I've read people saying that when you're self initiating into Golden Dawn from books like SI by Cicero, you shouldn't rush through the grades because it can cause elemental imbalance and cause problems such as ego inflation, megalomania etc

On the other hand I've also read mostly positive reviews on Modern Magick book.

I'm confused because Modern Magick takes a shorter duration to complete. Does it not cause elemental imbalance as you're rushing from beginner to intermediate/advanced rituals when working with that book (compared to the duration of SI into GD course)?

I want to go through MM boom first and then dive into my 'formal' initiation journey but I have this question

Hey everyone, I've been interested in the Golden Dawn and it's practices for a while now, and I want to know more. I'm from a Christian (and more specifically Catholic) background, and I do still practice my faith.

Greetings everyone! I’ve been performing my LRP daily ( an invocation in the morning and banishing in the evening) in addition to the MP and daily adorations. Lately I have felt like I am an alien amongst others. Although I am good about putting on some kind of a persona to blend in there is something occurring internally which makes me feel like I do not belong in this world; like I’m some kind of other worldly being living within a reality I feel disconnected from. Sometimes I am filled with a disgust for our civilization and other times I see the beauty within it all. There are some days where these emotions and states of mind feel so unbearable and like the only way to rid myself of this is by leaving this world permanently. Don’t worry I haven’t attempted anything nor do I intend to, that is where my head goes at times though.

I know I am not the only one who feels this way and I am aware a lot of these circumstances are being brought on or at least heightened by my practices. My question to all of you is what you guys do to stay motivated, not only to continue with the great work but to get through the human experience despite it seeming unenjoyable at times? Any replies are appreciated.

I did the Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram today for the first time and anxiety is through the roof. I was getting better at asserting myself lately, but today i can't even look people in the eyes. Is this an expected outcome of the ritual or it's just my head acting up? I haven't felt like this since i was in grade school.

I had the gut feeling something shitty would happen so i kept delaying it, even though i did the LBRP for at least 4 months before this.

UPDATE: it subsided in the evening and i got something good out of it. Don't be afraid to try it because of the title.

how often should i do the lbrp as a begginer? should it be done once a day or twice? ive heard people say that one should do the lbrp for a while before starting to do the lirp, so after how long of consistently doing the lbrp should i start doing the lirp? thank you!!

As stated, in the SI program, intial godforms should be used until the student is proficient at godform vizualization. So can we intiate into 0-0 or even 1-10 while using intial forms? Thanks.

I am curious why the Earth pentagram is used in the LIRP and LBRP.

Why not each element for their respective direction?

Why not a different element for all of them - or is this done for a different type of ritual?

I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences, along with an answer to this if there is a specific one. I am assuming it has to do with the earth energy being grounding and likely the most beneficial/balancing, especially for less experienced magicians.

Does reaching the higher grades or in other words the later stages of alchemical process make you see veganism/vegetarianism in a positive light?

Not being able to adopt vegen/tarianism is understandable to me. I myself am a meat eater but I can agree that causing other beings to suffer for your tastebuds isn't an ideal form of living for a mystic.

I see initiates like Lyam Thomas and veganism particularly triggers him.

Meat eating is your personal choice but dunking on people because vegan/vegetarian diet is hard for you just doesn't feel right.

Proselytizing vegans can be annoying but using ad hominem fallacy against them is not what I expect from initiates

Hi, I have read and now would like to work through "Kabbalah Magick" by LTC. He sugggested using the 6th edition of the "The Golden Dawn" by Iseral Regardie. I thought I ordered the 6th edition but when it arrived today it was the 5th. I'm wondering if they are the same as he suggests certain pages to read, and would be confusing if the content suggested to read is on the wrong page. Help would be much appreciated, thanks.

I just started reading the self-initiation book by Chic Cicero and I have some questions. For the self awareness exercise what does it mean by keeping a mental note of everything? Just anything I find interesting or literally everything?

