Dragon Rouge

1. Introduction

Version followed: Dragon Rouge as its founder, Thomas Karlsson, describes it in a published interview (Perseus Arcane Academy, 2025), and as Kennet Granholm describes it from participant-observation fieldwork (doctoral dissertation Embracing the Dark, Åbo Akademi University Press, 2005; CESNUR conference paper, 2005). Current terms on the order's own website are [uncertain: not verified]. The psychotherapist's procedures are clinical synthesis anchored in the DSM-5-TR Cultural Formulation Interview and the APA Ethics Code.

What it is. Dragon Rouge (also styled Ordo Draconis et Atri Adamantis) is a Swedish initiatory magical order that calls itself a Left-Hand Path order of the "draconian tradition". It is not a therapy. This guide is for a therapist whose client is a member, a former member, a seeker, or a relative of a member. [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation; ReligionFacts]

• Founding. Founded in Sweden by Thomas Karlsson. Karlsson dates it to 1989, after a formative experience in Morocco that year [source: Karlsson interview]. ReligionFacts, drawing on the order's site, gives 31 December 1989 [uncertain: secondary]. Granholm's 2005 conference paper gives Stockholm, 1990 [source: Granholm, CESNUR 2005]. The two dates likely reflect a founding at the turn of the year [synthesis]. Wikipedia says Karlsson founded it with six others and was born in 1972 [uncertain: secondary, unverified].
• Founder. Karlsson leads the order and writes on runes, Qabalah and the "nightside" of esotericism. He holds a PhD in History of Religions from Stockholm University (2010 dissertation on the Swedish esotericist Johannes Bureus) [uncertain: secondary, unverified].
• Size and spread. The mother organisation is in Stockholm. Granholm records lodges in Malmö and Gothenburg, a defunct German lodge and an Italian lodge, a Stockholm temple, and a temple on Gotland used for annual meetings from 2003 [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation, pp. 47–48, 53, 57]. Granholm describes membership as "relatively small" (p. 17). A self-reported figure of "hundreds of members around the world" is relayed by ReligionFacts [uncertain: secondary, self-reported].
• Scholarly framing. Granholm calls it a dark magical order, a Left-Hand Path order and an alternative spiritual movement within Western esotericism with neopagan elements. He argues its worldview helps explain why it sits fairly comfortably within Swedish society despite unorthodox concepts. He takes no stand on the truth of members' claims. [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation, pp. 17–18, 33, 36, 60] His later monograph Dark Enlightenment (Brill, Aries Book Series 18, 2014) uses the order as its case study [source: ARCE library record].

Core idea of change, as the order frames it. "Left-Hand Path" is a term taken from Indian Tantra. As Granholm reports, Dragon Rouge links the left side with chaos, darkness and freedom, and the right side with order, light and restriction. The aim of the path is self-deification while keeping one's individuality: the magician is to become a creator, a god, in Granholm's words to "give birth to him-/herself as a god". The order describes progress in alchemical images. One is the compression of the Higher Self into a "Black Diamond". Another is a sequence of symbolic deaths and rebirths through hidden "dark" dimensions. [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation, pp. 26–28; Granholm, CESNUR 2005] Karlsson calls the Left-Hand Path a method, not a goal. He defines it as apotheosis (self-deification) and as antinomian, meaning it breaks conventional rules in order to transcend human limits. He says it demands high morals and "chivalric virtues" or it may destroy the practitioner. [source: Karlsson interview] These are the order's beliefs, described here neither as fact nor as error. No empirical claim of measurable magical effect is at issue in therapy. Where a client attributes outcomes to magic, the evidence status is that no controlled evidence supports causal magical effects [synthesis].

