August 18, 2026 • 56 mins
In the late 19th century, several friends and Freemasons ambarked on a strange endeavor -- creating their own secret society for the purpose of studying magic. While the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn may sound bizarre and obscure today, its existence had a profound impact on later, similar groups and systems. But what exactly was it? Perhaps more importantly -- did any of this magic work? Tune in to learn more in this week's Classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm a conspiracy realist. Tonight's classic episode comes from twoenty
(00:04):
twenty one.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
How long ago was that?
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Several years?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
We counted.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Uh, this is something Matt that you and I, Noel
and Tennessee and Mission Control had always been pretty fascinated with.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
But you and.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I would talk about this way back when we first met.
Because it's just so strange and esoteric. I'm building it
up too much. What's this classic episode about?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Well, you're just making me think about Albert Pike's super
secret magic necklace thing that we talked about for a
while there, thinking about freemasonry and secret societies, and then
a little group of folks that got together and said, guys,
what if we made an even secret or society and
we'll call it something really epic.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah, And so they got together and what they came
up with was a I love the phrase, a secret society.
The secret society is called the Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dot. It might sound obscure and bizarre today, and
it is bizarre. But what you're going to be surprised
(01:14):
to find here, folks, if this is the first time
hearing about the Golden Dawn, is that I had a
huge impact on later groups and later systems, and Matt
for me in this exploration, the biggest question is did
any of this magic work?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
I bet we get to the bottom of it in
the following episode, do we?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah? Sure we all.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
We'll at least talk about it every while.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Paul. Mission control decands. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. And I was thinking over the
past few days that everybody we meet, to one degree
or another, participates in something that could be called a
(02:33):
secret or occulted organization. It may be some like group
you're a member of during your schooling days. It might
be some weird, you know, class organization like the various
orders that aristocrats have. It might just be fandom for
a particular artist right or something you're interested in. Or
it might be a bond built upon surviving a particular
(02:57):
type of trauma. Right, it might be something entirely extracurricular,
but we're all members of all these various different things,
and that's that's not necessarily a bad thing. Right. Just
because a bunch of people are into some like weird
Cadillac forum on the Internet, doesn't mean they're automatically the Illuminati, right, Like,
are we all kind of into weird stuff?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah? I mean, you know, just by virtue of being podcasters,
we're sort of softly initiated into a weird kind of
cabal of sorts.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Right, that's a good point. I hadn't thought of that,
but that's a good point. Sorry, Sorry who God Anyway,
today's this will make sense later or not. Today's episode
focuses on a particular school of thought. It's an organization
that prizes itself on exclusivity, on the idea of initiation,
(03:50):
accreating knowledge incrementally, and yes, a form of magic. So
today's question, what is the Golden on Here are the
facts full name of it, the Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dawn. Today we see it as an odd, an
odd group, somewhat forgotten by the mainstream, but it played
(04:13):
a fundamental role in today's magical organizations. The weirdest thing
about it was at the time, in the eighteen nineties,
eighteen eighties or so, it was well, I think it
kind of functioned like a social network. I don't know
what you guys think as you dive in, but you know,
with magic, right, it's kind of an augmented reality the
(04:35):
more we think about it. Similar to the Latitude Society,
they took ideas that were a unique combination of ancient,
pre existing spiritual traditions and then other stuff that was
happening right before it in the realm of science and spiritualism.
So like the Kabbala, Egyptian, Greek mysteries, several strands of
(04:55):
early Christian thought, all these esoteric traditions combined in the
late eighteen eighties. And the story of the Origin, I'll
let you be the judge. The story of the Origin
feels a little sketchy.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, indeed, the hoot God, okay, right? Who God? Sorry, Ben,
you gotta help us out here. What is this acronym?
I love the way this is.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
That's me be lazy in the notes. It's just shorthand
for the hermetic order of the Golden Dolls.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
That's the one.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
They didn't call themselves whot God.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Well, we talked off Mike, how that would be a
fantastic name for likely a Florida rapper. Perhaps Golf Coast,
I believe is what you said.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Ben, Yeah, I think so, Golf Coast, Golf Coast out there.
It's a great idea.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Okay. So the who Got Hermetic Order of the Golden
Dawn was founded in eighteen eighty seven by a Freemason
by the name of William Wynn Westcott. Www, that's a
fun alliteration there. Also in this group of founders was
Samuel Liddell McGregor Matthews and William Robert Woodman, the least
impressive of those three.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
And all of them were Masons.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yes, indeed correct, a group of Masons, and allegedly they
based their founding of this group on a series of
writings that were collectively known as the Cipher Manuscripts, which
is definitely the name of the first album from Whot God,
no question about that. So these Cipher Manuscripts are a
group of sixty different folios. I guess you could call
(06:26):
them outlining a series of magical intention rights or rituals right.
A ritual is something that is intended to produce a
result through synchronized incantations or something or movement. Various things
can go into a ritual. This podcast contains quite a
few rituals. In fact, you might not even realize it,
(06:47):
but these things were corresponding to the spiritual elements of air, earth, water,
and fire. Yeah. No, it was I ought to say
their powers combined. They are in fact captain planet.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah. And you can think about these rituals and rights,
the things that were contained in these manuscripts somewhat somewhat
like a mixtape. Really, it's it's it's an anthology. We
already mentioned it above, all these varying thoughts and schools
of thought kind of going together into one thing, all
types of different what you would call magical theory, either
(07:22):
with a C or a K, mostly with a K,
and a lot of it is just steeped in symbolism.
So when you when you're looking at these things. The
reason why hoot God is so interesting and funny to me,
it reminds me of Minerva and representations of the owl.
And we were just speaking about this on a listener
mail episode Esoteric Wisdom, Right, Yeah, and and really this this,
(07:45):
this manuscript, the cipher manuscript, is kind of like a
beginner's manual, but it's also the advanced stuff kind of
all together in one. It's just everything you need to
operate as a member of the Hermitic Order of Golden Dawn. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
So if you look at the watermarks on these folios,
on the actual text themselves, it looks like they were
created back in eighteen oh nine, So that's one theory.
They are written in code, and like you said, Matt,
they contain diagrams, symbols, but they also contain this written text.
(08:20):
It's not a particularly difficult code to crack. Numbers are
substituted by Hebrew letters, so for example, a left equals one.
According to the order's own records, Westcott himself discovered slash
decoded the text in or around eighteen eighty seven. Like
we said, when the Order was founded. It's important to
(08:42):
note that these founding members, they all had day jobs.
That's going to be a complicating factor. In just a bit.
Westcott claimed that he had just found these been given them.
He did not say that he had written them, though
later historians would suspect indeed some of his colleagues would
accuse him of just writing them himself and then claiming
(09:06):
some more prestigious authorship. It could have also possibly been
written by Edward.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Litton, who was.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
A popular author at the time associated with some of
these occult beliefs, or a lot of fans of his
work were also fans of these sorts of magical practices. Today,
you'll recognize Bulwer Lytton most easily as the inspiration of
one of my favorite contests, the Bulwer Litton Fiction Contests.
Have you guys heard about this?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
No Never another great name, though.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
I suggest we all consider entering the contest just if
you're bored of an afternoon one day. It's an official
annual contest to write the worst opening sentence of any
possible novel. And I haven't won yet. Like you try
to imagine what the worst novel ever would be, and
(10:00):
then you write the first sentence.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
For that novel.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
That should give you a sense of the kind of
writing bull wherre Lytton did when he was alive.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Wow. Do grammatical errors count toward the badness of it?
Or does it? Do you just have to get that
stuff right it's just the arrangement or no I guess
the the words that you put in there grammatically correct
just need to be terrible.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
You know, sky's the limit. I say, get creative with it. This.
The winner of twenty twenties contest was Lisa Klueber of
San Francisco. This is the winning sentence, her dear John
missive Flapp, done ambiguously in the windy breeze, hanging like
a pizza menu on the doorknob of my mind, I
(10:45):
thought that was all right. It wasn't anyway, that feels.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
More exciting than it should.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I disagree with like the one of the things with
the little doorknob holes in it, right, okay? Got it?
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Also completely unrelated. We were talking about proprietary eponyms. Learned
that doorknob is one, dornob is like a brand name.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
So back to these texts. We don't know who really
wrote them, but there are some guesses. We're going to
give you the version of the order itself, and then
we'll give you some of the critics ideas. So Wescott
told his compatriots that not only had he decoded these texts,
(11:25):
which illuminated various mysteries, but in the process of deciphering
this stuff, he found the address of a German aristocrat
and Rosicrucian named Anna Sprangle. Anna Sprangel was not your
average aristocrat. Wescott believed that she had the ability to
(11:47):
contact some sort of supernatural and or extra dimensional entity,
which they were collectively referred to as the Secret Chiefs,
which is a term I had never heard before. Like
we've heard Machinel, Right.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
There's a band called the Secret Chiefs, like kind of
a weird almost like mister that was actually related to
mister Bungle, but kind of like almost like a metal
jazz band called the Secret Chiefs. I never knew where
that term came from. I always thought it was the
oddest name. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
So the Hidden Kings, this is very interesting. Hmm all right,
So allegedly the Hidden Kings are the ones who wrote
this thing.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Or inspired the guided the hand of the person who
did write them.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
And this isn't necessarily a new idea, the idea of
divinely inspired written texts, right, This is this is something
that dates back to religions of old. It continues today
with various organizations. The Secret Chiefs themselves are specifically mentioned
in earlier works, like one called The Cloud upon the
(12:53):
Sanctuary back in seventeen ninety five by a name that Noel.
I will defer to your German in pronouncing.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Okay, I'm gonna give this my young gem and boy.
All let's see.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
This would be Ka von ekott Schausen, Kaul von Ekottshausen.
Maybe it's more of an Ekotzhausen. Maybe I may be
doing too hard of an sh but I've given it Mile.
That's is the best I can do.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
I like both of them, sex man, so I love it.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
So this gentleman allegedly wrote this thing way way before,
well not that far before, if it was, in fact,
you know, written in eighteen oh nine, but it was,
as we said, discovered in eighteen eighty seven. So he
wrote this work The Cloud upon the Sanctuary in seventeen nineties,
seventeen ninety five, something like that, exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
So we see a rough timeline that we can trace
through the use of these particular phrases. Right this Secret Chiefs,
Hidden Kings, stuff like that. The Golden Dawn did differ
from some earlier, arguably similar groups, and even differed from
some groups that would exist around the same time period
because it did not restrict membership along the lines of gender.
