The Golden Dawn link

The magical lineage

In the late 20th century, shedloads of words were wasted on the Internet over the concept of lineage in the Golden Dawn. Different groups for different reasons tried to prove that they had a connection to the original Golden Dawn or its offshoots. Most of these connections were extremely tenuous, with the best being based on the group’s chiefs being initiated by someone who was originally a Zelator Adeptus Minor in one of the old orders (such as Israel Regardie).

A spanner was put in the works when Pat Zalewski revealed the existence of the Whare Ra temple in New Zealand. Since it had closed in the late 1970s, there were people with the right grade to initiate and train others to keep the tradition going. However, Whare Ra had different standards from the rest of the world. A Zelator Adeptus Minor could not go off and form their own temple without the permission of the Whare Ra chiefs, one of whom was John Von Daddleson, who was still alive.

They would also not be entitled to advance a candidate to a grade beyond them. This meant that to initiate higher than the 5=6, the person would have to be a 7=4.

Whare Ra had a magical orientation with nothing done without a magical reason and had a system where the initiator was given an astral link to the same force that the Chiefs had access. This force was the entire lineage of Rosicrucianism and meant that the person who had it placed in their sphere of sensation could communicate with that lineage. It was generally given out at the 7=4 grade (I was told that it was done immediately after the ritual); however, there were cases where the link was provided earlier, and I am unable to confirm why.

The Link ritual was transmitted to Robert Felkin by Rudolf Steiner, who was still a Rosicrucian at the time. There are several theories about where Steiner obtained the ritual, which are historically interesting but not the subject of this article. I am more interested in what the Link does and what it represented at Whare Ra. Please note that these are my ideas and are not official.

Golden Dawn researcher Tony Fuller has said that at different periods in Whare Ra history, the Link was given only to chiefs or to those who might one day become chiefs. However, the link was later given to others normally after the 7=4. In fact, we have evidence of this in the form of the two great initiators of the post-Whare Ra adepts, Frank Salt and Jack Taylor, who were not order chiefs (however senior they were in Whare Ra) but had the link and did pass it on to their students.

Fuller has found evidence that Felkin used to give the link out at any point in the second order where the candidate needed it. (Often at 5=6) Although he did give it to Westcott at 6=5 (he also gave him the 6=5 and 7=4). At some point, it was bumped up to 7=4, with Taylor referring to it as a capping-off process. This could suggest that either the later chiefs felt it was too powerful for a 5=6 or discovered something new about it that Felkin either did not know or had not spotted.

Felkin believed that the ritual gave the candidate an etheric link to Christian Rosenkreutz, making the person his “son” and “spiritual heir.” This is a spiritual leadership role within the Rosicrucian movement. CRC was the initiator and the creator of the Rosicrucian Order. So, in many ways, it was the right to be initiated into the Second Order of the Golden Dawn. This provided Felkin’s order with a Rosicrucian connection, which gave it legitimacy. In this context, it was important for Felkin to establish a Rosicrucian link that was better than whatever Mathers was offering.

It is the nature of magic that something which appears as one thing can be transmuted over time into something else. New Zealand was disconnected from the European occult scene, and here was a ritual that patched its adepts into the Hermetic and Rosicrucian current – the Western Mystery Tradition. To the adepts who accepted the link, it became something else.

It gave them the power to initiate into the second order. When you perform a second-order initiation, you have to make several connections simultaneously. You must connect to the egregore of the second order and the divine. The Godform of CRC acts as an intermediary between these two forces, forging a chain between god, the order and the candidate.

The connection with CRC represents the Rosicrucian tradition, and the position as a son or daughter of CRC enables the initiation to take place.

This chain, though, is connected through history and not just Rosicrucianism, but all those orders and magicians which gave birth to that movement. But this takes many different forms and brings different results.

One initiate’s experience of the link ceremony was that it opened up a vortex in front of him, like a time tunnel.

“I saw CRC, but it went much further back. I followed it until I found myself beside a great river near a mud hut with a rough wooden statue of Thoth outside. An Ibis landed on the river, and I realised that this was the birth of Hermeticism.”

Another person told me they felt the link was like a vast, long Akashic library in which all occult knowledge was written. A book was each adept’s contribution to the Great Work.

Another, who was less impressed with his experience, said he felt as if he were in an ancient tomb, as if an old Christian priest in a white robe was watching him disapprovingly.

The effect of the link is similar to the Western Mystery Tradition idea of having a contact. A magician might use that link to approach the standard Golden Dawn teaching but equally might find themselves grabbed and forced into new directions.

However, what the Link ceremony did was remove the Stella Matutina from the need for Masonic authority, lineage, Secret Chiefs, or Astral Masters. It plugged in a leader to a spiritual impulse, which they could then use to find another expression of the Rosicrucian teaching. Anyone with the link who formed a group would have the ability to have a pure connection to that impulse and could form their own egregore as a method of expression to it.

