the data sources for it. Once again, my
sloppy organizational style has lead my letter to mix together a couple
of different points.
1) It's a shame there are no reliable records (that I've ever heard of,
certainly) relating to the original Golden Dawn, because it would be
awfully convenient to be able to refer to old records. As it is, to
approach the question in point #2 below one would need to find a
contemporary GD group that still uses the full symbolic and technical
arsenal of the original group and keeps to a minimum symbolic and
philosophical influences from Thelema and other recent spiritual
movements. Either that or you'd have to start such a group for the
express purpose of watching it explode...
2) The broader question (regardless of which incarnation of the GD
we're talking about) is simply, how do the pragmatics of the Golden
Dawn work out? What do people use it to do to themselves, particularly
when they're genuinely interested in the religious/magickal work? And
what parts of the system lend themselves to these uses? One could ask
this of any magickal system, but the Golden Dawn (and to a lesser
extent Crowley's variation of it) shoves together a number of
interesting devices that are not commonly used together today by most
of the groups I'm familiar with.
- 'L