Ceremonial closure of Whare Ra occurred on the 9th of September 1978 at 10:30am, so records a handwritten note by G.H. Sor. Cantate Domino, 9=2, a previous Imperator and one of the final Chiefs of the Order.
This is the first page of an eleven-page Officers script prepared for the formal closing of the Order and Temple of the Smaragdum Thalasses No. 49 in Havelock North, New Zealand.
While the ritual does document the closure of what is often regarded as the last and longest functioning Temple of the old Golden Dawn stream, its real significance lies in illuminating how the final Chiefs of the Order themselves understood that event.
The language of the ceremony does not present the closure as its extinction.
The Temple is formally closed, yet the “Ancient Wisdom” is said to require “new appropriate forms,” and the concentrated Forces of the Temple are ritually transferred outward “to their due spheres in the aura of New Zealand.”
Similar dedications occur elsewhere as the ritual advances from closure of the First and then Second Orders.
By the end their ceremonial intent is clear.
As a historical document, it provides a rare insight into the ritual and philosophical understanding surrounding the closing of Whare Ra at the conclusion of its 66 year Work.
Kasmillos
