This is part of my work on the LBRP and other rituals of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The focus here is on what each direction means while doing the LBRP and Greater ritual of the Pentagram where the pentagrams drawn in the 4 directions are of an elemental nature.
The ritual requires the initiate to face the four directions while drawing 4 pentagrams and then, to call angels into 4 places in the room. The pentagrams for the lesser version of this ritual seem to be independent of elements, but in the greater ritual of the pentagram, each pentagram is elemental and places an element in a certain direction. The layout of the elements, however, does not match the commonly used layout as appears in Agrippa’s 3 Books of Occult Philosophy, which matches the layout of the zodiac belt anytime the sun is rising in a fire sign.
Also worth noting that the 4 angels summoned appear in Agrippa’s 3 Books of Occult Philosophy – Book 2 associated with the elements and a number of other things which enumerate to 4.
Layout of Initiaion Temple
It is worth noting that the directions are significant to masonic rituals. In nearly all masonic rituals an initiate will face the east, the place of the rising sun associated with illumination: a dawn; an illuminating and perhaps golden one.
This ritual is from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn where the earliest of rituals has the initiate move from a place of confusion in the dark West, where the sun seems to go to die, toward an elucidated place in the East which gives birth to light every morning. In the South, is an officer known as the Dadouchos who says they represent Fire and Dry. They light the lamps for the ritual and consecrate the initiate. In the North is the Stolistes an initiate who says they represent that which is Cold and Damp and they prepare the ritual clothes for the officers and purify the initiate. So these directions are significant to a Golden Dawn initiate. The difficulty with these associations is that you might put Water in the North since the Stolistes who represents Dampness is there. This layout would not match the one used in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn’s pentagram rituals. As you go through my notes will quickly realise that no system below perfectly matches the layout, except the last which only does through a happy coincidence.
Not the similarity of the this point of view to the writing of Eliphas Levi:
The four astronomical cardinal points are, relatively to us, the yea and the nay of light—east and west—and the yea and nay of warmth South and north.
Eliphas Levi – The Doctrine of High Magic Chapter 4
Layout of 4 winds
A student of Greek mythology might consider the winds of the four directions. Boreas is the North wind and is considered the bringer of cold, Notus in the South is the bringer of storms and summer, Zephyrus is the bringer of spring in the West and Eurus who is distinctly absent from Hesoid’s Theogony or the Orphic Hymns. Sometimes instead this wind is swapped for that known as Apeliotes (whose name means from the sun) the wind that is said to bring a beneficial rain for famers depicted carrying fruit.
I note that another blogger, named River Enodian, has written:
The archangels had their attributions and positions switched around by the Golden Dawn, mainly to reflect the Christian versions and interpretations of these archangels versus the Jewish. The elements themselves were placed in the directions they were due to the influence of the Greek Four Winds:
River Enodian
Zephyrus the West wind and god of spring (Water)
Eurus the East wind and god of autumn (Air)
Boreas the North wind and god of winter (Earth)
Notus the South wind and god of summer (Fire)
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/teaaddictedwitch/2019/07/who-really-gives-a-crap-about-the-lbrp-anyway/
Eliphas Levi
If there was ever any question it is clear that Eliphas Levi inspired the idea that one would lay out the elements in an equal armed cross. See the diagram below which appears in the Doctrine of High Magic Chapter 4.
In the order above the only elements however which is indicated in the same direction as it is, in the Rituals of the Pentagram is Air. We therefore must conclude that the order or layout of the elements in the LBRP is not due entirely to Eliphas Levi or at least not this diagram. However, looking at this the prayers given in the ritual for consecration of the four elements the movement of focus around the room, if considered at all, would neither be a comfortable circle nor a neat cross. It is entirely possible that Mathers and Westcott in writing the rituals of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, (assuming they did not receive them already written) would deviate from Eliphas Levi’s design. They were certainly willing to change his association of the tarot cards to the Hebrew letters, but putting the Fool at the beginning and putting the Strength card which features a lion in the place of Leo. It does however beg the question why pick this order and why put the elements where they did?
In a section in the Ritual of High Magic related the conjuration of the 4 elements, Eliphas Levi claims that in order to over come the powers of the Occult forces we should undergo 4 initiations which have been lost to us. In their place we can expose ourselves to fire, cross a plank of wood over an “abyss” (or large amount of air), climb a mountain or swim through a whirlpool and then consecrate the elements with our will. When he does so he lists the elements in the order they appear in the HOGD’s Pentagram rituals. The same is also true for a quote taken from the forth chapter in Doctrine of High Magic. See below.
When this in contestable faculty has been acquired by exercise and daring, the word of our will must be imposed on the elements by special consecrations of air, fire, water, and earth.
Eliphas Levi – Ritual of High Magic Chapter 4
That said, this author is not consistent with the order in which he says the elements for example the quote below where the order of water and earth are reversed. The ritual he gives immediately after the pentagram order is in the order Air, Water, Fire and Earth. This ritual however recognises the elements in the same order their angels are called in the Ritual of the Pentagram however Michael is put on the right which would not match Levi’s diagram. Also note that he seems to be under the impression that fire and water are both feminine and earth and air are both masculine which is a very different association to the HOGD so I do not know what degree of weight Golden Dawn members placed in the writing of Eliphas Levi.