(14:07):
Unlike Freemasonry, women were treated as equals and allowed into
this order. It's progressive for its time. So things started
going wrong pretty quickly. Spoiler Westcott had to leave leadership
of the Order when he literally lost some papers in
a cab. He just forgot to take them. You know,
(14:28):
it's like leaving your phone in an uber, but you
have the necronomicon with you on your phone or something.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Or your phone. Your phone is the necronomic.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
On your phone is the is the necronomicon. So the
Secret Chiefs did not appear to help him out as
far as his day job goes. Because word got to
his employers. They discovered his connection to this group that
at the time would seem pretty odd, and they gave
him a choice. They said, look, you can keep working
(14:59):
here and stop around with Magic WW, or you can
leave because you will be fired. So Westcott thought about it.
We don't know too many of the specifics. Ultimately he said,
you know, I'm going to stick with my career as
a coroner, and i am going to still be associated,
you know, low key with this group, but I'm not
(15:19):
going to be an active, prominent member because I got
bills to pay.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
He was a corner and he was dabbling in magic.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Does that mean he was was he stealing organs and
other gutty parts from black magic c k rituals?
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I mean, if you wanted to be a necromancer, that's
a pretty good place to start.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yeah, no, one's going to miss an errant spleen here
and there.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
That's true. You know, I thought the same thing too.
I couldn't find and tell us if you have an
inside scoop, folks, but I couldn't find any reports to that.
Of course, we're joshing a bit. We don't want to
just accuse somebody of necromancy.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Oh yeah, no, I know. No, I'm just look just
stating the fact that if there are corpses near your
person as part of your day job, that it would
be helpful if one were interested in some of those
dark arts. That's all.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yes, well said, and it's a very good point.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Also.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
I just love that, in the context of this episode,
it sounds like we have in the past ruined someone's
lives by accusing them of being a necromancer, and now
we're taking pains to make sure that's not the case.
But you're right, You're right, circumstantial if nothing else, it's
definitely the pieces are there, right, We just don't know
(16:39):
what sort of picture the puzzle makes.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Last thing, it would just it would be a headline
in like the Mirror or something. A local area person
accused of necromancy loses job over kerfuffle and no one
would ever think about it again.
Speaker 6 (16:56):
Just say yeah, yeah, first paragraph, it's like local corridor
was discovered after leaving magical documents and grimoirese in Uber.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
So yeah, you know what, maybe we should write for
the Mirror. But look, this is a true story. And
the rest of it, the rest of the story of
the group's origin and its evolution, quickly descends into a
story of obscure conspiracies, wheels within wheels, competing motivations, competing
(17:31):
magical philosophies, secret societies forming like within secret societies, and
then a study of just good old fashioned backstabbing. But
what actually happened to the Golden Dawn, and perhaps most importantly,
did any of the magic work? We'll dive into this
(17:52):
after a word from our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy.
Let's tackle those two questions separately, Right, what actually happened
to the organization and you know, how did the organization work?
And then we'll get to we'll get to the magic.
(18:15):
We have to get to the magic at some point.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
So yeah, let's talk about how popular the Old Golden
Dawn was in its heyday, if you will. It was
a big part of Victorian society. Strangely enough, you wouldn't
imagine that magic was running wild in regular society. Well, yes,
somewhat not fully, but somewhat right. There are all kinds
(18:38):
of notable members from the top of society all the
way down to the bottom. There was one member named
Annie Hornieman. This person actually built Ireland's Abbey Theater. Have
you ever heard of that? That's a famous theater that exists.
This person built that. She was also a member of
the Golden Dawn. Pretty cool, huh.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
And then there were poets and authors involved, like William Butler.
Yeats is probably one of the most famous members of
the Golden Down, or one of the most well remembered
in the modern day. And he is on record saying
that other than writing poetry, which he's kind of known for,
the other most important pursuit of his life was his
(19:19):
membership in the Golden Down, which is a big thing
to say. Other authors like Algernon Blackwood were also members,
and then well to do people scientists, folks who were
practicing forms of meditation, things like that, Folks who are
just interested in hanging out and talking about this stuff.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Well, really quickly, I just wanted to mention, I believe,
correct me if I'm wrong, guys, that Alex, our buddy
Alex Williams podcast Ephemeral did like a special Halloween episode
where they did a reading of an Algernon Blackwood story.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, and we were literally talking about that a few
hours ago, about how influential Algernon was and is still
on like.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Horror writing essentially, right, m hmm, yeah, Yeah, a tremendously
influential horror writer. So it makes sense that in his
non authorial time he would be interested in these sorts
of spiritual philosophical explorations. But of course, there is one
other person associated with the Order of the Golden Dawn
(20:26):
in a controversial way. This is a guy who you
are doubtlessly familiar with if you've listened to our show before.
He's occasionally referred to as the Great Beast.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
That's right, Alistair Crowley. I'm saying Crowley on purpose. You
could call him Crowley if you want, but after the
comments on YouTube, we I will forever see his name
be traumatized and then say Crawley. It's Crawley. But you're
aware of that name, and you're likely aware of the
Golden Dawn because of him, at least I certainly was.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
And we'll dive into his association, which I think gets
a little bit exaggerated sometimes given the rest of his
other work post Golden down But the downfall of this
organization or the troubles it would have in its evolution,
these were all present in the early days, in its formation.
(21:21):
For the first few years, it was just that it
was a single group of people studying the Cipher manuscripts together, right,
and they were reading this stuff saying, hey, what do
you think about this philosophy of air?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Or this passage about fire. This group, this initial group,
would later be called the Outer Order or the First Order.
And all you did in the First Order was get
graded by fellow members and superiors in terms of your
understanding of the arts and philosophies explored in those initial
(21:57):
texts we mentioned Earth.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Air Fire Order.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
You began as a neophyte, you eventually progressed through several
ranks to become a kind of intermediate. Why is there
an intermediate thing if the outer order is like complete, Well,
it's because in eighteen ninety two a secret society kind
of begins. In this secret society, it calls itself the
Inner Order or the second Order, the cool part of
(22:24):
the cool kids club. And this second order is entirely
composed of people who have who have literally passed a
written examination about the stuff from the first order, and
you can you can join up with the first order,
but getting into the second order requires social approval. The
(22:44):
other people that are already in the order have to
dig you. They have to think you're on the same page,
and that's where you start learning what we as outsiders
would probably call practical or applied magic and ritual. But
it doesn't end there. They have three ranks Adeptist, Minor, Major,
and at the top Exemptist. There is a third order. However,
(23:09):
this is really where it gets really weird. If if
the third Order is real, then Matt I was thinking
of our conversations about that excellent video game control that
you would recommend it a while back. If the third
Order is real. It's composed of things that are like
those extra dimensional monsters in control totally.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
It's it's what do we call the secret chiefs, right
like they they exist in another realm, in another place,
but that they are the power structure that is above
even the adept in the EXEMPTUS.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah, and if you are exemptists, or if you are
high enough in your understanding and your membership in the
second order, then you can function as an intermediate for
these otherwise unobservable entities. And this horse wrinkles some feathers,
especially when Mather, the guy we mentioned earlier, when he
(24:05):
starts being a very strict leader, and he's like the
he's like the voice of these entities and no one
else can communicate with them except for him. He brings
the divine knowledge.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Oh, he's got the hotline or what was it called.
He's like in that room that's separated from everything, and
you can you pick up the phone and you can
talk to the board that's him.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
So as you can see, this tendency for in groups
to create even more insular groups within themselves eventually led
to tension, distrust, internal conflict, and ultimately these conflicts led
to the downfall of the organization after it's wait for it,
golden age. It did have a golden I'm sorry, I'm
(24:48):
sorry we had to. It did have a golden age though,
because at the time, you know it, it was something
that people accept like it was controversial at first, but
eventually it became an accepted thing in society. It wasn't
seen as necessarily in opposition to the status quo, if
that makes sense, like it would be. It was no
(25:10):
longer something you would necessarily get fired for. In fact,
it might have made you look kind of cool and
the thing. Despite these earlier problems, the Golden Dawn, some
version of it exists today in the modern day of
multiple places. It is possible to become a member, and
we can tell you how towards the end of today's show,
(25:30):
Oh can't wait.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Ben, Is this like really magic or is this sort
of symbolic magic, like for the sake of a club
and camaraderie, Like do they really think they're affecting outcomes
of like world events or like how deep did this go?
Speaker 1 (25:45):
That's a great question. Let's get to the magic, right
this is so we've got we've got the background, all
the stuff, we talked about did really happen? But what
kind of magic were these members? Practicing magic can mean
a million different things. If you read up on the
history of the group, it's easy to get deterred because
(26:05):
it falls into a lot of talk about structure organization.
There are a lot of foreign phrases, a lot of
jargon terminology, things like that, So it's easy, it's easy
to get turned off by that, but it's crucial to
note again, like Matt said earlier, the Golden Dawn did
borrow heavily from earlier spiritual belief systems, but it was
(26:27):
not in itself a religion. When we define magic, we're
inherently our definition is inherently relying upon a specific cultural lens.
Like there's practical magic, right, Can I make that? Can
I make this thing float? Can I have precognitive dreams?
(26:49):
Or send my consciousness away from my body? And then
there's the more metaphorical stuff like who are we in
the universe? And what is this whole reality thing? So
they had we start with the metaphysical stuff. They had
a number of metaphysical pursuits at play.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, that's right. So the idea is that through ceremony
and ritual like we were talking about, an individual might
be able to achieve kind of that esoteric knowledge, that
knowledge of the of the gods perhaps or like of
the spheres that otherwise would be completely out of reach
for mere mortals, right, the kind of stuff that would
(27:27):
like blow your mind up if someone that was not
prepared to receive it did so. That includes things like
being able to leave your body, or leave your body
spiritually and project your consciousness into other places, a process
known as astral projection, clairvoyance, you know, psychic powers, being
(27:50):
able to read people's minds or see the future, or
very specific to this belief system, communicating specifically with those
secret chiefs, you would reach on another plane of existence entirely.