Because of his use of the link, Felkin could disconnect his Stella Matutina from the GD egregore and later disconnected his Smaragdum Thallasses from the SM. The way they did it was by reconnecting their new order to the impulse behind it. Doing so was a little more problematic than he expected, as the link was a higher level of magic than some people could handle. Christina Stoddard said that Felkin gave it to three Chiefs in London, and one immediately went insane, and the other became sick.

There were different versions of this ritual of the link, and what follows is not an interpretation but surviving ritual material, included here because it shows exactly how the Link was understood, transmitted, and constrained in practice.

The earliest example found (dated 1920) is described as “giving the Etheric Link with C.R.C.”, and with the “Ancient Order of the Rose and Cross”. The person has to make an oath of some five clauses, including, “If ever called upon to Rule in this Order I will ever seek to keep it Secret, Pure, and free from all schism”. The ceremony then moves to the Vault - the Link bestowed here is slightly longer and differs thus:

“I, we, by the Great Power invested in me, us, do at this solemn hour and in this Sacred Place transmit to our Frater the Etheric Link which we ourselves have duly received. Be thou faithful, be thou brave, be thou true. May the Blessing be transmitted from our Father C.R.C. rest upon you now and ever more. Amen. I, we, hereby invest you with the power to transmit this Etheric Link to any I, we, give you permission to so honour. Amen.”

The Obligation is given upon a sword placed upon the closed Pastos placed outside the Vault, North and South. “Before admitting the Candidate, Our Father in God should be called within the Vault by his full name three times, after bringing down the D.W.B., after full L.V.X. signs.”

It is not clear how long this version of the Link was used, as the one given below is shorter and simpler. Initially, the link was given to those expected to initiate people as Hierophants at 5=6. This meant that those who were initiating were actually connecting to this general Rosicrucian current during the 0=0. However, later the ritual was given only to those who were 7=4 and likely to become chiefs in the Order. Pat Zalweski thinks that this is because later in Whare Ra’s history, all the Hierophants were 7=4 anyway; however, I think there might be another reason.

The introduction of the Etheric Link within the Stella Matutina was probably the reason why Felkin lost control of the English temples. More than just making unprepared people insane, it would have been pumping new ideas and methods into people who were ill-equipped to handle them and lacking real dedication to do so. I was warned by Whare Ra adept Barbara Nairn that some of the people who received the link within the Order had become unbalanced afterwards because they could not handle the load. This included some of the people who were given it after Whare Ra closed.

“At the point you are given the link, you are expected to have done the work on yourself and not allow your ego to get in the way of your work. If you could not, then the link would overpower you,” she told me.

I know of several people outside Whare Ra who attempted to get the link either before they were ready, or simply by performing the ritual in Pat Zalewski’s book. Most of the time, nothing happens, which implies that the link must come from someone authorised to grant it. This suggests to me that the link is protected or intelligent, and that when you are ready to receive it, you get it. Those who received the link legitimately described themselves as looking at a vortex, which was a gateway somewhere else.

The idea of bestowing an Etheric Link killed off those who believed that it was possible to form a magical group based on the idea of paper lineage. Paper lineage is a masonic, anti-magic atrocity. It says that someone can form a group without doing any work because another person thinks they are worthy of a certificate to start a group. In fact, the Order of the Golden Dawn was formed based on such a concept. Westcott and Mathers were never initiated into the Golden Dawn, but claimed they had the right to form such a group because they had authority, as evidenced by letters from Fr Sprengel. Westcott and Mathers were brilliant magicians, and Mathers went on to form a link of his own to the Rosicrucian tradition, but the idea that you can be named a 7=4 and can start a magic group because you have a stack of paper is absurd. Nevertheless, there are those who have formed their groups around such paper lineages, sometimes actually buying them and passing them over kitchen tables in a cobbled-together ritual.

Unless they wish it, the Link does not even require them to open a group connected to the Whare Ra egregore. It only requires them to be connected to the source which inspired Whare Ra.

There are those, including Pat Zalweski, who believe that the link is only a connection with Steiner and therefore not particularly important. Pat and I agree on many things, but this is not one of them. This is because, in my view, the Link was written to connect Steiner’s group to the Rosicrucian current and so passes well beyond him and into the roots of the original Order. In fact, exploring the roots of the link will take you even further back into the roots of Rosicrucianism and into prehistory.

One thing Zalweski and I agree on is that you can form your own link to this particular spiritual impulse and build a group around it. You will not, however, be able to claim lineage from Whare Ra or Smaragdum Thallasses.

In Whare Ra, I was told, the Link ritual was performed in the hidden 7=4 room. There is no proof of this, but it would be logical. The rite was carried out by the 5=6 officers Chief Adept, Second Adept and Third Adept. Note: The Pastos was placed in the Portal for this Ceremony, and the Altar was moved to the extreme East; and three candles were placed upon it. The incense was burning. The candidate waited in the Portal of the Vault.

