The Spirit of Will Chesterman Now Speaks to You through the Voice of Sar Draconis
Sar Draconis
of the Adytum for many years, and was appointed supreme chief of
Builders of the Adytum (an esoteric qabalistic order)in the early
1990's. On March 2nd, 1991, Will Chesterman addressed the annual
meeting of B.O.T.A., as duly recorded in the Minutes of the Annual
Meeting for that date. Recently Builders of the Adytum has duly
deposited a copy of these Minutes in a federal facility located in
Riverside, California, with full awareness that therein reposed, the
documents can and should be consulted by any member of the public.
Frater Will is described therein under the alternate name V.G.H.
Frater Cede Deo (i.e., Very Greatly Honered Frater Cede Deo). Among
many other important points, Frater Will makes an astonishing
contribution to the history of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,
revealing for the first time that the Hermetic Order of the Golden
Dawn, founded in 1881, was actually a 1600 year plus Order which
sought to conceal its Ancient existance from the public by pretending
to be Egyptian. (Bob Gilbert eat your heart out.) I quote the
synopsis of Frater Will's address as set forth in the Minutes, now a
publically available document conserved at the aforementioned Federal
Facility located in Riverside, California, U.S.A.:
"It is a privelege to be able to speak to you on this very important
day, made so because of the responsibility which devolves upon it. To
emphasize that responsibility could we consider for a moment the very
foundation of this Order which from its ancient roots was concealed
for a period of 1600 years until its semi-open declaration in England
in about 1881. You all know that Golden Dawn appeared as if from
nowhere and presented both profound teachings and an ordered
ritualistic pathway. After a little over a century, its work is still
arresting and the source of endless books on the subject. The true
source of its teachings was concealed deliberately by the use of the
Egyptian Mysteries. It was not known for sure whether the venture
would succeed and thus concealment was necessary.
"The work grew rapidly and the attainments of those in it were very
high indeed. The Order was established in New York and soon after his
admission, Paul Foster Case was to take a prominent part in its
administration and growth in America. Not many years passed when the
English lodges were grievously damaged from within. The result was
disastrous and caused great suffering which did not cease with the
closing of the Order nor the final closing of the various groups who
sought to continue the original work. It is true that every work will
suffer attacks in one way or another, but an order is structured to
preserve fraternal relationships and to repel the profane who always
seek to destroy what they cannot understand.
"In considering Builders of the Adytum, we could perhaps take its
birth to be about 1920 rather than the strict date of 1938 when it was
incorporated. Paul Foster Case did much through the vehicle of the
School of Ageless Wisdom in the east, but on coming to California,
founded Builders of the Adytum. Thus for more than 70 years (53 years
as BOTA in particular, including 37 years of the added work of Ann
Davies), has a powerful influence gone forth to many parts of the
world. The work of Ann Davies perfectly complemented the founder's
and it is for the great labour and self sacrifice of these two vast
souls that we owe a debt of gratitude for the teachings and
experiences which we enjoy now.
"As has often been said, tests and trials must come and on the passing
of our beloved Soror Ann Davies, they came fast and furiously so that
none would now presume anything outside of God's grace. Awareness of
the very painful experiences of these last 15 years cannot be escaped
and perhaps inseparable from those experiences I do wish to share with
you a special and important message concerning our present situation.
In giving it, in one way it is with direct courage and in another way,
with deep awareness of our human frailty. I do not know anyone who
can claim to be more than equal for the tests which lie ahead, that
they know exactly where to go and what to do with full confidence of
the outcome. If there was such a one, I am sure that we would all sit
on them at once while we explored their true motivation. Yet, as
brothers and sisters together, we do not doubt that we can acquit our
responsibilities with honour.
"The lacerations and difficulties of the past have not been separable
from our immaturities and had we all have reached for the protection
that comes to those who walk in humility of soul, we may all have
fared much better. Now, we are in a rapidly changing situation - the
world has moved on and titanic forces of change are affecting human
affairs. We, in the privelege of Chapter, have been trained and
encouraged with spiritual insight into the destiny of humanity and our
service to life. Similarly, we all know deeply that if because of
selfishness we cannot so serve, there can be a great loss to humanity.