Then you get into more abstract kind of philosophical ideas
that are wrapped up in it, things like hidden truths
(28:13):
that there's a unity within all the things as well,
those interconnectedness and things that might at first appear to
be a little contradictory.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Right, yeah, just a bit. Yates talks about it when
he says he describes it as tapping into the single
energetic mind or the single memory of nature.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
It's we see This reflected in later ideas about Earth
as a super organism, right the guy a hypothesis and
so on and similar to that. But really, then, from
the abstract lens, what they are saying is that magic
can be defined as the process of removing limitations and preconceptions. Right,
(28:56):
so the alchemy that takes place is in alchemy of cognitiate,
you shit, more so than an alchemy of metals, right
of base metals to gold.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
You know. It really makes me wonder if they had
a specialist mage that could, let's say, remove all the
water from your body, or another one that could infect
your brain with all of the known and unknown things
that could possibly happen to your brain. You know, just
if you ever come across i don't know, some kind
(29:25):
of ancient octopus entity like you could get it removed
from your body, and you'd need a specialist like that.
I've been watching too much Sabrina. Sorry, I didn't mean
to watch it.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
It just happened Sabrina the teenage Way.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Sorry, jeez, wait, it was really good.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah, sorry, let's move on. Yeah, having flashbacks. It's the
production value this season is really quit.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
All right, I'll check it out, man. Uh, Yeah, So
if we if we take these claims of extra sensory
persons and maybe even supernatural powers aside, if we just
bracket that for a second, then some of the descriptions
of what people are doing here practicing sounds kind of
like therapy, right, It's kind of like a self inventory
(30:16):
or what's that great quote describing magic weaponized psychology. So
it's maybe not so much changing your external reality as
it is enhancing your ability to perceive reality as it
always was. It's allowing you to experience things in a new,
more conscious way. And I was thinking about this like
(30:36):
as far as an analogy, remember back when we were
doing an episode on Ireland's Vanishing Triangle and Matt, you
did something really interesting, which is to you went through
Google Earth, I believe, and you started constructing an overlay,
a skin to put on the area such that we
could see different events and see when they occurred. That
(31:01):
has a lot of similarities with the idea of philosophical
magic here, right.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Oh yeah, I could see that. I could definitely see that.
It's also very reminiscent of modern insular groups that we've
discussed on this show recently. I'm thinking about Nexium thinking
about our discussions with Mike Grinder, thinking about it just
has very very very similar things where on the surface,
(31:28):
there appears to be exactly what you're saying here ben
a self help kind of thing, a self improvement or
map that you get to follow, but at the end
of that map there's something that is really hidden, or
or there's something you know just very different or a
different route to get there.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
I guess yeah, yeah. The Google Earth example, right, maybe
you apply an overlayer of skin on an area of
Google Earth that you're looking at, and maybe you have
one map that shows future planned constructions. So you go
down the street, you walk around, You've got this cool
map that says this is coming in twenty twenty three,
or this is coming in twenty fifty four, or alternatively,
(32:12):
you could have a map that shows how a place
looked a thousand years ago. This is what London looked
like back in ten twenty one, or something like that.
You haven't then necessarily changed anything about the outer world,
but you have changed your perception of it, and therefore
your actions will reflect and potentially benefit from this new perspective.
(32:36):
From a secular viewpoint, If we want to look just
at the group dynamics of this. There could be another
kind of magic at play, and we might some people
might not want us to call it magic, but I
I think it's not too different social engineering, right, It's
a club.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
The society itself would let the members of the different
classes and background ex listed in society, people who would
be considered by others to be lowly others to be
you know, notable and in power, essentially allow them to
interact and encounter each other in ways that they just
wouldn't have that opportunity outside of being in this group.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
So it was merit based in some way. It wasn't
just you know, cutting off certain parts of the social
you know, ladder like like. It wasn't closed off to
the lower the lower classes. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Apparently it was unusually progressive.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
That's fast in that way.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, yeah, And it's not necessarily sinisters. So I don't
want to poison the well. But for anybody who's read
the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson,
there is an organization of bad guys in the story.
They're called Dark Friends, and they they function kind of
(33:51):
the same way. They have this hidden knowledge, they have
signals they use to indicate their presence to one another.
Also similar Matt to the Latitude Society. Right, dark friends
are fictional and dark friends are definitely antagonists, but this
organization itself is not necessarily antagonistic, nor is it necessarily sinister.
(34:15):
But it definitely feels cool to be included. Right, You're like, oh, hey,
what did you do today? I went to I went
to the pub, and then I talked with a fellow
member of my order who happens to be you know,
the Duke of Middlebury on Sandwich or whatever.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Yeah, well, it reminds me of some of these country
clubs that exist, or these private health clubs or something where.
But in this case that the entry fee, the bar
to entry is different. It's very different. It's more about
are you interested in this more esoteric version of the
(34:55):
world or of reality, and that's really all you need.
You're still gonna have to pay something to get in,
but you know, you don't have to spend several thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
And of course there were cases of con artists being
involved in impersonating members of the Order or claiming to
be a temple when they were you know, just doing
a money grab.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
But this.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Kind of street, this kind of social circuit moves both ways.
So not only did it allow people to have access
to maybe influential individuals they might not have otherwise interacted with,
it is also possible that these influential individuals themselves could
have used their presence in the organization to advance their
(35:39):
own worldly goals. Hey, you know, great meeting today. Before
we leave, I need you to help me with this
import deal. I'm working on things like that.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
You know.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
It's quite possible, and it's also quite possible that all
of this was occurring at the same time, and that
different people were prioritizing different things in their relationship to
the organization. We're going to pause for word from our sponsor,
and then we'll return with a well with a great
example of when these motivations contradict one another.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Oh God, and we're back to talk about the dark
One himself, the Great Beast, the Grand Magician, Wizard, high Wizard.
I made up all those except for the Great Beast.
(36:34):
I believe. Alistair Crowley, Alista Crowley.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Here he is, Ladies and gentlemen. Alistair.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
He was around in the late eighteen hundreds and joined
the Order in eighteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
And he is an episode all his own. He's one
of those kind of phantom topics we mentioned earlier because
comes up in various related topics. The Golden Dawn heavily
influenced a lot of what he would go on to
write and a lot of what he would go on
to claim to believe. He did not really care for
(37:09):
a lot of the members that were already in the
organization when he joined up, because he thought he thought
they were like holding call Field style phonies.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
He said, look, you're not in this for the real reasons.
You're in it because it works out for you socially,
or it gives you material rewards.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
You're in the country club.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
You're in the country club. Yeah, exactly. He was saying,
this should not be a country club. It's kind of
like the way someone might take up golf, not because
they care about golf, but because it gives them access
to money, advancement, and power. So that's what he that's
his issue that he had with a lot of those members,
but they also had some issues with him.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
He was a bit of a libertine, a bit of
a hedonist, you know, very open about it. Those a
little bit, but yeah, and wasn't ashamed of his uh,
his sexual proclivities. Uh, and was very gregarious and then
just you know, really kind of brought a whole another
(38:11):
b D energy kind of to the to the group.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
You know, bellicose in derogatory, didactic correct.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Yeah. Yeah, and he uh, he progressed through that first
order where you're learning most of these spiritual metaphysical concepts,
and he wanted to be in the second order, but
a lot of people were against it. They were like,
this guy, no way, do you know what he gets
up to on the weekends.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
He goes to pyramids with his wife and they you
should see the incantations. Oh that was later.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
That was later.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, They're like, how disgusting. Tell me more in detail.
Uh yeah, So there was there was controversy, right, but
the guy that he was following, Mather, liked him, and
so Mather unilaterally inducted him into this second order, which
caused a great deal of problems. He became like Mather's
(39:11):
sort of he did things for Mather, and he also
experimented heavily with the ritualistic use of drugs. Everything comes
to a culmination when he and his mistress try to
take over a space that was rented by the Order
in West Kensington. This goes to court and when the
(39:33):
case goes to court, he loses, and that's one of
the final nails in the coffin of his official membership.
But weirdly enough, and you know, he went on to
do all the other stuff that you know about, But
weirdly enough, his interaction with this group is one of
the few reasons mainstream society talks about the Golden Dawn today.
(39:56):
Even if he didn't like them, he helped keep their
legacy around.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Oh yeah, and that's what we talked about. I mean,
he he is probably the search term that gets many
people to a Hermetic Order site or to something written
about Hermetic Order. It's because they went Alistair Corawly. But
you know that there's something really interesting that we can
(40:23):
talk about here. Because as open as they were, as
large of a membership as the Golden Dawn had, they
were able to keep a lot of their stuff very
very quiet, at least the materials they used to learn,
rituals to learn a lot of the more secretive knowledge.
They were able to keep that stuff hidden at least
pretty well.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
And this occurs, of course, because they know everybody who
would have access to that information, kind of like the
way in a film production, scripts will be watermarked, so
you know what leaked or what didn't leak. Even so
specifics of the story might be excised or changed just
a bit so you can say, oh, we put that
(41:06):
TYPEO there on purpose. That way we would know if
Reginald or whoever spilled the beans.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
Revenge pa always stealing scripts and sending them over to
where do you send scripts? I don't I don't even
know scripts.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
You mean prescriptions or scripts?
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Script like screenplays?
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Oh? Screenplays? Okay, what like? You're leaking it to TMZE
that works.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
And then somewhere right now, JJ Abrams is listening to
this podcast and he roses fist up in the sky
and he goes Reginald.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
He knew it. Don't mess with Disney if you're gonna
steal a script, don't mess with Disney.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
No, don't mess with the mouse.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
No, that's true, It'll come for you. And he's terrifying
in person. Let me tell you my script.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Well, there's a dark listen side.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
No, he's one of the founding members.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Okay, yeah, so so now socide they all took a
specific valve of silence, but that valve of silence didn't last.
