Liddel "MacGregor" Mathers was born on January 8, 1854. Mathers founded the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which handed down a body of literature that forms the basis for many magical lodges today. The Golden Dawn, as it is popularly called, used the Qabala, Rosicrucian ceremony, and ancient Egyptian practices as the basis for a lodge that would help bring back the worship of the Goddess and cement the practices of modern ceremonial magic. Mathers was part of what was called "The Celtic Movement" when he met poet William Butler Yeats in the Reading Room of the British Museum. Yeats joined the Golden Dawn along with several other people famous at the time, including George Bernard Shaw, Florence Farr, Maud Gonne, and Aleister Crowley. Eventually the Golden Dawn broke apart, and the former members founded their own lodges and improvised upon Mathers' teachings. Still, it was Mathers who had set the ball rolling and ushered in a New Age of magical practice. |
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