Title
Notebooks of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
Reference
MS 1405
Production date
August 1893
Creator
Creator History
A mystical organisation founded in 1888 by freemasons Dr William Wynn Westcott, Dr William Robert Woodman and Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers. The Golden Dawn admitted both men and women as members.
Scope and Content
Two notebooks or "exercise books" from a set of books that would have been issued to members of the mystical organisation, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, for the purposes of learning about the Order.
The large notebook is inscribed "Loan Copy" on the inside of the front cover and the title page states, "Horus Temple Copy of Lecture Six of the grade of Philosophus. 4=7. Grams and Gons.". It also states "Copied by permission of S.A., August 1893".
The smaller notebook is thought to date from a similar time and the first page states, "Order of the G.D. in the Outer. Lecture on the knowledge necessary to be acquired before passing from 3=8 to 4=7."
Extent
2 items
Physical description
Two soft bound notebooks
Language
English
Level of description
fonds
Content person
Archival history
These notebooks were given by Alvin Langdon Coburn to Professor D. J. Gordon, Department of English, University of Reading. Gordon states that these came into the possession of Coburn after The Horus Temple in Manchester was broken up. Around 1900 William Butler Yeats resumed responsibility for the Isis -Urania Temple in London. It is possible that Coburn was a member of the Order, through his association with Yeats.
According to the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, The Horus Temple was actually situated in Bradford.