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Magic and the Golden Dawn
by
Magic has fallen into disrepute. Four thousand years ago it was part of established religion and the repository of such scientific knowledge as was then known. With the rise of Christianity it was persecuted and driven underground as Satanic. With the growth of science it became discredited as mumbo-jumbo. A few wise-women, a warlock or two, some folk lore and several covens are all that survive of the witch cult in England. Spiritualism has its roots in necromancy, but few of its followers know what they are doing. They do not work in a consecrated circle and have no sure means of checking the identity of the intelligences, or whatever it is, with which they get in touch.
Commercially minded fortune tellers have replaced the sacred oracles of Dodona and Delphi to batten on the credulous: while the art of interpreting dreams has been divorced from religion and taken over by the followers of Freud. Astrology and astronomy have parted company, while the alchemical transmutation of metals has become the province of atomic scientists. And yet in England magic is still practiced by a few, because they find that it works—that is to say if you perform certain rituals with understanding and faith, you get results in a higher proportion of cases than can be accounted for by mere chance. This survival of ritual magic in England to-day is due largely to the activities and teaching of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the Outer was founded in 1888 by W. Wynn Westcott [William Wynn Westcott] the coroner for North East London. He was then Secretary General of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia and a member of the Theosophical Society. If not belonging to, he possessed papers and probably rituals of two other orders, the Order of Light, by which I think he meant the Fratres Lucis, and the Sat B'hai. The G∴D∴ consisted of eleven grades or degrees subdivided into three groups: the first or outer order of the Golden Dawn with five degrees, the second or inner order of the Rose of Ruby and the Cross of Gold (Rosae Rubeae et Aureae Crucis) of three degrees, and the secret or hidden order of the Silver Star (Argentinum Aster) with another three degrees. Members of the G∴D∴ group were ignorant of who were in the R.R. et A.C., whilst membership of the A∴A∴ was restricted to "the Secret Chiefs." These do not appear to have been living, and so, like the Mahatmas of the Theosophical Society, were probably mythical.
There is a tradition that the cypher manuscripts, on which the G∴D∴ or Outer Order was based, were bought in 1884 by the Reverend A. F. A. Woodford, a prominent Freemason who was a founder member of the Quator Coronati Lodge, and the author of a Masonic encyclopaedia. Westcott described him as a very learned Hermetist, and a member of "a very ancient and universal Rosicrucian Society" called in Hebrew "The Society of the Shining Dawn," which means I think that he had joined the G∴D∴ when it was founded. The cyphers were written on rag paper some of which was water-marked 1782, some 1809, while the rest was more recent. Mathers [MacGregor Mathers], whose unsupported evidence needs confirmation, wrote that the cypher lecture on the attribution of the Tarot Trumps bears a more recent cypher note signed with the initials A.J.C., namely Alphonse Louis Constant or Eliphas Levi [Eliphas Levi]. This I doubt, as the attributions differ from those published by Levi as far as the card called The Fool is concerned.
The first definite date, provided that one can accept an extract from Westcott's diary in his own hand, is February 1886, when he gave them in 1887. After a fortnight's hard work the latter succeeded in decyphering them. In September he handed them to Mathers and in October the latter agreed for a fee to work them up into a series of lectures and rituals.
Now somewhere in the cypher was concealed the German address of a certain mysterious Fraulein Anna Sprengel. Westcott wrote to her in October and a month later received a reply. Her grade in the Second Order appears to have been 7=4 and presumably it was she who conferred these degrees by post on Westcott and Mathers. In 1888 she issued a charter to Mathers, Westcott and Woodman, who was supreme Magus of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, to open the ISIS URANIA Temple Number 3 of the G∴D∴ in London, and use it to work the five degrees of the first or Outer Order. Temple Number 1, the "Lichte Liebe Leben" was probably that of the group to which Fraulein Sprengel belonged. It is described in the "History for Neophytes," written by Westcott in 1888, as "a group of Continental mystics who have not been in the habit of performing ceremonies in Open Lodge, but have conferred the grades chiefly in privacy and in the presence of two or three members: for this reason there is no accurate record of the name and rank of all their members, and very great reticence is shown by them in their communications."
The Second Temple seems to have been called Hermanubis, but the only known reference to it is in the same "History for Neophytes," where we are told that it had ceased to exist owing to the decease of its chiefs."
The cypher manuscripts consist of notes on lectures and rituals. Waite [Arthur Edward Waite] maintained that they were written after 1880 by an unidentified Englishman who had studied under Fraulein Anna Sprengel or one of her circle. All that we know for certain is that Fraulein Sprengel—claimed to be a member of the German branch of the Order and was associating with Rudolph Steiner. Westcott however believed that the cypher notes were contemporary with the paper on which they were written.