Also can you be both a rosicrucian and a golden dawn magician, or is there a conflict of interest there?

I recently began my self introduction to the golden dawn system and have quickly reached a puzzling question of technicality. I work on a boat for days at a time which requires me to preform my daily LRP while in motion and without a directional anchor. I can begin my practice facing east and if the ships course is set in a straight line, I can remain relatively facing the same direction; but if we turn to one direction or the other my orientation could change significantly. I know that later grades introduce the concept of declaring magickal east but I haven’t reached that point in the course work and I’d still be moving anyway… I’m curious about this and other general technicalities involving being in motion while preforming rituals. Also, after I ignite the four pentagrams around me, what is the proper way to connect them?

As the title states, wondering if one can just keep these things just in an adjoining room or if they need to be on the other side of the house / off site.

Is it normal to feel a sense of heat around your aura when doing the LBRP or MP? When I did them today I felt heat In my aura and was sweating a little bit.

Simple question: I have a pretty consistent practice with the KC, LBRP, and MP, closing with another KC. I will add other small rituals, but my basic motivation is to work on myself, banishing anything negative and bringing in the positive.

I don't know if it is just life, but I do feel pretty drained sometimes (especially at the end of the day) and struggle to perform these exercises at times. I feel like these energize me, but I am wondering if they also consume energy as well, or if perhaps I am doing something incorrectly (like trying to draw on my own energy to energize the pentagrams or something) that is creating an energetic drain.

Any thoughts?

I have read that i can do a daily practice of LIRP-MP- at night LBRP and it result in a positive way. I am working back up to tackling the SI program and I figured if I can get this timed right, I can continue to SI, having a year to study and go through a daily routine that is not super time senstive or stressful. I understand its alot of work but this is a start in the direction.

So question being,what effects can the daily practice of lirp-mp-lbrp produce? have read that you can get to stages produced by the SI progeam. Sorry on my phone and no access to a pc so some typoes

Hello everyone.

I would like to know if performing the minor ritual of invoking the pentagram for an element is enough to integrate the elemental energy and perform the work of inner alchemy with that element, or if it is better to use another type of ritual.

Thank you very much.

Hey all, odd question I suppose and I was wondering if anyone would be able to shed any light on the matter:

I finished my practice of the middle pillar today, and for a good 30 seconds, everything around me was covered by an almost blinding blue light. I don't really know what that would mean. I've been practicing the MP for about four months now, and I've not had something quite like that before.

I was just wondering if anyone has had an experience like that? Or if you might know what it mean?

In the end it might not mean anything, I suppose, it was just quite curious.

How much time would you recommend doing the LBRP, before incorporating the MP into a magick routine? Also, can you explain how to circulate the energy?

I dunno if I'm going to explain this well but I'll try. I've been delving into spirituality, witchcraft and the occult (mainly chaos Magick) for a about a decade and over the past year I have started getting into Golden Dawn stuff.

Recently I have had a resistance to GD and the rituals and not practiced the daily rituals for a month or so despite knowing that it has changed me for the better.

I think the resistance is all part of the grade I am in.

The last couple of weeks I've been feeling like I want a much more simple life when it comes to my spirituality. GD is a complex system and there is a lot to learn and memorise. It is just overcomplicated though?

Like unnecessarily complicated. There is a part of me that loves all the layers in it and finding the connections. But there's another part that thinks that it's just a system made up by people and an overly complicated one at that and a simple spiritual path of my own, following my own intuition would be much better.

Any thoughts. Am I self sabotaging my spiritual growth or is there validity to it?

I left out this part of the practice as my hours were a bit irregular for a while. However I've been getting up really early lately and I thought I'd give it a try again. The only thing is I'm going to bed really early, like at the time of sunset here (645). As it takes me a long time to get 7-8 hours sleep I'm getting up at 4 or 5. I don't know when to do the last two Adorations due to this?

