I read this today on a forum I read and wanted to post this here to stir discussion. I formally state that I take no sides other than in making sure what is called Golden Dawn remains true to the Tradition, a point of interest of a few public Orders. The intent of this post is to stir dialectic.

----

The Fundamental Difference
Posted by: "aroueris26" enoch326@hotmail.com aroueris26
Sun Oct 14, 2007 10:03 am (PST)

It comes down to this:

What distinguishes the Golden Dawn Tradition from the Left Hand Path
is a belief that there is a Macrocosm that matters.

In Thelema, Chaos Magic and those pseudo-Golden Dawn Orders that are
kin to them in doctrine, the fundamental belief is that your Microcosm
is King. You define what meaning and power there is in a symbol. No
outside force can change what you put into it. You define what is
right and wrong for yourself. No other person, group or entity has any
say in the matter. Established and time-tested Tradition is
meaningless. All that matters is what you feel about a magical formula
and the rationalizations that satisfy you that it is acceptable as you
believe it to be. In fact, nothing is really required of these Left-
Hand Path practitioners save that they further themselves in
these "virtues" and empower Self evermore.

Traditional Golden Dawn practice, on the other hand, is an
equilibrated path. There is indeed a Microcosm, and it does effect a
great deal in your experience. But, there is also a Macrocosm. A
greater Universe beyond the self that also influences what is True and
what is False, what is Right and what is Wrong, and what a symbol's
power truly is outside of personal choice, human psychology and
cultural history. It is what unites us together as a whole Creation.
Indeed, the Microcosm is an equal player, but likewise, so is the
Macrocosm unavoidable. The Golden Dawn magician does not develop
magical formulae that feel good and cool and then find rationalizations
to back it up, for that merely serves the ego to over-ride Truth.
Rather, a Golden Dawn magician uses their magical power and practice to
seek selflessly and honestly after the Truth and how to apply it in
one's personal Microcosm in a meaningful way. But, as was learned
following the Great Schism, such a magician must not seek to impress
their personal enlightenment on another.

Left hand Path magicians, as individualistic as they purport
themselves to be, in groups tend to be quite controlling. They are
just more subtle about it. And, its not surprising for self is the
ultimate virtue in such a philosophy. For a magician to respect the
needs of another magician to grow in a time-tested Tradition without
personal alterations sullying it, they would have to be selfless.
Selflessness requires a belief that there is a Macrocosm that matters
outside the Microcosm. This is something a Left-Hand Path magician
lacks and in the end, no matter how loud their declarations that they
value selflessness so that they may sound good to themselves and
others, their actions speak the opposite.

It is selfless and right to provide new magicians with an unaltered,
time-tested Tradition and to allow them to interpret it in their own
way and apply it in their own lives as they discover their True and
Divine Will. This is the essence of true Golden Dawn practice. On the
other hand, it is selfish and controlling to do violence to a Tradition
in altering it significantly to fit one's personal revelations and
feeding it to many new minds as something it is not.

One example: Let's change the godforms of the Neophyte Initiation
and put an entirely different force on the Throne of the Hierus. Say,
Set for instance, because we feel its right and we have a long list of
right-sounding arguments to rationalize it. We may have had the
benefit of a Traditional Golden Dawn upbringing. But, our magical
experience and study has given us the authority and right to deny that
to others. And, to hell with anyone who says different! We will just
slam them every chance we get and with self-righteous protestations
demand an apology for their offense to our beliefs!

This example is like a priest walking up to the altar and turning the
Cross upside down stating that Judas Iscariot will now be worshipped as
the Messiah. Such a group, if it were to exist, would certainly have a
right to their beliefs, but they could not walk about claiming they are
Catholics with any degree of intellectual or spiritual integrity.
Likewise, those pseudo-Golden Dawn Orders who claim the name and
Tradition but also the authority to significantly twist it to their
personal revelations and serve it on a platter labeled "Golden Dawn"
lack intellectual and magical integrity. Regardless of how thoroughly
such groups have convinced themselves and others by argument of the
value of such changes. Its not Golden Dawn anymore. Its a new
creation, or possibly old, but certainly mislabeled and misadvertised.
And, those who do practice and serve within a Traditional Golden Dawn
Order have a right to complain. No consumer would put up with such
wholesale misadvertising in their material food and needs, how much
more so should neither spiritual seekers put up with it in their
spiritual instruction and guidance. And those in the know have the
responsibility to say so.

Xandyr