Who is Frater L.e.N.e.? - Part 2

After having my first spiritual awakening when i was 19, i knew that the Search for Light will be the most important factor for me in this present incarnation.
I felt a deep longing for the gigantic feeling of Divine Love that i have experienced in these split-seconds, and 15 years later i still feel this longing burning in my heart.
But i still was very young and wild and therefore would not have the persistence to submit to a daily discipline of spiritual practise.
Also, i was not sure if eastern practises would be the best option.
Although i already had a copy of Israel Regardies "Golden Dawn" in my possession, i did not know that it is a workable system even without an existing Order. I just had a few glances at the Initiation Rituals in there and thought them to be far too complicated to do something practically with it, on myself and without any group or teacher.

At the age of 20 i moved from Southern Germany to Berlin, feeling that my environment had become too narrow-minded for me to fulfill my dreams.
In this crazy town that i still love so much i first started to go to school again, preparing for my high-school exams at a school for adult education.
For the next 5 years my interest in spirituality faded.
I was too busy in exploring what adventures my new habitat had to offer me, made many friends, went to a lot of parties and also engaged in small art projects.
Eventually, this somehow spiritual unfocussed life-style led to a deep personal crisis.
After a violent breach with a man that i was deeply in love with at this time, i suffered severe feelings of depression and loss of identity in the year of 2000.
I could not open the door for visiting friends, did not want to read a book or listen to music, could not do anything except for eating and sleeping, and just shut myself up in my house, awaking every morning with the deep feeling of not knowing anymore who I am. Often, the days in this year started with tears and desperation and ended with panic attacks on the street when i tried to go to the supermarket.
But, as it is normal with every spiritual crisis, there was a little glimpse of Light that shone through all this desperation and that finally helped me to come out of it again, fortunately without having to look for professional help.
It happened that one time i picked up a book from my bookshelve, and more or less out of chance it was a book by Carlos Castaneda, that i have read and admired when being a teenager.
At random i read a small passage about the concept of Tonal and Nagual, with the Tonal as everything that can be perceived and termed as reality, and the Nagual as everything that lies beneath and beyond this material reality. It also said that if a person once made contact to the Nagual and after that did not care about the implications and impact of this experience, s/he would ever suffer a feeling of undefined longing, a longing that could never be stilled with any material act.
By reading these few sentences, i suddenly began to realize the true meaning of my present and completely unpleasant state of mind.
So i started to think about what i really want out of this life and made some serious decisions.
I started to prescribe a daily routine of fitness training and meditation to myself and entered one of the local universities to study comparative religious sciences.
With this, the interest in the occult was enflamed again.
I bought every book about magic i could lay my hands on, and especially read everything from and about Aleister Crowley.
In the years of 2001 and 2002 i experimented with some kind of self-styled auto-erotic magic on a regular basis by creating one personal sigil per month and charging this with sexual energy and will-power with the intent to come into closer contact with my Holy Guardian Angel.
I somehow also began to realize that without help from any spiritual teacher or school that fitted my temperament and character, i could not progress further.
This thought was quite new for me, seeing that up to this point i have always regarded myself as some sort of spiritual and solitary warrior.
Eventually- i heard about the inauguration of a local Golden Dawn temple in Berlin at the end of the year 2002!
I was totally surprised because i had thought that the famous Golden Dawn was dead long ago!
Of course, i went to this public event where our Chief Adept held a lecture about the Golden Dawn and its system, and introduced the Hierophant of the new temple to the guests.
I was deeply impressed by the sobriety and solemnity of this lecture and event and had a very peculiar vision when the Chief Adept provided a Skrying session with one of the main symbols of the tradition.
Straight after this event i bought the "Ritual Magic Manual" by David Griffin and at home performed my first Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and Middle Pillar along its outlines.
From this moment on i knew that eventually i had found the spiritual techniques that i was looking for for so long!

So in April 2003 i got initiated into the Neophyte Grade of the Golden Dawn and therewith became a member of the local temple.
I consider this initiation as the most important day in all my life.
It was truly a new beginning and i will always be grateful for having got this remarkable opportunity. No word can truly describe what this initiation meant to me.
I was 28 then and time was ripe and perfect for a disciplined, practical and scientific approach to the spiritual heights i have sworn myself to reach long ago!

And here I am, still a member of the german Temple and international Order, and all i can say is that the Order and its brilliant system of attainment did never disappoint me at any given time.
Over the years i have realised that attainment is not a single event, but more likely demands a life-long endeavour and willingness to tread the path, no matter what grade you are in.
I also realised that spiritual development comes gradual only, that the powers of the Soul unfold subtle and slowly and only with a great amount of personal discipline and perseverance, and that
the process of going through the grades is often an unpleasant one, because you are forced to reflect deeply on every trait of your personality.
In order to establish contact with the Divine, you first have to establish balance in your Microcosm, at least to a certain extent.
This is what the elemental grades of the Outer Order aim at- they prepare your sphere for the cultivation of Soul. And at the same time, you are made perfect in the performance of basic magical techniques like Banishing, Invocations, Skryings, Consecrations and Divination.
I will ever be grateful for the founders of this system and everybody who is willing to teach it to the aspiring student, because i can see that its initiations and techniques are truly able to unlock the doors of Heaven and of Hell, and finally lead to the Summum Bonum, True Happiness and the Stone of the Wise.
I do not consider myself as super intelligent or genuine, in fact i think iam a quite lazy person and there may be times when i am not able to do more than the prescribed and necessary work. I know that also there will always be people who progress faster and display more intellectual brilliance than me.
But i think this is not the point.
The point is that i truly believe that i have found my spiritual homeground and that iam willing to dedicate my whole life to the study of hermetic sciences and the cultivation of my Soul, and thereby to delve ever deeper into Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of the Divine, to hopefully to become more than human one day and then to help other aspiring students to realize the same.


By the Truth that is One and Ineffable,
Summa Scientia Nihil Scire,
Frater L.e.N.e.