about aligning the forces of microcosm and macrocosm. Ritual magic makes philosophy and doctrine into drama and symbol in order to create ceremony. By means of symbolic space and costume the participants prepare the physical and mental arena, taking on their various roles, which may include assuming 'masks' in their imagination (‘god forms’). The rites themselves rehearse stories and doctrines both explicitly through words and implicitly through symbol and action. For the Golden Dawn the underlying philosophy was an eclectic synthesis of Hermetic and Cabbalistic thought organised according to the Tree of Life. Individual ceremonies are founded upon the correspondences established in this scheme together with specific additions, such as the symbolism of the Fall or the legend of Christian Rosenkreutz. The rites' use of symbolism and narratives,and their pacing and structure are not very different from religious ceremonies, particularly those of the traditional Christian churches, though they are cast in a different 'language'. The Outer Order, the Golden Dawn proper, involved no actual magic and was primarily concerned with using ritual to consolidate the theory studied by the aspirants and to explore and balance their elemental energies within the aspirant.

Diagram of the Grades of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn upon the Tree of Life. Click the image for a larger image in a new window. After the crucial introductory ceremony (the Neophyte ceremony 0°=0°), each further ceremony was associated with one of the Sephiroth on the Tree of Life, and expressed by two numbers, the first indicating the place of the grade