And that is why today you can see detailed descriptions
of various specific rights on any number of websites like
chrometic dot com is a pretty great resource. And don't worry, folks,
(42:17):
it's not a bunch of witches like cackling around a
cauldron or practicing human sacrifice. What's interesting here is that
the Golden Down itself, nothing ever happens in a vacuum, right,
The Golden Down itself occurs in the same kind of
cultural context of spirituality spiritualism, rather than science of emerging psychology,
(42:40):
like the Western fascination with what they called Eastern mysteries
like meditation or yoga. They definitely came bundled up with
a lot of xenophobia, a lot of racist notions of
the time, But there turns out to be genuine science
to the benefits of things like mindfulness and exercise. You're
(43:01):
practicing rhythmic breathing, you know what I mean. You're you're
moving your body in a healthy way and you're exploring
your own mindset. So that's like, that's beneficial to people.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Absolutely, it is and you know, I mean whether or
not these practices will grant you, you know, the ability
to commune with the astral plane or across the astral plane.
Is it a thing you have to cross or a
place that you occupy I'm not quite sure, or be
able to speak with those machine ls. We talked about
that in the in the Kesha episode, that you gotta
(43:32):
have DMT for that business. Here's a surprising thing, maybe
not to everybody, but there is this seems like pretty progressive,
I would argue, even in the earliest forms where they're
letting you know, regular old folks join in and they
thought Aleister Crowley was a creep. But there apparently is
a far right version of this organization.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, fortunately they have they have a very similar name,
but they are not They're hopefully not related past the name.
And of course you know, we have people who have
read up on the Golden Dawn in the audience here,
so we wanted to be clear there's a different organization
that has very little to do with magic.
Speaker 4 (44:18):
It is.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
The Golden Dawn is a far right political party in Greece.
They've got a number of policy platforms. The main thing
is they want to return Greece to a military dictatorship,
and they say the benefits of this would be superior
to the current Greek government. Here's the thing. They're often
described by many people as neo Nazis. Many members of
(44:43):
the party disagree with that characterization, but I did. I
did put a little link to their official banner. Matt Nole,
I'd love to hear you guys describe this on air.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
I'd love to. I will describe it. But it's like
it has way more than a whiff of a swastika.
I mean, you look at it and it practically feels
like a swastika. So you look a little closer and
realize that it's twisted a little differently. It kind of
looks like a hedge maze or something, but it's just
very swastika. Ask Matt, what does it? How does it
strike you?
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Well? I guess it depends on which one we're looking at,
because I know, I think one of them is a
slightly different color than the other. I know that their
standard colors are red, black and white. And when when
you've got the black symbol on top of the red background.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
That's where your mind goes.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
That's right, there's a distinct flavor, let's say to it
doesn't mean like just because they chose colors that look
like that, and just because their symbol is, you know,
blocky shapes that are look like they could be a swastika,
doesn't mean they are like that. Fact doesn't mean that
(45:58):
they are in any way related to Nazis or anything
like that.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Colors aside, it definitely has a whiff of a swastika though.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
But the butt is you should see the ideologies that
they're associated with. For you know, many many, many people
who write about this group, several people who have you know,
come from this group to talk about it. Good lord,
don't even look at the Wikipedia page, because it will
(46:28):
tell you all of the varying ideologies that they're associated.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
It will probably gets you on some kind of lists
just for pulling it up.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Yeah, in the interest of, you know, giving their own
reasoning for this banner, they say that it is has
nothing necessarily to do with Nazism. It is a depiction
was called meandros. Meandros is a kind of decorative border
in a continuous line like you've seen it at every
(46:58):
Greek restaurant you've ever been to, probably in some form,
so that that's what that's at least their argument. But
as Matt said, if you just take a quick dip
into their Wikipedia page, you'll see the various members of
the group and leaders have been found guilty of murder,
attempted murder, attacks on immigrants, the creation of an organized
(47:20):
crime ring, and they've been you know, convicted. So maybe
maybe they should take a take a cue from the
other Golden Dawn and just try some meditation.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
I agree, Let's just let's do that all around. Let's
do that. Do we mention that their salute is kind
of the same one.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
It's the exact same one, same one.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
They you know, according to officials from the group or
people spokespeople from the group, is you know again has
a different inspiration.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
But it's like Vanilla Ice years and years ago when
he described the slight difference in a drum beat to
say a song with unique You remember that as I'm
behind the music.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Is one little extra don because ours goes theirs goes
case closed, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Right? So this is uh, it's just important for us
to say this because what it means is, if you
want to learn more about joining an organization affiliated with
the hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Just make sure
you're joining the right outfit. Double check the website, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
Be careful.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Also as a message to anybody who actively investigates these
sorts of schools of thought or philosophical explorations. We are
obviously outsiders to this, but we find it fascinating because
it touches on so many levels of society at the time,
(48:49):
you know what I mean. And there's there's a boldness
to the exploration in theory. And that's where we leave
it to you, folks. What do you think is the
Golden Dawn is or was it really teaching people magical rights?
Was it really giving people extraordinary abilities or allowing them
to commune with the board the management of reality? I
(49:13):
gotta tell you again, and I promise this last time
won't bring it up. Control is such a cool game.
It might I don't know if it's the best, but
it might be my favorite game I've played during the pandemic.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
Really, I'm in such an unfortunate position where I'm like
past the point of no return in several games, like
like I'm like, you know, good midway through Last of
Us two and then they gave me such a bummer
that I can only play it for a little at
of times. Also pretty hard. And I'm almost done with
the Breath of the Wild and I've still got Red
(49:44):
Dead to installed on my machine, which is like three
hundred gigs, so I've got, like, you know, guilt about
not finishing that. So I'm like convincing myself that I'm
going to. But I keep hearing about these cool new games.
It's just like Ghost of Tushima or something like. It's like, oh, yeah,
s heard, that's fat And then you guys keep talking
about this control. Is that a Switch game or is
it only PS four? Where can they get this game?
(50:07):
They can dig myself deeper.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
I think it's everything. I don't know if it's on Switch, though.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
I've got I've got PS four X files meets big government,
conspiracy meets Lovecraft?
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Is it like long form game? Is it like?
Speaker 1 (50:18):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (50:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (50:20):
And uh they're their rules for communication with extra dimensional
entities or things like you have to go through this
weird time bubble where it's always mid afternoon at a
strange hotel. Anyhow do you do you think that there
it is possible that these extra dimensional entities whatever you
(50:43):
want to call them. Do you think it's possible that
they exist and that members of the Golden Dawn somehow
figured out a way to contact them, or was this
organization functioning more as an an experiment of sorts it's
social interaction or is it something in between? You know,
(51:04):
we'd we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Yeah, please, And did we do we tell people how
to join? We did not, because you can right now.
You want to get in on this hermetic Order of
the Golden Dawn in twenty twenty one, or whenever you're
listening to this past, present or future, you can do it.
There is a website you can go to prepare yourselves
(51:26):
and your wallets. It is www dot Golden dash Dawn
Dawn dot com and once you get there you can
look up memberships and you will find that at least
on this date we record this in March of twenty
twenty one, you can join for the low low price
(51:49):
of one hundred and ninety nine dollars us US. It
used to be one thousand, one hundred and eighty eight
dollars and it's got to slash through it, but now
it's only one hundred and ninety nine dollars.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Is that is that just like a limited time offer
or is this just the new the new rate.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
I do not know, but you get lots and lots
of books and PDFs. It looks like a dagger. Perhaps
at least maybe some very interesting folks on the front
of that live webinar training picture. I'm fascinated.
Speaker 1 (52:31):
Maybe we draw straws and one of us joins up
and then breaks the valve silence for the other two.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
Dude, I'm not breaking a valve science if I if
I join up, I'm taking this seriously, you guys.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
Of course, Okay, you're one hundred percent in, so then
it would be a conversation where to talk with you
about it. We have to also join up.
Speaker 3 (52:49):
Yeah, you better believe it. I'm not going in two
hundred dollars just to give you guys all the information.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
Is there is there any criteria other than just just
paying the fee? I mean, I would love to think
that there was some kind of you know, test of
might that you would have to pass or mental fortitude,
you know. I mean, I'm cool with it being like
not about like your wealth, because that that's a reasonable
enough fee. But I don't want to be in there.
If it's if it's like just anyone can join, I
(53:15):
the wrong craft. I think it should be merit, merit
based merit. But no, now that's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying it should be you should be able to
have to bring something to the table. You know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Well, you do have to pass a written examination at
least in the original Golden Dawn to move to the
second or inner order.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
Yeah, so there's there's a rupric like.
Speaker 3 (53:35):
Not everybody can do this. It says, not everybody's gonna
make it.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Okay, great, this is this is important information.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
Yeah, they're taking it seriously as well. So we want
to we want to hear your opinion of it. Tell
us if you have joined, if you are joining, tell us,
if there are concerns about the organization, tell us if
most importantly, whether you think the rights and rituals described
actually actually have efficacy, whether they work out of respect
(54:04):
for you know, the idea of initiation and the idea
of secrecy. We have not described any specific rituals other
than to say it's not you know, it's not like
eating eyeballs or flaming people alive or any any of
that movie stuff, and if you want to learn more,
there are people who are glad to share that information
(54:27):
with you. You could tell us about your experiences, tell us
about other secret organizations, and tell us whether you think
there are forms of magic that are real. By finding
us on our own kind of magical order of these
times the internet.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
You can find us a conspiracy Stuff on Twitter and Facebook,
Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram. We recommend joining our Facebook
group Here's where it gets crazy, where you can exchange memes,
have spirited conversations about episode topics, and maybe make a
new best friend.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
You can also give us a phone call. Check it out,
you guys. Our number is one eight three three std WYTK.
If you choose to pick up your phone in call,
please do the following. Give us the name you'd like
for us to refer to you as. If it's not
your real name, that's fine. Just say whatever you want
us to call you, and we'll call you that. Give
(55:21):
leave us your message, try and keep it a little
brief if you can leave it under that three minutes,
and then if you want to tell us anything, just personally,
just talking to Ben Nolan, myself, Paul Alexis whoever. Just
keep that right at the end of the message. That'll
help us put everything together, edit it quickly, and then
get it on the air. We do appreciate you calling
(55:41):
in and taking the time to do it, so looking
forward to hearing from you. If you don't want to
do any of that stuff, hey, we've got a great
way for you to connect with us, especially if you've
got a longer story or a suggestion with a bunch
of links or something. Please send us a good old
fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
I'm a conspiracy realist. Tonight's classic episode comes from twoenty
(00:04):
twenty one.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
How long ago was that?