"Basically, we consider these things in convocations of Chapter and
this meeting today is exactly that - a convocation of Chapter in which
entrusted to you is the responsibility of selecting stewards to
administer the work and in particular to meet the main task of
disseminating the lessons. This is a responsibility more important
than Chapter work itself as you all know.
"Within the Chapters is another responsibility and we have present
today members from Los Angeles, Sacramento, Laguna, France and New
Zealand. Now, if there is any validity in an office and in our
fraternal relationship together, then please listen to this message:
THE ONLY CHANCE OF SURVIVAL OF THE CHAPTERS IS THAT FROM NOW ON THE
RULES MUST BE OBSERVED AT ALL LEVELS.
"But what are these rules? Do we read and comprehend them? Do we
perceive their profound logic, their potency, the wisdom they contain
and the amazing protection they afford and do we have the wit to see,
understand and respect the force of their simplicity? They are for
our protection and everything in them is to give safety on the pathway
and you have noticed that they change, or rather are added to as we
progress through the grades. In Pronaos, the very fist rule is that
we look for what needs correction in ourselves and not in others to
which are added certain other rules as we progress through the steps.
"In the First Order there are much more serious rules of self
discipline and commitment which we take on ourselves. We are meant to
act upon them both in spirit and the letter because they are vital and
real. If the First Order experience is to be safe and productive, the
rules must be kept. Resistance to them makes it impossible to avoid a
most serious inner consequence of which we are warned. Other rules
unfold creatively in the grades so now let us move on to the Second
Order level of spiritual relationship. Here is a further definition
of rules, not disposing of the preceding ones, but growing from their
strength. Like all rules, they are not immediately comprehensible in
their full depth but attention to them is crucial.
"When the rules of the First and Second Orders are so built into the
heart and mind, venture into the Inner Worlds becomes possible and
safe. Yet again, to truly know these mysteries, more schooling is
necessary with tests and trials and hence the name, the Inner School.
Like all advanced schools, there is both theory and practice and
specialized discipline and training for purposes to which the rituals
allude. How otherwise can we really know and be part of the Divine
idea until we have grown into it as the hope within our souls impels
us in aspiration?
"From my humanness, I cannot sustain anything and yet I do not
hesitate to appeal to you all to hear this message. If there is any
validity in an office (and if we cannot accept that there is, then we
are only playing games) then for the work's sake, accept my appeal to
you that we keep the rules at all levels. You may say, where do you
get these ideas from? From meditation, from prayer? Please let us not
argue where they came from, but let us consider what is being said
because that is what really matters. None of us can withstand the
great forces affecting humanity, but within the protection of the
Chapters, we can walk and grow within the fidelity of the Chapter
experience. In this way we have safety. If the rules are not kept at
all levels, it becomes very unsafe.
"Today, you are going to elect a Grand Chapter which also must keep
the general rules because it too is a part of Chapter. Collectively,
we must never see the rules as being onerous but rather as being
beautiful, wise and for our protection and for no other purpose.
"Lest we become riged and fixed in our attitudes and miss the
livingness, consider this account of my recent hospital experience. I
was placed on drips and given no food for several days. This was all
very fascinating as blood samples were taken and the kind of drip
altered occasionally. Now we all like to share our experiences and
having noticed that I can now refer to the 'old days' with the
authority that age alone confers (which is a little ridiculous, of
course,) I spoke to the nurse about a 1937 experience as an example of
how clever everything is now with respect to the use of drips and how
shock is controlled in wonderful ways. I proceeded to tell here that
in that year I was very severely and extensively scaled in an
industrial accident during the University's long vacation. The best
treatment available was to be sprayed with tannic acid and the bed
covered with a tunnel equipped wsith many light bulbs. These were
turned on regularly to assist the trying out of the tannic acid to
form a protective skin and to hold back infection and reduce the loss
of lymphatic fluid. Of course, with turning on the lights, the
original extreme shock was unavoidably added to in a manner not likely
to be forgotten. With no other object than to tell the nurse how
rugged things used to be compared with present skilled treatment, I
suddenly found that my whole being was open to a flood of the original
experience - the door had opened and I could not close it! Memory of
the pain was intact.
