"The Sabbatian Roots of the Golden Dawn" -

The Sabbatian Roots of the Golden Dawn

It is my strong conviction that the two parts of the Golden Dawn tradition, as it exist today, the Qabalistic and the Hermetic, didn’t originate solely through the scholarly research of William Wynn Westcott and Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, as is often asserted today and by historians of the Golden Dawn as Ellic Howe, R.A. Gilbert, Nick Farrell, Ian Cowburn, et al.

I do however acknowledge that some of it was originally created by the collaborated efforts of Westcott and Mathers, as for instance the Enochian magical system, which I believe is truly unique. Some other parts were probably brought in by Westcott and Mathers from earlier order affiliations, such as Societas Rosicruciania in Anglia (S.R.I.A.). The connection with the S.R.I.A. can superficially bee seen in:

• The threefold order structure of 1st, 2nd and 3rd Orders.
  
• The office of Chief-Adept.
  
• The general design of the cloaks of officers (see image below).
  
• Some of the designs of the wands – look especially for the ceremonial wand of the Supreme Magus, with colored bands, which seems to be a blend between the Lotus Wand and Fire Wand of the Golden Dawn (see image below).
  
• The cross design of the Supreme Magus surmounted by the crown, which bears striking similarities with the cross design on the Lid of the Pastos of the Adeptus Minor Grade (see image below).
  
• Some basic designs for the Vault of Adepts, even though the S.R.I.A. version is not at all as detailed as that of the Golden Dawn.

Although I also believe that Mathers actually received much of the Second Order material through the hands of Lux Ex Tenebris, such as the Adeptus Minor Ceremony and Z-documents, amongst other material, I also don’t contest the possibility that he, perhaps in collaboration with Westcott as Nick Farrell asserts, also developed parts of that material further, as the design of the Vault for example. It is however very hard to establish exactly how much was developed from the material Mathers received from L.E.T. for someone not being in possession of archives of the old Rosicrucian school behind the Golden Dawn.

I can also see some influences from Sigismund Backstrom’s Rosicrucian Society in England, mainly in the Adeptus Minor oath and the design made by Moina Mathers on the Second Order Membership Roll. So, Golden Dawn of course received some influences from the anglo-saxon esoteric tradition, because of its close proximity with that esoteric community. But these influences I consider to be of a minor significance. As I already have stated, the very foundation for the Second Order was received through Mathers’ continental sources. But it is an established fact that the First or Outer Order, at least in part, was founded on that mysterious Cypher Mss. which Westcott received from either Woodford’s or MacKenzie’s estates, a document which I also believe likely has a continental origin.