On Saturday, 5/16/15, members of the Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn convened for our monthly Educational Session and Neophyte Hall. Additionally, we had a grade advancement, so our day started earlier than usual.

At 12 noon, some members arrived early to set up the Hall for Sr. PEVV’s Theoricus advancement.

Once the Hall was properly disposed, the ceremony began at 12:30. Soror PEVV acquitted herself admirably in an hour-long ritual, and at the end we all felt excited about our Soror’s advancement, one step closer to our goal of helping all members to become adepts (if, of course, that’s what they want).

Next, we took a lunch break, mostly hitting the local Taco Truck, and then returning to the Temple to eat, talk, ruminate, and to catch up on our PDAs.

At 3 pm, we had an outstanding educational session from Fr. MSS on the I-Ching, something he has studied and practiced for over two decades. Frater MSS, and others, brought in about 25 different books on the I-Ching, which we all had a chance to peruse during and after his stimulating lecture.

He examined the Oracle’s origins, in addition to its basic structure, and some of its potential magickal uses. He also brought in some different I-Ching Oracle sticks, in addition to the traditional Chinese coins.

We all then decided to do a reading for our Order. Using the coins, we first asked the Oracle aloud: “What do we, as an Order, need to know today?” before casting a hexagram on the Temple altar and receiving a profoundly relevant response:

Hexagram 35 (Advance/Prospering), changing into Hexagram 40 (Liberation/Deliverance), as pictured above. Fr. MSS, and Fr. VCP (who turns out to be another advanced I-Ching user), did a thorough tag-team interpretation of our results, reading from several of the tomes and integrating the results on the fly. At the end, everyone seemed to feel inspired to check out the Oracle on their own.

(I know that, since the talk, I’ve been using and enjoying the Oracle a lot, right after I purchased the two excellent translations by Swami Anand Nisarg, and Taoist Master Alfred Huang.)

Next we broke for dinner, and most of us ended up at our favorite, local, Vietnamese joint. Here, we enjoyed a lively conversation over dinner which touched on various topics, including the I-Ching, and Qabalah.

We returned from dinner an hour later, and set up the Temple for the Neophyte Hall. We would be initiating a new member, Fr. FR. We also had two visitors from the pagan community, who were checking us out. We got the Temple ready by 7:30ish, and proceeded to perform a smooth ceremony and initiation, bringing our new Frater into the “fold”.

Afterwards, we all enjoyed our customary “social hour(s)” at the Temple over wine and food. Then, around 11:30, we broke everything down, cleaned up the room, and left for the night.

All in all, another fun, informative, and spiritually enriching day for everyone who attended.

Fr. NNV

7/5/15