Belonging to an old group is not always a good thing. Occultism is supposed evolve and develop, but occult groups can only really reflect the values of the generation which formed them. If they can adapt they continue but what is more likely is they lose their edge and start to die. The end of an order is unlikely to be quick and easy, Some groups take years to die even though its members have not met properly for years.
The Hermes Temple of the Golden Dawn stopped working in the 1960’s and its members did not even meet. Its last member did not consider it closed until she died which was in the early 1970s.
The Druidic Order of Pendragon held its last official meeting during WW2 but its members managed to keep it alive until 1965. One Wiccan circle in Manchester has been held in abeyance for more than two decades but its remaining members deny that it is closed even though all of them hate each other’s guts and refuse to be in the same room together!
Such groups clearly should have closed earlier, but for a refusal to let it face its natural death instead its members forced it to exist on an esoteric life support system useful to no one.
Then, on the other hand, there are groups that have been closed by their leadership far too early – when there was still an impetus to keep it running.
One such example was Whare Ra, which was the last surviving Golden Dawn temple. Despite a surge in interest in the late 1970’s in the teachings of the Golden Dawn and an esoteric renaissance the order’s leader shut down the temple and burnt more than 100 years’ worth of esoteric history and teachings. The building, a huge listed building, was sold off and the proceeds along with the group’s substantial funds were channelled into a new age project that was a favourite of the organisation’s leaders. Now it is possible that Whare Ra as it was structured had gotten too backward to be of use, but it is unlikely that it was past saving. Certainly, some of the members who were high-graders in that organisation did not think so. In fact one of the chiefs involved in the closing admitted later that he made a mistake, and it happened because the other chief had become senile and he did not feel he could replace her.
When an order dies, it is never a good idea to try to resurrect it. If you do, you just tap into all the terrible things that closed it in the first place. It is better to start with something new and a different name.
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