Golden Dawn Tradition

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a 19th century English society engaged in the creation of a systematic form of western esotericism. Its founders created a synthesis of previous strands of esotericism and spiritual thought that had existed in Europe. One aspect of this synthesis was the creation of a new vision of the soul. This soul went beyond a simple mixing of elements from earlier traditions and provided an integral portion of the spiritual vision that gave an overall purpose to the spiritual practices of the Golden Dawn. A discussion of the nature and structure of this soul, its key influences, and unique aspects gives clarity to some of the spiritual goals and vision of the Golden Dawn as a system of spiritual practice. This demonstrates a system of thought unique to the end of the nineteenth century that places it with other spiritual traditions of the world.

This dissertation seeks to define the importance of John Dee’s interpretation of mediaeval and Renaissance esoterica regarding the contacting of daemons and its evolution into a body of astrological and terrestrial correspondences and intelligences that included a Biblical primordial language, or a lingua adamica. The intention and transmission of John Dee’s angel magic is linked to the philosophy outlined in his earlier works, most notably the Monas Hieroglyphica, and so this dissertation also provides a philosophical background to Dee’s angel magic. The aim of this dissertation is to establish Dee’s conversations with angels as a magic system that is a direct descendant of Solomonic and Ficinian magic with unique Kabbalistic elements. It is primarily by the Neoplatonic, Hermetic, Kabbalistic, and alchemical philosophy presented in the Monas Hieroglyphica that interest in Dee’s angel magic was transmitted through the Rosicrucian movement. Through Johann Valentin Andreae’s Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz anno 1459, the emphasis on a spiritual, inner alchemy became attached to Dee’s philosophy. Figures such as Elias Ashmole, Ebenezer Sibley, Francis Barret, and Frederick Hockley were crucial in the transmission of interest in Dee’s practical angel magic and Hermetic philosophy to the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The rituals of the Golden Dawn utilized Dee’s angel magic, in addition to creative Kabbalistic elements, to form a singular practice that has influenced Western esoterica of the modern age. This study utilizes a careful analysis of primary sources including the original manuscripts of the Sloane archives, the most recent scholarly editions of Dee’s works, authoritative editions of original documents linked to Rosicrucianism, and Israel Regardie’s texts on Golden Dawn practices.

In the Information Age, keeping secrets has become increasingly problematic, as both elected officiates and clandestine groups the world over, demonstrate on an almost daily basis. Yet mystery schools, secret societies and occult practices lose none of their popularity; indeed, arguably occulture has enjoyed somewhat of a revival. As the line between private and public life continues to blur, how do such groups, which have long held concealment at the very heart of both their identity and functionality, navigate the sharing culture of the World Wide Web? Within the discourse of Western Esoteric Studies, we frequently find that members of the occult community are oath-bound, even on pain of death and destruction, not to reveal that which Google will instantly share. This chapter will pay particular attention to the rise of the esoteric group Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn (OSOGD), founded in 2002 by Sam Webster, and to Thelema, the philosophy/religion of renowned twentieth century occultist Aleister Crowley. His particular blend of 'Scientific Illuminism' provided Webster with a perfect philosophical underpinning, along with principles from within the open-source software movement, to inform the manifesto of the OSOGD, an online and new Aeonic approach to the old esoteric traditions. Has the time come for the 'occult' to become the 'open' and might the revealing of all secrets be a method of maintaining the mysteries?

Many Western Occult students strive to learn the Hebrew alphabet early in their studies. This Workbook explores the workings of memory, and how to use association and repetition as an aid in this task. It is still in development, but is offered as a Private Manuscript with No Commercial Intent.

""A work long anticipated offers the Early and Later Golden Dawn letters (letters from both the early and later Orders pertinent to these studies), the Sprengel-Westcott Letters, early Golden Dawn Historical Lectures, the Warrant of the Isis-Urania Temple; much other historical material. Articles by Gerald Suster, R.T. Prinke, Ellic Howe, and many others plus a special historical essay prepared especially for this volume by Richard Kaczynski entitled, Daybreak: Early History and Origins of the British Golden Dawn. The first comprehensive Cross Index of the Golden Dawn members and mottoes. With a translation of the Golden Dawn mottoes including the heretofore unknown American members. 223 pp. ISBN-13: 978-1558183310.""

