Part II: The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
"As above, so below. As within, so without." - from the Hermetica
From time to time we like to feature little known perspectives in spirituality. Some are esoteric, some are obtuse, some are deeply meaningful, some may be pure crack-pottery. All of them strive to be original in addressing meaning, eternity, and God. That, certainly, is worth noting. Part I may be found here.
When I was fourteen I was invited to join Demolay International, a part of the greater family of Masonic-adjacent organization. Since a number of my friends were members, and they were of a convivial nature, I said “yes.”
I did not realize with what I was getting involved.
Within a very short time I found myself memorizing the induction oath from a coded piece of paper that would be destroyed after each training session. After a few weeks of this, with the other new members I was led blindfolded into a darkened room at the Masonic Hall to meet with a sacred circle of preceptors, each of whom read a portion of secret lore to us as we took our initiatory degree, and then recite the memorized oath.
This was the 1960’s, so I suppose trippy moments such as this were not particularly unusual.
I am not sure if that is what did it, but I may have developed a taste for secretive organizations from that experience. Naturally, there is a portion of such when one takes the vows of the sacred order of priests, and certainly my time as a monk was often filled with quiet rituals and invocations.
Likewise, the Masonic experience of William Wynn Westcott [1848-1925] may very well have engendered his continued, life-long interest in organized, purposeful ritual and its potential to expand the mental and spiritual horizons of the participants.
Westcott was a Mason who eventually rose to serve as the lodge master of his chapter of the London order, a role that required him not only to supervise the complicated ritual of freemasonry, but also serve as the head researcher and keeper of the archives.
During this era, he was the source for all the accumulated esoteric knowledge existent in the British Isles.
This would include such documents as the twin pamphlets of the Rosy Cross and the Hermetica [as mentioned in part I], among other occult treasures that may or may not be known outside of Masonry.
This lead him with a certain inevitability to the Rosicrucian’s, or Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, another group whom Westcott would serve in a leadership role, in this case as their Supreme Magus. Again, this made him privy to another layer of occult esoterica, eventually deepening his status as a ceremonial magician, one who keeps the standards of secrecy and a devotion to the asymmetrical means of learning.
Before you think that Westcott was just some mid-level crackpot, I should mention that his “day job” was that of the Crown Coroner, thus a general member of Queen Victoria’s court. He was about as mainstream a fellow as one could be, despite his ancillary titles and the practices associated with them.
Two of Westcott’s contemporaries, William Robert Woodman [1828-1891] and Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers [1854-1918], were similarly well-connected, with Woodman serving as a medical doctor, police surgeon, and respected member of the Royal Horticultural Society, and Mathers as a master translator and law clerk.
Beyond their normal bona fides, Woodman was also a Supreme Magus in the Rosicrucian society as well as the Grand Sword Bearer for the Masonic Lodge. Mathers was a Master Mason and the Junior Substitute Magus for the Rosicrucian’s. All three men were also active in The Theosophical Society [which was discussed in an earlier post to be found here], with Mathers serving as their expert on the Kabbalah.
They were all members of The Church of England, by the way.
[I will also note that all three had some association with, of course, alchemy. In fact, Mathers had his Masonic membership sponsored by a London alchemist.]
Inevitably, these three like-minded men would get together, compare notes on their various roles and histories with occult organizations, and decide to create yet another society, this one as dedicated to new ideas in esoterica as to keeping alive the old traditions. Thus was born The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, with its first temple opening in 1887.
While basing its hierarchical structure on the Masonic Order, The Golden Dawn deviated in one dramatic inclusion: it permitted and encouraged women to be members with full and equal benefits. This opened the organization to new minds, voices, and perspectives. That is what gave The Golden Dawn its remarkable popularity.
This was further enhanced when Woodman, in his role of Supreme Magus, handed Westcott a recently discovered ancient tome written in English in an unknown code. Westcott took the pages to Mathers, the polyglot translator, for aid in decoding it. It was to become the founding document of The Golden Dawn.
The Cipher Manuscripts were a collection of coded documents that appear to date to 1809. They contain a curriculum for occult study, arranged around the four traditional elements of earth, air, fire, and water, and incorporating everything from astrology, tarot cards, Hebrew Kabbalistic proverbs, geomancy [one of my favorite flights of lunatic study] and, of course, alchemy and much, much more.
With the Manuscripts, the trio fashioned the structure, teachings, and rituals of The Golden Dawn, aided by the philosophy found in the Hermetica, to form the general organization.
The educational system was surprisingly rigorous and anyone who thought they were joining a quirky social club were quickly dissuaded of that notion when they saw the homework that was expected of them, including study of the Hebrew language.
Additionally, members were not to smoke, drink, or eat meat, as those diluted spiritual pursuits and their precious bodily fluids. [If you were thinking of joining, I maybe lost you there, didn’t I?]
Now, the controversy. It may very well be that Westcott and Mathers, or certainly Mathers, created The Cipher Manuscripts themselves. As Mathers was a strict, evangelical vegetarian who did not smoke or drink and had surrendered his social life to the purposeful study of occult subjects, it seems remarkable that a found document would correspond so perfectly to his manner of life. That, and no one ever saw the untranslated document other than Woodman, Westcott, and Mathers, and perhaps a handful of others.
Nevertheless, in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, The Hermetic Society of The Golden Dawn became more popular than Rosicrucianism and, for a time, the Masonic Order. It attracted a surprising number of adherents, some of whom were very prominent in Victorian society.
Of them, and the eventual fall and rise of The Golden Dawn, we will speak in the next installment.