Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 21:50, 14 June 2006

Discussion Moved From User Page to Talk Page

JM: I agree with your adding the translation of name "Sprengel" and its significance.

HH: Cool. Why did you take out the link to the article? That was where I got my information. I'll add an External Links section to the article, but I'm trying to be thorough here.

JM: Because it's abiased on-line source, not a published book by a reputable publisher. See below.

JM: I did send a message to Mr. Zink regarding this controversy, but he has not answered. But it seems my advice to have someone in his group actually register with Misplaced Pages, instead of posting anonymous edits, was taken to heart.

HH: Whoever said that I was part of his group?

JM: You seem to be promoting their unique perspective on these issues. If you are not a member, you should do some more research. You'll find that there are many experts in the fieild that do not agree with the assertions made in their "Truth in the Golden Dawn" series. In particular, you should read BOOKS on the subject, especially those by R.A. Gilbert and Ellic Howe. Putting edits in an encyclopedia article based only on what you find from one website with their own agenda to promote is not good scholarship.

JM: What I still take issue with you over are the following edits (in italics):

However, after becoming a member of the Golden Dawn, S.L. Macgregor Mathers resigned from Freemasonry. This is a parenthetical comment at best, unless you have it in mind to discount Freemasonry as an influence on the GD, which is ridiculous. I don't think Mathers IMMEDIATELY resigned from the UGLE, which is what you seem to be implying here. I don't even think it's worth mentioning, but if you do you should attach a time frame to it -- for example, after he moved to Paris. What reference do you have that shows if and when he resigned from the Grand Lodge and/or the SRIA? (I've never found any, but this could be checked in Masonic records.) Maybe he just stopped paying his dues and went inactive. What it seems you're doing here is a backhanded slap at Masonry, trying to separate the GD from its genuine Masonic roots, and I've never understood why you guys are so obsessed with doing that, except possibly due to your leader's Catholic sympathies.

HH: No, I have it in mind to show that Mathers' membership in Freemasonry was not dependent on his membership in the Golden Dawn, and that thus, they were separate Orders. Not trying to make any implication; just being thorough. I don't mind adding that he did that after moving to Paris, but why would you want to do that? Anyway, for this part, let's add 'after moving to Paris' and be done with it.

JM: I added a parenthetical comment saying he was no longer a Mason at some time after the GD was established. I hope that's enough.

JM:The Cipher Manuscripts and other documents called the Z documents provide the basis of the Golden Dawn tradition, and define the structure of Golden Dawn ritual. This is "biased POV" in the language of Misplaced Pages. In other words, it's what YOUR Order purports to believe, but it is not in any way universally accepted. No reputable, published GD scholar recognizes the Z Documents as being of the same foundational nature as the Cipher. Neither Gilbert nor Howe has ever advanced this idea. Not even Cicero, who sticks to a very traditional GD form, will back you guys on this one. In his "The Essential Golden Dawn', there is a whole chapter on the Cipher, which begins, "No history of the Golden Dawn can be given without some reference to the Cipher Manuscript -- the enigmatic document upon which the rituals and the knowledge lectures of the Golden Dan are based." Period. The Z Docs are mentioned in passing only twice, and not as a fundamental basis of the GD. What you're trying to do with this one is de-legitimize any group as being "not real Golden Dawn" if they don't revere Mathers and the Z Docs like you do. In other words, it's a reflection of an exclusively biased POV, and has no place in a general encyclopedia article."

HH: Reverence is not at issue here, but I'm guessing that Mathers' status as Chief of the Order is at issue.

