Dragon Rouge by Draco

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

From the Dragon Rouge website:

Dragon Rouge : Ordo Draconis et Atri Adamantis

"The darkness is a mirror of the depths of the soul. All that is hidden inside us, our desires and our fears, is projected on the darkness."

Dragon Rouge is a Nordic order with branches in many parts of the world. We study magic and occultism in both theory and practice. Dragon Rouge is one of few orders which focuses on the dark side of magic and the left hand path. We are exploring the nightside tradition on many different levels. Dragon Rouge is mainly an order for magical initiation, but also for brother- and sisterhood. Our aim is to make education and development of the occult possible and to be a meeting point for knowledge and experiences. Dragon Rouge is a practical magical order in which the individual experience is pivotal. We are focusing on an empirical occultism and a knowledge about the unknown based on experience.

Dragon Rouge explore the dark side focusing on five main paths.

• The Order
• Culture
• Philosophy
• Psychology
• Initiatoric Magic

Dragon Rouge is an order where a creative fellowship is nurtured and a strong brother- and sisterhood is upheld. Loyalty, honesty and devotion towards the work of the order are important principles for members of Dragon Rouge. Every member chooses personally to what extent he/she will participate in the official activities, but we emphasize the importance of working together with others in Dragon Rouge if one wants to reach results on the individual level. We are conducting ceremonies and magical workings together and are arranging study evenings and are inviting guest lecturers, traveling to cult sites and power places like ship tumuli in Sweden or places like Externsteine in Germany. For initiated members of Dragon Rouge there are also philosophical discussion evenings, dinners and festivities.

In culture we are interested in the Gothicism and the dark side in its different forms of expression. We are studying the Gothicistic literature and the horror romantic genre through writers like H.P. Lovecraft, Hanns Heinz Ewers, Bram Stoker and Edgar Allan Poe. We are interested in classics of Satanic literature like Dante's "Inferno", "Paradise Lost" by Milton and the Faustian texts. Baudelaire and Comte de Lautréamont have inspired many of our members. Our interest in the Gothic tradition also reaches the Gothicism and we are influenced by poets and writers like Johannes Bureus, Georg Stiernhielm and the circle around the Gothic Society in Sweden. Among our members we have numerous musicians, painters, writers and academics. Musically, Richard Wagner and his mythological operas are important in Dragon Rouge, but also modern experimental music. In art, our focus is on the Gothic ruin romanticism expressed by Arnold Böcklin and Caspar David Friedrich, and the symbolistic art of Franz von Stück and Fidus but also on surrealistic art by Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst. The dark magician and artist Austin Osman Spare is a good example of how magic and art is united. The above mentioned names are only fragments of a wide interest in the dark culture forms that we believe can give man a glimpse of the hidden sides of existence.

The philosophy of the dark side is represented by the left hand path and its ideology. The left hand path is founded around a philosophy which defines two main spiritual paths. One is the right hand path. It is evident in most forms of religion and mass movements. Its method is the magic of the light and its goal includes that the individual melts together with God. The other path is the left hand path. It emphasizes the unique, the deviant and the exclusive. Its method is dark magic and antinomianism (going against the grain). The goal is to become a god. Among the magical writers that includes the left hand path we are reading among others Carlos Castaneda, Julius Evola and Kenneth Grant. Most philosophers interest us. We study texts by classical philosophers like Herakleitos, Plato and Plotinos, as well as newer thinkers like Nietzsche, Heidegger and Henri Bergson. We are also incorporating non-European philosophy and are reading classical Indian and Chinese texts like the Upanishads and Tao te ching. A major part of the philosophy of the left hand path can be found among the tantric teachings.

The dark side can also be understood from the perspective of psychology. One of the main theses of Dragon Rouge is that man presently uses only a fraction of his total capacity. We are experiencing only an insignificant part of reality. The major part of man is hidden. Through the traditional thousand year old occult practices man can contact these hidden sides. To the hidden parts of man belongs the undeveloped and non-actualized sides of the psyche. These can be made conscious and become realised if we are entering the dark side of our psyche. We will then confront all dark and repressed parts of the psyche like aggression, fears and basic instincts. C.G. Jung is the psychologist who is most important to Dragon Rouge. Jung said: "Illumination is not reached by visualizing the light but by exploring the darkness". From this perspective Dragon Rouge is working with the dark side. Other psychologists that are interesting to us are among others the Jungian Marie-Louise von Franz, Wilhelm Reich with his force concept Orgon, and Stanislaf Grof and his psychedelic research. In the hidden areas of the human psyche we can find the so called parapsychological abilities like telepathy and psychometry. We are studying parapsychology and are conducting parapsychological experiments.

The members who wish can also enter into the initiatoric magic which is the actual foundation of Dragon Rouge. Here the adept reaches the deeper levels in the work of investigating the dark side. The three first levels of the 11 level initiatoric system are based on a letter course and the communication with a tutor from the order. The remaining levels of initiation are revealed only to those who passes the first preparatory levels. Besides the theoretic discipline the initiatoric work focuses on regular magical practice. The goal of the initiatoric magic of Dragon Rouge is self deification: a step by step process in which the magician is developing and ennobling him/herself and becomes a "god". To become a god means that one has transformed life from being predetermined and predestinated by outer conditions, to the stage where one reaches a truly free will. Man becomes a god when he ceases to be a creation and instead becomes a creator. In the initiatoric magic the magician works with:

1. Vision seeking, dream journeys and astral magic.
2. Activation of inner hidden forces and the conjuration of outer forces.
3. Communication with the shadow and the night side.

The draconian initiation is based on four main traditions: the Goetic Qabalah, the Odinic Runosophy, Tantra and Alkhemy. The magician's initiation is a life-long project, according to many magicians even a great work that might stretch through numerous incarnations. This is a spiritual quest that demands self sacrifice, dedication, patience and discipline – a quest that the magicians fulfills together with his/her magical brothers and sisters of the draconian path.

http://www.dragonrouge.net/