History of the Golden Dawn and Mathers

Four years ago I had a draft of King over the Water. It featured the history of the Golden Dawn and the AO as it was then known, mostly based on Sword of Wisdom, Magicians of the Golden Dawn by Ellic Howe and the various Golden Dawn histories by RA Gilbert. At the time I did not intend to go far into the history of either, just to slide it into context with the AO Nisi documents which I wanted to publish. In the end I put these into Mather's LastSecret so there was room to expand the history somewhat.

I had shown the original King over the Water to RA Gilbert who pointed out to me that there had been a lot more research done since Howe and he started their work. So I set about finding the information from later researcher's like Darcy Kuntz, Poke Runyon and the wealth of new Primary texts which had popped up.

What started to emerge was a different picture of the Golden Dawn which had been previously thought. While some bits of information were well known they had never been integrated into a coherent story. Nor was there any attempt to define what the original Golden Dawn members had meant when they used loaded terms like “Secret Chiefs” to define their unseen administration. No one had, for example tried to find out what this “politics” was that so distracted Samuel Mathers that he was prepared to sacrifice his magic order for.

Did history, for example provide us with the somewhat vexing possibility that Golden Dawn lineage was impossible?

The results were somewhat surprising, but what I had not expected was how much deception would be revelled by groups claiming connections with the original orders. It would appear that in an attempt to gain credibility, they had based much of their history and “lineages” on Howe's history or perhaps Sword of Wisdom. This would have been fine had it not been for the fact that Howe and Ithell in particular did not have all the facts when they came to write their history. Howe was keen to debunk the Golden Dawn and as Runyen has pointed out seemed sit on information which he knew would not back his facts. Recent researches by Christopher McIntosh of Exeter University seem to limit many of Howe's theories.

So if a group bases its lineage story on a history, touted by Howe, and that information turns out to be wrong, it would appear to be proof that such a group is not as authentic as it would claim. Surely if such a group had the history and the material it claimed, they would have access to the truth. Likewise a group which claimed to have contact with the Secret Chiefs behind the Golden Dawn, say through a German group, they should have material to back it up. Otherwise it would just be yet another version of their original story. In fact there are groups which have certain similarities with the Golden Dawn (and SIRA) operating in Germany. But such groups are masonic and lack the magical perspectives of the Golden Dawn. The only answer for such a difference is that the Golden Dawn leadership, particularly Samuel Mathers, gained information which was not from these earth plane groups. Indeed we have descriptions from Samuel and Mina saying that he contacted these secret chiefs through seances. I just want to make it clear that the Z documents stand on their own as one of the most important things within Western Magic. Even if they were channeled communications from Crusty the Clown you have to admit that they unlocked an entirely new sphere of Western Magic. Equally that there was no way that an adept belonging to a European Masonic Order would have that information. If they had, then we would have found something similar elsewhere in magical thought.

Likewise there are some mythicans who spin stories about higher profile heads of orders with Golden Dawn connections. One example, which did not find its way into King over the Water was “Countess” Tamara Bourkoun who was supposed to have a direct lineage from the Alpha et Omega via Transhall Hayes to form her Order of the Sphinx and Pyramid and was supposed to have given out AO charters. Actually this rumour was common in the UK in the 1990s and I made somewhat half-hearted attempt to find out more. Lately, with research for King I started finding out old members of Bourkoun's order who presented me with documentary evidence that Bourkoun got her Golden Dawn using Regardie (and they had a long correspondence together) and her lineage, according to one of her students was directly from her Enochian contact. It was a fairly safe bet that she had never even heard of the AO.

So what does it matter really? Well yes. Part of the problem I have with magical groups is the bullshit factor. How can you claim to show people the Truth when you are actively campaigning to defend a pack of lies? Why can you try to tell people that you have a big secret to sell when you have spent more time promoting yourself as a the upholder of Mathers' underpants?

