How the Golden Dawn Borrowed its Diagrams from Boehme

Why the Golden Dawn is Closer
to Martinism than You Think
And the Key to the Third Order
Diagrams of the Golden Dawn

This post is a bonus to my Rosicrucian Review of the Golden Dawn.

There are three key diagrams used in Golden Dawn initiation rituals that provide the backbone to its system. As nice as all the other magical tools and diagrams may be, THESE three diagrams provide the keys to spiritual development in the G.D system.

The three diagrams are:

1. The Garden of Eden Before the Fall.
2. The Garden of Eden After the Fall.
3. The Lid of the Pastos in the Vault of the Adepti.

And believe it or not they were burrowed from Jacob Boehme.[1]

Ouch, that has to hurt the Golden Dawn just a little bit when you understand the implications here.

If you don’t, it comes down to one simple fact:
Jacob Boehme was the spiritual master of Louis Claude de Saint Martin,
The source for the Martinist Order.
These two parties typically don’t see eye to eye.

The two systems are thought to be incompatible in fact. LCM says that Boehme gave him the spiritual way and that Pasqually gave him the keys to the operative method.

So firstly, let’s establish two facts:

1) That these diagrams are the backbone to the Golden Dawn’s spiritual development and 2) That these diagrams derive from Jacob Boehme.

If this is true, then both Martinism and the G.D have the same spiritual impetus.

Looking at the Reintegration Diagrams of the Golden Dawn

The diagram before the fall appears in the G.D 3=8 Practicus grade. The diagram after the fall appears in the Philosophus ritual of the 4=7. The final diagram appears in the G.D 5=6 ritual.

Firstly G.D Flying Roll X ‘Concerning the Symbolism of Self-Sacrifice & Crucifixion Contained in the 5=6 Grade’ describes the process of initiation arrived to through these very diagrams. They explicitly describe the diagrams as explaining the process of regeneration in the soul.

The lecture states that the Fall diagram depicts the ‘aura of Man’ in that degraded condition, but that upon reading the 5=6 diagram the Adept ‘before whose justice and purity the heads of the dragon fall back.’ It even states ‘That is the only real way to become the Greatest Adept.’

I think we have established the importance of their role in the Golden Dawn here.[2]

Looking at the Reintegration Diagrams of Jacob Boehme

Here you see some of Jacob Boehme’s diagrams.

The process between these two diagrams is revelatory. Firstly you have the Adam and Eve. But more importantly, look at the dragons in the lower world. In the first diagram they are restricted (Before the Fall) and in the second diagram their fires penetrate into the middle realm (After Fall). Flying Roll X from the Golden Dawn also reads ‘In the 4=7 diagram we find represented the fall and the consequent rise of the dragon, which in the 3=8 grade was represented coiled beneath Malkuth in the Kingdom of the Shells.’ It is the exact same process. No question about it.

Here you see the Boehme diagrams, which are the source for the G.D rising dragons.

Below you see the rays of the light of the cross pushing back the seven heads of the dragon. The Golden Dawn ritual reads: ‘And upon the lid of the Pastos this process is symbolically resumed: there we see the suffering Man, pitiful and just, before whose justice and purity the heads of the dragon fall back.’[3] Again it is the very same process used in the Golden Dawn.

Below left is the uppermost circle of the Before the Fall diagram. Kether, Aima and Abba (Mother and Father) are represented. Notice their CROWNS. You can see they came from Boehme’s supernal diagram which has three circles with three crowns.

There are other examples, but this will do for now.

Looking at Implications

The question is, how did Boehme’s diagrams end up in the Golden Dawn and how did they evolve?

The original engraver for Boehme was Dionysius Andreas Freher, a student and German Theosopher who came to England.[4] He participated in a Theosopher group, which found its way into the English Behmist Circle descended from William Law. Mrs A. J. Penny was a member and she was very close to both Mary Anne Atwood and Frederick Hockley. As most know, Hockley was one of the founding figures behind the Golden Dawn. Mrs A. J. Penny functioned as his seer during his magical practices.[5]

The actual descriptions for what was to become the G.D diagrams appear first in Mysterium Magnum. There Boehme explicitly describes five figures of Adam which are the G.D diagrams.

The implications are that seeing the G.D papers explicitly state that these diagrams describe the real spiritual transformation process of the Golden Dawn, and seeing that they depend upon Jacob Boehme, then we know that Martinism is not that different from the G.D at its core. This holds especially true because LCM states that the operative way came from Pasqually, but that the spiritual path is from Boehme. Thus both may be said to have the same spiritual core.

Most Martinists do not read Jacob Boehme, despite LCM telling us to do so. It seems both Martinism and the Golden Dawn both drew from him. At the time Boehme had borrowed from Pansophy and Andrea, the author of the manifestos. Boehme’s own students were named Rosicrucians.

Despite many Martinists and Golden Dawners strongly proclaiming their systems are worlds apart, it seems that SPIRITUALLY the same process of Reintegration is involved. Denying this would be stupid.

But, now for the real gems of this story…

A Key to Completing the Golden Dawn

Here are our own versions of the diagrams, as used in our Order. These were designed by Stephen Murtaugh based on my own ideas which take the G.D diagrams back to Boehme. You can see that the rays turning back the heads of the dragons were restored amongst other things.

(Temporarily Deleted)

What is more interesting however, is the fact that the Golden Dawn only used three diagrams from the entire process laid out in Boehme’s complete series. In fact another two diagrams exist, and these point towards the higher grades of the Golden Dawn and the Third Order.

One of those is a babe diagram, which relates to Babe of the Abyss for Daath, the other is the final manifestation of the Holy City, called Christianapolis by Andrea. That diagram relates to Kether.

Those who have the 8=3 and 9=2 rituals from Whare Ra will see an immediate connection. Also Aliester Crowley related a Babe of the Abyss grade which leads to the City of Pyramids.

In my own Order, which is a Pansophic extension of the G.D we use versions of the complete set of Boehme diagrams. The original Golden Dawn broke apart before being able to receive that higher teaching. Looking at the original system from Boehme however we may deduce what comes next. Therefore there are in fact five diagrams if one understands the relationship. Using this approach we have restored the ‘original’ Rosicrucian teaching behind the G.D in our Pansophic Order.

Not everyone will agree with this approach though. For now, let us just say it is all in ‘Sam’s opinion’ and I might be dead wrong. This is what I am doing at least. Perhaps other Orders will follow now that I’ve let the cat out of the bag. I only hope that folks will cite my research. None of the previous Golden Dawn Orders I belonged to worked these diagrams and is thus my own approach.

As usual though I’ve hidden a few more gems up my sleeve for private circulation. This post also introduces a Third Order series which I’ll publically share here on this blog after the Reviews of the Rosicrucian Orders are done. The Third Order series will make my higher grades an open project.

Other news: At present I’m negotiating with two other bloggers to roll their blog into mine. So you end up with even more high quality content and thought leadership. Stay tuned for the launch. 🙂

Thanks for reading and hope you see value in this blog.

It is always a work of love, from me to you.

Samuel Robinson
Visit my homepage here.
Read the full Golden Dawn Review here

Copyright Samuel Robinson July 2017

[1] This fact was mentioned first by Steve A. Fredit. Though I haven’t seen his paper.

[2] (Some parties might get upset over me giving primacy to these diagrams, as there are many more diagrams in the G.D which come from Khunrath and Rosenroth. However according to Flying Roll X these particular diagrams being dealt with here speak for transformation in the Sphere in the G.D.)

[3] Flying Roll X.

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysius_Andreas_Freher

[5] See book: ‘The Rosicrucian Seer’