The first three chiefs of the ISIS URANIA Temple in London were Woodman, Westcott and Mathers, all members of the High Council of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. This Rosicrucian order only admitted Masons and did not practice magic. It was founded in 1865 by R. W. Little, probably with the assistance of Kenneth Mackenzie, who had twice visited Eliphas Levi, and is said by Westcott to have been a pupil of Count Apponyi. Westcott also stated that some of its manuscripts had been provided by Frederick Hockley, and, if tradition was correct, others were borrowed from but not returned to the record room at Freemason's Hall.
These materials, which Westcott in a letter in my possession calls "early rituals in English and diagrams," together with his papers on the Sat B'hai and the Order of Light (the latter probably were extracts from the eighteenth century rituals of the Fratres Lucis copies out by Mrs. Cooper Oakley in the Imperial Library at Petrograd), together with Woodford's cypher notes, which cannot have been more than sixty years old but were probably more recent, were the sources from which Mathers and Westcott composed the rituals and lectures for the five degrees of the Golden Dawn in the Outer.
The Order grew quickly, for it absorbed those members of the metropolitan and provincial lodges of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia who wished to practice what their rituals were preaching, while in accordance with early Rosicrucian tradition women were admitted. Within three years of the founding of Isis Urania Temple Number 3 in London there were Hermes Number 4 in Bristol, Horus Number 5 in Bradford, Amen Ra Number 6 in Edinburgh, and also Osiris in Weston-super-Mare. Then in 1891 Mathers moved to Paris and there opened Ahathoor Number 7. In the same year he produced a continuation of the G∴D∴ system in the form of additional rituals, lectures and diagrams for the three grades of the Second Order or Inner Order of the Rosae Rubeae et Aureae Crucis, or Rose of Ruby and Cross of Gold, basing his central ritual on the traditional myth of the finding and opening of the tomb of Christian Rosenkreuz as given in the Fama Fraternitatis in 1614. Westcott agreed to work this additional system, opened a Vault of the Adepts in each of the five English Temples, and accepted Mathers as Imperator or Head of the Second Order.
Unfortunately Mathers' own account of the source from which he drew the materials for the rituals and lectures of the R.R. et A.C. is highly unsatisfactory from the historical point of view. In 1896 in a manifesto to the Second Order he wrote:
On another occasion he wrote simply, and perhaps with more truth, that he had received rituals and information "from a Continental Adept, Frater E.S.L."
Mathers, like his chief disciple Aleister Crowley, was an autocrat with a taste for the Goetia and a love of melodrama. The son of an obscure merchant's clerk, he was christened Samuel Liddell Mathers, but soon he was calling himself MacGregor Mathers, and finally Le Comte de Glenstrae. In addition to his Golden Dawn activities he revived the cult of the Egyptian Goddess Isis, putting on rituals at the Bodinière Theatre in Paris, and endeavoured without success to sell concessions for a railway in Turkey. Of a suspicious nature he accused all but five members of the Isis Urania Temple in London of plotting against him. In 1900 things came to a head, the revolt against him being led by the poet W.B. Yeats, known in the Order as Frater Demon Est Deus Inversus. All parties resorted to magic. Yeats wrote to George Russell, better known as A.E.:—
Crowley bears independent but different testimony to the success of this magical attack on him. An extract from his diary published in the third number of the Equinox shows that, on the first day of his arrival in London as Mathers' representative, he went to see Soror Perseverentia et Curia Quies (Mrs. Alice Simpson). On his way the cab lamps caught fire and later a cab horse ran away with him, while Soror Donorum Dei Dispensatio Fidelis (Miss Elaine Simpson's) fire refused to burn. This was on a Friday. On Saturday the Rose Cross given him by Mathers began to lose colour and whitened, a rubber mackintosh nowhere near the fire suddenly caught light, and fires were by no means anxious to burn. Crowley in turn attacked Frater De Profundis as Lucem (F.L. Gardner) by evoking Typhon-Seth, with what effect I do not know.
Mathers was not the sort of man to allow himself to be out-magicked by his disciples. Taking a number of peas, he christened each with the magical motto of one of the rebels, then after invoking the Avenging Angel HUA and the four Angels of the Tablet of Union, EXARP, HCOME, NANTA and BITOM, he shook the peas together in a sieve, and calling on yeheshua yehovaschah, He authorised and charged the Forces of Evil to restrain and confound his accusers, so that like the peas rattling in the sieve, they would confound one another.
