Golden Dawn In Bradford Film

The Golden Dawn, whether it is the original 'Hermetic Order' or any of its offshoots past or present, is always going to be interesting. Bradford being a home to one of the original Golden Dawn's temples is really quite an achievement for the former 'Wool City'.  Even though theories abound as to who 'owns' the Golden Dawn and who doesn't and what temple goes where and who put the temple in their pocket and took it home, because it is theirs alone etc etc. None of this really matters, because Horus (painted in the Bradford temple in his incarnation Harakhte of the morning sun), can be accessed by anyone at any time, as can any other of the Egyptian Gods without going to a temple to connect.
 We made this film, shown above, about the Golden Dawn in Bradford in late summer 2009. See also the previous post for the film about The Society of Dew and Light.

Society of Dew and Light in Keighley, West Yorkshire

This little film, shown above, about David Lund and The Society of Dew and Light was made in January 2010, during a break from the heavy snows that year. It has appeared here and there from time to time.

I once went out with a person from Haworth called Peter Lund and I have to remember not to get the two mixed up! Keighley always reminds me of him as he loved fashion and clothes shops. When I got engaged he sent me a letter asking me to go and live with him in Haworth instead, which I suppose was quite flattering, to have a choice.

Anyway we also once lived in Keighley, in the mid noughties and put together a website about the paranormal which in the end had to be deleted as the whole website was haunted.  Only the photos still remain in our possession as we deleted the content deliberately. We might start it up again though, we are tempted..

Also while living in Keighley, Look North TV show came up and filmed us, featuring a song in the programme we had written, composed and recorded in a tiny, semi derelict Keighley flat, with fairly basic equipment and some old speakers, so that was a positive Keighley experience and I do like East Riddlesden Hall but that is another story again..

Cheltenham Jill - The Talismen, Midland Beat - 1960's Girl In The Bertoia Chair

What is the mystery surrounding 'Cheltenham Jill' who models for her photo around 1967-8 sitting in a Bertoia wire framed chair?  Who is Jill with her big eyes and dark hair, framed in a photo of over 40 years ago?

Jill was born in the early 1940's and lived with her parents in a large Cheltenham semi-detached house, built around the turn of the century.  Her mother liked cooking and home making, whilst her father worked in the packing department of Sarco Spirax, then based on St George's Road, Cheltenham, a company which is still in existence today.

Jill enjoyed the music paper 'Midland Beat' which featured bands from the Midlands, many of them, still famous names of today and also local bands of the time, such as The Talismen, from Cheltenham itself, who can still be heard on YouTube. They feature in a 'Midland Beat' magazine from 1964.

Jill became a secretary and went to work in London, near Regent's Park, at the London Graduate School Of Business, as it was then called and wrote home to her parents on headed paper from the college, to 'Dear Mum and Dad', in one letter, from March 1967, mentioning that when term has been wound up she will be 'Back in Cheltenham in time for dinner'..

In another missive from Jill, to her parents, she encloses what she calls 'Jill and Roger's Wedding Pressie List', containing the colour scheme for her life with Roger and the articles she is looking for as wedding gifts. She also mentions in one of her letters, that the Finance Director who is her boss, is going to work for Beechams.

All details left in the discarded Cheltenham house, a calendar on the wall from 1995, showing the last signs of life.  Mum made jam and read 'Family Circle' magazine whilst Dad enjoyed Meccano and had been a member of the Automobile Association (AA) in 1966.

Who was Jill and did she ever marry Roger or did she die before this event could take place? The feeling is that Jill died not so long after this photograph was taken, whilst her mother died in the1980's and her father died around August 1995,leaving the house as an abandoned treasure trove of memories.  There was no one to claim the Cheltenham house, so it was left.  Presumably, a solicitor somewhere has the keys.

But what happened to Jill, a young woman with a vibrant life full of hope before her? In the 1960's, when King's Road and Carnaby Street were the most fashionable places to be, many young people from the provinces moved to London and made a life for themselves there as Jill did, obtaining work and settling down in their new environment.

People say Jill looks sad in her photo, depressed, even.  We don't know if she ever married Roger, because, if she had of done, he would surely have claimed the Cheltenham house, which belonged to her parents, as her husband.  Where is Roger now?

