Vochi, One of Bradford's Great Pretenders?

I've mentioned Vochi here because he so craved fame and attention and would go to inordinate lengths to get it. Having said all that I think he was a snob, despite the fact that at the time I knew him he lived in a bedsit in Manningham, Bradford, but that didn't stop him getting grants for writing and I am given to understand he did some recordings with Red Rhino Records in York. He was one of those people you'd see, year after year,walking round town in a black leather suit or boots with silver platforms, like a peacock, with a dowdy peahen girlfriend in tow. Then he disappeared, either he cut his hair, got a car and moved to the suburbs, or he left Bradford. He's probably not even called Vochi anymore!

The reason he is mentioned here is because he was an unusual, though not very pleasant person. I think I tried to understand him, but some people have such big egos that it is impossible to have any kind of relationship with them. He claimed to have an interest in the paranormal. There was a bit of a scandal which was mentioned in the papers of the time, when a vicar banned a play Vochi had written from being performed in the local church hall. I'm sure it is easy to understand why that would be!

'Dracula' at Bradford Playhouse & Film Theatre

The Freemasons and Other Groups

My great uncle was a Mason, he was also a lot of other things including a nice old chap, he really was kind too. My grandfather belonged to the Ancient Order of Buffaloes and my brother was a member of the Round Table, his wife being a member of the Ladies Circle.

When I was fourteen I attended a 'family night' at a Freemasons lodge in Leeds, along with my brother, his wife and their friends, the invite coming from Brian who was Worshipful Master of this particular lodge at that time and a friend of my brother.

We played cards in the ceremonial 'court room', where there was a black and white chess board carpet on the floor. My cards partner, Mike and myself sat at a cards table and played against another pair, before moving to the next table and playing again. There were quite a few card tables set up and you played and moved to the next table. I wasn't really sure what game we were playing but my cards partner, Mike and myself won a prize at the end which was officially awarded downstairs, where a party was held.

Because Brian was the Grand Worshipful Master and we were his guests, we got a few privileges such as using his downstairs room as a cloakroom. On the wall was a long black and white framed photo of a lot of men in pinnies.

What I never liked, even as a young person, was all this men's stuff. It was all about men and men being powerful, women being mere decorations. If you look around you, it doesn't matter if a man is old, or fat, he simply doesn't care, because no one sees this as a mortal sin, hes a MAN, it doesn't matter. But a woman on the other hand, is persecuted for her size and weight, or her age, her insecurities fed by a thousand adverts to make her feel she is not good enough in her own skin. So she becomes a pawn to the will of a man.

This is not a feminist request for a rantidote, merely a request for true equality; a few years ago, an educational publishers published an article of mine in one of their books about ageism towards women.

Unfortunately men's clubs and men's societies even today act as a barrier towards giving women equal rights. Yes there are now token women members of many groups but its not quite the same thing as having had EQUAL rights from the start.

The pictures show degree ceremony staffs of a different Order (such as 60° x 3 = 180°) and there we have an equilateral triangle or is it a pyramid? I suppose you could meditate upon this triangle or put an eye in it, or walk through it and end up in Narnia (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, great book, a childhood favourite).

Lets hope the New Dawn washes away old prejudices.

Followers Of The Astral Path

The Golden Dawn and its offshoots hold the fascination of many across the globe. Pop and rock acts have called their bands 'The Golden Dawn', 'Secret Chiefs' and 'Dion Fortune' to name but a few examples.

One strange email discovered last Thursday afternoon was from a man who said he still held the 'rights' to the name Horus Temple of the Golden Dawn in Bradford. We explained that an area may hold several churches of the same name e.g. St Mary's or St Peter's but that didn't make one more valid or less worthy than the other. The man said he was a member of the Ciceros, so we checked this out as well as the various other Horus Temple's around the globe and also The group which calls itself The Golden Dawn in the UK.

A lot of workings are based on Israel Regardie's publication of Stella Matutina work, an offshoot of the Golden Dawn of which Dion Fortune was once a member. As Israel Regardie was born in 1907 he wasn't even around when the original Golden Dawn were running and the magical papers he obtained were from the Stella Matutina who in any case had adapted many of the Golden Dawn's truly original rites. Below are are quite a lot of links to troll through for anyone who wants to examine this fact. In other words, all groups in existence today could be said not to be the true Golden Dawn of yesteryear even if they have copied and even perfected many or even all the rites, which were constantly being changed even in the time of Westcott and Mathers.

