Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn?

[iris]

William Butler Yates was a member of The Golden Dawn. Crowley screwed him out of the leadership position.

Too bad...

Yates would have been better...

So was Arthur Machen (The Great God Pan, The Shining Pyramid, etc.).

I love w.b. yeats! I never took an interest in the golden dawn before, though I've heard them mentioned quite often. but when I learned that one of my fave poets was in it, it sparked my curiousity. I'm planning on reading some crowley... as soon as I get vacation. Any suggestions on where to start?

[B. de Corbin]

LOL - I confess, I'm not a Crowley fan. But... You might want to read James Stephens, a contemporary of Yates, who had some thoughts about Yates' magical experiments - expressed in The Demi-Gods.

(English nerd alert!)

P.S. The Dublin Temple of the Golden Dawn has his magical regalia and tools on display.

[iris]

LOL - I confess, I'm not a Crowley fan. But... You might want to read James Stephens, a contemporary of Yates, who had some thoughts about Yates' magical experiments - expressed in The Demi-Gods.

(English nerd alert!)

P.S. The Dublin Temple of the Golden Dawn has his magical regalia and tools on display.

From what little I know of crowley I never really cared for him either, so I'll start with james stephens instead. Thanks and I don't mind going nerdy, I do study english after all

[Louisvillian]

I'm honestly a little shocked you hadn't heard about them before. The Golden Dawn was one of the first things I found out about when I researched Wicca's history on the web. The very first thing I did when I was looking into practising Wicca was delve into its history. I also found the "Wicca for the Rest of Us" site fairly early on, too, as a result, since it had a no-nonsense take on the subject. But anyway, the HOGD was an enormous influence on not just Wicca, but the Western esoteric revival in general.