Core idea of change for the therapist. Therapy does not engage with the magical aims. The therapist works with what membership and practice mean in the client's life and how they affect functioning, relationships and safety. The therapist stays curious and non-pathologising, assesses distinct clinical problems carefully, and supports autonomous choices, whether that means staying, adjusting practice or leaving. [synthesis; source: CFI supplementary modules; APA Ethics Code Principle E]

2. Framework

2a. The order's structure, as published

• Initiatory system. The system is modelled on the qliphoth, the "shadow" or "night side" of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. The order counts eleven qliphothic spheres against ten sephiroth, and Karlsson calls the result a "Tree of Death". [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation, pp. 29–30; Granholm, CESNUR 2005; Karlsson interview]
• Degrees, by name and stated purpose only.
  • 1.0 Lilith: the entry degree.
  • 2.0 Gamaliel: which Karlsson links to dreams, astral work and shadow work.
  • 3.0 Samael: associated in Granholm's account with symbolic death.
  • Thagirion (degree 5): which Karlsson calls the first great initiation.
  • [source: Granholm, CESNUR 2005; Granholm 2005 dissertation p. 228; Karlsson interview]
• Inner order. An inner order, Ordo Draconis, is described as guarding the order's tradition [source: Karlsson interview].
• Teaching formats. These include correspondence courses in magic with unprinted, members-only material. Members must finish one course before starting the next. Lectures and study circles supplement the first three initiations. There are local lodges and ritual groups, an internal discussion board and members' papers, and courses on themes such as draconian magic. [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation, pp. 47, 53, 59; Karlsson interview]
• Costs, joining terms, age requirements. Not published in the sources used [uncertain: not verified]. Ask the client rather than assume.
• Who teaches. Teaching comes from the order's own initiatory structure under Karlsson's leadership. Karlsson says occultism "is not suitable for everyone" and should take place within a serious initiatory order. [source: Karlsson interview]

2b. The therapist's framework [synthesis]

No source sets session counts or durations for therapy with members of magical orders. Pace the following phases to the client.

1. Engagement and cultural assessment. Goal: a working alliance in which the client can talk about esoteric practice without fear of ridicule, and an understanding of what the order means to them. Use the CFI core interview and the Spirituality, Religion and Moral Traditions module. Move on once you have the client's own account of their involvement, its role in daily life and any stress linked to it.
2. Differential assessment and safety. Goal: tell apart (a) unusual experiences that are normal within the practice, (b) a religious or spiritual problem (ICD-10-CM Z65.8), and (c) a co-occurring disorder such as psychosis, mania, dissociative disorder, OCD, depression with suicidal ideation, or trauma. Move on once the formulation is shared with the client and risk is managed.
3. Focused work on the client's stated goals. These may include anxiety, relationships, identity, integrating practice with work and family, religious trauma, or deciding about continued membership.
4. Transition and ending. Consolidate gains, plan for crises such as a frightening experience or a family conflict, and end therapy, in line with the APA Ethics Code, when it is no longer needed or helpful.

Move between phases by clinical judgement, not on a fixed schedule. Return to phase 2 whenever new symptoms, intensified practice or risk appear.

3. Guiding principles

• Describe, do not adjudicate. Treat Left-Hand Path concepts as the client's tradition. Practical meaning: use the client's words, such as "working with darkness" or "the nightside", and never argue for or against magic. [source: APA Ethics Code Principle E; Granholm's stated neutrality, dissertation p. 60]
• Dark is not dangerous by default. Granholm documents that "dark" in this order means hidden aspects of existence and chaos, with no moral judgement attached, and that death imagery is symbolic. Practical meaning: do not read dark symbolism as evidence of pathology, Satanism or criminality. Assess behaviour and functioning instead. [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation p. 26; Granholm, CESNUR 2005]
• Symbolic death still warrants a risk check. Practical meaning: when death or rebirth themes appear alongside hopelessness, suicidal ideation or self-harm, carry out a standard suicide risk assessment as you would with any client, without assuming the symbolism causes risk. [synthesis]
• Competence and consultation. Practical meaning: if you lack familiarity with Western esotericism, get training or consultation, or refer. [source: APA Ethics Code]
• No dual roles. Practical meaning: you are never the client's magical teacher, initiator, diviner or ritual partner. Do not perform, assign or rehearse any magical work in therapy, and do not discuss your own esoteric practice if you have one. [source: APA Ethics Code 3.05; synthesis]
• Respect confidentiality, including the order's. Practical meaning: do not ask the client to disclose oaths, grade material or members-only texts. You need the experience and its effects, not the content. [synthesis]
• Autonomy over membership. Practical meaning: support the client's own decision to stay, change their level of involvement or leave. Never make leaving a therapy goal the client has not chosen. [source: APA Ethics Code Principle E; synthesis]
• Evidence-informed differential. Practical meaning: distinguish culturally congruent experience from disorder by looking at distress, impairment, insight, and congruence with how fellow practitioners understand such experiences. [source: CFI supplementary modules; synthesis]
• Informed consent. Practical meaning: explain early how you will approach spiritual material, the limits of confidentiality, and that you will not take a position on magical claims. [source: APA Ethics Code]
• Avoid moral panic. The order drew negative Swedish tabloid coverage in the mid-1990s. Practical meaning: do not import media stereotypes, and check claims about any group against reliable sources. [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation, pp. 18–19, 57]