Language: Polish. With an English summary. The book is a much needed update on recent developments in research on western esotericism. It presents history of academic research in this field, proposes new and more accurate Polish terminology, tracks the occult sciences and esoteric beliefs from middleages to present, and helps understand 19th and 20th century occultism as part and parcel of Western culture.

Enochian Chess, originally named “Rosicruician Chess”, is a board game for four players comparable in some aspects to traditional chess, but adapted from the Indian four-handed Chaturanga. Apart from being able to act as a form of erudite entertainment for knowledgeable Hermeticists, it can also be used for informal, ludic group meditation and contemplation of the various elemental, geomantic, astrological and tarot symbolism its boards and pieces represent. It also has – as its name implies – important connections to the Enochian system of magic originally channelled by the Elizabethan Magus John Dee and his seer the alchemist Edward [Talbot] Kelley in the 1580s, and later modified and “Hermeticized” by Samuel Lindell MacGregor Mathers and William Wynn Westcott of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, at the end of the nineteenth century. Yet during its use in the curriculum of the Adeptus Minor of the Golden Dawn magical system it moved beyond its obvious possibilities as an aid to study, contemplation and meditation of Hermetic symbolism, and developed a different system of play that allowed using it as a divination tool. Being a divination system in which four magical adepts actively participate in, and later interpret, also in tandem, each individual move – scrupulously recorded during game-play – it constitutes quite a unique case in Western divinatory practices. This article wishes to report on this lesser-known system of Hermetic divination, giving a quick overview of its history, symbolic attributions and operation, as well as discussing its peculiar casting and interpretation methods.

A detailed commentary and analysis of the Medieval Islamic philosopher Al-Kindi’s magical treatise ‘On Rays’ (also known as ‘On The Stellar Rays’ and ‘The Theory of The Magical Arts’). In this independent research project, I have attempted to describe and explain the content of the treatise in depth, and also explore its connections with other esoteric traditions, from Islamic mysticism and Sufism, to Hermeticism and Western occultism. My aim in producing this work is to revive this fascinating yet generally unknown text, as this has not been done in full since Zoller and Hand’s full English translation of the text in 1993. It has also been an opportunity for me to practice and develop my own research skills and academic writing before I begin my undergraduate degree later this year.

Thesis for the MA Mysticism and Western Esotericism at the University of Amsterdam, about the highly influential novel of Nicolas-Pierre-Henri Montfaucon de Villars, published in 1670.

NB. The appendix in the dissertation about Ludovico Sinistrari is outdated. See instead my paper "Tracing the mysterious facts in Isidore Liseux' publication of "De Daemonialitate" by Ludovico M. Sinistrari" (2008).

In his 1968 article, SJ Tambiah, building upon the work of Malinowski, focused on the special efficacy of words in ritual context. Using a ritual of exorcism from Ceylon as his example, Tambiah identified and elaborated on particular modes of speech that were employed by the specialist to empower ritual acts. This paper takes Tambiah's model and applies it to
The Bornless Ritual, a ritual of evocation designed and utilized by the Victorian Occult group The Golden Dawn, an organization founded in 1881 by S.L. Macgregor Mathers and William Wynn Westcott. In identifying and analyzing the verbal modalities of The Bornless Ritual, some fascinating insights into how the ancient practice of evocation was received and translated by early modern occultists can be discovered. Most notably, it illustrates more fully how The Bornless Ritual is a particular product of modernity.

This essay sets forth to analyze the various attributions of the Watchtowers and their components. It strives to cover all the pertinent material from the Spirit Actions of Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelly, along with subsequent sources that have influenced the Golden Dawn and its successors. It may result in more questions than answers, but it is the hope that sources and logic herein provide sufficient information for serious students of Enochian magick to draw their own conclusions or at least to begin the process of fruitful inquiry into the problems that they pose.