JM: No, historical accuracy and NPOV is the issue. That Mathers was once a Chief of the Order is indisputable. That he was officially expelled by the entire College of Adepti in 1900 is also a fact. Whether they had any authority to do this is a matter of opinion, but it HAPPENED. They believed Mathers had become dangerously megalomaniacal and was no longer competent to administer the Order. If you read his letters from the period it's hard to disagree. That he was completely bamboozled by the Horos's and exposed the Order to a horrible scandal is also a fact -- he thought Mrs. Horos was a "Secret Chief", and she turned out to be a swindler and a criminal. So much for Mathers' ability to discern "Secret Chiefs"! All of this is faithfully documented by a REPUTABLE SCHOLAR (R.A. Gilbert) in a book (Golden Dawn Scrapbook) from a REPUTABLE PUBLISHER (Weiser Books), so it fits the criteria for inclusion in Misplaced Pages.

HH: Regardie, in his Introduction to The Golden Dawn, supports the idea that neither Westcott nor Mathers wrote the Z documents.

JM: I am unable to find a reference in my copy of Regardie's introducton. Can you cite the passage?

There is an entire list of Inner Order documents, lettered 'A' through 'Z', which Regardie calls the "catalouge of manuscripts, enumerating in alphabetical order the documents circulated amongst Zelator Adeptus Minors." The 'Z' documents are the ones concerned with "Symbolism of the Temple, Candidate and Ritual of the Neophyte Grade". Why are ONLY those documents singled out for special "canonical" status and not the others? In my opinion, it's because there are those who wish to canonize the particular interpretation of the Ciphers by Mathers as being the one and only interpretation.

HH: Besides, if you accept the Cipher Manuscripts as foundational documents, then it is only through the founding Chiefs that they were ever actually used.

JM: According to their own purported history of the Order, they WERE used, by "Hermanibus Temple No. 2". Logically, whomever wrote the Cipher Manuscripts are the "founding Chiefs", not Westcott and Mathers, who came along years later.

HH: If they had access to the Cipher Manuscripts, a previously unknown document until they came along, then wouldn't it be possible that they also had access to the Z documents?

JM: Because of the unique manner in which the Cipher came to be discovered. It was not something that Westcott had "access" to, it was accidentally found by him. He wasn't even SUPPOSED to have access to it, it was a fluke, if you believe the mythology. He claimed the "German Adepts" cut the Order in the UK off from further communications shortly after their Charter was granted by Sprengel. If there were other manuscripts, why didn't Westcott produce them when he was being challenged by Mathers for forging the letters themselves?

HH: And if they were used by the founding Chiefs, then that would make them foundational documents.

JM: Only of Westcott and Mathers' Order in England. They were not involved in the "German Lodge", nor in "Temple No. 2", so it's hard to argue that they and only they are "founding chiefs."

HH: Anyway, the Z documents should appear somewhere in there, if only to give a thorough accounting of the Z documents.

JM: I added a sentence or two about the Z Documents. Which gives it the same attention that Cicero, Gilbert and Howe, reputable authors from reputable publishers, give it.

HH: I'll just be bold and ask the question: are you trying to support the view that Mathers was somehow not the Chief and that he was illegitimate?

JM: I'm trying to eliminate any biased view as to whether he was or not. Back in 1900, you could have found nearly 100 Adepts of the Order, including Praemonstrator W.B. Yeats, Chief Adept Florence Farr, the Order's financieer Anne Horniman, and even Westcott himself, who believed Mathers had lost his legitimacy (and his sanity) after that point. Supporting Mathers' were a small handful of Adepts, mostly in Paris, his wife, Brodie-Innes (who later changed his mind), and notably Aleister Crowley, whom the EOGD spares no effort to denigrate! So, do we declare that one side or the other is "right", or do we present the FACTS as they occured and let the individual decide what to believe? That is what's called being "non-point-of-view."

JM: What the Z Docs really are is an exegesis by Mathers of the original system of the Cipher. The Z Docs are NOT in any way "original materials" in the way the Ciphers are, because the Ciphers pre-dated the establishment of the original Isis-Urania Temple No. 3, whereas the Z Docs were created AFTER it's establishment.

HH: There is no evidence that the Z docs were created before Isis-Urania's establishment, but there is no evidence that they didn't exist either.