4. Intervention inventory

The inventory has two parts.

• Part A outlines the order's practices as the founder and scholars publicly describe them. It gives purpose and context only, never steps, words, names invoked or grade content, so the therapist can recognise what a client is describing.
• Part B gives the psychotherapist's own interventions.

For Part A, "Steps" is replaced by "Public outline". Questions about doing these practices belong with the order's own teachers, never with the therapist. [source: Karlsson interview; synthesis]

Part A. The order's practices: public outline only

A1. Correspondence courses and degree initiations

• Purpose: staged instruction and initiation through a published sequence of "qliphothic" degrees, framed as progressive self-transformation; grade content is not described here. [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation, pp. 53, 59; Karlsson interview]
• Public outline:
  • Members-only written courses, completed in sequence.
  • Lectures and study circles alongside the first three initiations.
  • Initiation into a degree after course work.
  • Content is confidential to members, and none is given here.
• Example language (illustrative): "You don't need to tell me anything from the course material. What I'm interested in is how the work has been affecting your sleep, mood and relationships."
• Watch for: a client who feels behind or inadequate in progress; distress tied to a particular degree theme, such as shadow or death material; secrecy that isolates the client from all non-members [synthesis].

A2. Ritual and ceremonial magic, including draconian workings

• Purpose: in the order's framing, to work with hidden or chaotic forces ("dark magic") as distinct from ordered structures ("light magic"), with no moral judgement attached to either. The dragon symbolises intertwined life-force and death-force. [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation, pp. 26, 47; Granholm, CESNUR 2005]
• Public outline: carried out individually and in lodge or ritual groups, and at courses and annual meetings. Granholm lists ceremonial magic among members' practices. No procedures are given here. [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation, p. 47]
• Example language (illustrative): "When you say a working 'went wrong', what happened for you, in your body and in your thoughts, during it and afterwards?"
• Watch for:
  • persistent fear after a ritual;
  • beliefs about having invited harm;
  • sleep loss;
  • perceptual experiences that continue outside practice or that the client cannot set aside (see B4–B6). [synthesis]

A3. Qliphothic "shadow" work and symbolic death and rebirth

• Purpose: the order frames confronting darkness and one's own mortality as the way to transformation. Granholm reports that a low-degree ritual centres on facing one's death, with the stated aim of losing the fear of death and gaining a freer love of life. He describes the grim rhetoric as purposeful: it may "seem violent and morbid" but signals the demands and dangers of the path. Underworld-journey motifs draw on mythological descent narratives. [source: Granholm, CESNUR 2005]
• Public outline: a sequence of symbolic deaths and rebirths mapped onto the degrees. Ritual contents are not reproduced here. [source: Granholm, CESNUR 2005]
• Example language (illustrative): "The death-and-rebirth idea seems important to you. Can you tell me what it means for you, and whether thoughts about actually dying ever come up outside the practice?"
• Watch for:
  • death symbolism merging with real suicidal ideation, especially in depression;
  • shadow work stirring up trauma memories without support (see B7 and B8). [synthesis]

A4. Dream work and astral projection

• Purpose: Karlsson links the Gamaliel degree to dreams, astral work and shadow work. Granholm lists astral projection among practices. [source: Karlsson interview; Granholm 2005 dissertation, p. 47]
• Public outline: dream and astral exercises taught within the degree courses. No techniques are given here.
• Example language (illustrative): "How has your sleep been since you started the dream work? Are there times you feel unreal or detached when you're not practising?"
• Watch for: sleep disruption; nightmares; persistent depersonalisation or derealisation; difficulty telling dream experience from waking events (see B5) [synthesis].

