Talk:Dragon Rouge

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[edit] older entries

There. I cut out most of the "this is what we'd like to be, please believe us we actually are" parts and got more actual facts in. Sorry if the correction sounds sharply negative, but anything more factual than the previous article had to negate some of the claims made there. I still estimate less than 1% of Dragon Rouge members have actually worked through the described reading list.

Regarding the "Therion fan club" thing... well, it is a fact, get over it. Ask 10 European left-handers "what is the Therion fan club" and at least 9 of them will answer "Dragon Rouge".

[edit] Images

[...] The criticism of blood sacrifice has popped up several times in the Swedish tabloid press. I can't think of any online copy right now, but there were several such articles and enough digging is sure to bring them up. BTW, Dragon Rouge does not hold secret they've been critizised for that - in fact, they ridicule their critics.

There is a magazine interview ("Der Golem", issue #3 feb '01) where the head of German Dragon Rouge comments on how he got into Dragon Rouge via Therion, and mentions that this is just like many of his brothers and sisters did. This is the best source for this kind of thing you can possibly get. Conveniently, Dragon Rouge put the interview on their own site - it is just in German and, by now, only accessible via Internet Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20010707105922/www.dragonrouge.net/thagirion/dergolem.htm

With that, I put those two bits from "Opposing Views" back in.

[edit] Der Golem and declarations

I'd like to remind you that not all Dragon Rouge members can express official statements concerning the Order. Only the members of the Inner Circle can do so. What the Lodgemaster said in that interview is his only opinion and it is not official data.

So go lightly when publishing inexact data and falso information on this website. One thing is a free encyclopedia, another thing are lies.

I'd like also to add that one thing is that in DR there are some people who listen to Therion, something else is the cheap irony of calling it "Therion fun club"....

[...]

Whether this Lodgemaster is officially allowed to make such a statement is irrelevant, and does not make his description an "opinion". One might reasonably expect the head representative of Dragon Rouge Germany (which has the second largest national DR member count after Sweden) to know quite a lot of his brothers and sisters.

when was it founded? Shoudn't it be obvious to include a history with the article?????

It should be, but the matter is not plain easy. Dragon Rouge originally claimed a direct heritage to a group of "Yezidi black magicians", which was rather obvious bogus. Rather recently, Karlsson (head of the order) became frank in that Dragon Rouge was originally a group if 17-year-olds who listened to Metal and dabbled in the occult, until Karlsson met a couple of really impressive magicians abroad and decided he should get serious with this thing. The former story is wrong (both inside and outside the order), and the new one does not seem to have appeared as quotable source somewhere. When it does, it will no doubt be here.

[edit] New German page!

The homepage of the German Lodge Heldrasil hat a big update. Information is now available in German AND ENGLISH. You will get a deeper insight in the order's intitiation system and structure. Just check it out: www.heldrasil.de

Maybe somobody could edit the article based on this new information?

[edit] Concerns from Featured Article Candidates

Here are some of my concerns with this article:

  • Object. Lead section too short. No references. Some instances of POV (e.g. calling the critical press "tabloid"). The whole section about opposition is poorly balanced. Again, references are needed. I live in Sweden but have never heard of this movement, despite the claim of "fame" in Sweden. Link to some of the "tabloid" articles. See also links to several articles that have already been mentioned. Do 500 members really make it the "leading magical organization" in northern Europe? Says who? Alchemy is listed in see also. Why? Does the movement have any official religious texts? The section The Initiatoric Draconian Magic is not clear on what each step actually constitutes; what does a follower have to do to achieve each step? How is the movement financed? What do the different elements in the "official logo" symbolise? In short: this article has some way to go before featured status. — David Remahl 13:57, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I adressed some of those points, but was unable to adress others. I am quite sure the article is right in what it says (and one might call me not entirely uninformed, heh), but there cannot be sources for everything, such as the "An apparent majority of adherents to the latter three traditions disapprove of their use by Dragon Rouge." bit I just added. I'll swear by that, but you won't find it written. Some of the bits further "down" the initiation system are not readily accessible, and everything about the body of members is, as far as I am concerned, guesswork. Perhaps the topic is not relevant enough to be Featured anyway.Denial 22:04, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] No neutrality

It's obvious that most of the opposing views are just offbreed of silly disliking and undialectic criticism towards the order. So I dispute the neutrality of this article. Most of the criticism is not proved and it's just mumbo jumbo. For example, Karlsson has never "admitted" the Yezidi inheritance to be bogus. Just silly statements.