There are various theories about Jill, but no one as yet has been able to 'crack' the photo.  Jill holds all the clues and although the theories about what could have happened to her abound, including that she may have been taken advantage of by the 'wrong sort of people', in London and disappeared, no one knows for sure.  

Yet she remains an enigma, a mystery, a 20th century Mona Lisa, a summer portrait of modern history, sitting on a very fashionable, 1960's Bertoia designer chair, in her sun dress, posing for the photographer, her head tilted back slightly, to show off her dark hair, curled at the bottom, a fashion statement of the late 1960's.

If I was going to date this photo completely, I would say that it is not 1966 as the hair is slightly longer than the 1966 lacquered fashion style and by summer 1969 hair fashions were going a little bit softer than the pronounced roller curl at the bottom, so I would run with 1967-8, to be on the safe side.

Milner Field Resurrection, The Saltaire Vampires and The Hill of Baal

Ricky is selling blood weed and vamp snort on a Bradford estate back in 1996.  He is creating vampires from their use of the drug.  In 2011 Dominic the mayor's assistant and Gary, his friend who is a historian are going round looking for old ruined houses to bring back to life.  Dominic shape shifts.  Sometimes he is Harry Price, the ghost hunter and other times Titus Junior of The Salt Mill.  Thanks to Dominic, Borley Rectory is floating round on the ether collecting souls. Dominic has then fixed his ideas on Milner Field, former home of Titus Junior.

Both Dominic and Gary belong to the Brotherhood of the Tulip, a secret organisation that intends to resurrect Titus Junior at the Hill of Baal, near the Rocks of Faith, by using a ritual that Gary found written on an old parchment in a bookshop.  Grand Master Tulip has found a suitable host and he has called on his vampire helpers who work at a local retro rock music venue for their assistance, as well as linking up to sources in Glastonbury.

Although the book is a work of fiction, all the characters are based on real people.  The Hill Of Baal is of course Baildon, where ancient peoples worshipped the God Baal up on the moor.  There are other places in the UK also dedicated to Baal too.  Public sacrifices of cattle as part of a celebration, happened in Baildon in the 19th century.  The cattle were led on a path from the area of Baildon Green, up to another area around what is now known as Shipley Glen and then slaughtered, to bring prosperity to the farmers and the other workers.  Baal is sometimes depicted as a Fallen Angel connected to King Solomon and is also known as Baal Hamon in history.  Baal is a Carthaginian deity and it is widely believed that Phoneticians and other ancient Mediterranean peoples actually reached the countries we now call the United Kingdom, bringing their beliefs with them.

Buy 'The Saltaire Vampires: Milner Field Resurrection' from Amazon Kindle Store (UK)

Buy 'The Saltaire Vampires: Milner Field Resurrection' from Amazon Kindle Store (US)

The Netta Fornario Experience

In 2009, after an exhibition of sand sculptures celebrating the life and times of Charles Darwin appeared in Centenary Square, Bradford, West Yorkshire, we put a video on the internet - not fixed and doctored YouTube, or hidden 'sign in' Facebook, but still going after free enterprise.  The video was a series of pictures with a song about Netta Fornario.  People watching the video often reported getting the feeling of choking as if Netta Fornario had been strangled.

Unfortunately the internet these days is used by journalists and opportunists as an idea stealing medium and next thing a Scottish theatre company had done a Netta play probably because we'd given someone the idea to capitalize on it.  Gone are the days of enjoying your website, someone will plagiarize your ideas and hard work, then pass them off as their own, so now instead of putting out free material like a two bit 'Ho' we are forced to put unique material in to small ebooks, purely for all the time, effort and painstaking research we have put in.

Many years ago I visited the home of the then 'Queen of the Witches' who had been married to a very famous 'King of the Witches' who gave his name to a 'brand' of magic.  I was clearly told  by an American coven member who must have known some Yorkshire folk that you '[Don't get ow't for ow't.  I think she meant ow't for now't.
So following on from such  esteemed advice our unique and previously unknown Netta Fornario material is now for sale in a very reasonably priced ebook because it is not about making money but it is about the magical principle of giving AND receiving, in order to create balance and harmony.