A5. Tantric and Kundalini-derived work

• Purpose: the order adapts Tantric concepts, including the red and black dragon as life-force and death-force ("Black Kundalini"). It also uses "dark" chakras that are not part of standard Kundalini meditation. [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation, p. 29; Granholm, CESNUR 2005]
• Public outline: meditative and energetic practices taught within the order. No techniques, breathing methods or sexual teachings are described here. The sources used here do not report whether sexual teachings form part of the order's curriculum [uncertain: not verified].
• Example language (illustrative): "Some people notice strong body sensations or feel overwhelmed with meditation-type practices. Has anything like that happened for you?"
• Watch for: intense somatic or energetic experiences with fear, insomnia, agitation or mania-like features. Use the same differential as for intensive meditation (B4 and B5) [synthesis].

A6. Runosophy and rune magic (the "uthark")

• Purpose: rune work set within the qliphothic system and drawing on Old Norse material. This is part of what Granholm calls the order's neopagan flavour. Karlsson has published books on runes. [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation, p. 29; Wikipedia, Thomas Karlsson [uncertain: secondary, unverified]]
• Public outline: study and magical use of runes within courses. No procedures are given here.
• Example language (illustrative): "What draws you to the Norse material? What does it give you?"
• Watch for: generally low clinical relevance. Note any use of runes for decision-making that the client experiences as compulsive (see B6). [synthesis]

A7. Lodge, study circle and community life

• Purpose: belonging, shared study, temple-building ("inner and outer" in Karlsson's words) and annual gatherings. Granholm notes most active Stockholm members were vegetarian for ecological, animal-rights and magical reasons. [source: Karlsson interview; Granholm 2005 dissertation, pp. 47, 57]
• Public outline: local lodges and ritual groups, an internal discussion board, and members' papers. [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation, p. 53]
• Example language (illustrative): "Who are the people in the order you're closest to? How do they fit with the rest of your life?"
• Watch for: community as a protective resource; conflicts with lodge members; a social world shrinking to the order alone [synthesis].

Part B. The psychotherapist's interventions [synthesis unless a source is tagged]

B1. Informed consent and framing spiritual material

• Purpose: set a safe frame at intake or when membership first comes up. [source: APA Ethics Code]
• Steps:
  1. Explain that you welcome talk about spiritual and magical life, will not judge it, and will not take a position on whether magic works.
  2. State that you will not teach, perform or assess magical practice.
  3. Explain the limits of confidentiality, including risk to self or others and safeguarding.
  4. Agree that the client need not disclose the order's confidential material.
  5. Note consent in the record.
• Example language (illustrative): "Your involvement with the order is welcome here as part of your life. I won't try to change your beliefs, and I'm not a teacher of any of it. I'm here to help with what you came for."
• Watch for: relief and fuller disclosure, which suggest it is working; guardedness, which may reflect past ridicule or media stereotypes, so revisit gently.

B2. Cultural Formulation Interview with the Spirituality, Religion and Moral Traditions module

• Purpose: understand the client's identity and affiliation, the role of practice in daily and family life, its relation to the presenting problem, and any stresses or conflicts. [source: DSM-5-TR CFI supplementary modules]
• Steps:
  1. Use the CFI core interview to elicit the client's own explanation of the problem.
  2. Use the module's four domains in your own words:
     • affiliation and community ties;
     • role in everyday and family life;
     • relation to coping, guidance from leaders and use of texts;
     • stresses, distress, discrimination or disputes.
  3. Add the Social Network and Patient–Clinician Relationship modules where relevant.
  4. Summarise back in the client's terms.
• Example language (illustrative): "How does your practice help when things are hard? Has it ever made things harder?"
• Watch for: the client recognising your summary as accurate; whether practice functions mainly as coping, as a stressor or as both.