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Several years?
Speaker 2 (00:08):
We counted.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Uh, this is something Matt that you and I, Noel
and Tennessee and Mission Control had always been pretty fascinated with.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
But you and.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I would talk about this way back when we first met.
Because it's just so strange and esoteric. I'm building it
up too much. What's this classic episode about?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Well, you're just making me think about Albert Pike's super
secret magic necklace thing that we talked about for a
while there, thinking about freemasonry and secret societies, and then
a little group of folks that got together and said, guys,
what if we made an even secret or society and
we'll call it something really epic.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah, And so they got together and what they came
up with was a I love the phrase, a secret society.
The secret society is called the Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dot. It might sound obscure and bizarre today, and
it is bizarre. But what you're going to be surprised
(01:14):
to find here, folks, if this is the first time
hearing about the Golden Dawn, is that I had a
huge impact on later groups and later systems, and Matt
for me in this exploration, the biggest question is did
any of this magic work?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
I bet we get to the bottom of it in
the following episode, do we?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah? Sure we all.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
We'll at least talk about it every while.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Paul. Mission control decands. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. And I was thinking over the
past few days that everybody we meet, to one degree
or another, participates in something that could be called a
(02:33):
secret or occulted organization. It may be some like group
you're a member of during your schooling days. It might
be some weird, you know, class organization like the various
orders that aristocrats have. It might just be fandom for
a particular artist right or something you're interested in. Or
it might be a bond built upon surviving a particular
(02:57):
type of trauma. Right, it might be something entirely extracurricular,
but we're all members of all these various different things,
and that's that's not necessarily a bad thing. Right. Just
because a bunch of people are into some like weird
Cadillac forum on the Internet, doesn't mean they're automatically the Illuminati, right, Like,
are we all kind of into weird stuff?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah? I mean, you know, just by virtue of being podcasters,
we're sort of softly initiated into a weird kind of
cabal of sorts.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Right, that's a good point. I hadn't thought of that,
but that's a good point. Sorry, Sorry who God Anyway,
today's this will make sense later or not. Today's episode
focuses on a particular school of thought. It's an organization
that prizes itself on exclusivity, on the idea of initiation,
(03:50):
accreating knowledge incrementally, and yes, a form of magic. So
today's question, what is the Golden on Here are the
facts full name of it, the Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dawn. Today we see it as an odd, an
odd group, somewhat forgotten by the mainstream, but it played
(04:13):
a fundamental role in today's magical organizations. The weirdest thing
about it was at the time, in the eighteen nineties,
eighteen eighties or so, it was well, I think it
kind of functioned like a social network. I don't know
what you guys think as you dive in, but you know,
with magic, right, it's kind of an augmented reality the
(04:35):
more we think about it. Similar to the Latitude Society,
they took ideas that were a unique combination of ancient,
pre existing spiritual traditions and then other stuff that was
happening right before it in the realm of science and spiritualism.
So like the Kabbala, Egyptian, Greek mysteries, several strands of
(04:55):
early Christian thought, all these esoteric traditions combined in the
late eighteen eighties. And the story of the Origin, I'll
let you be the judge. The story of the Origin
feels a little sketchy.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, indeed, the hoot God, okay, right? Who God? Sorry, Ben,
you gotta help us out here. What is this acronym?
I love the way this is.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
That's me be lazy in the notes. It's just shorthand
for the hermetic order of the Golden Dolls.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
That's the one.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
They didn't call themselves whot God.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Well, we talked off Mike, how that would be a
fantastic name for likely a Florida rapper. Perhaps Golf Coast,
I believe is what you said.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Ben, Yeah, I think so, Golf Coast, Golf Coast out there.
It's a great idea.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Okay. So the who Got Hermetic Order of the Golden
Dawn was founded in eighteen eighty seven by a Freemason
by the name of William Wynn Westcott. Www, that's a
fun alliteration there. Also in this group of founders was
Samuel Liddell McGregor Matthews and William Robert Woodman, the least
impressive of those three.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
And all of them were Masons.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yes, indeed correct, a group of Masons, and allegedly they
based their founding of this group on a series of
writings that were collectively known as the Cipher Manuscripts, which
is definitely the name of the first album from Whot God,
no question about that. So these Cipher Manuscripts are a
group of sixty different folios. I guess you could call
(06:26):
them outlining a series of magical intention rights or rituals right.
A ritual is something that is intended to produce a
result through synchronized incantations or something or movement. Various things
can go into a ritual. This podcast contains quite a
few rituals. In fact, you might not even realize it,
(06:47):
but these things were corresponding to the spiritual elements of air, earth, water,
and fire. Yeah. No, it was I ought to say
their powers combined. They are in fact captain planet.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah. And you can think about these rituals and rights,
the things that were contained in these manuscripts somewhat somewhat
like a mixtape. Really, it's it's it's an anthology. We
already mentioned it above, all these varying thoughts and schools
of thought kind of going together into one thing, all
types of different what you would call magical theory, either
(07:22):
with a C or a K, mostly with a K,
and a lot of it is just steeped in symbolism.
So when you when you're looking at these things. The
reason why hoot God is so interesting and funny to me,
it reminds me of Minerva and representations of the owl.
And we were just speaking about this on a listener
mail episode Esoteric Wisdom, Right, Yeah, and and really this this,
(07:45):
this manuscript, the cipher manuscript, is kind of like a
beginner's manual, but it's also the advanced stuff kind of
all together in one. It's just everything you need to
operate as a member of the Hermitic Order of Golden Dawn. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
So if you look at the watermarks on these folios,
on the actual text themselves, it looks like they were
created back in eighteen oh nine, So that's one theory.
They are written in code, and like you said, Matt,
they contain diagrams, symbols, but they also contain this written text.
(08:20):
It's not a particularly difficult code to crack. Numbers are
substituted by Hebrew letters, so for example, a left equals one.
According to the order's own records, Westcott himself discovered slash
decoded the text in or around eighteen eighty seven. Like
we said, when the Order was founded. It's important to
(08:42):
note that these founding members, they all had day jobs.
That's going to be a complicating factor. In just a bit.
Westcott claimed that he had just found these been given them.
He did not say that he had written them, though
later historians would suspect indeed some of his colleagues would
accuse him of just writing them himself and then claiming
(09:06):
some more prestigious authorship. It could have also possibly been
written by Edward.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Litton, who was.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
A popular author at the time associated with some of
these occult beliefs, or a lot of fans of his
work were also fans of these sorts of magical practices. Today,
you'll recognize Bulwer Lytton most easily as the inspiration of
one of my favorite contests, the Bulwer Litton Fiction Contests.
Have you guys heard about this?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
No Never another great name, though.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
I suggest we all consider entering the contest just if
you're bored of an afternoon one day. It's an official
annual contest to write the worst opening sentence of any
possible novel. And I haven't won yet. Like you try
to imagine what the worst novel ever would be, and
(10:00):
then you write the first sentence.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
For that novel.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
That should give you a sense of the kind of
writing bull wherre Lytton did when he was alive.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Wow. Do grammatical errors count toward the badness of it?
Or does it? Do you just have to get that
stuff right it's just the arrangement or no I guess
the the words that you put in there grammatically correct
just need to be terrible.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
You know, sky's the limit. I say, get creative with it. This.
The winner of twenty twenties contest was Lisa Klueber of
San Francisco. This is the winning sentence, her dear John
missive Flapp, done ambiguously in the windy breeze, hanging like
a pizza menu on the doorknob of my mind, I
(10:45):
thought that was all right. It wasn't anyway, that feels.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
More exciting than it should.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I disagree with like the one of the things with
the little doorknob holes in it, right, okay? Got it?
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Also completely unrelated. We were talking about proprietary eponyms. Learned
that doorknob is one, dornob is like a brand name.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
So back to these texts. We don't know who really
wrote them, but there are some guesses. We're going to
give you the version of the order itself, and then
we'll give you some of the critics ideas. So Wescott
told his compatriots that not only had he decoded these texts,
(11:25):
which illuminated various mysteries, but in the process of deciphering
this stuff, he found the address of a German aristocrat
and Rosicrucian named Anna Sprangle. Anna Sprangel was not your
average aristocrat. Wescott believed that she had the ability to
(11:47):
contact some sort of supernatural and or extra dimensional entity,
which they were collectively referred to as the Secret Chiefs,
which is a term I had never heard before. Like
we've heard Machinel, Right.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
There's a band called the Secret Chiefs, like kind of
a weird almost like mister that was actually related to
mister Bungle, but kind of like almost like a metal
jazz band called the Secret Chiefs. I never knew where
that term came from. I always thought it was the
oddest name. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
So the Hidden Kings, this is very interesting. Hmm all right,
So allegedly the Hidden Kings are the ones who wrote
this thing.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Or inspired the guided the hand of the person who
did write them.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
And this isn't necessarily a new idea, the idea of
divinely inspired written texts, right, This is this is something
that dates back to religions of old. It continues today
with various organizations. The Secret Chiefs themselves are specifically mentioned
in earlier works, like one called The Cloud upon the
(12:53):
Sanctuary back in seventeen ninety five by a name that Noel.
I will defer to your German in pronouncing.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Okay, I'm gonna give this my young gem and boy.
All let's see.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
This would be Ka von ekott Schausen, Kaul von Ekottshausen.
Maybe it's more of an Ekotzhausen. Maybe I may be
doing too hard of an sh but I've given it Mile.
That's is the best I can do.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
I like both of them, sex man, so I love it.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
So this gentleman allegedly wrote this thing way way before,
well not that far before, if it was, in fact,
you know, written in eighteen oh nine, but it was,
as we said, discovered in eighteen eighty seven. So he
wrote this work The Cloud upon the Sanctuary in seventeen nineties,
seventeen ninety five, something like that, exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
So we see a rough timeline that we can trace
through the use of these particular phrases. Right this Secret Chiefs,
Hidden Kings, stuff like that. The Golden Dawn did differ
from some earlier, arguably similar groups, and even differed from
some groups that would exist around the same time period
because it did not restrict membership along the lines of gender.
