I'm not sure #2 is really an academic question (and I'm wearing my academic hat here).
As to #1, I don't think that you can find a modern group without other "recent spiritual" influences. People, as individuals, bring a lot of that to a group. We aren't late 19th century Victorians. Our reactions to things won't be the same.
----- Original Message -----
From: Patric Gavin
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 2:32 PM
Subject: Re: Golden Dawn Questions
On 12/14/05, Al Billings <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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