B3. Practice-and-functioning timeline

• Purpose: link changes in practice (new degree, intensive course, solitary work) to changes in sleep, mood, perception and relationships.
• Steps:
  1. On a shared timeline, mark when the client joined, degree milestones and periods of intensive practice.
  2. Overlay sleep, mood, substance use, stressors and symptoms.
  3. Look together for patterns.
  4. Agree what the client wants to monitor.
• Example language (illustrative): "Let's map when things got more intense with your practice next to when you started sleeping badly, and see if there's a pattern."
• Watch for: symptom onset clustered around intensive practice or sleep loss, which points to B4 and B5; no link, which points to other causes.

B4. Differential assessment: psychosis and mania

• Purpose: distinguish culturally framed unusual experience from a psychotic or manic episode without pathologising belief.
• Steps:
  1. Ask how other members would understand the experience. Experiences congruent with the tradition, held with flexibility and without impairment, are less concerning.
  2. Assess:
     • insight and flexibility of belief;
     • functioning;
     • sleep and need for sleep;
     • grandiosity that goes beyond the tradition's own framing (for example, self-deification taken as a literal, present-tense special mission with impaired judgement);
     • thought disorder;
     • persecutory content;
     • family history;
     • substance use.
  3. If you suspect psychosis or mania, arrange urgent psychiatric assessment.
  4. If the problem is a spiritual difficulty without disorder, consider coding a religious or spiritual problem (ICD-10-CM Z65.8). [source: Unbound Medicine ICD-10-CM Z65.8; DSM-5-TR wording [uncertain: not verified]] The spiritual emergency literature (Grof; Lukoff) is relevant [uncertain: not verified].
• Example language (illustrative): "If someone else in the order heard about this experience, how do you think they'd make sense of it? Does it feel the same to you as other experiences you've had in practice, or different?"
• Watch for:
  • decreased need for sleep;
  • pressured speech;
  • beliefs that frighten the client or fellow members;
  • withdrawal from the lodge as well as from everyone else;
  • deterioration in work or self-care.

B5. Dissociation, depersonalisation and derealisation after practice

• Purpose: address persisting unreality or detachment following astral, dream or shadow practice.
• Steps:
  1. Assess frequency, triggers and distress. Screen for trauma history and dissociative disorder.
  2. Psychoeducation: such experiences can follow intensive inward practice, sleep loss and stress.
  3. Teach ordinary grounding: orient to the room, the senses and the present date.
  4. Agree with the client to reduce or pause intensive practice while symptoms persist. Frame this as the client's choice, and suggest they consult their own teachers about pacing.
  5. Refer for specialist assessment if symptoms persist.
• Example language (illustrative): "It sounds as if the unreal feeling lingers after the dream work. Would you be willing to try some grounding when it comes, and think about whether to slow the practice for a while?"
• Watch for: reduced episodes and restored sleep, which show it is working; worsening despite a pause, or amnesia or identity disturbance, which mean specialist referral.

B6. Fear of harm, curses and magical thinking; OCD and scrupulosity

• Purpose: distinguish tradition-congruent belief from OCD (intrusive feared outcomes, rituals to neutralise, reassurance-seeking) or anxiety about having "done it wrong" or attracted dark forces.
• Steps:
  1. Assess intrusions, neutralising, avoidance, reassurance-seeking (including from lodge members) and time consumed.
  2. If OCD is present, offer or refer for exposure and response prevention as OCD specialists such as the IOCDF describe it [uncertain: not verified]. Design exposures with the client that respect their faith, without asking them to profane it.
  3. If it is fear without OCD, use anxiety formulation and support the client in seeking guidance from their own tradition if they wish.
• Example language (illustrative): "When the fear comes that something you did in a ritual will harm someone, what do you find yourself doing to make it go away? How much of your day does that take?"
• Watch for: reassurance loops, where any reassurance from you or members only helps briefly; the spread of avoidance.

