Cicero - Self Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition_Part 01

TheZelator Grade 201
Save for the Kerubic emblems, the arrangement seems at first very confused;
butwhen we notice the Maternal Ancestors of the Tribes, this confusion disperses,
and we notice that at the East are three tribes descended from Leah, viz.
Judah, Issachar and Zebulon. Opposite to them, towards the West, three tribes
descended from Rachel, viz. Ephraim, Manasseh and Benjamin. At the South are
two descended from Leah and one descended from Zilpah, viz. Reuben, Simeon
and Gad, and at the North, two descended from Bilhah and one descended from
Zilpah, viz. Dan, Naphthali and Asher. Here two tribes descended from Zilpah,
Gad (r\f) and Asher (a), are the only ones separated, and placed in opposition to
each other, for these are two signs of the Equinoxes.
The substitution of the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh for the single
one of Joseph is given in Genesis 48, where Jacob blessed them prior to the general
blessing of the Tribes, stating at the same time that Ephraim, though the younger,
should take precedence over Manasseh: "And Jacob said unto Joseph... And now
thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto thee in the land of
Egypt before I came unto thee in Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon they
shall be mine. And thy issue which thou begettest after them shall be thine and
shall be called after the name of their brethren in their inheritance ... Moreover I
have given unto thee one portion above of thy brethren."
Let us now notice the blessings of Jacob and Moses, and compare them
with the Signs of the Zodiac attributed to each Tribe. We shall take them in the
Zodiacal order.
Of Gad (Aries), Jacob says, "Gad, a troop shall overcome him, but he shall
overcome at the last." Moses says, "Blessed be he that enlargeth Gad: he dwelleth as
a lioness, and teareth the arm with the crown of the head, and he provideth the first
part for himself because there, in a portion of the law-giver,was he sealed; and he
came with the heads of the people, he executed the justice of the Lord, and his judgments
with IsraeI." The armonial bearings of Gad are, white, a troop of cavalry. All
this coincides well with the martial and dominant nature of Aries, the only one of
the twelve signs in which the superior Planets alone bear sway, for itis the house of
Mars, exaltation of the Sun and triplicity of Sun and Jupiter. The symbolism of the
Lion is also proper to Aries on account of its solar, fiery and martial nature.
Of Ephraim and Manasseh (Taurus and Gemini), classed together under
their father's name, Jacob says, "Joseph is a fruitful bough by a well, whose
branches run over the wall; the archers have surely grieved him and shot at him,
and hated him: but the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the
mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:) Even by the
God of thy father, who shall help thee, and by the Almighty who shall bless thee
with the blessings of Heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings
of the breasts and of the womb: the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the
blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they
shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him who was separate
from his brethren." Moses says, "Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the preoious
things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath, and for
/the precious fruits broughtforth by the Sun, and for the precious things putforth by