As a result of all this the Order fell to pieces. The rebels under Yeats continued quarrelling amongst themselves until 1903, when A. E. Waite (Frater Sacramentum Regis) took over the Isis Urania Temple with the assistance of M. W. Blackden and the alchemical parson, William Alexander Ayton. Waite re-wrote much of the ritual and discouraged magical working. He carried on until 1914 when the Isis Urania Temple was closed. Mathers left Paris and returned to London in 1908 opening his Alpha et Omega Temple in London. His wife carried it on after his death.
Dr. Felkin (Frater Finem Respice) picked up the pieces with his derivative Order the Stella Matutina, which reverted to the full working of the G∴D∴ and R.R. et A.C. systems, but with a pronounced stress on skrying and travelling on the astral plane. He opened the Merlin and Amoun Temples in London, membership of the latter being restricted to brethren of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. He was joined by the Hermes Temple in Bristol. He then emigrated to New Zealand, where he opened the Smaragdine Temple, and then two others, whose names I do not know, in Australia. I believe that his order though dormant is still in existence in England.
The original Bradford, Edinburgh, Bristol, Weston Super-Mare and Paris Temples of Horus, Amen Ra, Hermes, Osiris and Ahathoor remained, I think, faithful to Mathers. Ahathoor probably closed down in 1908 when Mathers returned to London opening the A. et O. Temple which may still exist. He died in 1918. Mrs. Mathers—Soror Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum—joined forces with Brodie Innes [J.W. Brodie-Innes] (Frater Sub Spe) in Edinburgh. They disapproved of Felkin's Stella Matutina, but seemed to have kept in touch with an American temple opened by one of Mathers' followers in New York. Today the New York temple is still in existence but Mathers' branch continues to operate in London as the A. et O.
There is one more direct off-shoot to deal with, the A∴A∴ founded by Aleister Crowley in 1907, two years after he in his turn had quarrelled with Mathers. In his variation the whole order instead of the top three grades is called the A∴A∴ or Silver Star. It survived with headquarters in New York, but moved to West Point and is now defunct. It never really worked at all.
Such in brief is the chequered history of the Golden Dawn. In 1900 it boasted of some 200 members of whom at least 30 practiced ritual magic. The more remarkable of them were MacGregor Mathers, who wrote on magic and the qabalah; Aleister Crowley who published privately many volumes of poetry and technical works on magic, qabalah, the tarot and yoga; W. B. Yeats, whose fame as a poet and playwright is known to you all: A. E. Waite, who produced many lengthy and scholarly volumes on Masonry, Alchemy and the Rosicrucians: Allan Bennett, who tiring of magic became a Buddhist Bhikkhu and led the first Buddhist mission to England: Florence Farr, an actress who played some part in the emotional life of Bernard Shaw: Miss Horniman who financed the Gate Theatre for Yeats: the writer Arthur Machen: Peck the Astronomer Royal for Scotland: and, if Crowley is to be believed, Sir William Crookes. Like the Theosophical Society the history of the order can be epitomised as one long fratricidal quarrel. Yet in England it dominated the occult world of its day, while various brethren were responsible for publishing for the first time much traditional lore.
The aims of an Order can best be judged by the vows which its members take. Those wishing to join the G∴D∴ had to pledge themselves "to prosecute with zeal the study of the occult sciences," the only qualification demanded of them being "belief in one God," while if not Christians they had to be willing to take an interest in Christian symbolism. Anyone seeking to enter the inner Order of R.R. et A.C. swore "to apply myself to the Great Work, which is to purify and exalt my Spiritual Nature, that with Divine Aid I may at length attain to be more than human—(a very dangerous thing to desire)—and thus gradually raise and unite myself to my Higher and Divine Genius, and that in this event I will not abuse the Great Power entrusted to me."
Crowley, in his derivative Order the A∴A∴, improved the above wording. His Probationers promised "to prosecute the Great Work, which is to obtain a scientific knowledge of the nature and powers of my own being." On entering the Inner Order, the Great Work was redefined as "attaining the Knowledge and Conversation of my Holy Guardian Angel." Finally to enter the Third Order and so become a Master of the Temple the Exempt Adept had to "Interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with his soul."
Annually on the day of Corpus Christi the Chief Adept in each Temple of the Second Order, clad in the black robe of mourning and with the chain of humiliation around his neck, was bound to the Cross of Suffering in the Vault of the Adepts, where he invoked the Great Avenging Angel HUA "to confirm and strengthen all the Members of this Order during the ensuring revolution of the Sun: to keep them steadfast in the Path of Rectitude and Self Sacrifice: and to confer upon them the power of discernment that they may choose between the evil and the good, and try all things of doubtful or fictitious seeming with sure knowledge and sound judgment."