Actually, he did, at the Magical Orders meeting organized by Loge Heldrasil in spring of this year. He also made very clear the order uses blood sacrifice. I would be interested to hear which points exactly you think are "not proved".Denial 21:58, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I was there. Were you? If you were, and you could understand some English, you lie and you know you do. Simple as that. So, this entry doesn't represent any valid data about the Order you're talking about. There is an official website for that. My last comment on this discussion, have a good day.

Yes I was there, my English is fine I think, and I'm not lying. Karlsson told of the people he was inspired by, and how they told him he should get something started himself. What he did not reiterate was the story he had come up with in the early years of the order. It said a secret society of Yezidi black magicians chose him and his order as an "official" successor and passed on their secret heritage to him. None of that was mentioned at the meeting.Denial

[edit] A reply

DR as an organization do not make public polemics or answer to asserts like this officially. But I (as a DR member since 1991 and also the founder and leader of Therion) find it suitable that I as a private person correct some of the things said, especially since the conversation includes Therion.

There has never been any sort of blood sacrifice in DR and Thomas has never said it does - neither at this meeting or at any other time.. If some individual members may have done it on their own initiative is of course something we naturally can not know about or even should care about. However, the origin of these rumours is that the swedish tabloid press (Expressen - Söndagsbilagan, to call that "critical press" would be rediculous) during the very youth of DR (1992 or 1993 if I remember correctly) didn't find the reality exiting enough, so they invented things that never took place. It was for example said that DR put a few drops of blood into the wine we use in ceremonies. There has been another publication inventing a scenario where DR should have forced the journalist to cut him self - of course a total lie.

These articles has been used by opponents of the order as an "evidence". If everything written about, say Aleister Crowley in the "critical press" would have been true, he would have been an insane psychpath, a child murderer etc.

I'd also like to state that DR had over 500 members in Sweden only during the middle of the 90's, but now have slightly above 300 (see DR website for reference). Without comparision DR is in relation to the size and population of Sweden the ever biggest occult phenomena ever to have taken place in a geographical region. Not even all other occult organizations together (even if incluing Church of Satan among them) would have had in the near of this amount of members. And being in a period where occultism had its biggest interest among the pubic, it's quite natural that the taboid press picked this up. After those articles DR have said no to 90% of requests from media as a result thereof. Someone living in Sweden that never heard of DR before I assume is very young. After all it was 10 years ago since we had a big coverage in mainstream public media.


> Sorry if the correction sounds sharply negative, but anything more
> factual than the previous article had to negate some of the claims made
> there. I still estimate less than 1% of Dragon Rouge members have actually...

I find it logic to take a look at your methods and the figures you speak of. And being an academic I assume you care for revealing your sources, so please reply to the following:

A - Exactly how many DR members have you been in contact with?

B - Where and how did you get in contact with our members? Who did you really speak to?

"A", Quite obviously you can not speak to lets say a maximum of 5-10 members as let them be fully representative of over 300.

"B". Quite clearly, DR have among its members people that are goths, metal people and other type of independant or underground related subcultural groups of people. Just as OTO, IOT, TOS and any other magical organisation. Now if you talk to people in a subculturally related forum or pages that are likely to be populated by youths interested in or taking part in any above mentioned subculture and among those finds people that are DR members, you will of course likely find those in DR who are fans of Therion there. I know we also have several fans in IOT, OTO, TOS and other organizations as well and I'm very happy that we have managed to make music that appeal to so many different kinds of people, from young LHP magician to old progrockers in their 40's ans 50's.

On top on that DR have a big part of our members being conservative in the aspect of not adapting to new inventions like mobile phones and internet. Among those I'd guess you find very few fans of metal bands. And you'd never meet any of them either, unless you'd turn up to one of our meetings as they don't hang around in the internet forum that I assume is the base of your "research".


