Contents | History | The Cipher Document | Mission Statement | Lorebooks | Members | Adventure Ideas | Bibliography

There is one major problem including the historical Order of the Golden Dawn in the Castle Falkenstein universe. Timing. Yet the Order and its membership provides a plethora of good ideas for the Host who can get around the timing problem, or is willing to ignore it completely.

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was officially founded in 1888. Founding members included William Westcott, William Woodman, and MacGregor Mathers. Joining soon after were Moina Mathers, Florence Farr, and Maude Gonne. Annie Horniman and William Butler Yeats joined slightly later when they left the Madame Blavatsky's Theosophists, and Aleister Crowley got his start with the Dawn in the late 1890s. Many of them were not born until 1865 or after.

The Golden Dawn was formed on the basis of a document, commonly known as the "Cipher Document," which fell into the hands of Westcott in 1887, from what source it isn't really known. He claimed the document was of ancient origin, but when translated it read as though written by an Englishman and translated into German, rather than the other way around. It was transcribed in a common cipher found in the works of Johann Trithemius, and on the back of the document was the address of a Fraulein Anna Spengler in Stuttgart.

Westcott wrote to Miss Spengler, who granted permission for him and two others to found the Golden Dawn, an offshoot order from "Goldene Dammerung" or Golden Twilight, an extremely secret German order. However, it appears that six weeks earlier he wrote to Mathers and Woodman, asking if they would like to found a magical order, to admit both men and women, and to be called "The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn."

The Order grew quickly, soon springing from the original London Temple to eleven other official ones by the turn of the century. At the bottom of this page is a table listing the original Temples, their locations, and their praetors, or "chiefs."

In 1892, MacGregor Mathers and his wife, Moina moved to Paris. Soon after, they began claiming to receive new degrees of initiations psychically from "The Secret Chiefs." Most importantly, a Second Order was added to the order at this time and the first Vault of the Adepti (a ritual room) was built in London, in Thavies Inn off Holborn Circus.

The rest of the history of the Order is one of political intrigue among its members. The culmination of this was in 1900 when Mathers, from Paris, ordered Annie Horniman, then Praemonatrix of the London chapter, to initiate Aleister Crowley to the Second Order. Believing Crowley was not ready for the tests required, Horniman refused. Mathers brought Crowley to Paris and initiated him there himself. The London Chapter was outraged. This was obviously an indication of how far Mathers had fallen in not only esteem, but ability. They rebelled. Mathers sent Crowley back to London to chastise the membership there and to take back some of the equipment. Crowley arrived at the Vault of the Adepti in full Scottish regalia, with a mask of Anubis, the Egyptian jackal-god covering his face. He was carrying an ax, which he brandished crazily, attacking the furniture. The crisis ended when the police entered the inner sanctum, and, at the request of the membership, led by Annie Horniman, forcibly removed Crowley from the premises.

The London chapter denounced Mathers, and, after some legal dispute over the ownership of the vault and its ritual items, set off in its own direction. Soon after, Crowley also denounced Mathers and went his own way as well, to become one of the most well-known renegade ceremonial magicians of the 20th century. The GD fragmented into several small orders due to this and several other scandals occurring at about the same time.

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Contents | History | The Cipher Document | Mission Statement | Lorebooks | Members | Adventure Ideas | Bibliography

This site updated Saturday, September 9, 2000