The Golden Dawn

[Nazheek]

The Golden Dawn was a group of Freemasons and well known Magisters such as Aleister Crowley who studied Magick, Numerolgy, Egyptian Paganism, the Occult, and the Qabbal of the Jews. Well known for many acts such as the Theft of the Royal Secret (My father was a Guardian of the Royal Secret) and bringing Astral Travel into Christianity. Today, there are many people who claim control of the once great line of Magistry. I want to know your opinions on these faux-dawns.

[Redbeck]

The Order of the Golden Dawn was very much an active occult society in Europe around ninety years ago and attracted some brilliant people, Aleister Crowley was of course a leading light. Anybody who could name his children as he did has much to be admired in terms off creativity and thought process, so yes the Redbeck is a huge fan of his at least.

Nuit Ma Ahathoor Hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith Crowley, Lola Zaza Crowley and Aleister Ataturk Crowley

Israel Regardie, also an occultist and a writer, was Aleister Crowley's personal secretary and transcriptionist, widely known for his books and commentaries on the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Indeed it was he that conceptualised the order's own Tarot card deck.

Enter Robert Wang an artist of no small renown, known for, among other things, his Jungian Tarot deck.
The Order of the Golden Dawn tarot deck was illustrated by Wang under instruction from Regardie, and is ranked as a work of esoteric importance rather than aesthetic interest.



As part of their sacred oath, Golden Dawn members were sworn to secrecy. Yet Israel Regardie who acquired the bulk of the Order's documents upon its dissolution, then compiled a book, The Golden Dawn, which earned him the enmity of many of the other former members along with the reputation of an oath-breaker, because of the information it revealed.

However, the book transformed the work of the Order into an entirely new and very credible branch of the Western Occult Tradition. As Regardie observed in his work A Garden of Pomegranates [well worth reading], '...it is essential that the whole system should be publicly exhibited so that it may not be lost to mankind. For it is the heritage of every man and woman – their spiritual birthright.'

Also worth reading is Regardie's earlier literary work when he was very much an active member of Golden Dawn. Published in 1932 and entitled The Tree of Life, it is a book which many consider to be his magnum opus. It attracted me in the first place because of a quote from it I read following Regardie's death in 1985, in which he observes:

'According to the traditional philosophy of the Magicians, every man is a unique autonomous center of individual consciousness, energy and will – a soul, in a word. Like a star shining and existing by its own inward light it pursues its way in the star-spangled heavens, solitary, uninterfered with, except insofar as its heavenly course is gravitationally modified by the presence, near or far, of other stars. Since in the vast stellar spaces seldom are there conflicts between the celestial bodies, unless one happens to stray from its appointed course – a very rare occurrence – so in the realms of humankind there would be no chaos, little conflict and no mutual disturbance were each individual content to be grounded in the reality of his own high consciousness, aware of his ideal nature and his true purpose in life, and eager to pursue the road which he must follow.'

Samples of the Golden Dawn Tarot by Robert Wang