< Regarding the "Therion fan club" thing... well, it is a fact, get over it.

If this was a fact, then a logic conclusion would be that the Therion Society (a more intellectual form of a band fan club) would consist of a majority of DR people. Being a person having access to both members register I find it quite remarkable that just a very few individuals (say maximum 2-3 percent) of the Therion Society members are also DR members. This is a statistically proven fact, compared to your accusations that are lacking substance as well as any academically respactable reliability in source.

I don't know how things are in todays modern Germany, but in older times and still in Sweden (and most other countries), academics are bound to give sources when they state something as a "fact". If you'd write an essay over DR at the university, hearsay and gossip are no good sources I'm afraid. Neither Therion nor DR recognize this retarded assert and as there are no reliable sources you possess to back up such a statement, I find it utterly unworthy someone like your self to actually write such garbage. Where is your intellectual honour my friend?

> Ask 10 European left-handers "what is the Therion fan club"

Anybody can call him self a "left-hander" and express an opinion. I'm not surpriced you surround your self with people sharing your own opinions. That this would be a general view among LHP magicians in Europe is simply not the truth.


> There is a magazine interview ("Der Golem", issue #3 feb '01) where the
> head of German Dragon Rouge comments on how he got into Dragon Rouge via
> Therion, and mentions that this is just like many of his brothers and
> sisters did.

1. Some clearification. There is no "German Dragon Rouge", there is only DR and some of the members live and are active in (among other countries) Germany. And we have no head of DR anywhere else except in Sweden. We have different lodges in various countries and there are heads of those lodges. In Germany we have an extra administration (ein Verwaltung), that have a bank account to ease domestic payments and who is responsible to make the translations of the members publication to german language. The interview was made in the year 2000 by the head of Lodge Thagirion (now leading Heldrasil) and it might very well have been the case that the majority of this lodge back then had many members that first HEARD ABOUT the order through Therion (what ever that has to do with DR on a global international basis the year 2005).

2. The head of Thagirion/Heldrasil joined DR after several weeks of long magical discussions with me and another member of DR that was playing in the band back then as he happened to live quite next to the studio where Therion recorded an album and remained for 1,5 months. We got to know each other when he made an interview for a magazine and kept on meeting after that. This is quite far from the picture of a fan sitting at home listening to CD's and joining becase of that, as you seem to picture and want others to believe.

3. We'll, it is indeed true that many international members also outside of Germany in the beginning of the international establishment of the order (which was made back in 1998) HEARD ABOUT Dragon Rouge first through Therion, this was in the days when almost no one had internet. The reason for this was that through many years I had made interviews in music media who where constantly asking me tons of questions related to the lyrics of the band (and once they heard about DR they went totally nuts over it and asked hundreds of questions specificly about this). I never saw any reasons to lie about my membership or about Thomas being both our co-text writer (back then) as well as the founder of DR. Several bands have had members being active in other orders, for example OTO and no one ever had the idea of calling them a fan club of this or that band. Indeed the foundation of the international DR back in 1998 was for a short while almost only metal people and goths. When the interview for Golem was made in year 2000, it was still true that an essential part of the members still where people that first HEARD ABOUT the order through music media and Therion. There is no point in denying that some members might have joined also because of Therion, but in truth those are very small in numbers and tend to pay their membership once and then dissapear. Nowadays basically no one heard about DR through Therion as I have started to refuse to talk about DR or advanced magical topics in interviews since many years (due to 95% of the journalists not understanding much of these topics and when translated into other languages than english, the results have not always been very amusing), internet have made magically interested people from all over the world find the information over our web pages. Nobody among the leading DR people is ashamed of the fact that Therion meant a lot in reaching out to the first international members and that Therion to many members have a bit of cult status as the founder writes the lyrics and that we have among us a mentionable amount of members being into metal music and similar subculture, but clearly that is quite far from the redicuous accusations I have read on this page.