B7. Suicide and self-harm risk alongside death imagery

• Purpose: keep symbolic death distinct from actual risk.
• Steps:
  1. Ask directly about suicidal thoughts, plans, intent, history and protective factors, as standard risk assessment requires.
  2. Ask what death and rebirth mean in the client's practice and whether the symbolism ever blurs with wishes to die.
  3. Use safety planning and, where indicated, lethal-means counselling (safe storage and removal) and crisis services.
  4. Do not prohibit practice. Explore together whether some practices worsen risk during a depressive episode.
• Example language (illustrative): "In the order, death is a symbol of change. I also want to ask plainly: have you had thoughts of ending your life?"
• Watch for: hopelessness; death themes outside practice; recent losses; substance use; withdrawal from the community.

B8. Trauma-informed pacing of shadow material

• Purpose: support clients for whom shadow or underworld work has surfaced trauma memories.
• Steps:
  1. Assess for PTSD and complex trauma.
  2. Stabilise first: emotion regulation, grounding and safety.
  3. Process trauma in therapy using an established trauma treatment within your competence. Keep this separate from magical practice.
  4. Discuss with the client whether to pace their practice while trauma work is under way.
• Example language (illustrative): "It sounds like the shadow work brought up memories that are hard to hold on your own. We can work with them here, at a pace that keeps you steady."
• Watch for: flashbacks; re-experiencing between sessions; self-harm urges. Slow down if they appear.

B9. Assessing group dynamics and coercive control, neutrally

• Purpose: check whether the client's experience of the group is healthy, without presuming harm. Coercive-control findings against Dragon Rouge: none found in the sources consulted. Granholm describes the order as integrated within Swedish society and its critics as polemical. [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation, pp. 18, 32, 55]
• Steps:
  1. Explore with the client:
     • freedom to question teachers and to pause or leave;
     • contact with non-members;
     • pressure about time, money or secrecy;
     • sexual or relational boundary issues with teachers;
     • consequences of dissent.
  2. Reflect on what the client reports, not on reputation.
  3. If the client reports coercion or abuse, support documentation, safety planning and reporting options.
• Example language (illustrative): "If you wanted to take a break from the order, how do you imagine people there would respond?"
• Watch for: fear of sanction for leaving; isolation; pressure to escalate commitment. Equally, note the client's reports of freedom and support.

B10. Financial check

• Purpose: costs of membership, courses, temple events and travel are not published in the sources used here [uncertain: not verified]. Make sure spending is a free, affordable choice.
• Steps:
  1. Ask what the client spends and whether it fits their means.
  2. Explore any debt or pressure.
  3. Help with budgeting if the client wishes.
• Example language (illustrative): "Roughly what does your involvement cost you each year, and how does that sit with you?"
• Watch for: spending the client hides from family; borrowing; distress about cost.

B11. Values-based exploration of commitment

• Purpose: help a client who is ambivalent about continuing, deepening or leaving to decide in line with their own values.
• Steps:
  1. Elicit what the practice gives the client and what it costs them.
  2. Clarify core values, such as freedom, growth, belonging and family.
  3. Use a motivational-interviewing style, reflecting both sides without steering.
  4. Leave the decision with the client.
• Example language (illustrative): "Part of you values the freedom you've found on this path, and part of you worries about how it's affecting your partner. Let's look at both."
• Watch for: pressure from you, family or the group creeping in. Keep the stance neutral.

B12. Leaving and post-membership adjustment; religious trauma

• Purpose: support a client after leaving, which may bring loss of community and identity, residual fears tied to the teachings, or anger.
• Steps:
  1. Normalise grief for the community and the meaning it gave.
  2. Address residual fears, using B6 for intrusive fear of consequences.
  3. Rebuild the social network.
  4. Explore identity and meaning-making beyond the order.
  5. Treat trauma symptoms per B8.
  6. Respect positive memories alongside difficult ones.
• Example language (illustrative): "Leaving can mean losing friends and a whole way of seeing things, even when it's the right choice. What do you miss, and what are you glad to be free of?"
• Watch for: isolation; depression; sleep problems; a shift into another high-intensity group without reflection.