We shall therefore preserve the wise distinction of elementary appearances admitted by the ancients, and shall recognise air, fire, earth, and water as the four positive and visible elements of magic.
Eliphas Levi – Doctrine of High Magic Chapter 4
Layout of Tree of Life
For many initiates, because the directions match the initiation hall, which is frequently re-orientated to match various parts of the tree of life, they like to overlap the paths on the tree of life on the floor so east is the direction associated with Tiphereth, West is associated with Yesod and Malkuth beyond it, South would be Hod (because Michael is invoked here) and North, then takes the remaining sephirah, which is Netzach. These directions sort of fit with the invocation of Angels because Raphael, Michael and Gabriel are all associated with a Siphrah each from the tree of life, until you get to Auriel. Auriel shows us this can’t be right because the angel associated with Netzach is actually Haniel / Hagiel, not Auriel.
All four of these angels actually appear in Agrippa’s 2nd book on Occult Philosophy as the angels of the 4 directions, the rivers out of Eden, and the elements, but not as angels of sephiroth, not when you include Auriel / Uriel. Also if Michael does represent Hod, then he appears on the wrong side, he is on your right while if you were standing at the intersection of the paths Pe and Samekh facing Tiphereth, then he would be on the left. I understand by word of mouth that Aleister Crowley commented that this is where the initiate stands in an essay he wrote to Babalon lodge in the states, but supposedly Crowley also contradicts this in other writing, so it is possible Crowley does not understand the formula having passed through the grades very quickly and ceasing to have contact with Mathers and Westcott soon after. (Remember Crowley is not perfect).
Layout of Rivers Flowing Out of Eden
Also worth noting is that in A. E. Waite’s translation of The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic by Eliphas Levi, he notes in a side note that the 4 directions match up to the 4 rivers that flowed out of the garden of Eden:
- Pishon (circles land of Havilah where there is gold),
- Gihon (which encircled the land of Cush the father of Havilah),
- Chiddekel / Tigris (where Daniel had a vision), and
- Phirath / Euphrates (longest river in area).
In the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn’s fourth knowledge lecture, Pison flows to Geburah and is associated with fire, Gihon flows to Chesed and is associated with water, Chiddekel flows to Tiphereth and is associated with air, and Phirath flows into Malkuth and is of earth. It is said in the same lecture that the rivers form a cross which is frequently associated with equilibrium in Golden Dawn ritual. The imagery in the lecture describes adam as a cross of equilibrium standing above eve which is alchemical symbolism. Eve here represents life and Adam represents all mankind (whether male or female). Eve’s names is similar to the word for life. See in the bible where she is introduced and it reads:
“She was called Eve (KhVH) because she was the mother of the living (KhYH)”. (It is common for yodh (Y) and vav (V) to be exchanged for one another in gramatical changes of words with the same root).
Book of Genesis – The bible
When an initiate rises up to Netzach it is said in a HOGD knowledge lecture that Eden is destroyed and these rivers are replaced with infernal rivers that flow out of Daath, in the symbol of Eden following the fall. It is the goal of the initiate to return to a pre-fall state of Eden. After he has completed the outer grades the initiate of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn is sometimes given a symbol relating to one of the rivers at each initiation. It is as though the greater version of this ritual were to lift him up to a crucified position on the tree of life. This is most likely relevant to the Greater ritual of the pentagram where the divine names used are the divine names for each of the aforementioned sephiroth. This would tend to lead us away from the view that the initiate is at the intersection of Pe and Samekh on the tree of life because the North and South are associated with the sephiroth high on the tree of life. Again Crowley did not know everything.
The Islamic tradition describes paradise in the Qoran with 4 rivers of water, wine, fresh milk and pure honey.
Layout of Enochian Grand Table
This ritual is introduced to initiates in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where they are continually taught Enochian Magic over and over. At each elemental grade, they are presented with a quarter of the Enochian great table and perhaps this has some influence over the directions. The layout of the ritual matches neatly with the roundhouse from the Enochian visions of Dr Dee and Edward Kelly and the great table.
Each corner of the Enochian great table is revealed as a separate tablet in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, through its elemental initiation rituals. Each tablet does not have an element associated with it in the original work of John Dee, but it does have a direction. I understand from word of mouth that it is likely that the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn associated the elements with each tablet in the order that Dee normally wrote the elements down and the order in which the tablets were revealed by Ave. Dee wrote the elements in the order Air, Earth, Fire and Water (impure elements before pure elements and within each active elements before passive elements) and the tablets were revealed in the order “oro ibAh aozPi”, “MOr dial heCteGa”, “oiP teaa PeDoce” and “mPh arsol gaiol”.
