Origins of the Cipher Manuscript Formulae
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Were the Cipher Manuscripts transmitted from the elusive Fraulein Sprengel (Sor. Sapiens Dominabitur Astris) as Dr. W.W. Westcott claimed? Was she a Secret Chief or completely fictitious, as many have posited?
Or is it more likely that the Cipher Manuscript Formulae was passed on from Kenneth Mackenzie, colleague of Rev. A. F. A. Woodford, another original Chief of the GD, as has also been claimed?
This question is pondered at great length in 'Magicians of the the Golden Dawn' by Ellic Howe, with the author giving much evidence from the letters of Mathers, Westcott, and other members that make the the Sor. S.D.A. connection appear fraudulent. However, no final conclusion seems to be verifiable, and I am not prepared to make such a decision based on so much heresay and backtalk.
I am looking for more information on the provenance of this important document. Your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated.
93's
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@Allogenes said
"Or is it more likely that the Cipher Manuscript Formulae was passed on from Kenneth Mackenzie, colleague of Rev. A. F. A. Woodford, another original Chief of the GD, as has also been claimed?"
I think the case for Mackenzie is a strong one, though I don't know if it's fair to call him a "Chief of the GD." He may have received the information in the cipher manuscript from an earlier source, but he may have also created it all himself.
R. A. Gilbert and others proposed (and gradually strengthed) the Mackenzie case throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Some of the key articles include:
Gilbert, R. A., 1990, "Provenance Unknown: A Tentative Solution to the Riddle of the Cipher Manuscript of the Golden Dawn," in Wege und Abwege: Beitraege zur europaeischen Geistesgeschichte der Neuzeit, ed. A. Goetz von Olenhusen (Freiburg: Hochschul Verlag), p. 79. (This article was reprinted in Darcy Kuntz's 1996 The Complete Golden Dawn Cipher Manuscript book.)
Heisler, R. 1989, "Precursors of the Golden Dawn," in Cauda Pavonis: Studies in Hermeticism, vol. 8, no. 1, 1-4.
Prinke, R. T. 1987, "The Deeper Roots of the Golden Dawn," in The Hermetic Journal, 36, 16.
Some of these articles may now be online, but I haven't looked...
Steve
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Broadly agreeing with Steven...
The main point, I think, is that nobody knows for sure. There are several theories, I have my favorites based on existing data. I do think the Mackenzie route (in one or another variation) is the most likely hand-off point, but, even in the best situation, there is no definitive evidence on where they came from before they fell into his hands.
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I think what particularly struck me about the Mackenzie connection is how it ties in with the picture Joscelyn Godwin paints in his excellent book The Rosicrucian Enlightenment. IIRC prior to hooking up with Waistcoat et al, Mackenzie also belonged to an obscure English occult association that had connections going right back through to the "revolutionary" period (masonry, coffee houses, pamphleteering, etc.), Blake and the surprisingly occult circles he moved in, and such.
To take Blake: his visions were *blatant *astral visions, clearly the real thing. There seems to be have been a fair bit of "underground" occultism in the UK for hundreds of years. Godwin cites the recent (at his time of writing) discovery of some pretty heavy duty occult paraphernalia that had belonged to an obscure Reverend in some village - this fellow was vaguely connected to one of the little sects Godwin unearths, and the discovery of the paraphernalia shows it wasn't just a "talking shop".
So the idea that Mackenzie was already a highly experienced practitioner of genuine magick is quite plausible.
Why the deception? Well, presumably to distract the attention of Establishment spies away from the *actual *people involved. My guess is, at that time, the main threat would have come from religious intelligence networks. With the increasing prosperity and consequent increasing boundary-pushing by artists and intellectuals towards the close of Victorian times, Occultism was *beginning *to be practiced more openly, but even at that time, literalist, fundamentalist Christianity was still a pretty strong part of the English Establishment, and you could still get into real trouble as a practicing occultist - the witch mania had only recently finally tapered out, for example.