Buy 'The Netta Fornario Experience' from Amazon Kindle Store (UK)

Buy 'The Netta Fornario Experience' from Amazon Kindle Store (US)

Gang Stalking: The Spies of Bradford

'The Watchtower': Cover image features Britannia House in Bradford, West Yorkshire.

What would Thomas Henry Pattinson say about the Bradford of today?  Before having a shop on Piccadilly he operated from premises up Manchester Road and before moving to Baildon, the family lived on a street near to where the Westbrook building of Bradford College is now.  Quite convenient for the Alexandra Hotel and Carlo Faro (one time manager of the hotel and Golden Dawn member) and his family.  Before being eventually pulled down, the Alexandra Annexe as it became known, was part of Bradford College.  It had wide steps with green carpets and big rooms with high ceilings.  It was in one of these rooms at the Alexandra Hotel that the Horus Temple of the Golden Dawn in Bradford was augmented back in 1888.  Carlo Faro later managed a public house.

There is a lot of controversy about this temple and of Mr Pattinson's staunch chauvinism against women and the fact that he wanted his Bradford temples to be men only/Freemasons only which is strange because his daughter was quite big in the Theosophical Society of the time of which he was also a member, so old Thomas kind of talked two ways at once.

As far as I know, the Great Architect of The Universe is the Egyptian God Thoth, not a Freemason. There is a lot of back scratching allegedly goes on in Freemasonry, but then it does in many organisations.  I know they wear pinnies and role up their trouser legs and  swear a lot of oaths and stuff like that and there are a number of degrees which all have tracing boards.

The First Degree Entered Apprentice tracing board contains a cup, an anchor and a cross as well as the same symbol which can be found in the Crowley Thoth Tarot deck, as well as the sun, the moon and a seven pointed star, amongst other things like T squares. The Second Degree or Fellow Craft Degree tracing board contains a staircase in what look like marble halls which goes outside and so it goes on.  They like compass and set squares and plenty of mystical imagery.

The Freemasons are not magical in themselves, but they do like to be associated with history, mystical symbols, heraldry and things like that.  You will find Rosslyn Chapel and Knights Templar type stuff to be the order of the day. Its generally all 'old boy' stuff and unfortunately elitist and that is what I don't personally like about these primarily men's groups and they just love their charters too.  Yes, there are lady masons and in another men's group called the Round Table, they use a symbol of what was supposed to be King Arthur's round table in Winchester Castle. There is a ladies circle, but they tend to be for wealthy or at least mediocre businessmen's wives.  In other words where are the Freemasons and Round Table members who live on council estates and rent their homes? Few and far between I should imagine as they wouldn't be let in.

On a personal note,one of my great uncles was Lord Mayor of Bradford as well as being a Freemason. He lived in Frizinghall and he was a lovely man, not a bit pretentious, snobby or weird.  My brother was a former member of Baildon Round Table.

Now back to reality.  Bradford is today very cosmopolitan and lively.  It is still an attractive city.  But there are some very nasty underhand things going on in that city which would make its former glory days blush.  For those caught in Bradford's underbelly, maybe living on estates or in rented accommodation, life can be anything but pleasant or fruitful.  Citizens are watched and stalked covertly as the book mentioned here - Gang Stalking: The Spies of Bradford - shows.  Incidentally I am a trained private investigator as well as a paranormal investigator, so I speak from first hand experience.

Buy the Amazon Kindle Edition of this book here >>

New Society of the Golden Dawn in Bradford Horus Temple Still Going Strong

Not sired, not hybrids, not inheritors of any Freemasons lineage, not presumptuous, not presuming, not attempting to be what we are not, we are a co-operative, we believe in what we do.  We don't need anyone else's religion, ideas or rituals. We have our own provable strong links to the etheric undercurrent that is part of the make-up of life. We have our own genetic links to various Victorian and Edwardian secret occult societies not just from Bradford but also from other areas of the UK. Whilst there is a certain amount of information in the public domain, a great deal still remains hidden.  Throughout our blog we have photo of various 'golden dawns' and these here were taken on February 13, 2013.  In this way we link to the Ancestors and to the 'Old Ways'.

The Hermetic Order of the Silver Lunar Mist