The Transmission of the Etheric Link

Chief Adept 2nd Adept 3rd Adept

Chief Adept: “V.H. Third Adept, who is he that waiteth without the Portal.”

3rd Adept “Our Frater et Soror __________, who hath attained unto the High Grade of 7=4

Chief Adept “Go then, V.H. Associate Adept, and see that it is in truth our Frater Test him if he be well prepared to proceed with this ceremony, being in a calm and recollected frame of mind, that we may bestow upon him in full power the Link which we have commissioned to transmit to him.

“Instruct him to enter this hall of the Adepti, his hands meekly folded upon his breast; let him say clearly and humbly, ‘I hereby request you to bestow upon me the true Etheric Link which unites us in unbroken succession with our Founder and Father Christian Rosencreutz and His Companions. May he transmit therewith the Spiritual Knowledge and Power of Healing and Comfort to the sick and sorry, and may I be enabled to use those gifts for the good of the Rosicrucian Order to which I have the honour to belong. I pledge myself to use this Link according to the Ancient Traditions of the Order, and I proclaim my sincere belief in the person known to us as Christian Rosencreutz, who founded the Order to which I have the honour to belong.’

V.H. 2nd Adept, assist the Third Adept in the Reception of our Frater.” 3rd Adept goes out, prepares the Postulant, sees that he is robed in White, gives him the petition, and guards the Portal.

Postulant gives!!! !!!

2nd Adept admits them Postulant reads petition.

Chief Adept “V.H. Frater et Soror, since the days when our Founder and Father C.R.C. dwelt upon this Earth, He has been able, by His great advance, to exercise supreme rule over the Order called by His name. He and certain of His followers who have passed through the Veil, form a circle which continuously directs the growth and development of this Order, aiding its Rulers and inspiring them. At intervals of 120 years, this supervision becomes for a time more definite, and has been used to modify and reconstitute that it may be constantly adapted to the needs of each new age.

“In the year of Our Lord 1890, this revival and reconstitution of the Order took place. Under the new conditions, no written mandate was issued to the Rulers of the Temples or Groups, and it is therefore more necessary that the purely Etheric Link should, at the discretion of those who already hold it, be transmitted to such Rulers and Adepti as may be considered suitable. For this reason, it is now offered to you. We have been given the Power to transmit it and the privilege of conveying it to you, and through you to others who may be judged worthy. We do this therefore on the understanding that you will exercise due care and conscientious discrimination in the transmission of this Link to others; that in doing this, you will call to your aid Two Fraters who have also received it from us, so that you form a Triangle of Power. Should one of the three be removed from this plane, let the remaining two select a discreet and loyal person as successor. You are only empowered to transmit this Link to members of the R.R. et A.C.

“In receiving this Link and those Higher Grades which we are in a position to bestow upon you, you will in truth become connected with the modern successors of the Original and True Rosicrucian Order. That Order which was founded in Europe in 1250, and was duly manifest in 1405 as is transcribed in our Ritual of the 5=6 Grade.

I now charge you to answer truly under those conditions. Are you willing to receive this LINK, and never to reveal when, where, or from whom you have received it?”

Postulant: “I willingly accept the conditions and pledge my honour that I will faithfully observe them.”

Chief Adept “Approach then the Vault, my Frater, and kneel within its Threshold while we invoke our Father Christian Rosencreutz.”

Chiefs enter the Vault and Postulant follows and kneels on the Threshold facing east. Chief Adept stands east of him, facing east. 2nd Adept in S. East. 3rd Adept in N. East. They stretch out their right hands towards the Centre East holding their Wands.

Chief Adept “Christian Rosencreutz”

2nd Adept “Christian Rosencreutz”

3rd Adept “Christian Rosencreutz”

ALL “Christian Rosencreutz, we invoke Thee to manifest Thyself and to transmit through us the ETHERIC LINK with thyself to this our Frater/Soror _______ that they may indeed become Thy son and spiritual heir.”

There is a Pause; the three Officers turn slowly, form a Triangle about the Postulant. They lay aside their Wands and Ankhs. Postulant is directed to place his left hand on Chief’s breast, his right hand in the Chief’s right hand. 2nd and 3rd place their hands: one on the head of Postulant over Chief’s left hand, and the other on Chief’s back.

All “I (we) by the Power transmitted to me (us) do hereby transmit to you Frater the ETHERIC LINK with our Father CHRISTIAN ROSENKREUTZ, and the Rosicrucian Order founded by Him.

(Pause)

Adepti withdraw their hands and leave the Vault. Postulant remains kneeling. The Door is closed upon him, and he is left alone for 10 minutes. The Chief then goes into the Vault, raises Postulant by placing his hand on his head, saying:

“May you be brave. May you be faithful. May you be true.”

All present exchange the Full Grip across the Pastos, then form a circle and do full 7=4 Signs.

The idea of the Whare Ra link was that you will train your students until they are ready to receive the link from you, so that the Chain of Hermes is never broken.