After being released from the Cross and re-robing, then invoked HRU the Great Angel of Secret Wisdom, "to strengthen and establish the Members of this Order in their search for the Mysteries of the Divine Light, to increase their spiritual perception and enable them to rise beyond that lower selfhood which is nothing, unto that Highest Selfhood, which is God the Vast One."
Most Masonic and Rosicrucian Orders restrict themselves to ritual work and the study of what their rituals mean. In the G∴D∴ the rituals played a minor role compared to the work of preparation required before they could be taken. Thus before admittance to the Inner Order of the Rose of Ruby and the Cross of Gold, the candidate had to satisfy examiners in the following subjects.
[These] fourteen subjects were covered in seven examinations, which it took Frater De Profundis as Lucem, whose papers I have, from June 1895 to February 1897 to pass. Note that this was the knowledge required for only one out of the eight grades worked by the G∴D∴ and R.R. et A.C.
The system taught was formidable in its completeness. Esoteric Qabalah with its numerology and complex system of correspondences based on the diagram of the Tree of Life (or Minutum Mundum) was stressed. The symbology and correct attribution of the Tarot Trumps were explained. Three systems of divination were taught, by the Tarot, Geomancy and Astrology. Special stress was laid on Egyptian mythology and the technique of assuming God forms. Skrying and travel on the astral planes were done by all, and to pass one of the tests the candidate had to interpret correctly a symbol, or visit the plane, of a system previously unfamiliar to him.
Magic can be classified under six heads, The first, Invocation, is theurgic, and all agree that it is white magic. After enflaming yourself with prayer, you worship, consume the consecrated sacrifice or partake of the appropriate sacrament, and then communicate with or become inspired by a Being or Force from one of the nine orders which in various systems form an intermediate hierarchy between God and man. In Christianity they are called the Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels in that descending order. The five remaining types are Goetic, and most people call them black magic. They are not necessarily so, unless you use them for selfish ends, or treat the Spirits concerned as if they were gods and Angels, praying to them instead of conjuring them. These five Goetic types are evocation, in which a particular spirit or intelligence is called forth: working with talismans in which a spirit is bound in matter: divination in which a spirit is made to control the hand or the brain of the magician or his medium: necromancy, a perversion of which occurs at most spiritualist séances: and works of fascination, which consist of distracting the attention, or disturbing the judgment, of the person you wish to influence, deceive or destroy.
Three varieties of working these six types of magic were taught, that of the Clavicula of Solomon the King, the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, and the Enochian system of Dr. John Dee, Queen Elizabeth's astrologer. The latter employs the alphabet and language of the Angels as revealed to Dee in a crystal by his skryer Edward Kelly. No dictionary of it has been compiled, and no book written explaining the system in detail. You cannot therefore work it unless you are prepared to research amongst Dee's manuscripts in the Ashmolean or British Museums, or unless you acquire the secret papers of the Second Order of the R.R. et A.C. The theory of alchemy was touched on, but neither the transmutation of metals nor the manufacture of the Elixir of Life were taught. Finally the central ritual was based on the Rosicrucian myth of Christian Rosenkreuz, not on the Masonic legend of Hiram Abiff.
One important subject was however omitted, sex. This had played an important part in the Witch Cult, in certain Gnostic sects, and in the Templar or pseudo-Templar tradition of Baphomet. Crowley included it in his derivative order the A∴A∴, into which he also incorporated some of the elementary practices of yoga. Finally he introduced much of the symbolism and morality of his private "revealed" religion of Thelema, with The Book of the Law as the new Bible for humanity. This neo-Egyptian and sexual revival was contrary to the original spirit and teachings of the G∴D∴, and was one of the reasons why its members objected so strongly to Frater Perdurabo.
At first sight it would appear as if the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a repository of all the childish nonsense rightly discarded by Western man in his progress from the stone to the atomic age. There is some truth in this criticism, for much curious but useless information was taught. Yet the members of the Order were made acutely conscious of the existence of the spiritual world, the denial of which is responsible for so many of our troubles to-day. No-one who has performed a ceremonial evocation or invocation with knowledge and understanding, who has actually charged a talisman, or travelled with a guide on the astral plane, can deny the existence in nature of archangels, angels, demons, blind forces, praeter-human intelligences—call them what you will—those barbarous names and often bizarre descriptions are listed in the various traditional systems.
Whether the members of the G∴D∴ and R.R. et A.C. descended into the limbo of their subconscious and meddled dangerously with the Qliphoth, or, following their aspirations, learned from the Angels concerned the secrets of the thirty aethyrs from TEX to LIL, they enlarged their understanding of the universe and of themselves. To what end? The short and turbulent history of the Order seems to indicate that in the main its brethren fell by the wayside.
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