OTO and Golden Dawn
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I was wondering, why Crowley prefered developping a thelemic OTO than a thelemic Golden Dawn as a system "before" AA?
As far as i know both GD and OTO "hit" mostly in assiah and take the initiate to yetzirah, but what are the main differences? What are the advantages and particularities of masonry-based rituals comparing to the GD ones?
Do these apply also to "straight" masonry, or is OTO significantly different? Could you tell more about these differences(between masonry and OTO)?
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@Frater Horus said
"I was wondering, why Crowley prefered developping a thelemic OTO than a thelemic Golden Dawn as a system "before" AA?"
What do you mean with "before A.'.A.'.?" BTW, you say he prefered like he had two choices and picked one — but no, he was done with the G.D.; he stumbled upon the O.T.O., liked it and ran with it.
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@Patrick Ossoski said
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@Frater Horus said
"I was wondering, why Crowley prefered developping a thelemic OTO than a thelemic Golden Dawn as a system "before" AA?"What do you mean with "before A.'.A.'.?" BTW, you say he prefered like he had two choices and picked one — but no, he was done with the G.D.; he stumbled upon the O.T.O., liked it and ran with it."
"before"... i mean as a system "for everyone", that is more progressive and less elitist than AA. A system that stays mostly in assiah and goes slowly to yetzirah.
Yes, i know the historical facts with GD and OTO... But i guess it crossed his mind. He could have create a new GD based on a "watered down" AA or something. There must be other reasons than just "he stumbled upon it and liked it"
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@Frater Horus said
""before"... i mean as a system "for everyone", that is more progressive and less elitist than AA. A system that stays mostly in assiah and goes slowly to yetzirah."
I see. I guess that wouldn't be worth it for him. And if it were, he sure as heck wouldn't call it "Golden Dawn."
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@Patrick Ossoski said
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@Frater Horus said
""before"... i mean as a system "for everyone", that is more progressive and less elitist than AA. A system that stays mostly in assiah and goes slowly to yetzirah."I see. I guess that wouldn't be worth it for him. And if it were, he sure as heck wouldn't call it "Golden Dawn.""
Because there is only one GD, the "real" golden dawn, as practiced in AA... right?
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Well, we could say he "rewrote" GD as A.'.A.'. (revised & expanded!
). He took off everything he thought was unnecessary, from group work to grade rituals, and so on; and keeping things as 0=0 (671) and 5=6 (120) formulas, the book of balance (30), etc., and adding stuff like Yoga. I don't know why he changed his mind about group work with O.T.O. Because of money income? -
The Order was an attempt at reworking the golden dawn and eliminating those elements that Crowley felt caused initiates to fail. He felt that group work often discourages practical, personal work and people would be promoted because they were liked rather than quality of work and dedication to the Order. By eliminating group work from the curriculum the idea was that people would focus on their personal development rather than get together for tea and gossip about other brethren. A reaction to his own experiences in the golden dawn where his own advancement was crippled by gossip when he was ready for advancement to adeptus minor. These flaws were the primary failure of the golden dawn and why it failed to initiate.
in spite of the student-teacher rule of the Order they often would congregate congregate at the Equinox headquarters under Crowley. He found the rule impractical in practice. When he was made X° for English speaking countries he found a vehicle better suited to promulgate the Law of Thelema and develop his forming ideas for a Thelemic society which he outlined in the Blue Equinox, while also preventing overlap with the system of the A.'.A.'. He also discouraged the tea party attitude in OTO lodges as seen in MWT. While I love the OTO and think they are doing great work, I think he'd be rather disappointed with the direction of affairs in many lodges after reading Unknown God. I personally think he needed to pull the stick out of his ads.
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He was finished with Golden Dawn, He published the GD rituals in the equinox to annoy mathers and to declare the GD finished. The OTO, he grabbed onto that after the nice story of Ruess accusing him of publishing order secrets....this was before the book was published. (Ill leave it to you to decide whats what on this story) He grabbed onto the OTO and basically re-invented it from its original masonic order including masonic rituals into a Thelemic order based on Masonry with "Thelemisized" rituals in order to not offend regular masons. I think Crowley saw a cash cow with OTO and may have hoped to get some rich masons to look after him financially. He had many of his students (not meaning A.'.A.'.) send him money all the time, (he had blown his inheritance on living it up as it were traveling wining, dining and....... well lets continue
) and you can find this by taking a look at his students diary entries and letters and his own letters etc also. Essentially the OTO was an income for crowley in my opinion and it failed for him over all. He was desperate for cash and didnt really get it out of OTO as there was little interest. Today the OTO makes a reasonable income and Im sure crowley would love to be around and take some for cognac and cigars -
If money was a factor, why not ! I'm sure though it is secondary, the prophet himself wouldnt have mixed thelema with something commercial, especially as we know his opinion on such practices. If it worked commercialy for him it is bonus. Like in the martial arts. Good teachers of good systems can earn enough to live well but in no way it gets as such in the way of ethics which are clearly non commercial. It is almost free for the student. But for instance 50 bucks per month if you have 100 students, or even 50, thats good(there are expenses).
And if he asked money to people when in need it is surely an independant thing, whether they'd be OTO members or not. What amazes me is he actually needed to ask money. People should have given him in advance always so he doesnt even have to think about it. But i guess it was part of his ordeals
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Let's not confuse crowley the man and To mega therion etc.
I have my views on crowley the man which isn't to be honest always great and yes there is lots of lies said about the man that are just plain wrong but I try never confuse the two.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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93,
"I suppose he means the point of history: The Order called the Golden Dawn, which Crowley joined in 1887, ceased to exist in 1900."
This is true, but many of the followers went off and started their own groups. I don't see how this is any different to what has happened with the various a.'.a.'. lineages. (Other than their teaching methods and structure of course).
I wouldn't call it dead, people can be initiated into the golden dawn as well as the other groups. Regardie himself belonged to A.'.A.'. and later an off-branch of the golden dawn. I have no idea if he was involved in the O.T.O, but I assume he was. I would also argue that initiates of the golden dawn are still publishing valuable material.
93, 93/93.
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I think it's better to say that people can be initiated into groups that are GD-inspired, GD-derived, GD-descended, GD-like, etc. Regardie belonged to the Stella Maturing, not the Golden Dawn. The Order called Golden Dawn to which Crowley belonged ceased to exist in 1900. Paul Case belonged to the Alpha et Omega, as did Crowley and Cecil Jones after the schism. Etc.
As I said, it's a historical point. In other ways, it doesn't matter. One might as well get one's definitions right, though.
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@Thelemic oz said
"Let's not confuse crowley the man and To mega therion etc.
I have my views on crowley the man which isn't to be honest always great and yes there is lots of lies said about the man that are just plain wrong but I try never confuse the two. "Yes ! Sure.
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@Vadox said
"I meant that GD's tree of life is no longer active as initiatory system, it means that people start from OTTO octave(?) and latter goes into AA octave."
"OTO octave?" (I think that's what you mean.)
Tree of Life not valid?
Au contraire, if by "octave" you mean the way the Tree interfaces with the Four Worlds, I've seen wondrous things happening reliably for decades using the framework on which the GD structure hangs.