(14:07):
Unlike Freemasonry, women were treated as equals and allowed into
this order. It's progressive for its time. So things started
going wrong pretty quickly. Spoiler Westcott had to leave leadership
of the Order when he literally lost some papers in
a cab. He just forgot to take them. You know,
(14:28):
it's like leaving your phone in an uber, but you
have the necronomicon with you on your phone or something.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Or your phone. Your phone is the necronomic.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
On your phone is the is the necronomicon. So the
Secret Chiefs did not appear to help him out as
far as his day job goes. Because word got to
his employers. They discovered his connection to this group that
at the time would seem pretty odd, and they gave
him a choice. They said, look, you can keep working
(14:59):
here and stop around with Magic WW, or you can
leave because you will be fired. So Westcott thought about it.
We don't know too many of the specifics. Ultimately he said,
you know, I'm going to stick with my career as
a coroner, and i am going to still be associated,
you know, low key with this group, but I'm not
(15:19):
going to be an active, prominent member because I got
bills to pay.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
He was a corner and he was dabbling in magic.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Does that mean he was was he stealing organs and
other gutty parts from black magic c k rituals?
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I mean, if you wanted to be a necromancer, that's
a pretty good place to start.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yeah, no, one's going to miss an errant spleen here
and there.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
That's true. You know, I thought the same thing too.
I couldn't find and tell us if you have an
inside scoop, folks, but I couldn't find any reports to that.
Of course, we're joshing a bit. We don't want to
just accuse somebody of necromancy.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Oh yeah, no, I know. No, I'm just look just
stating the fact that if there are corpses near your
person as part of your day job, that it would
be helpful if one were interested in some of those
dark arts. That's all.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yes, well said, and it's a very good point.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Also.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
I just love that, in the context of this episode,
it sounds like we have in the past ruined someone's
lives by accusing them of being a necromancer, and now
we're taking pains to make sure that's not the case.
But you're right, You're right, circumstantial if nothing else, it's
definitely the pieces are there, right, We just don't know
(16:39):
what sort of picture the puzzle makes.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Last thing, it would just it would be a headline
in like the Mirror or something. A local area person
accused of necromancy loses job over kerfuffle and no one
would ever think about it again.
Speaker 6 (16:56):
Just say yeah, yeah, first paragraph, it's like local corridor
was discovered after leaving magical documents and grimoirese in Uber.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
So yeah, you know what, maybe we should write for
the Mirror. But look, this is a true story. And
the rest of it, the rest of the story of
the group's origin and its evolution, quickly descends into a
story of obscure conspiracies, wheels within wheels, competing motivations, competing
(17:31):
magical philosophies, secret societies forming like within secret societies, and
then a study of just good old fashioned backstabbing. But
what actually happened to the Golden Dawn, and perhaps most importantly,
did any of the magic work? We'll dive into this
(17:52):
after a word from our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy.
Let's tackle those two questions separately, Right, what actually happened
to the organization and you know, how did the organization work?
And then we'll get to we'll get to the magic.
(18:15):
We have to get to the magic at some point.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
So yeah, let's talk about how popular the Old Golden
Dawn was in its heyday, if you will. It was
a big part of Victorian society. Strangely enough, you wouldn't
imagine that magic was running wild in regular society. Well, yes,
somewhat not fully, but somewhat right. There are all kinds
(18:38):
of notable members from the top of society all the
way down to the bottom. There was one member named
Annie Hornieman. This person actually built Ireland's Abbey Theater. Have
you ever heard of that? That's a famous theater that exists.
This person built that. She was also a member of
the Golden Dawn. Pretty cool, huh.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
And then there were poets and authors involved, like William Butler.
Yeats is probably one of the most famous members of
the Golden Down, or one of the most well remembered
in the modern day. And he is on record saying
that other than writing poetry, which he's kind of known for,
the other most important pursuit of his life was his
(19:19):
membership in the Golden Down, which is a big thing
to say. Other authors like Algernon Blackwood were also members,
and then well to do people scientists, folks who were
practicing forms of meditation, things like that, Folks who are
just interested in hanging out and talking about this stuff.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Well, really quickly, I just wanted to mention, I believe,
correct me if I'm wrong, guys, that Alex, our buddy
Alex Williams podcast Ephemeral did like a special Halloween episode
where they did a reading of an Algernon Blackwood story.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, and we were literally talking about that a few
hours ago, about how influential Algernon was and is still
on like.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Horror writing essentially, right, m hmm, yeah, Yeah, a tremendously
influential horror writer. So it makes sense that in his
non authorial time he would be interested in these sorts
of spiritual philosophical explorations. But of course, there is one
other person associated with the Order of the Golden Dawn
(20:26):
in a controversial way. This is a guy who you
are doubtlessly familiar with if you've listened to our show before.
He's occasionally referred to as the Great Beast.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
That's right, Alistair Crowley. I'm saying Crowley on purpose. You
could call him Crowley if you want, but after the
comments on YouTube, we I will forever see his name
be traumatized and then say Crawley. It's Crawley. But you're
aware of that name, and you're likely aware of the
Golden Dawn because of him, at least I certainly was.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
And we'll dive into his association, which I think gets
a little bit exaggerated sometimes given the rest of his
other work post Golden down But the downfall of this
organization or the troubles it would have in its evolution,
these were all present in the early days, in its formation.
(21:21):
For the first few years, it was just that it
was a single group of people studying the Cipher manuscripts together, right,
and they were reading this stuff saying, hey, what do
you think about this philosophy of air?
Speaker 2 (21:34):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Or this passage about fire. This group, this initial group,
would later be called the Outer Order or the First Order.
And all you did in the First Order was get
graded by fellow members and superiors in terms of your
understanding of the arts and philosophies explored in those initial
(21:57):
texts we mentioned Earth.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Air Fire Order.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
You began as a neophyte, you eventually progressed through several
ranks to become a kind of intermediate. Why is there
an intermediate thing if the outer order is like complete, Well,
it's because in eighteen ninety two a secret society kind
of begins. In this secret society, it calls itself the
Inner Order or the second Order, the cool part of
(22:24):
the cool kids club. And this second order is entirely
composed of people who have who have literally passed a
written examination about the stuff from the first order, and
you can you can join up with the first order,
but getting into the second order requires social approval. The
(22:44):
other people that are already in the order have to
dig you. They have to think you're on the same page,
and that's where you start learning what we as outsiders
would probably call practical or applied magic and ritual. But
it doesn't end there. They have three ranks Adeptist, Minor, Major,
and at the top Exemptist. There is a third order. However,
(23:09):
this is really where it gets really weird. If if
the third Order is real, then Matt I was thinking
of our conversations about that excellent video game control that
you would recommend it a while back. If the third
Order is real. It's composed of things that are like
those extra dimensional monsters in control totally.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
It's it's what do we call the secret chiefs, right
like they they exist in another realm, in another place,
but that they are the power structure that is above
even the adept in the EXEMPTUS.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah, and if you are exemptists, or if you are
high enough in your understanding and your membership in the
second order, then you can function as an intermediate for
these otherwise unobservable entities. And this horse wrinkles some feathers,
especially when Mather, the guy we mentioned earlier, when he
(24:05):
starts being a very strict leader, and he's like the
he's like the voice of these entities and no one
else can communicate with them except for him. He brings
the divine knowledge.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Oh, he's got the hotline or what was it called.
He's like in that room that's separated from everything, and
you can you pick up the phone and you can
talk to the board that's him.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
So as you can see, this tendency for in groups
to create even more insular groups within themselves eventually led
to tension, distrust, internal conflict, and ultimately these conflicts led
to the downfall of the organization after it's wait for it,
golden age. It did have a golden I'm sorry, I'm
(24:48):
sorry we had to. It did have a golden age though,
because at the time, you know it, it was something
that people accept like it was controversial at first, but
eventually it became an accepted thing in society. It wasn't
seen as necessarily in opposition to the status quo, if
that makes sense, like it would be. It was no
(25:10):
longer something you would necessarily get fired for. In fact,
it might have made you look kind of cool and
the thing. Despite these earlier problems, the Golden Dawn, some
version of it exists today in the modern day of
multiple places. It is possible to become a member, and
we can tell you how towards the end of today's show,
(25:30):
Oh can't wait.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Ben, Is this like really magic or is this sort
of symbolic magic, like for the sake of a club
and camaraderie, Like do they really think they're affecting outcomes
of like world events or like how deep did this go?
Speaker 1 (25:45):
That's a great question. Let's get to the magic, right
this is so we've got we've got the background, all
the stuff, we talked about did really happen? But what
kind of magic were these members? Practicing magic can mean
a million different things. If you read up on the
history of the group, it's easy to get deterred because
(26:05):
it falls into a lot of talk about structure organization.
There are a lot of foreign phrases, a lot of
jargon terminology, things like that, So it's easy, it's easy
to get turned off by that, but it's crucial to
note again, like Matt said earlier, the Golden Dawn did
borrow heavily from earlier spiritual belief systems, but it was
(26:27):
not in itself a religion. When we define magic, we're
inherently our definition is inherently relying upon a specific cultural lens.
Like there's practical magic, right, Can I make that? Can
I make this thing float? Can I have precognitive dreams?
(26:49):
Or send my consciousness away from my body? And then
there's the more metaphorical stuff like who are we in
the universe? And what is this whole reality thing? So
they had we start with the metaphysical stuff. They had
a number of metaphysical pursuits at play.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, that's right. So the idea is that through ceremony
and ritual like we were talking about, an individual might
be able to achieve kind of that esoteric knowledge, that
knowledge of the of the gods perhaps or like of
the spheres that otherwise would be completely out of reach
for mere mortals, right, the kind of stuff that would
(27:27):
like blow your mind up if someone that was not
prepared to receive it did so. That includes things like
being able to leave your body, or leave your body
spiritually and project your consciousness into other places, a process
known as astral projection, clairvoyance, you know, psychic powers, being
(27:50):
able to read people's minds or see the future, or
very specific to this belief system, communicating specifically with those
secret chiefs, you would reach on another plane of existence entirely.