JM: Absense of evidence is evidence of absence. If you're going to promote a narrow-POV, you need to SAY it's mere speculation, not present it as indisputable fact.

HH: Regardie seems to believe that they came from an earlier source.

JM: If you have a citation, let's see it.

JM: They are Mathers' interpretation of the Ciphers, but they are in no way the ONLY possible interpretation.

HH: There is no way to prove that they are Mathers' intepretation,

JM: Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. They are unmistakably written in Mathers' distinctly turgid style. They are documents pretaining to the Second Order, not even allowed to be seen by non-Adepts. There was no Second Order until 1892, long after Westcott claimed they had been "cut off" from contact with the supposed "German Adepts". You could group them along with Mathers' other "channeled" information, I suppose. They are part of a catalog of other Second Order documents, so why is no one claiming "foundational" status for Documents A through Y? The EOGD wouldn't want to, since there are things in those documants they do not adhere to themselves.

HH: but if you want to have an Order based on historical tradition, you should probably use the interpretation that the founding Chiefs used.

JM: Again, this is a metter of what constitues "founding chiefs".

JM: Even if you buy into the mythology given by Westcott of Fraulien Sprengel and the "German Rosicrucians", as your group does, your claim doesn't stand up.

HH: That's some fast shooting there, Tex. I certainly don't speak for the Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn.

JM: Yes you do. Whether you are a member of their organization or not, you are promoting their uniquely biased POV. In that sense, you are speaking for them. You might do well to study some other materials beyond what is on their website. Like books. Try a library or bookstore.

JM: Part of that mythology (specifically mentioned in the Sprengel letters) is the existence of a GD Temple PRIOR to the one created by Westcott and Mathers, referred to as "Hermanubis Temple No. 2". This being the case, then a GD Lodge was in fact formed BEFORE the Z Documents were written by Mathers, even before Mathers had ever heard of the Golden Dawn! Logically, therefore, the Z Docs are not "foundational documents", since a GD Temple (recognized by Sprengel) was founded before they existed!

HH: Who says that Mathers created the Z docs?

JM: If you want to substitute something to the effect that the authorship is unknown, that's fine. They read like everything else that Mathers ever wrote. But to claim they are from the same antiquarian source as the Ciphers, and therefore are equal in importance to the foundation of the tradition, is unsupportable and contradicted by what we know about Egyptology.

JM: Here's the evidence that was brought up by A.E. Waite: the Z Documents could not have had antiquarian origins, since they specifcially refer to the Neophyte Hall represnting the "Hall of Dual Manifestation of the Truth", a Egyptological religious concept that was entirely unknown after the fall of Pharonic Egypt until the decoding of the Rosetta Stone in the early 19th century, and the subsequent translation of the Pyramid texts. This places the Z documents to be no earlier than the late 19th century.

JM:Be aware I'll continue to keep eliminating this edit to the article, and I'll make my case to the Misplaced Pages Mediation Cabal if I have to. I expect to hear from them in three days. If you want to describe the Z Documents as part of Mathers' work to refine and develop the Cipher materials into a workable form, I'll go along with that, but not with any idea that they are universally accepted as foundational.

HH: Well, if they were from the founding Chiefs, doesn't that make them just as legitimate as the Cipher Manuscripts, which also came through the founding Chiefs, veen if they had claims that they came from earlier sources?

JM: Once again, it depends on what you define as "founding Chiefs". One entirely logical arguemtn is that the "founding Chiefs" are the ones who wrote the Cipher Manuscripts. If you want to include a passage saying that SOME modern GD practioners consider the Z Docs to be canonical, that's fine. But you can't flatly declare that they ARE canonical, and not acknowledge the genuine debate around the issue in the GD community.

JM: (This should not, however, detract from the importance of the Cipher Manuscripts.) Expressions like this are OPINIONS, not statements of fact. The preceding paragraph that I wrote states the FACTS: "The actual material itself described in the Manuscript is of known origins. Hermeticism, Alchemy, Qabalah, Astrology and Tarot were certainly not unknown to 19th century scholars of the Magical arts; the Cipher is a compendium of previously known Magical traditions. The basic structure of the rituals and the names of the Grades are based on those of the S.R.I.A." The appending of an OPINION on "importance" is yet again, a biased POV.

