Modern Ritual Magic: The Rise of Western Occultism

by Francis X. King

Here is the inside story of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn told in its entirety for the first time. Francis King describes the conflict between W. B. Yeats and Aleister Crowley, the often... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1853270326
• ISBN13: 9781853270321
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Avery Publishing Group
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Interesting but incomplete

This work relates the history of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and its various offshoots. The author discusses personalities like W.B Yeats, Israel Regardie, Aleister Crowley, MacGregor Mathers and Dion Fortune. He discuses the survival of the underground magical tradition, Masonic Rosicrucians and the founding of the Golden Dawn. He gives an account of the frequent quarrels between the leading personalities and how various groups split up into new orders. There are interesting pieces on topics as diverse as Rudolf Steiner, the contemporary witch cult and Austin Osman Spare, but only a cursory reference to Chaos Magick. The eight appendices provide information on, inter alia, Mathers' version of the Grimoires, the identity of Steiner's teachings plus the Golden Dawn's Official history Lecture. The book is very informative and revealing. What I find puzzling about some of these characters, is that their personal lives did not reflect the high ideals of so-called High Magick. Some of them were downright unsavoury characters and there were scandals galore. Before I taint everyone with the same brush, I must add that this does not seem to have been true for Steiner and Fortune. The omission of any reference to the Ogdoadic tradition and Aurum Solis in particular, is a flaw and makes this work incomplete. The book concludes with a bibliography, reading list and a notes section on sources.