Then you get into more abstract kind of philosophical ideas
that are wrapped up in it, things like hidden truths
(28:13):
that there's a unity within all the things as well,
those interconnectedness and things that might at first appear to
be a little contradictory.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Right, yeah, just a bit. Yates talks about it when
he says he describes it as tapping into the single
energetic mind or the single memory of nature.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
It's we see This reflected in later ideas about Earth
as a super organism, right the guy a hypothesis and
so on and similar to that. But really, then, from
the abstract lens, what they are saying is that magic
can be defined as the process of removing limitations and preconceptions. Right,
(28:56):
so the alchemy that takes place is in alchemy of cognitiate,
you shit, more so than an alchemy of metals, right
of base metals to gold.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
You know. It really makes me wonder if they had
a specialist mage that could, let's say, remove all the
water from your body, or another one that could infect
your brain with all of the known and unknown things
that could possibly happen to your brain. You know, just
if you ever come across i don't know, some kind
(29:25):
of ancient octopus entity like you could get it removed
from your body, and you'd need a specialist like that.
I've been watching too much Sabrina. Sorry, I didn't mean
to watch it.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
It just happened Sabrina the teenage Way.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Sorry, jeez, wait, it was really good.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah, sorry, let's move on. Yeah, having flashbacks. It's the
production value this season is really quit.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
All right, I'll check it out, man. Uh, Yeah, So
if we if we take these claims of extra sensory
persons and maybe even supernatural powers aside, if we just
bracket that for a second, then some of the descriptions
of what people are doing here practicing sounds kind of
like therapy, right, It's kind of like a self inventory
(30:16):
or what's that great quote describing magic weaponized psychology. So
it's maybe not so much changing your external reality as
it is enhancing your ability to perceive reality as it
always was. It's allowing you to experience things in a new,
more conscious way. And I was thinking about this like
(30:36):
as far as an analogy, remember back when we were
doing an episode on Ireland's Vanishing Triangle and Matt, you
did something really interesting, which is to you went through
Google Earth, I believe, and you started constructing an overlay,
a skin to put on the area such that we
could see different events and see when they occurred. That
(31:01):
has a lot of similarities with the idea of philosophical
magic here, right.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Oh yeah, I could see that. I could definitely see that.
It's also very reminiscent of modern insular groups that we've
discussed on this show recently. I'm thinking about Nexium thinking
about our discussions with Mike Grinder, thinking about it just
has very very very similar things where on the surface,
(31:28):
there appears to be exactly what you're saying here ben
a self help kind of thing, a self improvement or
map that you get to follow, but at the end
of that map there's something that is really hidden, or
or there's something you know just very different or a
different route to get there.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
I guess yeah, yeah. The Google Earth example, right, maybe
you apply an overlayer of skin on an area of
Google Earth that you're looking at, and maybe you have
one map that shows future planned constructions. So you go
down the street, you walk around, You've got this cool
map that says this is coming in twenty twenty three,
or this is coming in twenty fifty four, or alternatively,
(32:12):
you could have a map that shows how a place
looked a thousand years ago. This is what London looked
like back in ten twenty one, or something like that.
You haven't then necessarily changed anything about the outer world,
but you have changed your perception of it, and therefore
your actions will reflect and potentially benefit from this new perspective.
(32:36):
From a secular viewpoint, If we want to look just
at the group dynamics of this. There could be another
kind of magic at play, and we might some people
might not want us to call it magic, but I
I think it's not too different social engineering, right, It's
a club.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
The society itself would let the members of the different
classes and background ex listed in society, people who would
be considered by others to be lowly others to be
you know, notable and in power, essentially allow them to
interact and encounter each other in ways that they just
wouldn't have that opportunity outside of being in this group.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
So it was merit based in some way. It wasn't
just you know, cutting off certain parts of the social
you know, ladder like like. It wasn't closed off to
the lower the lower classes. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Apparently it was unusually progressive.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
That's fast in that way.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, yeah, And it's not necessarily sinisters. So I don't
want to poison the well. But for anybody who's read
the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson,
there is an organization of bad guys in the story.
They're called Dark Friends, and they they function kind of
(33:51):
the same way. They have this hidden knowledge, they have
signals they use to indicate their presence to one another.
Also similar Matt to the Latitude Society. Right, dark friends
are fictional and dark friends are definitely antagonists, but this
organization itself is not necessarily antagonistic, nor is it necessarily sinister.
(34:15):
But it definitely feels cool to be included. Right, You're like, oh, hey,
what did you do today? I went to I went
to the pub, and then I talked with a fellow
member of my order who happens to be you know,
the Duke of Middlebury on Sandwich or whatever.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Yeah, well, it reminds me of some of these country
clubs that exist, or these private health clubs or something where.
But in this case that the entry fee, the bar
to entry is different. It's very different. It's more about
are you interested in this more esoteric version of the
(34:55):
world or of reality, and that's really all you need.
You're still gonna have to pay something to get in,
but you know, you don't have to spend several thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
And of course there were cases of con artists being
involved in impersonating members of the Order or claiming to
be a temple when they were you know, just doing
a money grab.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
But this.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Kind of street, this kind of social circuit moves both ways.
So not only did it allow people to have access
to maybe influential individuals they might not have otherwise interacted with,
it is also possible that these influential individuals themselves could
have used their presence in the organization to advance their
(35:39):
own worldly goals. Hey, you know, great meeting today. Before
we leave, I need you to help me with this
import deal. I'm working on things like that.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
You know.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
It's quite possible, and it's also quite possible that all
of this was occurring at the same time, and that
different people were prioritizing different things in their relationship to
the organization. We're going to pause for word from our sponsor,
and then we'll return with a well with a great
example of when these motivations contradict one another.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Oh God, and we're back to talk about the dark
One himself, the Great Beast, the Grand Magician, Wizard, high Wizard.
I made up all those except for the Great Beast.
(36:34):
I believe. Alistair Crowley, Alista Crowley.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Here he is, Ladies and gentlemen. Alistair.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
He was around in the late eighteen hundreds and joined
the Order in eighteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
And he is an episode all his own. He's one
of those kind of phantom topics we mentioned earlier because
comes up in various related topics. The Golden Dawn heavily
influenced a lot of what he would go on to
write and a lot of what he would go on
to claim to believe. He did not really care for
(37:09):
a lot of the members that were already in the
organization when he joined up, because he thought he thought
they were like holding call Field style phonies.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
He said, look, you're not in this for the real reasons.
You're in it because it works out for you socially,
or it gives you material rewards.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
You're in the country club.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
You're in the country club. Yeah, exactly. He was saying,
this should not be a country club. It's kind of
like the way someone might take up golf, not because
they care about golf, but because it gives them access
to money, advancement, and power. So that's what he that's
his issue that he had with a lot of those members,
but they also had some issues with him.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
He was a bit of a libertine, a bit of
a hedonist, you know, very open about it. Those a
little bit, but yeah, and wasn't ashamed of his uh,
his sexual proclivities. Uh, and was very gregarious and then
just you know, really kind of brought a whole another
(38:11):
b D energy kind of to the to the group.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
You know, bellicose in derogatory, didactic correct.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Yeah. Yeah, and he uh, he progressed through that first
order where you're learning most of these spiritual metaphysical concepts,
and he wanted to be in the second order, but
a lot of people were against it. They were like,
this guy, no way, do you know what he gets
up to on the weekends.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
He goes to pyramids with his wife and they you
should see the incantations. Oh that was later.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
That was later.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, They're like, how disgusting. Tell me more in detail.
Uh yeah, So there was there was controversy, right, but
the guy that he was following, Mather, liked him, and
so Mather unilaterally inducted him into this second order, which
caused a great deal of problems. He became like Mather's
(39:11):
sort of he did things for Mather, and he also
experimented heavily with the ritualistic use of drugs. Everything comes
to a culmination when he and his mistress try to
take over a space that was rented by the Order
in West Kensington. This goes to court and when the
(39:33):
case goes to court, he loses, and that's one of
the final nails in the coffin of his official membership.
But weirdly enough, and you know, he went on to
do all the other stuff that you know about, But
weirdly enough, his interaction with this group is one of
the few reasons mainstream society talks about the Golden Dawn today.
(39:56):
Even if he didn't like them, he helped keep their
legacy around.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Oh yeah, and that's what we talked about. I mean,
he he is probably the search term that gets many
people to a Hermetic Order site or to something written
about Hermetic Order. It's because they went Alistair Corawly. But
you know that there's something really interesting that we can
(40:23):
talk about here. Because as open as they were, as
large of a membership as the Golden Dawn had, they
were able to keep a lot of their stuff very
very quiet, at least the materials they used to learn,
rituals to learn a lot of the more secretive knowledge.
They were able to keep that stuff hidden at least
pretty well.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
And this occurs, of course, because they know everybody who
would have access to that information, kind of like the
way in a film production, scripts will be watermarked, so
you know what leaked or what didn't leak. Even so
specifics of the story might be excised or changed just
a bit so you can say, oh, we put that
(41:06):
TYPEO there on purpose. That way we would know if
Reginald or whoever spilled the beans.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
Revenge pa always stealing scripts and sending them over to
where do you send scripts? I don't I don't even
know scripts.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
You mean prescriptions or scripts?
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Script like screenplays?
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Oh? Screenplays? Okay, what like? You're leaking it to TMZE
that works.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
And then somewhere right now, JJ Abrams is listening to
this podcast and he roses fist up in the sky
and he goes Reginald.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
He knew it. Don't mess with Disney if you're gonna
steal a script, don't mess with Disney.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
No, don't mess with the mouse.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
No, that's true, It'll come for you. And he's terrifying
in person. Let me tell you my script.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Well, there's a dark listen side.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
No, he's one of the founding members.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Okay, yeah, so so now socide they all took a
specific valve of silence, but that valve of silence didn't last.