B13. Family members' concerns

• Purpose: support a parent, partner or sibling who is worried about a member. Concern is often fuelled by dark imagery or by media portrayals such as the mid-1990s Swedish press coverage. [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation, pp. 18–19, 57]
• Steps:
  1. Elicit the specific worry and separate observed behaviour (sleep, school or work, mood, isolation, money) from symbolism.
  2. Give balanced information from scholarly sources.
  3. Coach curious, non-confrontational conversation and keep the relationship open.
  4. Advise urgent help if there is risk.
  5. Some young people encounter the order through music. Granholm has written on a link between the metal band Therion and the order [uncertain: secondary, unverified].
• Example language (illustrative): "The imagery can look alarming. Let's look at what you've actually noticed in how your son is doing day to day."
• Watch for: ultimatums that rupture contact; ignoring genuine warning signs because the group seems benign.

B14. Children and young people

• Purpose: apply safeguarding as with any group. The sources used here give no age requirements for membership [uncertain: not verified].
• Steps:
  1. For a minor client involved in occult practice, assess developmental stage, mood, risk and family context.
  2. Obtain assent and the appropriate consent.
  3. Follow local safeguarding procedures if there are concerns about exploitation, sexual contact with adults, or neglect.
  4. Do not treat occult interest itself as a safeguarding concern.
• Example language (illustrative): "Lots of young people are interested in the occult. I'd like to hear what you get from it, and also check you're safe and okay."
• Watch for: adult contact that is secretive or sexualised; withdrawal from school; self-harm.

B15. Involving the client's community, if the client wishes

• Purpose: use community resources the client values, such as trusted fellow members or teachers, for support or guidance on pacing practice.
• Steps:
  1. Ask whether the client wants input from anyone in the order.
  2. Obtain written consent before any contact.
  3. Keep the clinical role separate.
  4. Never seek or receive confidential order material.
• Example language (illustrative): "Is there someone in your lodge you trust and might want to talk to about slowing things down? We don't need to involve anyone unless you want to."
• Watch for: advice from the community that conflicts with safety, for example discouraging psychiatric care. Discuss this openly with the client.

B16. Managing your own position: self-disclosure and dual roles

• Purpose: keep boundaries clear if you have esoteric interests of your own, or strong reactions to the material. [source: APA Ethics Code 3.05; Principle E]
• Steps:
  1. Do not disclose your own practice or opinions about magic unless there is a clear therapeutic rationale and you have consulted.
  2. Never teach, practise, divine or initiate with clients.
  3. Notice your own reactions, such as fascination, fear or moral disapproval, and take them to supervision.
  4. Build spiritual and religious competencies [uncertain: not verified, Vieten et al. 2013].
• Example language (illustrative): "I'd rather keep the focus on your experience than on my own views."
• Watch for: curiosity serving you rather than the client; avoidance of the topic.

B17. Referral

• Purpose: connect the client with the right resource.
• Steps: refer as needed to:
  • urgent psychiatric assessment for psychosis, mania or acute risk;
  • specialists in dissociation, OCD or trauma;
  • crisis services;
  • religious-trauma-informed therapists after leaving;
  • academic or neutral information sources for family members.
• Example language (illustrative): "I think a psychiatrist's view would help with the sleep and the racing thoughts. That's about your health, not your beliefs."
• Watch for: the client reading referral as rejection of their path. Name that it isn't.

5. Handling problems

All guidance in this section is [synthesis] unless a source is tagged. The sources on the order do not address therapy.

