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The Golden Dawn system of magic is known throughout the world as one of the most effective and comprehensive approaches to working with occult powers. Waite taking over the Isis-Urania Temple, Yeats joining a group called the Stella Matutina that practiced the earlier rituals of the Golden Dawn, and Mathers forming a new group, Alpha and Omega.An easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide to the Golden Dawn system of magic He was removed from his position within three months of his induction of Crowley to the Inner Order by the remaining London adepts, and the order splintered into clusters of smaller groups, with A. Mathers reacted by writing a letter claiming that Westcott's correspondence with Anna Sprengel was a forgery, and that he had never had any contact with any Secret Chiefs (via BRANCH).īut by attempting to smear another founder-member, Mathers saw his own credibility also dissipate. Florence Farr, who had already stated she thought the temple should be closed down, resigned, and as infighting grew, Mathers came to suspect the involvement of William Wynn Westcott, who he believed was attempting to reclaim control of the order. The note referred to Sprengel as " Sapiens Dominabitur Astris," - or, "the wise among the stars" - and "a chief among the members of the goldene dammerung" - or "Golden Dawn." Westcott claimed that it was through contact with Sprengel that he, William Robert Woodman, and Samuel Mathers were bestowed the right to lead a British version of the order, with Sprengel herself purportedly chartering the first Golden Dawn Temple in England.Ĭrowley enraged the London temple upon his return by stridently announcing his induction into the Inner Order and demanding the esoteric documents to which he was now supposedly entitled. According to Heterodoxology, Westcott claimed to have found among the pages of the Ciphers the address of one Fräulein Anna Sprengel of Stuttgart, which spoke of the woman's magical credentials and her belonging to a well-established lineage of Rosicrucian mystics in Germany.
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Though the origins of the Cipher Manuscripts were seemingly unverified - and indeed rumors abound that the work was the creation of one of the occultists from whom William Wynn Westcott had claimed to receive it, or else it was a forgery by Westcott himself - there was one detail that supposedly lent legitimacy to the Ciphers in the eyes of potential new occultist recruits. Woodford, according The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn® in Britain, a fellow mason who in turn received them from the Masonic scholar Kenneth R. Westcott, who would later become one of the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, claimed to have received the Ciphers from the Rev. As such, the actual author of the Ciphers is still unknown, but they came into the possession of one William Wynn Westcott, a Freemason and member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia - an esoteric Christian group that practiced mystical rituals - based in Warwickshire, England, who otherwise worked as a coroner by day. In a time when esoteric texts were rare, and many books were still printed in small quantities and hand-bound, it was common for documents to be shared among like-minded members of the same groups and societies. This 56-folio bundle of encoded writings in black ink on cotton paper was watermarked 1809, according to the Thelemagick Library. The origins of the Ciphers have been debated ever since they came to light in the mid-1880s. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn owes its origins to a single text - the mysterious Cipher Manuscripts.
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