The Western Gate

The Complete Initiation Rituals of the Golden Dawn
Frater Yechidah
Kerubim Press

Ritual, n.
1. A solemn and elaborate method of persuading the universe to maintain its indifference.
2. A repetitive performance designed to reassure the performer that chaos is under control, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
3. A precise sequence of meaningless actions, expertly repeated, in the hope that the gods are as easily impressed as one’s neighbours.

There’s nothing wrong of course in ritual, drama, expression and emulation. A peculiar system whereby initiates are lead through various grades in the hope to arrive at the eureka moment when the rough ashler is finally a beautiful work of masonry, when lead becomes gold and the waters run clear, and of course this is only achievable, so we are told by the masters, the further up the ladder you climb, whose pinnacle is usually obscured by a veil, a cloud of unknowing.
Enlightenment via such ritual rarely happens- I would suggest, and when it does it’s not because of the ritual per se but that the mind disengages from its forced drive and free wheels into eternal response, it ‘screams‘, it cannot take it any more and disassociates from the will of the initiate. In effect, it lets go rather than hankers on to an idea, it sees beyond the canvas and becomes the dance rather than following the painted steps of a motion on the dance floor.
Obsessing the mind with an idea is akin to flogging the horse to gallop faster, it may well do, or it may think it’s galloping faster but merely impressing the rider with its over emphasis on each exertion. If I push the food around the plate it will look like I’ve actually eaten it.
Ritual also requires the repetition and the sponge mind to fill itself with correspondence and things to say, things to do, again this is obsessing the mind as opposed to actually emptying it so that only the universe remains.
But none of the above comments matter here.
This book is a compendium of the rituals of one of the most influential occult orders of the 19th century.
Frather Yechidah is a well respected scholar and author and it goes without saying the content is very well put together, so it’s an easy review, ~what would you expect from a book called the complete rituals of..”n“, and it’s by Fr,Yechidah, well that’s exactly what you get, it wont be slapdash and designed to entice the gullible, It is what it is.
The format is laid out as a ritual work book, although the non verbal speaking parts are printed a lighter grey, as opposed to red which would be seen in Masonic workbooks et al. Nothing really a problem, but it wasn’t cheap and two tone colour -Red and Black would have been a much neater and better presented option. And that’s probably my only gripe. Which is superficial.
Each ritual comes with notes on the sources and where differences occur, Fr.Yechidah lists and provides them.

What use then is this book to the wayfarer? The journeyman who is unlikely to actually join any order, let alone a modern offshoot that proclaims a direct lineage to the original order of the Golden Dawn.
The rituals themselves let it be remembered were alleged to have been found as a cipher manuscript, translated by William Wynn Westcott, that were ‘found’-ahem– in a second hand bookstore. Luckily, unlike Joseph Smith of the Mormon faith and his elusive Golden Plates, the original manuscripts are held in the Freemasons hall- Queen Street – “The Big House”, available to view to the right ear and handshake, and probably not some urchin such as I.
Authenticity in this case matters not in the field of the occult, someone, somewhere, sometime would sit down and have a revelation of thought, an idea that sparks inside their head like a fireball. We have the freedom to reject it. It’s a shame that we get these stories of mysterious finds in bookshops, or golden plates in the forest or beans given by the crooked hand of a crooked old lady in receipt of an act of kindness. Just print the damned thing and say no more.
Ritual. From the pessimist. By a series of measures and rituals the candidate is lead a merry dance, hoodwinked and having wool pulled over their eyes, until the hoodwink and the woollen wig of justice placed there by the officiators is removed, by the officiators. It is akin to smoking a cigarette to calm ones nerves, when the nerves are shot because of nicotine withdrawal that the cigarette itself first created. Create doubt, remove doubt, hey presto, I am the saviour of doubt.
The wayfarer- the optimist, happy and not so frown-worthy, as I offered before, can use these rituals. By visualisation we recreate the ritual, by lucid dream we emulate., by artwork or by recreating the ritual via the written form, by song, by prose, by tale. Assimilating the idea.

The Rituals of the Golden Dawn here are concerned with the ascent upon the Qabbalistic Tree, Namely from the Neophyte to Adeptus Major . The aim of this ascent, ultimately, is union with the divine.

Rituals are tiresome, and the mind needs to formulate what is being emulated to understand them. What is being reflected, what is being parodied. The ritual lectures and ‘tracing board‘ should be the intiates first port of call so sayeth the pessimist, and yet so argues the optimist, this would deny the wanderer the chance to walk the unfamiliar, which in itself is part of a process. Our senses react to the unknown, all senses are heightened in the oppressive forest when we are alone and ‘lost’.

Reading these rituals, can seem more of a curious passive pursuit, it’s non engaging perhaps, interesting to a point but none the less, of what use if I’m not in the gang? Which hearkens back, again~repeating, to the idea to incorporate the themes, ultimately, in dream and the ‘orphic’ path of poetry, art, prose, song etc as well as imagining being the participant when reading…. I’m being naive … there’s a wealth of material within, far too much to attempt fleetingly, and way to much to summarise.
And if I am not an initiate true? so what ! if I am that ‘cowan of the 9th pillar‘ – Cowan=coing– of the corners of the temple, are we not watchers of some degree?