"Israel Regardie on the Initiation Ceremonies"

Khephra Mon Sep 22, 2008 7:28 pm

"From one point of view the officers employed in these Rituals represent just such psychic projections. They represent, even as figures in dreams do, different aspects of man himself - personifications of abstract psychological principles inhering within the human spirit. Through the admittedly artificial or conventional means of a dramatic projection of these personified principles in a well-ordered ceremony a reaction is induced in consciousness. This reaction is calculated to arouse from their dormant condition those hitherto latent faculties represented objectively in the Temple of Initiation by the officers. Without the least conscious effort on the part of the aspirant, an involuntary current of sympathy is produced by this external delineation of spiritual paths which may be sufficient to accomplish the purpose of the initiation ceremony. The aesthetic appeal to the imagination - quite apart from what could be called the intrinsic magical virtue with which the G.D. documents Z.1 and Z.3 deal at some length - stirs to renewed activity the life of the inner domain. And the entire action of this type of dramatic ritual is that the soul may discover itself exalted to the heights, and during that mystical elevation receive the rushing forth of the Light." - Israel Regardie, The Golden Dawn

Frater_NS Tue Sep 23, 2008 8:27 pm

Care - thanks for posting this Smile

The late Mr Regardie's is certainly entitled to his opinions about psychology and Initiation. However, this view of Initiation does not have universal support.

Regardie is implying that a Initiation Ceremony is just a drama, who's very performance promotes a change of consciousness in the Candidate. So, therefore a local drams club could initiate just as well as a team of trained and Initiated Officers.

Now this may have been the case for Regardie's own Initiations, but it demonstrates a very naïve view of the Golden Dawn.

ankh_f_n_khonsu Wed Sep 24, 2008 8:53 pm

Frater_NS wrote:Regardie is implying that a Initiation Ceremony is just a drama, who's very performance promotes a change of consciousness in the Candidate. So, therefore a local drams club could initiate just as well as a team of trained and Initiated Officers.

Hrm... that's not exactly how I interpreted it. First, he begins by saying "From one point of view", thereby ensuring that his comments aren't interpreted as fundamental truths. Also, he seems to be saying that the performance is sacred. This attitude toward the performance probably wouldn't be found in a typical 'local drama club'. If you could find that level of devotion in a drama club, I'd argue that it would be greatly similar in potential to that of the most highly skilled magician. (There's a wonderful examination of sacred drama in Lehrich's The Occult Mind.)

Frater_NS Thu Sep 25, 2008 6:33 am

The Words and Physical Actions performed by Officers alone cannot confer a Initiation upon the Candidate. Regardless of the Officers devotion or the attitude towards the performance. This is the point I wanted to make.

exib Sat Jan 03, 2009 5:16 am

Frater_NS wrote:Regardie is implying that a Initiation Ceremony is just a drama, who's very performance promotes a change of consciousness in the Candidate. So, therefore a local drams club could initiate just as well as a team of trained and Initiated Officers.

Why should I suppose that my local drama club, given nothing but a script for the Neophyte ritual, could not induce a change of consciousness? You seem to think it enough to ridicule the idea, without providing an explanation of your own.

A "team of trained and initiated officers" is not an explanation, for their initiators would also have to be initiated, as would the initiators of their initiators, and so on. At some point, there would have to be someone who was not initiated to get the chain of initiations going. If you want to go with that story, then why can this non-initiate initiate when any other non-initiate cannot?

This explanation requires such absurd contortions that it screams for a simpler and more plausible account. Change of consciousness is an everyday occurrence. It can be as simple as the change from a perception of a cup of coffee to the perception of a piece of toast, or it can be as rare and complex as the "aha" moment in the proof of a difficult theorem in mathematics, or as exhilarating as when one crests the rise of a mountain to a fresh vista.

Willed change of consciousness (that is, getting the brain state one wants when one wants it) is a matter of trial and error, as is everything else in life. Going through the motions of a ritual involves thousands or millions of minute changes of consciousness (e.g. every gesture, colour, intonation, and whiff of incense, and every association between these things). Going through those motions over and over again in the imagination post-ritual, as Regardie recommends, will entail a willed change of consciousness. This is something that anyone can do, even the members of one's hapless drama club. There is nothing more to it.

amandachen Sat Jan 03, 2009 3:28 pm

A drama club? That's a good description of those Golden Dawn temples.

ankh_f_n_khonsu Sun Jan 04, 2009 6:41 pm

amandachen wrote:A drama club? That's a good description of those Golden Dawn temples.

Ha! You wouldn't be the first to make that observation! Wink

Frater_NS Sat Mar 14, 2009 9:43 pm

exib wrote:Why should I suppose that my local drama club, given nothing but a script for the Neophyte ritual, could not induce a change of consciousness? You seem to think it enough to ridicule the idea, without providing an explanation of your own.

Must have been having a bad day when I wrote that.. To clear up any misunderstanding(s) - please read this informative article to understand my point of view on the Neophyte ceremony.

So as you can see, sure a drama club can induce a change in consciousness with the Candidate, but its not a Neophyte Initiation.

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