It probably wasn't even necessary (i.e. I'm not saying that Mackenzie and the others were necessarily *actually *being hounded by spies), but rather just a precaution (in view of the fact that sometimes people like them were).
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"I don't know if it's fair to call him a "Chief of the GD." "
I was referring to Woodford.
Thank you for those bibliographic references Steve!
"there is no definitive evidence on where they came from before they fell into his hands."
Since it is written in the Trithemius cipher, would that suggest it is possibly much older than MacKenzie's time? I realize MacKenzie could of easily been familiar with it, but I'd like to believe this is something that has been passed down through generations of occultists, thus giving an unbroken lineage from our earliest predecessors to the present, and also a continued framework of ritual practice from then to now.
"the letters from "Fraulein Sprengel" read like German written by someone whose first language is English."
Ellic Howe makes that point over and over again in his documentary history of the GD and that point seems indisputable.
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@Allogenes said
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"there is no definitive evidence on where they came from before they fell into his hands."Since it is written in the Trithemius cipher, would that suggest it is possibly much older than MacKenzie's time?"
Not necessarily. It only means that it is younger than Thrithemius.
"I realize MacKenzie could of easily been familiar with it, but I'd like to believe this is something that has been passed down through generations of occultists, thus giving an unbroken lineage from our earliest predecessors to the present, and also a continued framework of ritual practice from then to now."
Many people would like to believe this. However, their wish to believe something doesn't make it so.
And, in any case, if it turns out that the outlines are very old, then it still isn't likely that the enciphered form is very old. We know for sure that the exact copies can't be older than the early 19th Century. If there is an old authenticity to them, then they probably existed in English, and MacKenzie or another put them in cipher.
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Yes.
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That would be plenty far back. It would be a GD enthusiast's wet dream for someone to prove these dated back to 1604 or anytime close to that.
All we know for sure is that the exact contents (as written) are no earlier than mid-1800s (because of specific discoveries in Egyptology then referenced). Some people believe they were forged on the spot about 1887, but I think they actually pre-existed that by a generation or so.
The bigger question, then, is (despite any tweaking, plus scribal errors in the encrypting - and there were a number of such errors): Do these have any practical history before that time? Were they, in fact, part of a working tradition? They are not the rituals of the leading 18th Century Rosicrucian order in Germany, which (in turn) may or may not have any actual linkage to the original Rosicrucians of a century and a half earlier...
All for the history buffs. Our position was that these rituals bore Third Order authorization, so we used the formulae as our starting point rather than claiming the authority to originate new formulae. Of course, how those formulae were applied was our own...
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I just find it amazing that from those cryptic manuscripts that a complete system like the Golden Dawn or Temple of Thelema can be erected. They truly would be almost impossible to understand if one was not familar with the symbolism, interpretation, and elaboration of the manuscript (true for any language or mode of thought I guess). Which would mean that there had to be something previous to its discovery in order to be able to understand it. I wonder if the authority from the Third Order who allowed the system to be distributed knew what the chain effect would be...
The other train of thought I hear is that regardless of the background story is true or not true means little. It is the application of methods for a result. Thus, scientifically, if an action brings about a result, then the action is proved to have its own merit. History aside, if it works it works. From reading and digesting the various things I've read I have no reason to believe this system doesn't work if the methods are applied. What little I've gleaned from the suggestions on methods for obtaining self knowledge is usable, practicle, and conceptually simple (if one can interpret the language). Very logically - but not easy by any means....
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It is my belief that the formulas which underlay those of the Cipher Manuscript are older than the document itself.
As the name of the Order implies (Golden Dawn), I would think the formulas were allowed to "slip" in the final moments of the night. The Sun has now peeked over the horizon, and there are those whom have caught its gleam. Yet, the revelation of its full glory has not occurred, nor are we close to the point where it reaches its zenith.