The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
The Most Influential Magical Secret Society in Modern Times
In 1886, a Freemason named Kenneth Mackenzie died and William Westcott (pictured in the image above, on the left) became the new Supreme Grand Secretary of the Swedenborgian Rite. As part of this process, he inherited all of Mackenzie’s Masonic manuscripts, among other esoteric documents. In some of those notes, Mackenzie had outlined rituals for a magical fraternity that he was going to call the Hermetic Brotherhood of Egypt. However, this never came to fruition. Instead, those instructions served as a template for two other Freemasons, named Woodman and Mathers (above in the center, and on the right, respectively), who formulated the ceremonies for their own group, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
In 1888, the Isis-Urania Temple was founded in London. To put things in proper perspective, in contrast to Freemasonry, women were allowed and welcome to participate in the Order in “perfect equality” with men. This was revolutionary. More to the point though, in the beginning, the Order offered the first five Grades, teaching occult theory, astrology, tarot divination, and geomancy. Of course, other than certain rituals and meditations found in Mackenzie’s Masonic manuscripts and developed further by Mathers and Woodman, magical practices were generally…