"After a time, this unintentionally opened door was closed and it was
then that it was understood that paying attention to an experience of
54 years ago, with the added emotional consequence of substantially
changed blood chemistry, was not wise, especially when the more
extreme experiences of our lives leave deep grooves in consciousness.
I remembered too, how our most blessed and beautiful Soror R never
ever lived in the past. This is a deeper rule. She simply did not
revive the past, never! She lived in the Eternal Now and although I
know this, my enthusiasm inadvertently exposed me to the full force of
something past, but still a potency latent in consciousness. To give
an example of how Soror R kept the rule, consider what took place in
New Zealand in 1969. It was in the late Frater Alastair Wallace's
house and I was about to show her where he had collapsed and died in
my presence. She stopped the conversation and said, "Do not re-live
it - don't revive the unhappy past." Thus we find that in this
pathway of life, there are many rules to be learnt concerning how to
maintain the higher consciousness at different levels. The 'doing'
must take precedence over the 'do nots'.
"With reference to the Grand Chapter, to the outside world it is the
Board and deals with the requirments of State law which includes the
responsibility of maintaining the pursuit of the main objective of the
work. Besides the rules of this level, there are the rules of the
First and Second Orders and the individual rules of membership. The
validity of our being here today to elect a Board lies not in any
selfish desire for attainment or because of this grade or that office,
but rather in our function as a vehicle for the Inner School for
humanity and not for ourselves selfishly except that we too are a part
of humanity. Within this responsibility, the idea of keeping the
rules at all levels means playing a clean game at Board level. Within
the work, vigorous discussion is good, but argument or any matter of
political trickery has no part because the Board is derived from
Chapter.
"Because of the responsibility, of course the Board needs prayer and
this is not said condescendingly. All Board members need help that
they will be open to a higher wisdom and not confined to their human
limitations. For other Chapter members not on the Board, pleasure in
following the rules of Chapter is more desirable than the debilitating
effect of unwise, critical and unkind thoughts and words.
"So much spiritual capital has been invested in this Order of which we
collectively are now the custodians. We are not separate from the
human drama of thousands of yuears nor the necessity of 1600 years of
concealment of the Mystery Teachings following the appearing and
rejection of the Perfected Christ. May we ever walk in thankfulness
for the rules we have been given for handling the energies of
consciousness while we too seek perfection."
(Lengthy applause.)
Under penalty of perfury, I declare that the above is a true and
faithful transmission of a document deposited by Builders of the
Adytum at the aforementioned Federal Facility, it having knowingly
made it available for public access, inspection, and reflection.
Sar Draconis
Alex Sumner
"Sar Draconis" <SarDr...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:b97518ae.03082...@posting.google.com...
> The late Will Chesterman directed the New Zealand branch of Builders
> of the Adytum for many years, and was appointed supreme chief of
> Builders of the Adytum (an esoteric qabalistic order)in the early
> 1990's. On March 2nd, 1991, Will Chesterman addressed the annual
> meeting of B.O.T.A., as duly recorded in the Minutes of the Annual
> Meeting for that date. Recently Builders of the Adytum has duly
> deposited a copy of these Minutes in a federal facility located in
> Riverside, California, with full awareness that therein reposed, the
> documents can and should be consulted by any member of the public.
>
> Frater Will is described therein under the alternate name V.G.H.
> Frater Cede Deo (i.e., Very Greatly Honered Frater Cede Deo). Among
> many other important points, Frater Will makes an astonishing
> contribution to the history of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,
> revealing for the first time that the Hermetic Order of the Golden
> Dawn, founded in 1881, was actually a 1600 year plus Order which
> sought to conceal its Ancient existance from the public by pretending
> to be Egyptian. (Bob Gilbert eat your heart out.) I quote the
> synopsis of Frater Will's address as set forth in the Minutes, now a
> publically available document conserved at the aforementioned Federal
> Facility located in Riverside, California, U.S.A.:
>
[snip]
> Under penalty of perfury, I declare that the above is a true and
> faithful transmission of a document deposited by Builders of the
> Adytum at the aforementioned Federal Facility, it having knowingly
> made it available for public access, inspection, and reflection.