We think the Golden Dawn should belong to the People as it is a part of living history and not just to an elite and wealthy chosen few who have the money and means. Many people are not professionally well connected enough to become Freemasons and the original Golden Dawn was full of theatre people, artists and writers, many of them women who would not have been allowed to be Masons in those days. Basically it was for people with enquiring minds, who wanted more from life than what they saw in front of them.

Mathers and his wife Moina (originally Mina) were actually quite poor for much of their lives and at one time were supported financially by tea heiress Annie Horniman. Pamela Colman Smith died in acute poverty in 1951 and was always short of money during her lifetime, even in her younger days as a starlet painter.

Then you have to look at the fact that however clever the rituals, they didn't do many of the members of magical orders a lot of good in the long run, Dion Fortune died suddenly of undiagnosed leukaemia, despite being hailed even today as one of the most famous Occultists in the world, when she could go out on the astral planes all the time, why didn't she know she was ill and why didn't one of her Great Masters try to help her? Also, why was Mathers conned by some some people purporting esoteric knowledge they didn't have, if he was such an Ippissimus as everyone thought?

None of these people were very good at curing or assisting in the healing of illnesses it would seem, despite all their magic. That, overall, is a very serious flaw in the system. If Mathers could apparently call up and view an Archangel - did he really have that right and what did he want to do it for anyway? - then why couldn't he and all his followers after him cure illness? If they were that good they should have been putting their talents to work in hospitals, mass healing the sick and also saving lives and stopping wars. (Or they could have joined S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and ruled the world, were it not for James Bond!) Remember the cult 60s TV show, The Champions, featuring Craig Stirling, Sharon Macready and Richard Barrett, characters granted perfected human abilities by a secret Tibetan advanced civilisation? Doing good for the people. So why was this not the case with the original Golden Dawn posse?

Although many of them are famous, it never quite really happened for them, heavily bringing their rituals, however fantastical, in to serious question as to why they did not do more good both for the users and for mankind in general, since they purported to be taking orders from 'Secret Chiefs' or Great Masters elsewhere on elevated planes. Maybe they misinterpreted what they believed they were meant to do?

And for the record...

August 21, 2009

On August 21, 2009 and September 29, 2009, respectively, we inadvertently photographed crosses in the sky in roughly similar areas of Bradford, both photographed by accident, when testing the camera and not seen until later – Golden Dawn symbol crosses seen early evening 'As the moon is rising give us the sign?' Is this the sign that we are meant to run the new Temple of Horus in Bradford, be it in our own contemporary, non traditional way, despite what anyone else may say?

September 29, 2009

Two other things happened, last Thursday (October 1). It seemed in my imagination that I was wearing a long cloak entirely made of blue and green feathers and I felt like I was wearing a headdress of feathers and the head of a bird with a yellow beak, as if I had become a bird priest. The image was so strong that I felt compelled to do a quick abstract painting of this bird image that evening. We again took this as a sign that we were on the right track with our new Golden Dawn Temple of Horus in Bradford, though the bird may have been a representation of Quetzalcoatl. The second thing that happened, was that a new book I had bought, still in a wrapper and not even read, fell open at an old photograph of a person wearing a hood, long robe and holding a finger to their mouth. Underneath this photograph is the caption 'The Sign of Horus: SILENCE.' Enough Said?

Quoting The Guide to Mysterious Iona and Staffa, by Geoff Holder;
'The members of the notoriously fissiparous magical groups were always in dispute…their entire lives seemed to be spent in a tragic-comic round of seeking elevated spiritual states, acquiring high faluting titles, and wallowing in base hatreds.'

Quoting Jo and Pete, who commented on an earlier post;
'A lot of what I have seen on the internet about the temple is not true: I was involved in clearing up the attic room in the late 1980's when it was owned by a friend of mine (Sirag). There were also connections to the old St James market, which was the repository of the ritual implements and I had the sword from the temple when the market was pulled down. I have kept rubbings of the ritual markings of the sword, which was identified as the Horus sword by Bob Gilbert (GD historian).'

Followers of the Astral Path

Stella Matutina

The August Order of Light

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (1888)

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Inc.

Chic Cicero