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Illmatic, thanks for the questions. They begin driving things in directions I find much more interesting from a personal perspective. This is the direction I was hoping this was going to go - experience over book learning. After all, that's the point of Barbelith isn't it?
So - to run the questions in reverse, first off personalisation. To me, this is the hidden secret of Thelema that acts as the key to the G.D. - by looking at what Crowley modified, you gain an understanding not of "The right way to do things in the new aeon," but of what can be changed. In short, a lot. If you actually understand the system and don't begin to personalise it on the basis of your own understanding then you've not really doing the Golden Dawn. You're emulating old dead peoples work, not doing your own (not old dead men, exclusively. A lot of strong women have shaped the G.D.)
No key adept of the traditional G.D. failed to write their own papers and make their own contributions. It's the job of an adept. These papers are variable in quality, with good reason. Adepts ain't perfect - they have their own understandings, and in some cases these supercede or contradict the understandings of other adepts.
Ask Zalewski and he'll tell you it's not GD without the classic Egyptian god-forms. Ask Yeats and he'll tell you the Celtic ones work for him. The more G.D. papers you read the more you understand it's got very little actual set in stone 'content' - it's merely a framework. Different people have different understandings and THAT'S OK. Distrust anyone who tells you there's a "right answer" because there's not - there's only your answer, today.
So, back to the start of the question - what's the actual impact of doing these old rituals? Do you risk just parroting old traditions that have no gut impact? Perhaps. My experience has been different, however. Over the course of doing the LBRP, I started (as pretty much everyone does, I imagine) waving my hands around, being unsure as to what I was doing and making funny sounds.
However, time and persistance reaped their rewards - and I'm not even sure why I gave it the time and persistance, to be frank. In time, I began to feel my hands guided. Forceful gestures became softer, yet more centered. My hands had no option but to be in the position that was correct. Something began to flow, and as it flowed it changed my shapes so that it could flow more easily. Like the pressure of water pushing a fire-hose into a solid tube - my vibration changed pitch, timbre, resonance.
Over time, other voices raised with mine when I vibrated. My visualisations became clearer. I began to feel the connection with the thousands of other people who had performed this ritual, in different times and spaces. The archangels at the quarters offer me advice, when I'm receptive enough to listen - advice that has helped change my life. More so than if I'd simply meditated daily? Possibly not - differently, though. I've begun to develop a living relationship with the magic I do - it's not something that remains in my ritual space, it's something that comes with me.
By working on something in my space, I can isolate it. Cease the million chattering thoughts in my mind and bring my will to bear upon a single thing - for example, asking Gabriel why my finances are so fucked. For which I got a pretty quick solution (it came down to fear, as it always seems to). Ritual performance has shown me how easy it is to change your life by simply changing your life. Along with how hard it is to 'simply' change your life.
I feel like it's given me tools to approach my day to day life that act as external levers. Like a flatlander, trapped in a circle I now have a way to step over the edge. To me, that's my (current) understanding of the macrocosm and the microcosm. As in my ritual space, so in my life. One is a tool to understand the other (and vice versa) and if it's not, it's not very good.
Bit long. Bit rambly. But a start. |
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