HH: I'm sure that the Golden Dawn scholars would support me in the opinion that the Cipher Manuscripts were important; this section tends to belittle their importance.

JM: I don't see that is does. It simply sates what is in them, and points out that all that material was also available from other sources. It's odd that you're trying to say my version of the article "belittles their importance" when I devoted an entire section JUST to them.

JM: Many Golden Dawn scholars believe that Mathers received his materials from the "Secret Chiefs" connected to his German Rosicrucian predecessors... You changed "some" to "many", and added the appellation "scholars" to what I wrote. I challenge you to find ANY reputable scholar of GD history who has EVER given any credence to Mathers' claims of contacts with these "Secret Chief" representatives. Howe does not, nor does Gilbert, nor Kuntz, nor Runyon, nor King, nor Cicero. They don't even claim that these "Secret Chiefs" existed at all! So who are these "many scholars"? The only "scholars" claiming this are those who belong to groups who have a religious faith in their actual existence, such as your group and Mr. Griffin's.

HH: Dude, I'm acting independently here.

JM: I think you're promoting one particular group's unsupportable beliefs over all others.

HH: Either way, like you said, we're not talking about beliefs; we are talking about facts. And it is a fact that Mathers claimed that there were secret Chiefs; as a founding Chief,

JM: Again, we differ in what constitutes a "founding Chief".

HH: he is probably a good source for understanding Golden Dawn beliefs, even if not everything he might say is verifiable.

JM: Quite a lot of what he said is obviously barking mad. Westcott was also a "founding Chief" by your definition, and he did not support Mathers assertion of being in contact with "Secret Chiefs". He thought Mathers had lost his mind. So why don't we give equal weight to Westcott's opinions? Or why don't we leave off ALL the opinions and stick to the FACTS that can be verified?

JM: Some believe that S.L. Macgregor Mathers and his wife Moina invoked the materials, and he refined and developed them, as he had with the Cipher Manuscripts. You replaced my descriptor of "channeled" with "invoked." That is non-sequitur. "Invoking" is something you do with a spirit or deity, not with textural material. "Channeling" is the proper term for receiving raw material in a trance state from a spiritual source, which is what she (and you claim also Mathers himself too, but I won't quibble about that point) actually did. It's unfortunate that "channeling" has acquired a somewhat touchy-feely "New Age" connotation, but it's the proper descriptive term.

HH: To channel means that a person acts as a medium for a spirit. To invoke simply means that a person conjures someone or something. Now, it is probably true that some people believe that Moina channeled the materials, but others believe that both she and Samuel invoked the material. The article should reflect this.

JM: Misplaced Pages: "Channelling or channeling is the alleged communication of information to or through a physically embodied human being (the channel or medium), from a spirit or other supernatural entity outside the mind (or self) of the channel." Is this not a description of what they claimed they were doing? To "invoke" is something else. I suggest you try the dictionary.

JM: Adding Ithell Colquhoun's book to the references was a good idea, as it's certainly influential. But adding your own website link, "Truth About the Cipher Manuscripts", to the list of actual published BOOKS on the subject is, once again, promoting a biased POV. You already have a link to your "Golden Dawn Research Center" in the article, and someone can find that essay and others promoting your POV on your website. But it has no standing to be included as a primary reference in a general encyclopedia article.

HH: Like I said, I used it as a source, and my source needs to be referenced.

JM: The source is baised. To include it in a collection of soucre materials that are all published books by recognized scholars is misleading at the least. I suggest you look up Misplaced Pages's policy on verifiability.

