Prefatory Note

Prefatory Note

On the whole the Flying Rolls and other instructional material produced by the schismatic fraternities derived from the Golden Dawn after that organisation had broken up in internecine disputes (circa 1900) are of little interest. Notable exceptions to the general mediocrity are the papers of the Cromlech Temple, a side order to The Rosicrucian Order of the A.0.-the name adopted after 1 900 by those Temples loyal to MacGregor Mathers.

The membership of the Cromlech Temple consisted largely nf dedicated Anglican clergymen, who seem to have found the Temple's brand of Christian Occultism much to their liking, and a Dean of Chester (who was also an initiate of the Stella Matutina) was a prominent member. In spite of the Temple's pretensions to Anglo-Catholic orthodoxy it is clear from the papers which follow that its Christianity was essentially Gnostic; the truth of the doctrine of reincarnation, for example, was taken for granted, in spite of its condemnation by a Council of the Church as early as the fifth century.

A certain confusion seems to have arisen between the Cromlech Temple and the Golden Dawn itself. Thus, in her article on the Golden Dawn published in Number 40 of Man, Myth and Magic, that distinguished Yeats scholar Kathleen Raine has written :

Magic was indeed only one aspect of the work of the Golden

Dawn . . . . Lectures and papers were circulated expounding the Catholic doctrines of the Apostolic Succession, the seven

Sacraments, the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, or teaching the three grades of prayer.

None of these papers is included in Israel Regardie's four volume publication of the rituals; which gives in this respect, a one-sided impression.

All this is quite incorrect. The papers referred to, all of which are included in the following section of this book, were those 195