The mythologies that groups use to justify their existence are all quite quaint until they are used to beat up other groups, or to relieve the incredulous of cash. If history denies such groups their antagonistic fantasy then it should be presented so students can make up their own mind.

Ignorance and faith have no part in magic and if someone tells you they know the secrets to turning lead into gold but seems surprisingly lacking in potable metals it is not enough to tell people “trust me.”

King over the Water lays to rest that there can be any group who can claim lineage from the original AO. It is a process which started to be come unraveled with Mather's Last Secret. I have the impression that is something the AO mythcians have already worked out as they currently trying to spin other alternative histories and lineages. That is OK because they will be harder to sell anyway.

However I know that after the book comes out I will get a one star on Amazon from Fr WA (we all know you are and we are not impressed by your maturity) who will then proceed to slag off those who give positive reviews. I take comfort from the fact that One star from Fr WA is worth five stars from the rest of the GD community.

King over the Water paperback is out

The paperback edition of King over the Water is now out, with the hardback hitting the streets next week. It tells the latest history of the early Golden Dawn and in particular Samuel Mathers and the Golden Dawn. It can be found onAmazon and Barnesand Noble for now  but we should be getting it into all good bookshops and a few more mediocre ones who hope to be a bit better.

Morgan has written a review here and he seems to think that some people might have a problem with it. I can't think why, it is all true :-)

Attending Workshops

Writing in his blog, a chief of a modern AO Order,  David Griffin claimed that there were Golden Dawn Orders that had told there members that they were forbidden to attend his Golden Dawn conference later this year. My first thought was “what autocratic Order would be dumb enough to do such a thing?” Then I realised that it was actually possible.

Chic and Tabatha Workshop in the 1990s.  I was in
David Goddard's  Pharos Group at the time and had hair.

I left New Zealand to attend occult conferences and workshops. Throughout the 1990s I dont think there was a single one that I could have gone to that I did not. Some of them were run by people who were involved with the Order that I was with at the time – Servants of the Light, others were names of people's whose books I had read. I learnt an awful lot in that time and saw many different approaches to magic. I was also able to form impressions of different Orders and systems.

One of the workshops I actually ran was for Chic and Tabitha Cicero, which was how I actually met them.

When forming my own group it never occurred to me that people would not do the same things. There is a difference between learning from other groups and joining them. Some groups work better with the Golden Dawn tradition than others. The Magical Order of the Aurora Aurea follows The HOGD and Regardie as seeing membership Crowley's OTO as incompatible with membership with out order. But we do not ban people from attending public workshops or Gnostic Masses. The same thing applies to dual membership of other Golden Dawn groups.

But it would be against everything I stand for to forbid an individual from gaining additional knowledge in any way they can. It is also a sign of insecurity when a group leader forbids anyone anything. If you have confidence in yourself, and your own system you do not need to ban anyone from anything. In fact more often people will go away to these conferences, and come back with stories about how one famous Golden Dawn teacher stuck the pillars in front of the altar in the 0=0 or could not tell the difference between the banner of the east and west.

That being the case there was a mentality in some groups that they were the font of all knowledge and that other Order material was suspect. BOTA, when I was involved with it in the 1980s in New Zealand, had this approach (I am told that this was unique to Will Chesterman). The claim is that it is damaging to the group mind to allow foreign teachings to influence the mind of a student. While this might be true if your Order was perfect and had everything, you are taking away from your student the ability to think, to reason, and to become individualised. If you have read my book Gathering the Magic, you will see that I think that individualisation is the the goal of the outer order. A good order does not act like an autocratic parent, threatening its students with its own insecurities, it lets them learn.

How many people can take the Golden Dawn knowledge papers, as they are written, and form them into something coherent? The point about the Golden Dawn system is that it is a chalice of symbolism in which an adept pours their magic. Telling a student what they can and can't do might make for a nice shiny chalice but it stops the flow of magic.

I circulated the details of David's conference amongst my members and left it up to them if they attended, which is what I think all Golden Dawn teachers should do.  Those that do not should really think about what kind of students they are hoping to create.