Tag Archives: ellic howe

The Golden Dawn Source Book

A review of The Golden Dawn Source Book with introduction and foreword by Darcy Küntz, preface by R A Gilbert, with articles by Gerald Suster, R T Prinke, Ellic Howe, and Richard Kaczynski, part of the Golden Dawn Studies series; from Caduceus, Vol II No 4.

Küntz Gilbert The Golden Dawn Source Book

For all that the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn is far and away the most famous of modern magical lodges, the basic documents concerning its history have not been easy to come by, except for those with personal access to the handful of private collections in which the bulk of surviving GD documents reside. While the outlines of the Order’s history have been traced by a number of useful histories, very little of a documentary nature has been available to those who prefer to draw their own conclusions from the evidence.

The appearance of this second volume in Holmes Publishing Group’s Golden Dawn Studies Series suggests that this unfortunate state of affairs will soon be a thing of the past. Like the first volume (reviewed in Caduceus’ Spring 1996 issue), which provided and translated the original Golden Dawn cipher manuscripts The Golden Dawn Source Book is likely to become an essential starting point for all further work on the subject.

The Golden Dawn Source Book has for its focus the origins and development of the Order, and brings together between one set of covers nearly everything that sheds light on this often vexed topic. Included here is the complete “Anna Sprengel” correspondence in its original English translation, relevant entries from W. Wynn Westcott’s diary, a wide selection of letters tracing the Order’s prehistory and history alike, the public letters and articles that announced the GD’s existence to the world, and a collection of published histories of the Order by a range of members.

In addition, the Source Book contains a collection of modern essays on the Order’s early history, including contributions from nearly all sides of the various disputes in which the interpretation of that history seems permanently mired. Notable among these are Ron Heisler’s “Precursors of the Golden Dawn,” a valuable study of earlier Kabbalistic societies in London, as well as several documents from the controversy over Ellic Howe’s The Magicians of the Golden Dawn including Gerald Suster’s incendiary critique of Howe, “Modern Scholarship and the Origins of the Golden Dawn,” and Howe’s amused response.

Finally, the Source Book concludes with a comprehensive, cross-referenced index of the names and magical mottoes of all known Golden Dawn members from the temples in England, North America and New Zealand, a crucial reference tool that has been attempted several times before with a good deal less success.

Series editor Darcy Küntz should be commended for a valuable and well-presented work. While it has little to appeal to the purely practical magician, the Source Book is a welcome addition to the still-limited library of sources on esoteric history, and students of the Golden Dawn and its antecedents in particular will find it a useful resource.

The Alchemist of the Golden Dawn

Hermetic Library fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Alchemist of the Golden Dawn: The Letters of the Revd W. A. Ayton to F. L. Gardner and Others 1886-1905 edited by Ellic Howe, part of the Roots of the Golden Dawn Series.

Ellic Howe The Alchemist of the Golden Dawn

This book edited by Ellic Howe is a sort of addendum to his Magicians of the Golden Dawn, and it publishes correspondence from the Yorke collection (and others) authored by the senior G.D. adept W.A. Ayton. The greatest body of letters are all addressed to F.L. Gardner, a younger magician for whom Ayton served as an alchemical mentor. Ayton and his wife were as active in the G.D. as they could be, considering their advanced years and residence in rural Chacombe, where Ayton served as vicar. Ayton had been a member of the H.B. of L., and (according to him) was instrumental in its discrediting. He appears to have accepted the mythopoeic “Rosicrucian” lineage of Westcott’s G.D. whole cloth, and to have contributed the authority of his years and researches to its inner order. Both Ayton and Gardner were active in connection with the Theosophical Society during Blavatsky’s London period in the late 1880s.

Ayton’s principal esoteric interest was alchemy, and much of the correspondence is concerned with the lending and copying of secret manuscripts on this topic. The interest was not confined to armchair study, however, and Howe reports that the Reverend Ayton maintained a laboratory in the basement of the vicarage (to avoid detection by the bishop!). There are secondary accounts provided from W.B. Yeats that Ayton had lost to inefficient storage a supply of the Elixir of Life (11), and later “made what he hopes is the Elixir of Life. If the rabbit on whom he is trying it survives, we are all to drink a noggin full — at least those of us whose longevity he feels he could encourage” (109).

