Table Of Content~
PRISM . UNITY
MODERN
RITUAL MAGIC
THE RISE OF
WESTERN OCCULTISM
FRANCIS KING
MODERN RITUAL MAGIC
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Il Camino del Serpente
The Cosmic Influence
Encyclopedia of Fortune Telling
Magic: The Western Tradition
The Magical World of Aleister Crowley
The Rebirth of Magic (with Isabel Sutherland)
Rudolf Steiner and Holistic Medicine
Satan and Swastika
Tantra for Westerners
Techniques of High Magic (with Stephen Skinner)
Wisdom from Afar
Witchcraft and Demonology
EDITED BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Astral Projection, Ritual Magic and Alchemy (by S.L. MacGregor
Mathers and Others)
The Grimoire of Armadel
MODERN
RITUAL MAGIC
THE RISE OF WESTERN OCCULTISM
FRANCIS KING
f i
PRISM . UNITY
Originally published as Ritual Magic in England in 1970 by Neville
Spearman Limited
This revised edition published in Great Britain in 1989 by
PRISM PRESS
2 South Street
Bridport
Dorset DT6 3NQ
and distributed in the USA by
AVERY PUBLISHING GROUP INC.
350 Thorens Avenue
Garden City Park
New York 11040
and published in Australia 1989 by
UNlIT PRESS
6a Ortona Road
Lindfield
NSW 2070
1 853270326
Reprinted 1990
Copyright © 1989 Francis King
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publishers.
Printed and bound in the Channel Islands
by The Guernsey Press Limited
CONTENTS
FOREWORD 9
ONE The Rosicrucian Legend 11
TWO The Survival and Romanticisation of
the Underground Magical Tradition 19
THREE Masonic Rosicrucians 25
FOUR Dr. Westcott and a Goat 39
FIVE Some Personalities 47
SIX Hierarchy 54
SEVEN Revolt 66
EIGHT Miss Homiman is Disturbed 73
NINE A Bogus Golden Dawn 79
TEN Splinters 94
ELEVEN Dr. Felkin Seeks a Master 97
TWELVE . . . And Brodie-Innes Finds One 109
THIRTEEN The Astrum Argentinum and the
O.T.O. 113
FOURTEEN Dr. Felkin's Astral Junkies 127
FIFTEEN The Cromlech Temple 134
SIXTEEN Mrs. Mathers Accused of Murder 141
SEVENTEEN "Regardie and His Impact 152
EIGHTEEN Dion Fortune and the Fraternity of the
Inner Light " 156
5
CONTENTS
NINETEEN Later Crowleyan Derivatives 159
TWENTY An Alchemical Rebirth of the Golden
Dawn
TWENTY-ONE The Contemporary Witch-Cult
TWENTY-TWO A New System of Magic
TWENTY-THREE The Cubic Stone and Other New
Organisations in the Golden Dawn
Tradition 185
TWENTY~FOUR A Summing Up 191
APPENDIX A The Cipher Manuscripts' Skeletonic
Form 193
APPENDIX B Mathers' Version of the Grimoires 194-
APPENDIX C The Astral Workings of the Sphere 200
APPENDIX D Later Teachings Received from Mathers 203
APPENDIX E The Identity of Steiner's Teachers 205
APPENDIX F The Cromlech Temple's Teachings on
Morality and Sexuality 207
APPENDIX G The Golden Dawn's Official History
Lecture 212
APPENDIX H Selected Bibliography and a Note on
Sources 218
BIBLIOGRAPHY 220
6
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Dr. F. I. Regardie for permission to quote a passage from
his Tree of Life, recently reprinted by Samuel 1. Weiser Inc.
To Messrs. Hutchinson for permission to quote from the
Occult Review; to Messrs. Thorson for permission to quote a
passage from Dion Fortune's Psychic Self Defence; to the Britons
Publishing Co. for permission to make quotations; to the kind~
ness of Mr. John Symonds for stating that, as Crowley's literary
executor, he had no objection to me quoting Crowley's original
ideas for the ordeals of his new Magical Order; to Mr. D.
Edwards and the Wardens of the Order of the Cubic Stone for
permission to quote from The Monolith.
To G.A.D. for help at all stages of the writing of this book;
to Christine Crystal for her assistance with the Index; to Stanley
Waters for his assistance with typing; and, finally, a special
thank you to Gerald Yorke for his kindness, loan of documents,
and tremendous help-particularly in the early stages of my
research.
FOREWORD
From time to time the English newspapers report the desecra
tion of some deserted country Church for the purposes of 'Black
Magic', or comment upon the activities of some minor cult or
secret society. Frequently these stories are illustrated with the
photographs of naked, or semi-naked, men and women engaged
in either dancing around a blazing fire or standing rapt before
a crude altar on which are displayed swords, scourges, oil,
knives and the other traditional impedimenta of the sorcerer.
These newspaper reports are only the tip of the iceberg, an
outward and rather exhibitionistic manifestation of the aston
ishing revival of mediaeval magic and alchemy that has taken
place in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
This rebirth of interest in subjects which the nineteenth
century agnostics thought of as having been swept into the
dustbin of history is not only of interest to those concerned
with occult studies in general, and ritual magic in particular,
but, in fact, has far wider implications. For the story of how
this revival occurred throws much light on the early lives and
beliefs of such apparently diverse characters as W. B. Yeats,
Aleister Crowley, and Charles Williams and is, at the same time,
of a certain general sociological importance.
My real story begins in 1887, but, as the general reader might
find it difficult to plunge into the events of that and following
years without, at least, some knowledge of the survival of the
magical-mystical tradition in Western Europe, I have thought
it advisable to both outline the Rosicrucian legend and its
ramifications in eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe and
to give a brief account of the survival of magic in England. This
I have done in my early chapters; such of my readers as are
familiar with this material could, with advantage, skip these
sections of the book and commence with the chapter entitled
'Dr. Westcott and a Goat'.
9
Description: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 difficult relationship between Yeats and Kabbalist MacGregor Mathers and Rudolph Steiner's attempt to tak