>
> Sar Draconis
WADR - It may very well be a true account of what Will Chesterman said, but
that doesn't make it anything more than hearsay evidence. Where did Will
Chesterman get his information from? Moreover, since all the GD's material
was assumed to be secret before Regardie published it, would that not mean
that members of the order were themselves deceived as to its nature -
assuming what Chesterman says is true? Moreover, if the GD was more than
1600 years old, does that not also mean that the members of the order were
deceived in thinking that it was Rosicrucian at all?
cheyne
<b97518ae.03082...@posting.google.com>:
> The late Will Chesterman directed the New Zealand branch of Builders
> of the Adytum for many years, and was appointed supreme chief of
> Builders of the Adytum (an esoteric qabalistic order)in the early
> 1990's. On March 2nd, 1991, Will Chesterman addressed the annual
> meeting of B.O.T.A., as duly recorded in the Minutes of the Annual
> Meeting for that date. Recently Builders of the Adytum has duly
> deposited a copy of these Minutes in a federal facility located in
> Riverside, California, with full awareness that therein reposed, the
> documents can and should be consulted by any member of the public.
>
> Frater Will is described therein under the alternate name V.G.H.
> Frater Cede Deo (i.e., Very Greatly Honered Frater Cede Deo). Among
> many other important points, Frater Will makes an astonishing
> contribution to the history of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,
> revealing for the first time that the Hermetic Order of the Golden
> Dawn, founded in 1881, was actually a 1600 year plus Order which
> sought to conceal its Ancient existance from the public by pretending
> to be Egyptian. (Bob Gilbert eat your heart out.) I quote the
> synopsis of Frater Will's address as set forth in the Minutes, now a
> publically available document conserved at the aforementioned Federal
> Facility located in Riverside, California, U.S.A.:
The GD concerned itself with some old ideas. It can be said of a lot of
things that in some (not particularly useful or meaningful) sense, they have
"ancient roots". Though to state, without any evidence, that the GD was
established as an Order some sixteen hundred years ago, and that it had
survived in roughly the same fashion during all of that time, and in secret,
through a process of lineage, is not a very credible claim.
I'd never heard of Mr. Will Chesterman until you posted his name, but if your
report is correct, then it's a sorry reflection of B.O.T.A. that they would have
had such an idiot in charge. Also, that you would gleefully and uncritically
promote such an astonishingly stupid contribution says nothing complimentary
about your own credibility.
Is it true just because Mr. Will Chesterman says so, or are you going to post
some evidence?
cheyne
>
> "It is a privelege to be able to speak to you on this very important
> day, made so because of the responsibility which devolves upon it. To
> emphasize that responsibility could we consider for a moment the very
> foundation of this Order which from its ancient roots was concealed
> for a period of 1600 years until its semi-open declaration in England
> in about 1881.
cheyne
Satyr
Well said.
Of course, it's possible Mr Draconis is slyly rubbishing BOTA...
--
Satyr
I can't understand how such clever people came to elect such a stupid
president.
-Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraqi Minister of Information
Sar Draconis
> all the GD's material
> was assumed to be secret before Regardie published it,
>
> AS
> http://www.geocities.com/alex_sumner/
No, not true.
The GD corpus was published by Aleister Crowley many decades before
the Regardie exposes appeared. There was a court case in England
brought by Mathers in an effort to halt the Crowley publication. The
judge ruled in favor of Crowley, and stated regarding the matter: "The
cat is already out of the bag."
Sar Draconis
cheyne
<b97518ae.03082...@posting.google.com>:
> > all the GD's material
> > was assumed to be secret before Regardie published it,
>
> No, not true.
>
> The GD corpus was published by Aleister Crowley many decades before
> the Regardie exposes appeared.