• Client fears being judged as a Satanist or criminal.
  • Name the stereotype and say that you are not working from it.
  • Granholm's work shows "dark" is used in a non-moral sense within the order, and Karlsson distinguishes antinomianism from crime [source: Granholm 2005 dissertation, p. 26; Karlsson interview].
  • (illustrative) "I know the word 'dark' gets misunderstood. Tell me what it means to you."
• Client wants the therapist to validate or join magical work (for example, asking you to interpret a ritual experience as real or not, or to take part).
  • Decline warmly, restate your role, and redirect to meaning and effects.
  • (illustrative) "That's a question for your tradition. What I can help with is what the experience has stirred up for you."
• Client will not discuss practice because of confidentiality to the order.
  • Respect this and work with effects rather than content (A1).
  • Do not make disclosure a condition of care.
• Escalating practice with deteriorating sleep or perceptions.
  • Move to B3–B5 and assess for mania or psychosis.
  • Collaboratively propose a pause, framed as protecting the client's capacity to practise.
  • Arrange urgent review if insight is lost.
• Self-deification beliefs that become grandiose. The tradition frames apotheosis as a long-term aim pursued through disciplined practice [source: Granholm 2005; Karlsson interview].
  • A present-tense conviction of special powers or mission, with impaired judgement, reduced sleep or risky behaviour, suggests mania or psychosis rather than doctrine (B4).
  • Ask how fellow members would see it.
• Overwhelm after shadow or death-themed work.
  • Stabilise (B5, B8) and check suicide risk (B7).
  • Agree on pacing, and invite the client to seek guidance from their teachers if they wish.
• Resistance arising from earlier invalidating care (for example, a past clinician who called their beliefs delusional).
  • Acknowledge the hurt and repair the rupture explicitly.
  • Revisit consent (B1).
• Non-adherence to psychiatric treatment because the client believes magic should handle it.
  • Explore the client's explanatory model (B2).
  • Look for ways the client sees treatment and practice as compatible.
  • Never advise starting, stopping or changing medicine. Refer medication questions to the prescriber.
• Family conflict over membership.
  • Separate the client's goals from the family's.
  • Offer joint sessions only with consent (B13).
• Therapist's strong reaction (fear, fascination, disapproval).
  • Take it to supervision; consider consultation or referral if competence is lacking [source: APA Ethics Code].
• Reports of abuse or sexual boundary violations by any teacher.
  • Believe and support the client and assess safety.
  • Explain reporting options and any mandatory duties.
  • Court or independent findings against the order or its leaders: none found in the sources consulted. Do not generalise from one report to the group, and do not dismiss it either.
• Ending.
  • Review gains and the crisis plan.
  • Leave the door open.
  • Terminate when therapy is no longer needed or useful [source: APA Ethics Code].

Sources

Sources cited:

• Granholm, K. (2005). Embracing the Dark: The Magic Order of Dragon Rouge – Its Practice in Dark Magic and Meaning Making. Åbo Akademi University Press (doctoral dissertation)
• Granholm, K. (2005). "Symbolic Death and Rebirth in the Left Hand Path: The Dark Magic Order of Dragon Rouge and Death/Rebirth". CESNUR International Conference, Palermo (preliminary version)
• Perseus Arcane Academy, "Dragon Rouge: an interview with founder Dr Thomas Karlsson" (published 2025)
• ARCE Library catalogue record: Granholm, K. (2014). Dark Enlightenment: The Historical, Sociological, and Discursive Contexts of Contemporary Esoteric Magic. Brill, Aries Book Series 18
• ReligionFacts, "Dragon Rouge" [secondary]
• Wikipedia, "Thomas Karlsson" [uncertain: secondary, unverified]
• American Psychiatric Association, DSM-5 Cultural Formulation Interview Supplementary Modules
• ICD-10-CM Z65.8 "Other specified problems related to psychosocial circumstances" (Includes: religious or spiritual problem): ICD-10-CM Z65.8 (Unbound Medicine)
• American Psychological Association, Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct

Further works [uncertain: not verified]:

• Granholm, K. "Metal and Magic: The Intricate Relation Between the Metal Band Therion and the Magic Order Dragon Rouge", doi:10.1163/9789004226487_023 [uncertain: not verified].
• Vieten, C., et al. (2013), spiritual and religious competencies for psychologists [uncertain: not verified].
• International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) materials on ERP [uncertain: not verified].
• Grof and Lukoff on spiritual emergency [uncertain: not verified].