I wouldn't Swear to it

by Nick Farrell

During the 0=0 you are required to swear an oath. It is a surprisingly dull thing if you read it out loud and includes many clauses that are almost legalistic in their phraseology. Yet it is common for candidates to say in the post-mortems afterwards that it was at this point they felt the most.

One of the obvious reasons is that there is a lot of magic going on at this point in the ceremony. You have to remember that in the 0=0 you are standing in what is the Egyptian hall of judgement – the hall of Maat. It was here that the soul was judged by beings called the 42 assessors under the presidency of the Goddess Maat herself.

Maat was supreme justice and even the gods had to come to her to be judged. However she was also the principle of balance and harmony, a position represented in the temple by the Hegemon.

There is much which happens at this point in the ritual which is ‘inner order stuff' but it is fair to say that the Gods of the Halls of Justice are all focused on the candidate when he or she makes this oath. Subsequently it is a bit like walking through treacle to make it while under such pressure. It was for this reason that Dion Fortune, bless her, felt that it was so powerful that years after the closure of the GD she still felt unable to talk about it until the publication of Israel Regardie's Golden Dawn (and then she assumed it was safe because the cat was out of the bag).

Another reason that the candidate feels so pressured is that they are standing between two triangles. This is a sort of Hexagram which has not been completed yet. There is a downward triangle made by the Stolistes, Dadouchos and Keryx and another by the Hiereus, Hegemon and Hierophant. When you see a hexagram in the GD it usually has something to do with the Tree of Life focused on Tiphareth with the various points representing Sephira. In this form the Stolistes represents Geburah, the Dadouchos represents Chesed, the Hiereus represents Hod, the Hegemon Netzach and the Hierophant, Daath.

Those of you who have cheated and looked at the inner order stuff in Regardie's Golden Dawn will also know that the type of hexagram which the officers form is a hexagram attributed to the West and the element of Air in the Zodiac. So the candidate is effectively being placed in the centre of the Tree of Life (Tiphareth) which is the meeting point of the Higher Self and the Lower self. Thus the oath is an act of the Lower Self which draws down the Higher Self to take part. On the altar is the symbol of the order, which is at the centre of the ‘upper triangle' making it the centre of a triangle of the art… which is like a lift shaft bringing down entities through the levels. In this case it is bringing the egregore of the Order, which is being bought, into the sphere of sensation of the candidate when he or she touches the symbol.

I have commented before how the candidate is asked to hold the Hierophant's left hand while he holds the right hand on the symbol. If done correctly the candidate has locked his or her arms in a figure eight pattern with the Hierophant. A figure eight is a symbol of eternity. This, coupled with the other hand on the cross and the triangle, effectively stamps the symbol of the order onto the aura of the candidate for eternity. Those of you who have been initiated by Chic will have also had it stamped on your hand as he likes to press a little harder than I do.

Firstly the candidate swears to keep secret this Order, its name, the names of its members and the proceedings that take place at its meetings from non-initiates and those who don't have the current password.

Why keep each element of the oath secret in this day and age? Firstly the name of the order needs to be kept secret because those who are looking for an order called the the Golden Dawn might find it. Occult tourists flock to the Golden Dawn simply because of its fame. All such types will do is take a few pictures and leave the moment any work is required. It is better that they approach it knowing that it is a serious group. Also there are a lot of GD groups out there formed by people who have found the Israel Regardie book and want to set up a cult of personality about their flacid egos. It is better that we are not associated with such times and being fast and furious with the name does tend to result in us being lumped together with the fruitcakes. It is better that you keep the name secret.

The names of the members needs to be secret because it is still and always will be a matter of privacy. With different GD groups around I prefer to be someone who works in the tradition rather than be seen publically as affiliated to one group or another. There are those who will throw stones at what they call a ‘Cicero GD' and it is a conflict this mars in Libra can do without. Also there is a matter of advertising. It would be really good if the moment someone did their 0=0 they were a great magus, but no one can expect that. Tell others that you are a magician with the Golden Dawn and a huge cock-up in a public debate on knowledge, will bring the whole group down. Remember that groups are built by thought and can be torn down by the wayward thoughts of others. Therefore it is better to keep everything secret to avoid this problem.

Theoretically members who don't know the password because they have not been told what it is by the Honoured Cancellarius because they have been demitted or expelled. This is not really the style of this group, nor indeed the order because there are many temples and someone who has been demitted from this one can enter other temples with the blessing of the chiefs. Just because you fall foul of the evil Praemonstrator of this temple does not mean that you can't show up in another Golden Dawn temple. It is for this reason that the password is centrally issued so that current members know it.

The next thing the candidate swears is to undertake a kindly and benevolent relation to everyone in the order. This speaks for itself but is often the one that people forget in esoteric orders where knifings are more common than in politics. Next is a strange one… the candidate swears to keep quiet about information they may have gained concerning the order before they took the oath. It is hard to see when this would apply… and it seems retrospective and therefore futile. It is important when you consider that you would have had in your hands all the material if you had bought the GD book and could therefore talk freely with anyone about it. Personally I think that the new oath removes that possibility but it seems that Westcott was not taking chances.

Then we have the copyright clauses… all material has to have the GD label on it. This is to keep the teaching regular throughout the order. Second you are not allowed to copy the material. There is a lot of material, which you get as members which is original or which has never been published. This stuff we want to keep as secret as possible because it means that we are giving our members something new. The original stuff is actually copyright (as was the older stuff in its day).

Then we have the part of the oath I had the most difficulty with. I will not allow myself to be placed in such a state of passivity that any initiated person or power may cause me to lose control of my words and actions. At the time I thought this meant that I would not allow myself to be hypnotised or take part in pathworkings. Indeed some people think this clause of the oath was designed to prevent a hypnotist getting the passwords out of a GD adept while under their control. But they were wrong and that is not what the oath is saying.

Hypnosis does not cause you to lose control of yourself, however passivity does. Passivity is when you turn your will over to that of another. You do it in co-dependant or other abusive relationships, you can also make yourself totally passive to a bully at work. Whenever you surrender what you want to another's will you lose that vital connection with your higher self and in serious cases the damage can be permanent. Your personality is the very chariot you are seeking to perfect in this work you must never hand over the reigns to another in any form.

The next clause is that you promise to keep on studying. You don't stop just because you are busy. This is important because in the outer order you are trying to build up the habits that will carry you on the path of return for the rest of this incarnation (and who knows beyond). This oath with me always appears as a sort of feeling guilty that I am not doing enough work! It dogs me like a pack of wolves at times.

Finally there is the clause against evil magic which is self explanatory.