Hello. I'd like to reconnect with people that were helping me back around 2008 while I was a member of the EOGD in Asheville, NC. Sadly, the temple shut down soon after I joined and I lost all my connections with folks in that temple.

Hey everyone! I'm on the second month of doing the prework in the green book and I was curious if anyone else felt guilt after the meditations with MA'AT for mundane things. Things that aren't sins. That old Christian guilt is back with a vengeance and I was curious if anyone went or is going through that now.

I’m just starting to research the Élus Coën and at surface level there seems to be some interesting overlap with the Golden Dawn.

From the description of The Green Book of the Élus Coëns -

“Presented here for the first time, these original rites of the Élus Coëns instruct the initiate in how to enter into relations with angelic entities, which are sympathetic to Mans fallen state and who can aid him upon the path to reintegration with the Divine.”

Is it known if any members of the Golden Dawn were associated with or influenced by the Élus Coëns?

Recently my interest in learning astral projection has started back up after remembering my evocation of Aratron, and I plan on practicing with the Tattwa cards to help. Does anyone have experience with using the Tattwa cards and advice on using them? Are there other Golden Dawn practices to help with AP?

Several months ago I started doing ritual practice in the golden dawn more seriously by going through the grades. I've been through a lot spiritually and mentally so I thought that going through a grade system would benefit me by giving me a structure to work through so I don't feel so lost in a plethora of magical dichotomies and world views.

Basically my "community" is made up of YouTubers, there are about 6 of them and then the texts I study. I feel like this is really unhealthy because I don't have any real people in my life to talk to about this stuff.

These past 2 weeks I got sick and fell into a depression and I'm now climbing my way back out but I'm seriously considering going to therapy because I don't have the support I'm supposed to get from friends, family and a lodge/church.

I want to benefit the community as much as I want the support of all of my fellow practitioners so I started a YouTube channel to put myself out there but again it's all very one sided and lonely.

Please reach out if you would be interested in making a friend or have any advice for me, and others who are in my position. I'd really appreciate it.

Full disclosure, I’m not a Hermetic GD practitioner, although I have some experience with it. I’m a practitioner of the Celtic Golden Dawn system by John Michael Greer and a member of the Druidical Order of the Golden Dawn (DOGD). In our system the LRP pentagrams definitely have the attribution of the elements at the appropriate points, and we use a spirit invoking and banishing pentagram in the LRP.

Back in the day when I started in HGD, I remember reading in many GD books that the LRP used an earth pentagram for the reason reason that the Christian symbolism that the outer order used was weary of “earthy” energy and a fallen world/ state of matter so was either trying to banish earth or bring spirit to it. In Regardie, book 4 page 334-5 when talking about the uses of the pentagrams it’s specifically stated that earth pentagrams are given to use by neophytes in the outer order LRP. So it seems that indeed, HGD practitioners are tracing an earth pentagram in the LRP, at least according to that eras Stella Matutina.

In the last couple years I’ve seen some vocal HGD practitioners swear up and down that the LRP does not use earth pentagrams. I’ve read Sam Scarborough’s article in the light extended re the pentagram ritual, I thought it was ok, and a reasonable partial explaining his traditions teachings. I tend to get skeptical when magicians claim true teachings are hidden from the public, although I suppose that could be the case. I do know a lot of the outer order papers are held privately, but It seems to me that this is a case of different orders and different magicians in the GD teaching different things.

I’ve been in the occult community long enough to see fads and teachings come in and out of style concerning things like this, and to me this seems like the case here.

So to all you HGD practitioners out there, what’s your take on this?

1. How long has it been since you were initiated to neophyte?
2. What was your most trying grade?
3. Any advice for someone freshly initiated into 1=10?

Hey Guys, hope you all are having a beautiful day! By any chance does anyone know of temples in Vegas? I know it’s not necessary however besides in here I’d like to be around like minded individuals to further learn.