Glossary - exWitch Australia (formerly 'Born Again Pagan')

HERMETIC ORDER OF THE GOLDEN DAWN

Golden_Dawn

The most prominent among the many revivalist cults, this occult society of magical arts was founded in 1887 by four charter members - W Wynn Westcott, S. L. MacGregor-Mathers, W R Woodman and A F A Woodford, the first three of whom were also members of the Rosicrucian Fraternity.

Golden Dawn was undoubtedly stimulated by Anna Kingsford's Hermetic Society from whence two of its founder members, MacGregor Mathers and Westcott, had come but, officially, it claimed descent from the Rosicrucian Order on the basis of a set of cipher manuscripts entrusted to Westcott by Woodford who had, in turn, inherited them either from a prominent 19th century mystic, Fred Hockley, who died in 1885, or by accident between the leaves of a secondhand book.

When decoded, these manuscripts provided details of rituals and sources of occult power which appeared to be of Rosicrucian origin. They provided the five grades of the First Order, compiled by MacGregor Mathers, on which the charter of Golden Dawn was based.

There is some evidence however that the Golden Dawn was based on a foundation of lies. The key founder was Dr. William Wynn Westcott, a London coroner and a Rosicrucian. In 1887 Westcott obtained part of a manuscript written in brown-ink cipher from the Rev. A. F. A. Woodford, a Mason. The manuscript appeared to be old but probably was not. From his Hermetic knowledge, Westcott was able to decipher the manuscript and discovered it concerned fragments of rituals for the "Golden Dawn," an unknown organization that apparently admitted both men and women.

Westcott asked an occultist friend, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, to flesh out the fragments into full-scale rituals. Some papers evidently were forged to give the "Golden Dawn" authenticity and a history. It was said to be an old German occult order. Westcott produced papers that showed he had been given a charter to set up an independent lodge in England.

By 1890 the Order (GD) was fully established with three Temples, Isis-Urania in London, Osiris at Weston-super-Mare and Horus at Bradford, each of which was administrated by three Chiefs - Imperator (Emperor), Cancellarius (Chancellor) and Praemonstrator (Administrator). The secret society quickly caught on, and 315 initiations took place during the society's heydey, from 1888 to 1896.

The Order, which accepted Initiates of both sexes, flourished in the climate of religious romance which developed both in England and on the Continent during the latter part of the 19th century and as a reaction to the unsettling revelations of scientists such as Charles Darwin.

Its magical element was not introduced until 1892 with the inauguration of the Second Order, Roseae Rubeae et Aureae Crucis (Rose of Ruby and Cross of Gold), prior to which the organization had been purely philosophical in its aims.

An elaborate hierarchy was subsequently created, consisting of 10 grades or degrees, each corresponding to the 10 sephiroth of the Tree of Life of the Kabbalah, plus an eleventh degree for Neophytes.

Golden Dawn Initiates attained a series of grades within three distinct orders based, in all but the lowest grade, on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life (see KABBALAH), thus rising from Neophyte through Philosophus in the First Order and from Zelator Adeptus Minor to Adeptus Exemptus in the Second Order. Beyond these earthly ranks the Third Order grades extended from Magister Templi to the ultimate seniority of Ipsissimus among the Secret Chiefs.

One advanced through the Outer Order by examination. Initially, Westcott, Mathers and Wood-man were the only members of the Second Order, and they claimed to be under .the direction of the Secret Chiefs of the Third Order, who were entities of the astral plane. Mathers's rituals were based largely on Freemasonry.

The Order embellished its ritual with Egyptian and Greek imagery, drawing heavily on such Esoteric works as Helena Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled (1877) - and it drew its membership from the educated ranks of the upper and middle classes who already had leanings towards Masonry, Hermeticism and Theosophy.

It particularly attracted Freemasons and others who had difficulty with the oriental leanings of the Theosophical Society. It demanded that its members take occult names, typically in the form of a Latin motto, and its practice was based on initiatory rituals through which the way was opened to the elite inner or Second Order, founded in 1892, the objective of which was to meld the higher and lower natures of the Initiate.

Mathers produced the Initiation ritual for the Adeptus Minor rank and renamed the Second Order the Ordo Rosae Rubeae et Aureae Crucis, or the Order of the Red Rose and Cross of Gold (R. R. et A. C.). Initiation was by invitation only.

Mathers was at the very least eccentric and possibly was a lunatic. He never consummated his marriage with his wife, Mina, who, he said, received teachings from the Secret Chiefs through Clairaudience. His finances were erratic, and in 1891 he and his wife were penniless.

Golden_Dawn

A rich Golden Dawner, Annie Horniman, became their benefactor. Mathers and his wife moved to Paris, where Mathers set up another lodge. lie continued to write curricula materials and send them to London. He was obsessed with jealousy over Westcott and became increasingly autocratic. He devoted a good deal of time to translating the manuscript of The Book of the Sacred Magick of Abra-Melin the Mage, which he claimed was bewitched and inhabited by a species of nonphysical intelligence. (The book eventually was published in 1898.)