Throughout Ayton’s letters to Gardner, there are anxious and adverse references to the B.B., which is evidently the “Black Brotherhood.” Howe is convinced, and repeatedly informs the reader, that “B.B.” refers to the Jesuits, and it may be that denotation that Ayton had in mind. However, I consider it something of an open question on the evidence supplied in the volume. Granted, Atyon is otherwise worried about “Papists,” and his 1904 and 1905 letters refer simply to the ill influence of “Jesuits,” without mentioning B.B. Still, the Jesuits could be subservient to a larger B.B., as they certainly are in some conceptions of esoteric politics. At the end of 1892, Ayton wrote to Gardner, “I congratulate you on obtaining the valuable work on B.B. Do not think I underestimate getting knowledge about their doings … They are plotting all the time” (73).

Howe is notable for a lack of sympathy to the objects of his study, frequently deriding their interests and engagements. The fact that he “cannot fathom” the reasons that Bulwer-Lytton’s Zanoni was attractive to 19th-century English occultists shows his singular lack of imagination. There also is a peculiar almost-apology in response to Gerald Suster, whose contribution to the Falcon Press What You Should Know about the Golden Dawn was a rebuke to Howe regarding the value of magical practice (80). He has done a fine job of collecting these primary materials, in any case, and anyone with an interest in Victorian occultism can profit by this quick and entertaining read. [via]

Weiser Antiquarian Books Catalogue #116 Israel Regardie and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Used and Rare Books

You may be interested in Weiser Antiquarian Books Catalogue #116 Israel Regardie and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Used and Rare Books.

“The majority of the books are from the library of a well-known English book-collector who is downsizing due to chronic lack of shelf (and floor) space. The collection includes most of the standard studies of the Golden Dawn, historical, theoretical and practical, by a variety of well known authors including R. A. Gilbert, Ellic Howe, R. A. Torrens, Chic & Tabatha Cicero, Darcy Kuntz, Pat Zalewski, and others, as well as various works by members of the original Order. Aside from mostly being in pristine condition, the books are distinguished by the fact that many are signed or inscribed by their authors or editors.

The catalogues also include a good selection of works by Israel Regardie, whose experience with the Stella Matutina led to the publication of his landmark compilation, The Golden Dawn, An Account of the Teachings, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, (4 Volumes — 1937–1940), since republished in a variety of different forms and formats. The current catalogue includes a number of books that are signed or inscribed by Israel Regardie including an extraordinary association set of the First Edition of The Golden Dawn, with each volume personally inscribed by Regardie to author and psychical researcher Hereward Carrington and including an additional handwritten note by Regardie. Other Regardie rarities include a copy of his The Enochian Dictionary (Circa 1971?) — which is without doubt one of the earliest of the modern Enochian research publications — and the seldom-seen first edition of The Art of True Healing. A Treatise on the Mechanism Prayer, and the Operation of the Law of Attraction in Nature (1937). As is well known Regardie for some time practised as a chiropractor and psychologist (P. R. Stephensen once unkindly termed him a “quack psychiatrist”) and two of the rarer items are pamphlets relating to this aspect of his career: Cry Havoc (1952), a study of the pitfalls of psychology, psychotherapy, and chiropractic; and the (by modern standards) rather chilling Analysis of a Homosexual (1949), a work in which Regardie recounts the case history of a patient whom he claims to have successfully “cured” of homosexuality.

