The Golden Dawn

(Taken from the Book "Secrets of a Witches Coven" by Morwyn)

 

 

...During the same time, ceremonial magic, which followed the patterns of ficino, Mirandola, the Roscrucians, and the Freemasons, was evolving.  Alphonse Louise Constant (1810- 1875), better known by his nome de plume Eliphas Levi, was a magician who borrowed from treatuses dating back to Paracelsus.  Trained as a priest but never ordained, he attempted to reconcile religeon, science, and mysticism in his writings.  He proposed that the adept could receive spiritual teachings from a high plane by tapping into what he called the "astral light of divine power" by force of will.  He was also the first to connect the twenty-two trumps of the major Arcana of the tarot with the Qabalistic Tree of Life.  Levi's influence on end-of-the-century magicians was immense.  Some people believe that Aleister Crowley was his reincarnation, since Crowley was born shortly after Levi died.

 

Levi's works, which have been translated by A.E. Waite, reveal a highly imaginative interpretation of magic, so his claims should be taken with a grain of salt.  Among Levi's books are The Great Secret, This History of Magic, and The Book of Splendours.

 

Another magician who contributed to the enrichment of the tarot was Gerard Encausse, better known as Papus.  Author, of  the celebrated book The Tarot of the Bohemians, he became chief of the order of the Rose-Croix, which was founded in France as an hermetic organisation. Papus equated the Tarot with the Bible and posited that an entire system of  metaphysical knowledge was contained within the cards that synthesised the teachings of many cultures. This view of the Tarot is still held widely today, and magicians and Witches meditate upon the cards to tap this knowledge, as well as using tarot for divination. Papus influenced the works of Oswald Wirth, a key occult figure of the twentieth century.

 

Both Levi and Papus fired the imaginations of budding occultists all over Europe and America. Here their doctrines were disseminated by Albert Pike and Emma Hardinge-Britten. Englishmen inspired by Levi and Papus include Francis Barret, whose book The Magus is a classic work in the field, and Kennith Mackenzie.

 

Mackenzie had a friend whom he had entrusted a cipher manuscript for safe keeping.  Mackenzie died, his friend died, and a clergyman friend of the friend discovered the manuscript.  The clergyman in turn, passed on the manuscript to Dr. Wynn Westcott, who, with the help of his friend, S.L. MacGregor Mathers, deciphered it. On the basis of these papers and other researchers, the two men founded the Isis-Urania Temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in March 1888.

 

Wynn Westcott (1848-1925) was a London coroner and friend of Madame Helena P. Blavatsky, and the Christian mystic, Anna Kingsford. He had also read extensively the works of Levi and the alchemists.  S.L. MacGregor Mathers (1854-1918), a London commercial clerk, was a friend of Westcott's and shared his absorption in the occult.  He studied Egyptology and other magical systems, including most of those touched upon in this brief history, and synthesised them with the Mackenzie manuscript into the basic tenets of their new occult fraternity.  For awhile the leaders claimed to have received their teachings and permission to found a new order from German Rosicrucian adept named Anna Sprengel.  But these allegations proved false. The rites and rituals of the Golden Dawn owe their genesis to the geniuses of Westcott and Mathers.

 

Various  branches were established in London, Paris, and Edinburgh.  However these organisations were plagued with internal disputes and the Order eventually dissolved.  Some believe that the disintegration occurred because the initiates did not take care to protect themselves sufficiently from the powerful influences they invoked. According to Gareth Knight, Gerald Yorke, an author who wrote a history of the order declared that the protective training that failed to be assimilated by the initiates was : "the assumption that man has fallen from a condition of  original grace which can only be remedied by a re-orientation of the will, in repentance and reconciliation, with God. Although lip service was given to this in certain teachings of the Golden Dawn there was unfortunately, a general and stronger tacit assumption that members of the Order were somewhat superior to the rest of the human race, and by virtue of secret ceremonies, knowledge and practices could elevate themselves to be considerably more superior."

 

The importance of the Golden Dawn, besides teaching by example this lesson in human nature, is that the Order inspired many twentieth century occultists and thus played a significant role in the magical evolution of the present occult revival. Interest in the teachings of the Golden Dawn has never flagged.