JMax555 20:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Guys, I'm really trying to follow this conversation. I find it fascinating, but you're making it very difficult. Please sign you comments with four tildes like this ~~~~. I'm having a very hard time knowing who said what. As a matter of policy, this conversation should be taking place on your talk pages, not your user pages. There's a lot of good stuff here. Please help make it so me and others like me don't get lost in the poor formatting. Feel free to leave a message on my talk page. I'll be happy to help you master the relatively simple mechanics of Misplaced Pages if I can.--◀Puck▶ 20:16, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Puck. I've added my sig-tildes. Iawsn't going to try to re-format it, but I gave it a go. The old versions are accessible anyway. I appreciate your getting involved to help clear things up and put an end to this edit-war.

Here, let me try your formatting:

◀Joseph Max▶

JMax555 20:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

A word of acknowledgment

I don't know if you'll ever read this, but I ran into the work of anon. user 24.22.204.79 because it hit the S.L. MacGregor Mathers page, one I watch. I was following its progress with an eye toward repairs when I saw that you had beaten me too it. Good lookin' out. I'm adding the pages it hit to my watch list to keep an I on it myself. I've only been here a few weeks, but I'm beginning to appreciate the potential for Misplaced Pages to have a very good repository of information on the Western Mysteries for both the practitioner and those who are merely curious or wishing to expand their knowledge of this facet of Western culture. However, if it just becomes a rant festival along the lines of alt.magick , alt.religion.wicca and the rest of Usenet's smoking ruin it will have been rendered useless. Preserving NPOV is essential. I'm glad to see your efforts. Carry on.--◀Puck▶ 05:48, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

OSOGD

On the Talk:Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn page you said:

I wrote a factual account of the GD history that has been published since 2002, which has many outside links going to it. It can be seen at: http://www.osogd.org/library/biscuits/history.html. My own group is affiliated with the Florida Corporation, but I did not even make a special paragraph describing ny group, much less blatantly promoting it.

I didn't realize you were with the OSOGD. I was in contact with you guys back in October of 2002. I contacted the Cancellarius and she said some one who lived in Baltimore would get in touch with me. I'm still waiting :-)

Yes, we have a member in Balitmore, but she's been inactive for at least a year. We still haven't penetrated the Ease Coast of the US.

A friend of mine also wrote you around the same time. He's still waiting too. We were both very hungry. We still are. In the mean time, though, he has joined the O.T.O. and will soon be getting his III° and I'm currently waiting for approval on my Minerval application. You let two potential members slip through your hands. I'm really saying all this in jest because I sense the spirit of your order is not about recruiting lots of members and being the one true way.

We're not keeping score. Frankly, almost all of our members found us by word of mouth or by one of the seminars we hold from time to time. We get very few applicants through the Web. We're not playing the "Internet Order" game. We're trying to keep the "fraternal" in our fraternal order.

I appreciate your efforts to share the information you have and make it easier for others, like myself, who have chosen to pursue the Great Work, whether or not we are affiliated with any particular organizational manifestation or not.

Our greatest wish for the GD community is that we would all just live together in peace, deal with each other as brothers and sisters, and do the Work.

Speaking of affiliation, though, on the OSOGD web site it says "We are not affiliated with, nor do we represent, any other organization calling itself 'Golden Dawn', in whole or in part." You said here that your group is affiliated with the HOGD in Florida. That's a bit confusing to me.

We aren't a Temple of Cicero's HOGD, but our Chief Adept is a member of the HOGD(Inc.) Board of Directors. So there is a "sideways" affiliation in that sense, and I wanted to be 100% up front about what my connections are from the get-go.

It's also a bit off-putting for outsiders to see all the bickering and claims about who can and can't use the words "Golden Dawn."

Pathetic, isn't it? It's like laying claim to the word "yoga".

I am aware the O.T.O. goes through the same thing about the use of its name and is not above going to court about it, but even though I am associated with them I find it all degrading and petty. Maybe it's only because I don't have any financial interest in copyrights and such, but I would think people who aspire to union with the light beyond the abyss could find a way to pursue their spiritual goals with whining like a bunch of spoiled brats. I hope you don't take this as a personal criticism. I'm just venting.--◀Puck▶ 23:07, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

You think YOU feel like venting???