And that is why today you can see detailed descriptions
of various specific rights on any number of websites like
chrometic dot com is a pretty great resource. And don't worry, folks,
(42:17):
it's not a bunch of witches like cackling around a
cauldron or practicing human sacrifice. What's interesting here is that
the Golden Down itself, nothing ever happens in a vacuum, right,
The Golden Down itself occurs in the same kind of
cultural context of spirituality spiritualism, rather than science of emerging psychology,
(42:40):
like the Western fascination with what they called Eastern mysteries
like meditation or yoga. They definitely came bundled up with
a lot of xenophobia, a lot of racist notions of
the time, But there turns out to be genuine science
to the benefits of things like mindfulness and exercise. You're
(43:01):
practicing rhythmic breathing, you know what I mean. You're you're
moving your body in a healthy way and you're exploring
your own mindset. So that's like, that's beneficial to people.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Absolutely, it is and you know, I mean whether or
not these practices will grant you, you know, the ability
to commune with the astral plane or across the astral plane.
Is it a thing you have to cross or a
place that you occupy I'm not quite sure, or be
able to speak with those machine ls. We talked about
that in the in the Kesha episode, that you gotta
(43:32):
have DMT for that business. Here's a surprising thing, maybe
not to everybody, but there is this seems like pretty progressive,
I would argue, even in the earliest forms where they're
letting you know, regular old folks join in and they
thought Aleister Crowley was a creep. But there apparently is
a far right version of this organization.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, fortunately they have they have a very similar name,
but they are not They're hopefully not related past the name.
And of course you know, we have people who have
read up on the Golden Dawn in the audience here,
so we wanted to be clear there's a different organization
that has very little to do with magic.
Speaker 4 (44:18):
It is.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
The Golden Dawn is a far right political party in Greece.
They've got a number of policy platforms. The main thing
is they want to return Greece to a military dictatorship,
and they say the benefits of this would be superior
to the current Greek government. Here's the thing. They're often
described by many people as neo Nazis. Many members of
(44:43):
the party disagree with that characterization, but I did. I
did put a little link to their official banner. Matt Nole,
I'd love to hear you guys describe this on air.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
I'd love to. I will describe it. But it's like
it has way more than a whiff of a swastika.
I mean, you look at it and it practically feels
like a swastika. So you look a little closer and
realize that it's twisted a little differently. It kind of
looks like a hedge maze or something, but it's just
very swastika. Ask Matt, what does it? How does it
strike you?
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Well? I guess it depends on which one we're looking at,
because I know, I think one of them is a
slightly different color than the other. I know that their
standard colors are red, black and white. And when when
you've got the black symbol on top of the red background.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
That's where your mind goes.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
That's right, there's a distinct flavor, let's say to it
doesn't mean like just because they chose colors that look
like that, and just because their symbol is, you know,
blocky shapes that are look like they could be a swastika,
doesn't mean they are like that. Fact doesn't mean that
(45:58):
they are in any way related to Nazis or anything
like that.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Colors aside, it definitely has a whiff of a swastika though.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
But the butt is you should see the ideologies that
they're associated with. For you know, many many, many people
who write about this group, several people who have you know,
come from this group to talk about it. Good lord,
don't even look at the Wikipedia page, because it will
(46:28):
tell you all of the varying ideologies that they're associated.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
It will probably gets you on some kind of lists
just for pulling it up.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Yeah, in the interest of, you know, giving their own
reasoning for this banner, they say that it is has
nothing necessarily to do with Nazism. It is a depiction
was called meandros. Meandros is a kind of decorative border
in a continuous line like you've seen it at every
(46:58):
Greek restaurant you've ever been to, probably in some form,
so that that's what that's at least their argument. But
as Matt said, if you just take a quick dip
into their Wikipedia page, you'll see the various members of
the group and leaders have been found guilty of murder,
attempted murder, attacks on immigrants, the creation of an organized
(47:20):
crime ring, and they've been you know, convicted. So maybe
maybe they should take a take a cue from the
other Golden Dawn and just try some meditation.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
I agree, Let's just let's do that all around. Let's
do that. Do we mention that their salute is kind
of the same one.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
It's the exact same one, same one.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
They you know, according to officials from the group or
people spokespeople from the group, is you know again has
a different inspiration.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
But it's like Vanilla Ice years and years ago when
he described the slight difference in a drum beat to
say a song with unique You remember that as I'm
behind the music.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Is one little extra don because ours goes theirs goes
case closed, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Right? So this is uh, it's just important for us
to say this because what it means is, if you
want to learn more about joining an organization affiliated with
the hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Just make sure
you're joining the right outfit. Double check the website, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
Be careful.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Also as a message to anybody who actively investigates these
sorts of schools of thought or philosophical explorations. We are
obviously outsiders to this, but we find it fascinating because
it touches on so many levels of society at the time,
(48:49):
you know what I mean. And there's there's a boldness
to the exploration in theory. And that's where we leave
it to you, folks. What do you think is the
Golden Dawn is or was it really teaching people magical rights?
Was it really giving people extraordinary abilities or allowing them
to commune with the board the management of reality? I
(49:13):
gotta tell you again, and I promise this last time
won't bring it up. Control is such a cool game.
It might I don't know if it's the best, but
it might be my favorite game I've played during the pandemic.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
Really, I'm in such an unfortunate position where I'm like
past the point of no return in several games, like
like I'm like, you know, good midway through Last of
Us two and then they gave me such a bummer
that I can only play it for a little at
of times. Also pretty hard. And I'm almost done with
the Breath of the Wild and I've still got Red
(49:44):
Dead to installed on my machine, which is like three
hundred gigs, so I've got, like, you know, guilt about
not finishing that. So I'm like convincing myself that I'm
going to. But I keep hearing about these cool new games.
It's just like Ghost of Tushima or something like. It's like, oh, yeah,
s heard, that's fat And then you guys keep talking
about this control. Is that a Switch game or is
it only PS four? Where can they get this game?
(50:07):
They can dig myself deeper.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
I think it's everything. I don't know if it's on Switch, though.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
I've got I've got PS four X files meets big government,
conspiracy meets Lovecraft?
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Is it like long form game? Is it like?
Speaker 1 (50:18):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (50:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (50:20):
And uh they're their rules for communication with extra dimensional
entities or things like you have to go through this
weird time bubble where it's always mid afternoon at a
strange hotel. Anyhow do you do you think that there
it is possible that these extra dimensional entities whatever you
(50:43):
want to call them. Do you think it's possible that
they exist and that members of the Golden Dawn somehow
figured out a way to contact them, or was this
organization functioning more as an an experiment of sorts it's
social interaction or is it something in between? You know,
(51:04):
we'd we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Yeah, please, And did we do we tell people how
to join? We did not, because you can right now.
You want to get in on this hermetic Order of
the Golden Dawn in twenty twenty one, or whenever you're
listening to this past, present or future, you can do it.
There is a website you can go to prepare yourselves
(51:26):
and your wallets. It is www dot Golden dash Dawn
Dawn dot com and once you get there you can
look up memberships and you will find that at least
on this date we record this in March of twenty
twenty one, you can join for the low low price
(51:49):
of one hundred and ninety nine dollars us US. It
used to be one thousand, one hundred and eighty eight
dollars and it's got to slash through it, but now
it's only one hundred and ninety nine dollars.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Is that is that just like a limited time offer
or is this just the new the new rate.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
I do not know, but you get lots and lots
of books and PDFs. It looks like a dagger. Perhaps
at least maybe some very interesting folks on the front
of that live webinar training picture. I'm fascinated.
Speaker 1 (52:31):
Maybe we draw straws and one of us joins up
and then breaks the valve silence for the other two.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
Dude, I'm not breaking a valve science if I if
I join up, I'm taking this seriously, you guys.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
Of course, Okay, you're one hundred percent in, so then
it would be a conversation where to talk with you
about it. We have to also join up.
Speaker 3 (52:49):
Yeah, you better believe it. I'm not going in two
hundred dollars just to give you guys all the information.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
Is there is there any criteria other than just just
paying the fee? I mean, I would love to think
that there was some kind of you know, test of
might that you would have to pass or mental fortitude,
you know. I mean, I'm cool with it being like
not about like your wealth, because that that's a reasonable
enough fee. But I don't want to be in there.
If it's if it's like just anyone can join, I
(53:15):
the wrong craft. I think it should be merit, merit
based merit. But no, now that's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying it should be you should be able to
have to bring something to the table. You know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Well, you do have to pass a written examination at
least in the original Golden Dawn to move to the
second or inner order.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
Yeah, so there's there's a rupric like.
Speaker 3 (53:35):
Not everybody can do this. It says, not everybody's gonna
make it.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Okay, great, this is this is important information.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
Yeah, they're taking it seriously as well. So we want
to we want to hear your opinion of it. Tell
us if you have joined, if you are joining, tell us,
if there are concerns about the organization, tell us if
most importantly, whether you think the rights and rituals described
actually actually have efficacy, whether they work out of respect
(54:04):
for you know, the idea of initiation and the idea
of secrecy. We have not described any specific rituals other
than to say it's not you know, it's not like
eating eyeballs or flaming people alive or any any of
that movie stuff, and if you want to learn more,
there are people who are glad to share that information
(54:27):
with you. You could tell us about your experiences, tell us
about other secret organizations, and tell us whether you think
there are forms of magic that are real. By finding
us on our own kind of magical order of these
times the internet.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
You can find us a conspiracy Stuff on Twitter and Facebook,
Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram. We recommend joining our Facebook
group Here's where it gets crazy, where you can exchange memes,
have spirited conversations about episode topics, and maybe make a
new best friend.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
You can also give us a phone call. Check it out,
you guys. Our number is one eight three three std WYTK.
If you choose to pick up your phone in call,
please do the following. Give us the name you'd like
for us to refer to you as. If it's not
your real name, that's fine. Just say whatever you want
us to call you, and we'll call you that. Give
(55:21):
leave us your message, try and keep it a little
brief if you can leave it under that three minutes,
and then if you want to tell us anything, just personally,
just talking to Ben Nolan, myself, Paul Alexis whoever. Just
keep that right at the end of the message. That'll
help us put everything together, edit it quickly, and then
get it on the air. We do appreciate you calling
(55:41):
in and taking the time to do it, so looking
forward to hearing from you. If you don't want to
do any of that stuff, hey, we've got a great
way for you to connect with us, especially if you've
got a longer story or a suggestion with a bunch
of links or something. Please send us a good old
fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
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