When these are arranged in the reformed table, which was a corrected form, after a vision received by Kelly in which the speaker identifies himself as Raphael then we have a potential layout. If we place the tablet associated with air as the east tablet and the one diagonally opposite as the west then we end up with the layout which is as follows:
- “oro ibAh aozPi” tablet, top left of the reformed great, associated with air, in the East
- “mPh arsl gaiol” tablet, top right of the reformed great, associated with water, in the South
- “MOr dial hCtGa” tablet, bottom left of the reformed great, associated with earth, in the North
- “oiP teaa PDoce” tablet, bottom right of the reformed great, associated with fire, in the West
Now we have an issue. The tablet which the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn associates with water is in the South; not the West and the tablet they associate with fire is in the West; not the South. If we were to use the uncorrected version the differences are even greater.
In one of the visions that Kelly had during the development of the Enochian system, the 4 tablets seem to appear as 4 castles on the horizon in the 4 directions.
- The castle in the East, has red cloth (the colour of blood) rolling out of it like a red carpet,
- in the South, it has white cloth (the colour of Lilies),
- in the West, it has green cloth (the colour of dragon skin) and
- in the North, it has black (the colour of bilberry juice).
If you follow some qabalistical associations you might associate the white with Atziluth and therefore fire. You might associate the red with Briah and therefore Water and the Green with Yetzirah and therefore air. Finally, your might associate the black with Assiah. This however means you would put:
- Water in the East
- Fire in the South
- Air in the West
- Earth in the North
This is not perfect either. The East and the West are inverted in comparison to the elemental layout used in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn’s pentagram ritual. In Dee’s medallion made to reassemble this vision East and West are inverted, but so are North and South, so if we were to go by that then North and South are not in the right places. When the table of the earth was revealed in a vision, it was under layers of coloured cloth: Black, Green, White and finally Red. When we pay attention to the directions the revealing of colours is the exact opposite of the order of the directions used in the pentagram rituals: North, West, South and East. If this is the order that revealed the table could its reverse order be concealing the mysteries? Then the seals on the table are explored in what seems to be the opposite order, clockwise.
(the vision of the roundhouse should be added here which I think originally had the order air in east, earth in south, fire in west and water in north, but I need to check).
Golden Dawn interpretation of Adonai
There is also the suggestion that the 3 first names of the LBRP are the names in the middle pillar so they invoke the very power that causes Golden Dawn initiates to ascend. This is why the middle pillar was so important for Israel Regardie. In the Golden Dawn’s possible interpretation of Gikatilla’s Gates of Light, they likely concluded that there were 3 main initiatory temples: Kether, Tiphereth and Malkuth. Gikatilla writes about the manipulation of the names ADNI, YHVH and AHYH to connect the Nephesh to the Ruakh and to connect the Ruakh to the Neshamah to achieve a state of one-hood, called Yechidah. (I am hearing this second hand and intend to elucidate this more after study.) This is often done by the pronunciation of the 8-fold name (IAHDVNHI) and 6-fold name (AHYHVH) respectively. These names however need to be associated with the various parts of the soul before that important Golden Dawn process can begin. This is similar to the process of visualising chakras which (contrary to popular opinion) are not naturally part of the human subtle body and they need to be carved into the energy body through the chakra dhyana process before they can fulfill heir purpose. Notice the similarity to the yogic practice of joining the upana with prana and then the prana with apana. We will not equate the two and forget any potential difference which might arise between them, but admire the similarity between different systems of mystical attainment. What becomes very clear here is that the name ADNI is very significant to initiates who are yet to get to 5=6 where ADNI would be interweaved with YHVH to try to combine the lower and higher.
Anyway each temple has its layout determined by the divine name which governs it. So on the most material claim associated with the Nephesh. The layout could be influence by placing each letter of ADNI in a direction clock-wise (and sun-wise). Then each letter could be associated with an element. See above.
Aleph is the Hebrew letter associated with the air as per Sepher Yetzirah. The very name of the letter Nun means “fish”, which indicates a very watery state and it falls among the single letters at a place which the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn associates with Scorpio which is a water sign according to Agrippa. Yod is frequently said to be fire because the first letter of the name YHVH, so it is often equated to that initial spark of creation, however in this case we look at it as a single letter where it falls neatly in the place of virgo associated with the earth. So far we are relatively perfect. Until we come to Daleth. Daleth, through similar methods, I would associate with the planet Venus. Venus is at home in Libra and Taurus which are air and earth signs and in Agrippa’s “Of the scale of the number 4” in his second book of Occult Philosophy he assigns Venus the column in which the element air is. So we are stuck at how to place it. Netzach the 7th sphirah which we associate with the 4th initiation in the HOGD, is also associated with Venus and this initiation is fire. So we can loosely associate this with fire. Another possible connection is by appeal to Eliphas Levi who writes “The metals which correspond to the four elementary forms are gold and silver for the air, mercury for water, iron and Oopper for fire, lead for earth.” and to appeal to Agrippa who Levi would condemn as a sorcerer for some reason, in whose writing we see that the metal associated with Venus is Copper. So again we can make another tenuous link.
However, the other layouts of the elements for the other temples require the we lay them out in an order to form a cross rather than clock-wise. So this is not ideal either.
Order of the Chakras
There is a happy coincidence that the elements are recognised in the order that they appear in the lower 4 chakras of the most popular chakra system in the west. This would likely have been recognised by early Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn members through Theosophy.
