Glossary - exWitch Australia (formerly 'Born Again Pagan')

ROSE OF RUBY AND CROSS OF GOLD, Order of the

The elite Second, and highly secretive, Order of Golden Dawn (see HERMETIC ORDER OF THE GOLDEN DAWN) with rituals based on the alIeged discovery of the tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz. This Second Order comprised a controlIing corpus, the so-called 'Vault of the Adepts' whose members were known only by secret mottoes and were believed to possess superhuman abilities. According to W Wynn Westcott, one of the charter members of Golden Dawn, the rituals were obtained from a Belgian Adept, Dr Thiessen of Liege who went under the magical name of Frater Lux Tenebres.

PLEASE NOTE:
One of the major problems with 'defining' Paganism and/or its beliefs and practices is that it is an 'organic' movement, in that it is undergoing constant change and re-evaluation from within, and as such any 'one-size-fits-all' approach to understanding Paganism will be found wanting.

Due to the very 'organic' nature of Paganism, and the many differing Paths and Traditions within it, in many cases no one definition may be universally accepted by all Pagans. Therefore, where such cases of possible conflicting and/or contradictory meanings of certain terms occur I have endevoured to give not only the generally accepted meaning, but also any major 'variations' in belief and/or practice.

Christians who believe this difference in meaning of certain key terms, beliefs and practices to be unique to Paganism need to remember that such conflicts also arise within the Body of Christ - the Church. Take for instance the differing practices amongst Christians concerning Baptism and the different attitudes towards women in the clergy.

- Jean-Luc