The catalogue opens with a work called Springtime Two (1958). This anthology of poetry and prose by important avant-garde authors of the time is listed here as it includes the first publication of extracts from Ithell Colquhoun’s then-unpublished occult novel Goose of Hermogenes, her original poems: “Elegy on the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn”, “Epithalamium”, and “Little Poems from Cyprus”, as well as some translations from French. We were able to secure a few copies of the book that had been in storage for a number of years, but these will almost certainly not last long. As always there are also a number of rarities scattered throughout the catalogue which include: an Edition de Luxe of L. A. Bosman’s, The Mysteries Of The Qabalah (1913?), inscribed by Alvin Langdon Coburn, a first printing of the W. Wynn Westcott edition of Eliphas Levi’s The Magical Ritual of the Sanctum Regnum interpreted by the Tarot Trumps (1896), and a number of issues of A. Greville-Gascoigne’s The Golden Dawn Magazine (1939-1941), which included contributions by Israel Regardie and others.” [via]

The Golden Dawn Source Book

The Golden Dawn Source Book [also, also], Golden Dawn Studies Series Number 2, edited with introduction by Darcy Küntz, preface by R A Gilbert, the 1996 first edition paperback from the Holmes Publishing Group, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

Darcy Kuntz The Golden Dawn Source Book from Holmes Publishing Group

“The author has compiled the most important Golden Dawn letters and articles which illuminates the creation, foundation and growth of the Golden Dawn. This volume contains articles and essays by Ron Heisler, Ellic Howe, Richard Kaczynski, Francis King, Gareth Medway, R.T. Prinke and Gerald Suster. A complete cross-index is compiled for the first time of all Golden Dawn members and their mottoes including members from the Temples in England, New Zealand and North America.

Some Highlights of the Volume:

  • ‘From the Ashes of the Cipher Manuscript to the Creation of the Golden Dawn’—an original introduction by Darcy Küntz.
  • ‘A supplement to ‘Providence Unknown’: The Origins of the Golden Dawn’ by R.A. Gilbert, created for this volume.
  • The Early Letters written before the foundation of the Golden Dawn plus the complete Fraülein Sprengel letters as originally translated by Albert Essinger.
  • Westcott’s personal diary chronicling the founding of the Order, printed for the first time, together with his ‘Historical Lecture.’
  • The Later Golden Dawn Letters written by initiated members, with a special letter from Paul Foster Case to Israel Regardie.
  • THe Published Histories of the Golden Dawn as well as many modern articles and essays on the Order’s Early History.
  • ‘The Golden Dawn Grades and the Tree of Life‘ is just one of the rare illustrations included in this volume.
  • A comprehensive Cross-index of Golden Dawn Members and Mottoes with a translation of the names of the Initiates.”

 

The Hermetic Library Reading Room is an imaginary and speculative future reification of the library in the physical world, a place to experience a cabinet of curiosities offering a confabulation of curation, context and community that engages, archives and encourages a living Western Esoteric Tradition. If you would like to contribute to the Hermetic Library Reading Room, consider supporting the library or contact the librarian.

The Magicians of the Golden Dawn

Magicians of the Golden Dawn: A Documentary History of a Magical Order, 1887-1923 by Ellic Howe, with a foreword by Gerald Yorke, the 1984 second printing softcover from Samuel Weiser, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

Ellic Howe The Magicians of the Golden Dawn from Samuel Weiser

“W.B. Yeats, Annie Horniman, Florence Farr, MacGregor Mathers, Fraülin Sprengel, Dr Westcott, Dr R.W. Felkin, Rev W.A. Ayton, F.L. Gardner, A.E. Waite, Aleister Crowley, et alii

The Golden Dawn story, with its cast of eccentric characters and its saga of faked documents, mythical ‘Rosicrucian’ adepts, ‘Secret Chiefs’ and bitter internecine quarrels, will delight amateurs of the unusual and fantastic. The Hermetic Order fo the Golden Dawn, whose heyday was during the 1890s, has an almost legendary reputation. Those interested in Ritual Magic and occultism suppose that it represents a preeminent source of authority and knowledge. A wider public has been intrigued by W.B. Yeats’ lengthy connection with the Order, also by the membership of his friends Annie Horniman and Florence Farr. Miss Horniman later built the famous Abbey Theatre at Dublin for him, while Florence Farr was G.B. Shaw’s mistress during her Golden Dawn period.

