Victorian Occultism and the Golden Dawn: The Anatomy of the Outer Order
In 1888, a monumental record of the Western esoteric tradition was established in London that would define the landscape of modern occultism: the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn . Founded by William Wynn Westcott, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, and William Robert Woodman, the order sought to move beyond the fragmented surface of traditional Masonry to reveal the absolute Hierarchical Structure of reality —a multi-dimensional methodology for understanding how the unmanifested light of the One is concentrated and focused through the various rank of the Outer Order . For the Golden Dawn practitioner, the Great Work was the systematic application of Kabbalistic and Hermetic Theurgy to achieve the state of Absolute Sovereignty . To understand the Golden Dawn is to confront the concept of Initiatory Correspondence . The order teaches that the universe is a tiered architecture of light, currently in a state of "Atmospheric Friction" due to the influence of the planetary Ar...