The Golden Dawn

A couple of interesting stories in The Scotsman involving the history of the occult organization The Golden Dawn. From Thursday's edition:

In the spring of 1903 the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn – a magical society beloved of WB Yeats – broke into pieces, fragmented by its quarrelsome members. In the power vacuum created after the schism a well-respected Edinburgh lawyer fully expected to become overall chief. John William Brodie-Innes, founder of the Order's Amen-Ra Temple in Edinburgh failed utterly in his desire to rule the Order. The writer AE Waite witnessed his humiliation and noted that "it was almost pitiful to notice the change which came over the poor small Pope of Edinburgh". The Golden Dawn was the most well known of the occult groups to emerge at the end of the 19th century. The Order combined a hotchpotch of Masonic ritual with eastern esoteric thought. Under the leadership of Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mather it also moved into the realm of practical magic. Members were instructed in the art of alchemy, the tarot, astrology and astral travel. Eventually Mather was to lose control after a bout of "psychic duelling" with the black magician Aleister Crowley. snip Although the Temple was secretive, a small glimpse of what went on is offered to us by the author Arthur Conan Doyle. He was asked to join in 1898 but found it all "queer and disagreeable" hating in particular the "astral examination" carried out on him. He declined to join. There is a suspicion that Bram Stoker, a friend of Brodie-Innes may have been less fastidious than Doyle and accepted an invitation to join.

The group has a fascinating history and the story is well-worth the click. This story, The Strange Case of Psychic Murder, was published in May (free registration required):

A WOMAN is found dead on the island of Iona near the Fairy Mound, a place associated locally with magic and dark deeds. She is naked, but for a strange cloak and her feet are bloodied and swollen. In her hands is a knife and her body lies atop a crude cross carved out of the peat. There is a look of terror on her face. You would be forgiven for thinking that this is the start of a newly discovered Sherlock Holmes story, but these events describe the death in 1929 of Norah Fornario, a clever, but slightly eccentric student of the occult. Fornario was a member of the Alpha and Omega, an offshoot of the esoteric and theosophical Golden Dawn. These late-19th century societies set up by the occultist Samuel Liddell Mathers promoted western and eastern mysticism. The infamous black magician Aleister Crowley was one of the novices attracted by the colourful rites and promise of power.