Ellic Howe is neither a magician nor an occultist but has an unrivaled knowledge of modern (post-1850) European ‘underground’ occult movements and sects. The Magicians of the Golden Dawn is based upon previously inaccessible contemporary letters and other papers. Mr. Howe has provided a most scholarly and detailed work. It is the first documentary study of this curious Order’s tangled and incredible history.”

 

The Hermetic Library Reading Room is an imaginary and speculative future reification of the library in the physical world, a place to experience a cabinet of curiosities offering a confabulation of curation, context and community that engages, archives and encourages a living Western Esoteric Tradition. If you would like to contribute to the Hermetic Library Reading Room, consider supporting the library or contact the librarian.

Weiser Antiquarian Books Catalogue #99 Dion Fortune, Israel Regardie, and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

You may be interested in Weiser Antiquarian Books Catalogue #99 Dion Fortune, Israel Regardie, and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

“The majority of the books in the catalogue are reference works, and it includes most of the standard studies of the Golden Dawn by scholars like R. A. Gilbert, Ellic Howe, R. A. Torrens and others. It also includes a good selection of first and early editions by Dion Fortune and Israel Regardie, both of whom took their experiences in the Stella Matutina (and in Fortune’s case the Alpha et Omega) and wove them into successful careers as authors

As always there are a few rarities, perhaps the most outstanding of which is Aleister Crowley’s copy of Arthur Machen’s, Hieroglyphics (1902), with Crowley’s ownership signature and a few annotations. The two men had been contemporaries in the Golden Dawn at the turn of the century, and Crowley is known to have been an enthusiast for Machen’s writing, including “The Works of Arthur Machen” in his reading list for students of the A∴ A∴ with the observation that “Most of these stories are of great magical interest.” Also unusual is a set of Israel Regardie’s landmark compilation, The Golden Dawn, An Account of the Teachings, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, (4 Volumes, 1937-1940), complete in the rarely-seen original dustjackets and with an interesting provenance. An even less seldom seen edition by Regardie is the first edition of The Art of True Healing. A Treatise on the Mechanism Prayer, and the Operation of the Law of Attraction in Nature (1937). Another curiosity – with probable Regardie connection – is Fr. Wittemans’ A New & Authentic History of the Rosicrucians (1938), a rather pedestrian history of Rosicrucianism that includes a surprisingly good anonymously-contributed chapter on the Golden Dawn, that appears to have been written by someone with inside knowledge of the Order, the evidence suggesting that this was none other than Israel Regardie.

Quirkier items include the Extra Pharmacopoeia of Martindale and Westcott. Vol. I (Seventeenth Edition, 1920), a well-known reference work “of Unofficial Drugs and Chemical and Pharmaceutical Preparations with reference to their use,” of which W. Wynn Westcott, medical doctor, coroner, Rosicrucian and one of the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, was co-editor. This edition is particularly interesting as it is one of the last in which Westcott was involved, and for its short sections on “Cocaine and Opium Regulation,” “Cocaine in Dentistry,” “Narcotic Drugs Order,” “Venereal Diseases Act, 1917,” all addressing issues and legislation which had arisen during the First World War. Also somewhat eccentric, at least by modern standards, is Dion Fortune’s study of marriage – by which she means human romantic and sexual relationships – The Esoteric Philosophy of Love and Marriage (1924), here represented by a first edition in the very scarce dustjacket. Odder by far is Lady Queenborough’s Occult Theocrasy (Two Volumes 1933), a bizzare tirade denouncing a Jesuit-Jewish-Masonic-Illuminati-Bolshevik conspiracy aimed at undermining Christianity and achieving world domination, which is nonetheless very useful those interested in the history of the the Golden Dawn, the S.R.I.A., the O.T.O. and fringe Masonry on account of the numerous documents, including facsimiles of a number of letters from William Wynn Westcott to Theodor Reuss, that it reproduces.” [via]