graspee
Hi all.
I was going to add this to the ritual of the hexagram thread, but I didn't want to be accused of going off topic, so I made a new thread.
I'm currently doing the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, (henceforth "LBRP") on a daily basis, as detailed in Israel Regardie's Golden Dawn (henceforth "GD") book.
All was going well and I was happy, until I stumbled across a website detailing Snuffin's changes to the LBRP.
Snuffin identifies four places where he claims the GD used a "blind" in the LBRP. In other words they knew that what they were instructing people to do was wrong, but that you needed to be higher up in the organization to be told the truth, or you needed to work it out for yourself maybe.
Here are the 4 blinds according to Snuffin:
1) He says that it makes more sense in the Qabalistic Cross for the light to be associated with the person doing the ritual, not an external entity, so he changes "Ateh" (thou art) to "Eheieh" (I am). This for me is a bit weak, especially since he backs it up by saying this makes more sense "especially in light of the New Aeon", which of course is Thelemic, not GD.
He also changes the "Amen" to "IAO", and touching the chest to touching the groin, both of which are Crowley Star Ruby changes.
2) The second blind he says is that the magician should move counterclockwise not clockwise when drawing the pentagrams, i.e. E -> N -> W -> S rather than E -> S -> W -> N, since counterclockwise is for banishing and clockwise is for invoking. The change of direction is another feature taken from the Star Ruby.
3) The third blind, Snuffin says that in each quarter the appropriate element should be banished, rather than banishing earth in each one, so that all elements are banished.
4) Fourth, Snuffin says that three of the four God names are in the wrong quarter, (YHVH, ADNI, AHIH, AGLA). He also changes YHVH to ALVH, Eloah, claiming that YHVH doesn't vibrate well and that his choice fits better with water, which is the element of its quarter.
So, there you have his four claimed blinds. He makes a couple of other minor changes too but doesn't claim that what he is replacing was a deliberate GD blind.
On one hand I want to dismiss Snuffin's changed LBRP, (He calls it the NBRP, N for "New"), because he has just taken some elements of Crowley's Star Ruby and retrofitted them onto the GD LBRP. I would say if you follow Thelema then do the Star Ruby, if not do the LBRP; It seems odd to change the LBRP to be more like the Star Ruby.
On the other hand, certain of his changes, namely the direction of travel, the which God name to which quarter and the banishing pentagram to be done of each element to its quarter instead of all four being earth, do make a heck of a lot of sense, and I wonder if, because someone who has been "going" for a lot longer than me is saying it, could it be true that these were GD blinds?
I wonder though, if they were blinds, when or how was the real information given? Was it left for the student to uncover the truth? Or was the corrected version given in the RR et AC, the inner order? I haven't read any of the leaked RR et AC stuff so I don't know if it says.
Can anyone please help me out here?
I was going to add this to the ritual of the hexagram thread, but I didn't want to be accused of going off topic, so I made a new thread.
I'm currently doing the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, (henceforth "LBRP") on a daily basis, as detailed in Israel Regardie's Golden Dawn (henceforth "GD") book.
All was going well and I was happy, until I stumbled across a website detailing Snuffin's changes to the LBRP.
Snuffin identifies four places where he claims the GD used a "blind" in the LBRP. In other words they knew that what they were instructing people to do was wrong, but that you needed to be higher up in the organization to be told the truth, or you needed to work it out for yourself maybe.
Here are the 4 blinds according to Snuffin:
1) He says that it makes more sense in the Qabalistic Cross for the light to be associated with the person doing the ritual, not an external entity, so he changes "Ateh" (thou art) to "Eheieh" (I am). This for me is a bit weak, especially since he backs it up by saying this makes more sense "especially in light of the New Aeon", which of course is Thelemic, not GD.
He also changes the "Amen" to "IAO", and touching the chest to touching the groin, both of which are Crowley Star Ruby changes.
2) The second blind he says is that the magician should move counterclockwise not clockwise when drawing the pentagrams, i.e. E -> N -> W -> S rather than E -> S -> W -> N, since counterclockwise is for banishing and clockwise is for invoking. The change of direction is another feature taken from the Star Ruby.
3) The third blind, Snuffin says that in each quarter the appropriate element should be banished, rather than banishing earth in each one, so that all elements are banished.
4) Fourth, Snuffin says that three of the four God names are in the wrong quarter, (YHVH, ADNI, AHIH, AGLA). He also changes YHVH to ALVH, Eloah, claiming that YHVH doesn't vibrate well and that his choice fits better with water, which is the element of its quarter.
So, there you have his four claimed blinds. He makes a couple of other minor changes too but doesn't claim that what he is replacing was a deliberate GD blind.
On one hand I want to dismiss Snuffin's changed LBRP, (He calls it the NBRP, N for "New"), because he has just taken some elements of Crowley's Star Ruby and retrofitted them onto the GD LBRP. I would say if you follow Thelema then do the Star Ruby, if not do the LBRP; It seems odd to change the LBRP to be more like the Star Ruby.
On the other hand, certain of his changes, namely the direction of travel, the which God name to which quarter and the banishing pentagram to be done of each element to its quarter instead of all four being earth, do make a heck of a lot of sense, and I wonder if, because someone who has been "going" for a lot longer than me is saying it, could it be true that these were GD blinds?
I wonder though, if they were blinds, when or how was the real information given? Was it left for the student to uncover the truth? Or was the corrected version given in the RR et AC, the inner order? I haven't read any of the leaked RR et AC stuff so I don't know if it says.
Can anyone please help me out here?