The Introduction and first chapter of Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath, volume one, by Julia Gordon-Bramer (2015, Stephen F. Austin State University Press). To purchase or for review copy: http://www.tamupress.com/product/Fixed-Stars-Govern-a-Life,7831.aspx

This thesis investigates the reception and appropriation of aspects of ancient Egyptian religion by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an exclusive late-nineteenth century British alternative spirituality movement. Initially contextualising the Golden Dawn as standing outside the development of scholarly Egyptology, its direct relationship with the modern Pagan movement is subsequently explained and the implications thereof for contemporary archaeology are outlined. Specific case studies of four Golden Dawn members highlight the order’s imaginative method of obtaining knowledge about ancient Egypt and the erroneous conclusions arrived at thereby. The historically inaccurate, self-serving and misleading picture of ancient Egyptian religion promoted by the Golden Dawn, as well as its unscientific method of obtaining information about the past through revelation rather than reason, is shown to have been adopted by contemporary Pagans who subsequently attempt to impose their erroneous interpretations of the past on to archaeologists, museum curators and heritage workers, to the detriment of archaeology.

This article investigates the story of Aleister Crowley’s reception of The Book of the Law in Cairo, Egypt, in 1904, focusing on the question of why it occurred in Egypt. The article contends that Crowley created this foundation narrative, which involved specifically incorporating an Egyptian antiquity from a museum, the “Stèle of Revealing,’” in Egypt because he was working within a conceptual structure that privileged Egypt as a source of Hermetic authority. The article explores Crowley’s synthesis of the romantic and scholarly constructions of Egypt, inherited from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, as well as the uses that two prominent members of the Order made of Egyptological collections within museums. The article concludes that these provided Crowley with both a conceptual structure within which to legitimise his reformation of Golden Dawn ritual and cosmology, and a model of how to do so.

This article analyses the schism of a contemporary grouping of 'learned magic', the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT), which took place in the early 1990s and is often referred to as the 'Ice Magick War'. After embedding the IOT's background doctrine – Chaos Magick – within the overall history of 'Western learned magic', its foundation is interpreted as a fascinating attempt at 'institutionalising religious individualisation'. Even though the IOT created grade structures, stipulated prearranged teaching documents and ritual scripts, and engaged in group events and rituals, its founders were well aware of the implications of group formation and did their best to construe the IOT as an embodiment of what Chaos Magick was in total standing for: "a current of eclecticism and a rejection of the principles of absolutism, guruship and totalitarianism" (Carroll 1997). Against this backdrop, the Ice Magick War and the schism that arose out of it seem to illustrate the tension between a strikingly individualist, anti-hierarchical, anti-dogmatic agenda on the one hand and competing dynamics of dogmatisation, authoritarianism, secrecy and power abuse on the other – and may thus point to inherent ambivalences in the notion of 'institutionalising religious individualisation'.

This is the final version published in Martin Fuchs et al. (eds.), Religious Individualisation. Historical Dimensions and Comparative Perspectives, Berlin: de Gruyter 2020, 759-96. In contrast to the version previously uploaded on academia, the final version includes novel insights based on a first-hand interview with Ralph Tegtmeier...

This is an article in the history of Western esoteric currents that re-examines and clarifies the relationship between esoteric and psychological discourses within the works of Israel Regardie. One of the most common ways in which these two discourses have been found to be related to one another by scholars of the esoteric is through the process of “psychologization”—with Regardie often being put forth as a paragon of the process. This paper argues that a unitary conception of psychologization fails to adequately describe the specific discursive strategies utilized by Regardie. In order to accurately analyze his ideas, a manifold typology of complementary, terminological, reductive, and idealist modes of psychologization is proposed instead. Through this system of classification, Regardie’s ideas regarding the relationship between psychological and esoteric discourses are understood as a network of independent but non-exclusive processes, rather than as a single trend. It is found that all four modes of psychologization are present, both in relative isolation and in combination with one another, throughout his works. These results demonstrate that while it is accurate to speak of Regardie as having psychologized esoteric discourse, this can only be the case given an understanding of “psychologization” that is differentially nuanced in a way that, at least, accounts for the distinct discursive strategies this paper identifies.