As you know, all of that's irrelevant. And the extent to which (and how) the
members of the GD were misled about the origins of their Order is an entirely
different, and well-documented, story.
The specific piece of nonsense that we're considering here (provided by you),
is that the Three Stooges (Woodman, Wescott and Mathers), were knowingly
perpetuating an already existing, sixteen hundred year-old Order, when they
created the Isis Urania Temple in London.
So, since you clearly embrace this claim, what is your evidence?
Where had the Order previously existed?
Was Eliphas Levi a member of a French GD Order?
cheyne
Sar Draconis
interpretation of Frater Will's statement is not that the GD concealed
its ancient origin, but rather that the GD concealed the SOURCE of its
teachings. To quote once again from Frater Will : "The true source
of its teachings was concealed deliberately by the use of the Egyptian
did Frater Will think WAS the "true source" of its teachings. We can
gather some more insight by going towards the end of Frater Will's
presentation, where he remarks: "We are not separate from the human
drama of thousands of years nor the necessity of 1600 years of
concealment of the Mystery Teachings following the appearing and
rejection of the Perfected Christ."
Christ."
The question then arises: where is he getting this figure of 1600
years of concealment? This is not entirely clear from his
presentation, but given the aforementioned, I would speculate the
following: The dates circa 400 A.D. represent a time when the
exoteric Church became officially recognized by the Roman State, and
began to use the power of the Roman State to persecute and destroy its
esoteric side, i.e., Gnosticism. If this interpretation is correct,
then it would seem that Frater Will is asserting that the G.D. was
actually a Gnostic order, and which had to exist for 1600 years
underground in order to survive.
For the remainder, the fact that both the G.D. and the B.O.T.A.
asserted an ancient lineage for themselves is not in doubt, as both
the Mathers organization and the Case organization published
assertions to that effect.
Frater Will's assertion of the date of 1881 is also curious,
considering that the foundation of Westcott, Woodman, and Mathers
actually dates from 1888 or 1887. In this connection, it is
interesting to note that there is a copy of a Mathers ritual
publication conserved in the Humanities Research Library in Austin,
Texas, annotated by Aleister Crowley, in which Mathers asserts the
Ancient Origin of the G.D., and Crowley annotates: "Yes, 1881 or
thereabouts." In fact, the 1881 reference may go to the earlier G.D.
emanation run by K. MacKenzie, and referred to in later G.D. documents
as "Temple no. 2 of the G.D." This date may have been known through
an oral tradition to G.D. initiates such as Aleister Crowley, and may
have even reached Frater Will, who is known to have been personally
acquainted with initiates of the Whare Ra.
Sar Draconis
SarDr...@aol.com (Sar Draconis) wrote in message news:<b97518ae.03082...@posting.google.com>...
> human drama of thousands of years nor the necessity of 1600 years of
cheyne
<9f87d6be.03083...@posting.google.com>:
> Actually, upon careful reading, I think that a more accurate
> interpretation of Frater Will's statement is not that the GD concealed
> its ancient origin, but rather that the GD concealed the SOURCE of its
> teachings.
He says:
"To emphasize that responsibility could we consider for a moment the very
foundation of this Order which from its ancient roots was concealed
for a period of 1600 years until its semi-open declaration in England
in about 1881."
This sentence is baloney whichever way you read it. Even if he was
just crap at English, and meant that the foundation (as in basis, subsequently
determined) of the Order was concealed during all that time, it's still wrong.
The natural way to read it, is that either the Order, or the foundation (as in
the founding of) the Order was concealed for sixteen hundred years, i.e.
baloney.
And you're right, the date's wrong too. February 12, 1888 was the date of
the initial pledge forms.
Nope, if it's GD(-ish) revelations you're after, start by turning your telescope
round the other way. Anyone got a missing chapter hidden in their sock
drawer?
cheyne
AINSUPH
obituary for Will Chesterman:
http://www.bota.org/WillMem.html
Perhaps they should also place Will Chesterman's Address on the page
as an additional memoriam.
AINSUPH
pa...@ix.netcom.com (Sar Draconis) wrote in message news:<9f87d6be.03083...@posting.google.com>...