"What Is...?" Wednesday

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn 

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (or, more commonly called the Golden Dawn) was a magical order active in Great Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and established by the Freemasons in England. The group practiced practiced theurgy (the practice of rituals, sometimes seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action or presence of one or more gods), especially with the goal of uniting with the divine and spiritual development.


It has been one of the largest single influences on 20th-century Western occultism. Concepts of magic and ritual at the center of contemporary traditions, such as Wicca and Thelema were inspired by the Golden Dawn along with authors William B. Yeats and Algernon Blackwood. A more notorious character recognized instantly by name was Aleister Crowley,who joined in 1898 and founded the rival Argenteum Astrum (1905) after his expulsion in 1900.

The structured hierarchy of The Golden Dawn was based upon the Tree of Life of the Kabbalah... there were ten grades or degrees corresponding to the ten sephiroth, with a eleventh degree for neophytes. The degrees were divided into the Outer, Second, and Third orders.

During its glory, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn possessed one of the greatest repositories of Western magical knowledge. The studies of the Second Order focused on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Three magical systems were taught: the Key of Solomon, a grimoire, Abra-Melin magic and Enochian magic. Also, materials were incorporated from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Prophetic Books of William Blake and the Chaldean Oracles. Instruction was given in astral travel, scrying, geomancy, the Tarot and astrology.


There is much I have not elaborated on while researching and writing this article because all the information could fill every nook and cranny at the Smithsonian, so I picked out the easiest way to describe just what this group was (and still is today, although in a more modern form) all about. I hope you have enjoyed the article.

Today In History...

Born in 1884, Gerald Brosseau Gardner was a flamboyant and assertive personality and truly a cornerstone figure in the creation of modern paganism. He had developed an interest in anthropology and the occult ( meaning hidden or secret) while working in Malaya as a tea and rubber planter and a Customs officer, and on retiring to England in 1936 he made this his prime preoccupation. In Hampshire in 1939 he joined a witch coven preserving unbroken medieval traditions, and from 1951 onwards he publicly promoted a fertility religion we now call Wicca. He recruited members into an organized initiatory order of several grades, for which he composed rituals and spells under the title "A Book of Shadows" his system showed similarities to Freemasonry, and to ceremonial magic as practised by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and others in the early 20th century. His Witchcraft Today (1954) is the foundation of Wicca and he also set up a Museum of Witchcraft at Castletown (Isle of Man). He passed away on this day (1964) on the ship "Scottish Prince" while sailing off the North African coast.

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BOOKS BY GERALD B. GARDNER:

* Witchcraft Today

* The Meaning of Witchcraft

* Witchcraft and the Book of Shadows:

The Definitive Record of the Practises of Wicca

* Gardner's Book of Shadows