Golden Dawn Online Resource
William Butler Yeats is one of the many famous names to come from the original Golden Dawn. His poetry and writings were a display of his passion for mysticism and the Occult Sciences. These were largely expressed in various publications (e.g. Your Pathway), earning him the Nobel Prize in 1924 for literature. But more important… read more »
Probably the least known of the three original Chiefs of the Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn, was Dr. William Robert Woodman. Dr. Woodman was described in a Rosicrucian Society pamphlet written by W.W. Westcott as “a student of Old Hebrew Philosophy (Qabalah) and Egyptian Antiquities. He was familiar with works of Gnostics, Platonists, Neo-Platonists,… read more »
Dr. William Wynn Westcott was born in Leamington, Warkwickshire, England on December 17, 1848. Dr. Westcott’s parents died when he was 10 years old and he was adopted by his uncle who, like his father, was a medical doctor. Dr. Westcott attended Kingston Grammar School at Kingston-upon-Thames, and graduated from University College, London with a… read more »
Arthur Edward Waite was born in America on October 2nd, 1857, in the city of Brooklyn, New York. His father, Charles F. Waite, who was a merchant marine, died at sea when Arthur was a small boy. After the death of his father, Waite’s mother moved the family back to London. Because His father and… read more »
Pamela Colman Smith was born on February 16th 1878 in Pimlico, central London to Charles Edward Smith and Corinne Colman. In lieu of her father’s career, a merchant for the West India Improvement Company, the three of them would move frequently between Brooklyn, London, Manchester, and Jamaica. By the age of ten her mother had… read more »
From the Fire comes the Smoke from the Smoke leaps the Fire: Born a Scorpio in the City of London, Israel Regardie began life in a poor Jewish family. During this time London was referred to as The Big Smoke a nickname it received for its notorious fog and smog at that time. “Only the… read more »
Samuel Liddel Mathers was born in 1854 at what is now 108 De Beauvoir Road, London, N.I.. His birthday is January the eighth, making him a Capricorn. Mathers claimed to be a descendant of the clan MacGregor and of Highland Scottish blood. Thus, this is why he added the name “MacGregor.” Mathers, according to William… read more »
Moina Mathers was born Mina Bergson on February 28, 1865, in Geneva, Switzerland. She was the fourth out of seven children. Her parents, Michel Gabriel Bergson and Katherine Levison, were an Irish-Jewish couple who migrated from Dublin, Paris; and it was probably from her mother that Moina adopted her inclination towards the spiritual. Due to… read more »
The renowned 16th century alchemist, theurgist and clairvoyant Edward Kelly began his early career practicing as a lawyer, though he was soon arrested for forgery and was sentenced to having both ears cut off. Ashamed and humiliated, Kelly fled to Wales where he went for some time under the name of Edward Talbot. In wales,… read more »
“Deo Non Fortuna,” “By God not Fate;” this was the motto, later the nom dé plume of Dion Fortune. Born in 1890 in Llandudno, Wales, Violet Mary Firth, Fortune’s birth name, was raised in a family whose values were rigorously ascribed to Christian Science. Christian Science is a religious teaching regarding the efficacy of spiritual… read more »