This is an article in the history of magic that re-evaluates Alison Butler’s thesis regarding the novelty of the magical praxis of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. It consists of a response to two claims made by Butler as to the morphological novelty of the order’s magic: 1) the utilization of active, as opposed to passive modalities of the vis imaginativa; and 2) the techniques of unmediated invocation. In both domains, not only do Butler’s works mischaracterize the practices of the Golden Dawn itself, but also wrongly identifies these categories as instances of innovation. In fact, there is a strong degree of formal similarity between the ritual mechanics of the order and those earlier antique, medieval, and Renaissance practitioners in the specific areas of visualization and invocation. These similarities strongly call into question the characterization of the Golden Dawn’s magic as fundamentally modern in form.

I found this PDF on the somewhere on the internet some time ago and i do not remember where. I apologize for that. I have since searched the internet for its title and i could not relocate it...If you know more due information i would appreciate a message. (Note: sorry for the similar title as another posted book on this site. This is a different book. I obviously did not choose this title. I will post it under the name that is on the first page of this PDF.) Since it may be rare, i will post it on Academia. It is loaded with information. Very in-depth look into this topic. Interesting.
So, it goes without saying, I AM NOT THE AUTHOR and i do not know who the author is. There is nothing indicated that i read. Also, i am posting this for purely informational purposes and in no way do i want to be subject to assumptions and associated with Nazis and their practices or value structures and things. But this is very pertinent and lends clarity to much.

The author analyses alchemical interests of some groups inside The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in its
connection with their scientific interests. This analysis is used here as an example which shows that the beginning
of 20th century was a period of close interaction of esoteric and scientific ideas.

Within Max Théon's circles – The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor and the Cosmic Movement – there was great interest in ritual magic. Some of the works associated with these movements reveal a theoretical and practical approach that had been adopted from medieval and renaissance grimoires, which they used for different purposes. The methods of The Key of Solomon – perhaps the most influential medieval magical text – were reborn in Theon’s circles where they were transformed into psychological and spiritual practices. Gal Sofer’s chapter explores the reception of ritual magic by Alma and Max Théon, as well as by members of the H.B. of L., in order to reveal how these figures participated in the revival of ritual magic and how their interpretations influenced practitioners in the twentieth century and beyond.

Claims of traveling in the astral planes, the techniques and experiences recorded by individuals in such nineteenth-century groups as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Theosophical Society have been common since the late nineteenth century. During these astral travel episodes, the individual imaginatively leaves her or his physical body and travels to places in this world or another dimension. The travelers claim that their inner selves travel into an imaginative environment generally accessible only to themselves. Here they encounter various entities, objects, and structures with which they can interact. In 1895, prominent Theosophist and clairvoyant, Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) published The Astral Plane, which described the various sceneries, phenomena, and human and non-human inhabitants one might encounter in the astral environment. Within the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a nineteenth-century initiatory occult organization, travelling or “descrying” on the astral plane was an important activity an initiate was required to master in order to “obtain a clear idea of the relation of Man to the Universe, and to the spiritual planes”. These notions of the astral and the abilities and techniques to travel in it were adopted by many occultists, such as Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) and Edgar Cayce (1877–1945), and transmitted into the twentieth century. By the mid- to late twentieth century these ideas and techniques were diffused and incorporated into numerous groups and esoteric religions, the most prominent being New Age and neopaganism. With the emergence of computer technology, and the Internet specifically, various groups of people began to transfer the imaginative quality of the astral environment to cyberspace, and language that was previously used to refer to the astral was now used to describe cyber realms.

