The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

The Most Influential Magical Secret Society in Modern Times

(William Wynn Westcott, William Robert Woodman, and Samuel Liddell Mathers by Travis Simpkins)

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…