In 1896 Horniman cut off her financial support to Mathers. The same year, Mathers claimed that the Secret Chiefs had initiated him into the Third Order. Horniman disputed his claim and was expelled from the society. In 1897 members began to discover Westcott's questionable role in "discovering" the Golden Dawn. He resigned his post and was succeeded by Florence Farr. By then, irreparable schisms were forming within the Golden Dawn.

The influence of the Order was strong until the turn of the century when it was finally swamped by schisms attributed to internal jealousies and feuding within the Second Order, not least being the dissent over Crowley's membership.

Aleister Crowley was initiated in 1898 and rapidly rose up the ranks. In 1899 he went to Paris and insisted upon being initiated into the Second Order. Mathers complied. The London lodge, under Farr, rejected his Initiation. In 1900 Crowley went to England as Mathers's "Envoy Extraordinary" and attempted to take control of the quarters of the Second Order. He appeared wearing a black mask, Highland dress and a gilt dagger, and staged a dramatic attempt, but was rebuffed.

The Crowley-Mathers alliance was an uneasy one. Crowley considered himself a superior magician to Mathers. The two supposedly engaged in magical warfare. Mathers sent an astral Vampire to attack Crowley psychically, and Crowley responded with an army of demons led by Beelzebub. After Crowley's attack on the Second Order quarters, the London lodge expelled both Crowley and Mathers. Crowley retaliated by publishing some of the Golden Dawn's secret rituals in his magazine, The Equinox.

W. B. Yeats took over the Second Order. He attempted to restore unity, but the schisms in the Golden Dawn broke into independent groups. Followers of Mathers formed the Alpha et Omega Temple. In 1903 A. E. Waite and others left, forming a group with the name Golden Dawn but with more of an emphasis on 'Christian Mysticism' than Magick.

The established Golden Dawn Order collapsed in 1903 but its magically orientated members, led by an eminent physician, R W Felkin, re-emerged as the Stella Matutina, while a splinter group, under A E Waite, regrouped around the Isis-Urania Temple, having abandoned magical work in favour of

The Isis-Urania Temple (under Golden Dawn) closed in about 1900 but various factions continued to exist spasmodically until approximately the onset of World War II, when the remnants disintegrated having also lost membership in the face of Gardner's influential and popular approach to Magick.

During its height, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn possessed the greatest known repository of Western magical knowledge. Second Order studies centered on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Three magical systems were taught: the Key of Solomon (see GRIMOIRES); Abra-Melin (see also ABRAMELIN THE MAGE); and Enochian Magick (see also DEE, John).

Membership included several notable personalities including W. B. Yeats, Bram Stoker (the author of 'Dracula') and Aleister Crowley, whose association with MacGregor Mathers proved a source of feuding within the Order. Some of the early ideas of Gerald Gardner were inspired through its teachings.

Materials also were incorporated from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, William Blake's Prophetic Books and the Chaldean Oracles. Instruction was given in astral travel, Scrying, Alchemy, Geomancy, the Tarot and Astrology.

The stated key purpose of the order was "to prosecute the Great Work: which is to obtain control of the nature and power of [one's] own being." Some of the texts included Christian elements, such as the establishing of a closer relationship with Jesus, the "Master of Masters." Members circulated various Catholic and Anglican writings and sermons. These were omitted from the materials published by Regardie. Elements of Golden Dawn rituals, Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry have been absorbed into the rituals of modem Witchcraft.

Out of Golden Dawn's fragments, including the remodelled Isis-Urania Temple and J W Brodie-Innes's London Temple, Alpha et Omega, there emerged a generation of new organizations. In 1905 another splinter group was formed, the Stella Matutina, or "Order of the Companions of the Rising Light in the Morning." In 1917 it was resurrected as the Merlin Temple of the Stella Matutina. The Stella Matutina went into decline in the 1940s, following the publication of its secret rituals by a former member, Israel Regardie, Crowley's one-time secretary.

Other 'off-shoots' included the Socity of the Inner Light (SIL), founded in 1927 by Dion Fortune (who had joined Alpha et Omega in 1919).

The SIL is distinct from the confusingly named Fraternity of the Inner Light founded in 1922 by Moina Mathers.

These modern societies have collectively defined themselves as the Western Mysteries. Some distant offshoots of the Golden Dawn continue in existence.

PLEASE NOTE:
One of the major problems with 'defining' Paganism and/or its beliefs and practices is that it is an 'organic' movement, in that it is undergoing constant change and re-evaluation from within, and as such any 'one-size-fits-all' approach to understanding Paganism will be found wanting.

Due to the very 'organic' nature of Paganism, and the many differing Paths and Traditions within it, in many cases no one definition may be universally accepted by all Pagans. Therefore, where such cases of possible conflicting and/or contradictory meanings of certain terms occur I have endevoured to give not only the generally accepted meaning, but also any major 'variations' in belief and/or practice.

Christians who believe this difference in meaning of certain key terms, beliefs and practices to be unique to Paganism need to remember that such conflicts also arise within the Body of Christ - the Church. Take for instance the differing practices amongst Christians concerning Baptism and the different attitudes towards women in the clergy.

- Jean-Luc