I haven't even put an entry in the Wiki article about the OSOGD. I'll keep to keep my hands clean until a Wiki Mediator can untangle the mess. This isn't about me or my GD group. We don't gather members or sell courses over the Internet, so we don't even have a dog in that race. This is about not letting one faction or another hijack Misplaced Pages's entry on the Golden Dawn and fill it with their self-advertisments. It isn't fair. There's links at the bottom of the article for all the various Orders, including ours. Go to those pages and get all the self-promotion you'll ever need. Nothing wrong with that, let the buyer beware! Let all the various groups compete fairly in the marketplace of ideas. But Misplaced Pages should be neutral, and both the EOGD and Griffin's HOGD/A+O have repeatedly filled Misplaced Pages with specious information about what constitutes the "real" Golden Dawn, taking great care, of course, that only THEIR organization fits the description. They do the same thing with the general entry on the Golden Dawn. For example, this dust-up about the Cipher Manuscripts and the Z Documents. The EOGD makes a big deal out of the Z Documents, because some of the other Orders (like ours) don't adhere to everything in them as canonical.

JMax555 01:20, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I've started the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn article - better me than you as WP discourages articles being started by members of the group the article is about. I'm a very old friend of Sam's, by the way, We go back to the early '80s. I'd prefer to remain anonymous on WP, though, so please go to email if you'd like to discuss. --999 22:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

How can I reach you by e-mail? Mine is maxx58585@yahoo.com, if you just want to send me a note.

When you go to a user's user page or talk page, "E-mail this user" should appear on the left in the "toolbox." I think it will only work if you have an e-mail address registered for yourself as well, so if you don't, just go into preferences and set it up. You can easily email any user who has registered their email address this way... --999 00:11, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Mediation Cabal Request

I was taking a look at you MedCab request. Things seem to have simmered down (to someone from the outside anyway), have they or did you still need help? --Wgfinley 02:40, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Good Job

That's most gracious of you, but all I want is a balanced, non-POV article. Someone was removing the EOGD's appropriate (non-spam) links and that's not fair either. The article itself should not promote any group over another. That's what the links to their respective websites are for, where everyone can self-promote to their heart's content. - JMax555 05:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Attn

"Someone" has obfuscated the external link to the OSOGD at the GD Tradition to "Open Sores Order of the Golden Dawn".
Here is a link to the diff. The spoof page was last modified on 02/06/2006 at 11:31 AM. The link was added to wikipedia on 02/06/2006 at 11:45 AM. This is the only contribution from User:209.160.73.26.
Cyberdenizen 21:31, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

VandalProof

Hello, I am Prodego, a VandalProof moderator. You left a message on AmiDaniel's talk page about possible abuse of VandalProof. On the article you linked to, only two reverts were made using VandalProof, both by Yanksox. You said however, that an anonymous editor is using VandalProof. This should not be possible, and it also should not be possible to remove "using VandalProof" from the edit summary when VandalProof is used. Could you please clarify who abused the program and provide diffs? Thanks, Prodego 16:51, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

3rr

Hi. Please read and understand WP:3RR. You may or may not get blocked for your recent edits. William M. Connolley 21:50, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of which...could you please take a look at recent diffs on the article Golden Dawn tradition? The anon and I have violated 3RR at least 5 times. The anon is now signed in as User:Friar FiatLux, and has left a message on the talk page. I would like you to respond to his/her allegations about whether your edits were POV. Thanks. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 03:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

E-mail

Received and replied to... -999 19:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Please help watch the article(s). Frater FiatLux is at it again. (Though it seems he just got blocked for 24hrs for WP:3RR :-) -999 19:58, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

FFL

Little point talking to FFL, he's been blocked for 72h and his sock Opuaut has been indefinitely blocked. Check the reports and results at WP:AN/3RR. -999 (Talk) 21:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)