> Rather recently, Karlsson (head of the order) became frank in that
> Dragon Rouge was originally a group if 17-year-olds who listened to Metal
> and dabbled in the occult, until Karlsson met a couple of really
> impressive magicians abroad and decided he should get serious with this

This is incorrect and probaly a missunderstanding. There were a group of magically interested youths that were maybe like that BEFORE Dragon Rouge was formed, not after. This is where the Yezidi story (among other things) you refered to comes in. However, the activities of the official DR were very few in 1990 (there was however much inofficial serious activities) but in 1991 when I joined was the starting point for regular and more intense activies open for the regular members and this of course led to that the number off members quickly increased from around 10 to 20-25 (and then on up to 500 some years later)

When I joined in January 1991, I felt quite alone being into metal (Thomas was for example listening mostly to underground techno and acid, though it's true he had been listening to some metal - among other things - in his young days in the 80's) in the order back then. I can only remember one more guy being somehow into metal from that time. I also remember I felt I had to prove my self being serious as I felt a bit that the view upon metal people were that they often had an occult interest but seldomly had much of an intellectual approach to it. Let be that the order had less than 25 members then, but 2 out of that isn't really a lot. We didn't get any mentionable amount members being into metal until the mid 90's. I'd rather say we had a bigger connection to the rave movement in Sweden back then. Many people in there felt there was something spiritual to discover behind the often eastern influenced fasade these movement had. Some of them tried to find it through drugs, others through trance dancing and meditation. Some joined spiritual organizations and DR was one of them who got many new members from there those days.


> Yes I was there, my English is fine I think, and I'm not lying.
> Karlsson told of the people he was inspired by, and how they told him he
> should get something started himself. What he did not reiterate was the
> story he had come up with in the early years of the order. It said a
> secret society of Yezidi black magicians chose him and his order as an
> "official" successor and passed on their secret heritage to him. None of

You are not lying, but you are twisting the truth. That he didn't bother to go into details about this specific thing doens't mean it's bogus. Never thought of that it might also be intentional to put the weight more in what we have accomplished our selves than try to grow by speaking of people before us? OTO live by what Crowley created (I'm not critizising that, just a fact), while DR consists of what we our selves have created, no matter why or how the order was created in the first place.

And pardon me, but if this is something that interest you in perticular, I can not help to think that you are not very bright if you didn't ASK about it when you where there and had the chance. After the lecture about DR there was a time dedicated to questions and people asked several things. If you where sitting quiet during this time, it is not too intellectally honest to blame the holder of the lecture for not speaking of a certain topic when you have been invited to steer the conversation to any magical topic in relation to DR.

Magical regards,

Christofer Johnsson


PS

It really makes this wikipedia loose its credibility when people use it as a mean of discrediting others rather than posting facts in the right sence of the word.


Thanks for this information, there were some interesting insights. Would anybody of DR be so kind and improve some statements (with proofs - it's good to besceptical in this world)? Especially the Initiation-part needs an uplift.
Greetings,
Levthanatos 15:14, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Since I wrote the latter part of what you replied to, I find your reply interesting and should say a few words about it. First, I did ask both you and Thomas Karlsson several things after the lecture. I was the bloke with the staff, you may or may not remember me.

Now I am somewhat surprised by the sharpness of your reply, since to the best of my knowledge I only repeated what Karlsson said in his lecture. For example, I backed the blood sacrifice claim because Karlsson did say at that lecture he had told journalists some of their rituals involved Wagner and the sacrifice of drops of blood, which lead to an article headlined "WITH WAGNER AND BLOOD, DRAGON ROUGE WORSHIP THE LORD OF DARKNESS". Similarily, I think it makes a great difference whether the order regards itself a follow-up of a Yezidi secret society, or something created indepedently. Note that I did not say any of the two versions was true - I just tried to explain why there is enough incertainty concerning the issue to explain why the main article has no section concerning Dragon Rouge's Founding.

If I wanted to write a Founding section, it would be way more detailed than Dragon Rouge would probably wish it to be, and involve among other things a certain cup. However, I only wanted to adress the Concerns from Featured Article Candidates, not spill order secrets. I am not a member, but several of my friends are and I respect their wishes concerning discretion although I haven't taken the vow of secrecy. In summary, I see little reason for the aggressiveness of your reply, at least concerning the bits I wrote. The "Therion fan club" accusation is indeed over the top. Denial 15:29, 5 May 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Mind-Control

Sounds like a 100% mind-control and programming cult to me! They even use actual hyperspace archeytpes relating to trapping and programming the consciousness via the Reptilian Brain. Any organisation with an 'outer' and 'inner' circle is likely up to no good, and has something to hide. This is clearly simply a mechanism to get certain people involved in ritual without them really knowing what they are doing. If anyone reading this is involved in this cult, I strongly advise them to use violet protection at all times, and get out of this organisation! Astral Ritual is not to be partaken of by people without control over their mind-patterns! It can be very dangerous!

Nonsense. There have been numerous studies by psychologists of religion looking into various "cults" (if not this group) and they have firmly established "mind-control", "reprogramming", "brainwashing" etc. are simply not taking place. They are myths perpetuated by Christian Anti-Cult-groups trying to make the competition look evil and to give members of such groups a way of leaving them without a bad conscience. The inner circle certainly does have something to hide - that's why it is an order, after all - but hiding is not per se a bad thing.
On a side note, by claiming (negative) effects of "Astral Ritual", you are claiming magic actually works, which is POV and inappropriate in Wikipedia. I'd also like to see anyone who can "control" their mind patterns...Denial 10:47, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Take it easy. It is an order and they are supposed to be esoteric and initiatory. I would say that ordinary christian assemblies are more mind-controling than Dragon Rouge. Just because it is a dark and evil organisation doesnt it mean that they are evil :P (And I am not a member) Crakkpot (talk) 15:34, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Therion reference

I tried to untangle this sentence: "The metal band Therion, popular in their field, and Dragon Rouge members, is particularly notable." What I've come up with (see article) really doesn't solve the problem, which is that we aren't given any indication WHY the sentence exists. Anything that can be observed is "notable," but I think the writer meant "noteworthy." WHY is it particularly noteworthy? You can't just drop this sentence in without following through on the underlying thought (what significance does Therion specifically have to Dragon Rouge that is not shared by any other Goth or Metal artists?). Yet I don't want to simply delete it, since the writer obviously felt it was significant enough to make the effort. Can anyone clarify? Canonblack 05:26, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

The Therion band consists of mostly Dragon Rouge members and nearly all their lyrics is about topics in Dragon Rouge belief-system. (Therion means "The Beast" and is probably more connected to Aleister Crowley than Dragon Rouge. The orders greeting-phrase "To Mega Therion" (The great beast) further signifies their relationship both with Crowley and the band Therion. The phrase was Crowleys magical motto in the 2nd degree of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn if I am not mistaken).
The band Therion is, in my eyes, mostly a creation of the DR order rather than a independent band. It promotes their ideas. It seems that part of DR ideology consists of creating culture, but I am not sure. Nearly all their members works with music or culture in some way. Crakkpot (talk) 15:51, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "The traditional thousand year old occult practices"

I have edited this statement in the Psychology section. It implies that specific thousand year old practices are followed, yet provides no information on them. My supposition is that the writer wasn't referring to specific practices, but to occult practices in general. Referring to them as "thousand year old" reveals bias and may be considered editorializing. With very few exceptions, Western Occultism is based on practices dating no further back than the early Renaissance, which was hardly a thousand years ago. If Dragon Rouge truly uses a system of "thousand year old" practices, this is noteworthy and should be explained with some detail. Canonblack 05:43, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Grammatical Errors

The sections "Dragon Rouge" (introduction) and "Opposing views" could do with a bit of a cleanup.

[edit] Magical Orders

The sentence "It is unusual among" blah blah doesn't account for a myriad of Left Hand Path organizations, including The Church of Satan, black magic using religion that predates DR and is very well known in the U.S. Listing two groups as "the only notable competitors" reeks of pretension. I suggest trying to cite this absurdity or simply deleting the statement. Penguinwithin (talk) 04:04, 10 April 2008 (UTC)