As Erik Davis, a self-described culture critic notes, “Both cyberspace and magical space are purely manifest in the imagination. … Both spaces are entirely constructed by your thoughts and beliefs.” Yet there were still significant impediments to cyberspace becoming just like the astral plane as described by nineteenth- and twentieth-century occultists. One was that text and static images on web pages still required the individual to look at the content and then imaginatively construct the “cyberastral” with their imaginations. The Internet was simply a way to deliver the content, but the person still had to imaginatively assemble it to bring the cyberastral realm alive. This process significantly changed with the emergence of three-dimensional graphical representation on the Internet. Another problem was the physical body. What happened to one’s body while in the astral? This question similarly occupied nineteenth-century occultists. Yet contemporary practitioners in the cyberastral have found new ways to deal with this question, or significantly adapted older solutions. The newest three-dimensional virtual worlds do provide the possibility to convincingly represent a cyberastral world, and some esoteric religious practitioners are using these worlds as places to practice their religion. One of these virtual environments is a computer system called Second Life. More than just seeing Second Life as an alternative place for communicating with others in virtual reality, some esoteric religious practitioners understand it to actually be the astral world. That is, they see no substantive difference between an imaginary astral plane described by the early occultists and the Second Life computer system itself. Moreover, this cyberastral environment has an added benefit that the astral environments visited by nineteenth-century occultists lacked: one can travel to the cyberastral and communicate with others while doing so. Thus the transfer of ideas about the astral plane to cyberspace and the development of sophisticated three-dimensional virtual worlds has led to the emergence of a particularly new type of astral plane, one that is imaginative, embodied, computer generated, and most importantly, social.

The Middle Pillar meditation is a staple of Ceremonial Magick WORK since revealed in the 1930s by Dr. Israel Regardie in his Golden Dawn materials. However, historical research into older Qabalistic texts indicate the "God NAME" used in Tipareth may have been misheard. Quotes from the Zohar, likely Rabbi Moses de Leon, his contemporary Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla @1300 and Rabbi Moses ben Jacob Cordovero @ 1550 all contain the sequence of Names with an explanation, with one glaring exception in the Heart chakra.

The article examines the use of Classical Hebrew and a biblical quotation in the rituals and materials of the esoteric-magical order The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (originating in late nineteenth-century Britain) and the tradition deriving from it. The text focuses on how the Order seems to have viewed Hebrew as a “magical language” and especially on its perhaps most famous ritual, the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram, the reworking found in that ritual of the concluding doxology in the Matthean version of the Lord’s Prayer (rendered in a kabbalistically infused Hebrew version in the Golden Dawn text). It is argued that the Hebrew language was to an extent used in a largely symbolic (as opposed to a purely linguistic) way within the Golden Dawn, and the use of the Hebrew language and originally Hebrew sources in the Pentagram ritual is analyzed as constituting a fusion of the Christian and Hebrew heritages on which the Golden Dawn ritualists drew. The phonologies of the “Golden Dawn Hebrew” words are also discussed, as are the methods of transcription employed in the ritual and educational materials of the Order and its offshoots. This helps provide a perspective on the various ways in which Hebrew material may have reached the Golden Dawn tradition.

Moina Bergson Mathers (1865–1928) was the first female initiate of the Hermetic Order of Golden Dawn, which was co-founded in 1888 in London by her husband Samuel Liddell “MacGregor” Mathers. Moina Mathers developed, wrote, and disseminated unique forms of magical practice aimed at personal development, social change, and the advancement of women. She invested her artistic talents in the production of spirit drawings, ceremonial artifacts, and pioneering public performances termed as the Rites of Isis, which commenced in 1899 in Paris. In her role as a High Priestess in these theatrical events, and in her position as a principal teacher of the Golden Dawn system, she demonstrated, through personal example, the equal partnership of women and men in all matters, sacred and profane. Moreover, she emphasized her belief in women’s inherent sensibility that enables them to excel in the practice of magic, realize ideas, and embody divinity.

https://wrldrels.org/2019/08/25/moina-bergson-mathers/

This contribution to the Cambridge Handbook of Western Esotericism and Mysticism provides an overview of two of the most influential occultist initiatory orders of the 19th and 20th centuries, with a particular look at their roles in the history of modern ritual magic.

This paper analyses and critiques the uses of ancient Egyptian religion by the founders of two modern manifestations of the worship of the goddess Isis. Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, the primary creative genius behind the famous British occult group, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and his wife Moina Mathers established a mystery religion of Isis in fin de siècle Paris. Lawrence Durdin-Robertson, his wife Pamela and his sister Olivia created the Fellowship of Isis in Ireland in the early 1970s. Although separated by over half a century and not directly associated with each other, both groups have several characteristics in common. Each combined their worship of an ancient Egyptian goddess with an interest in the Celtic Revival; both claimed that their priestly lineages derived directly from the Egyptian princess Scota, foundress of Ireland and Scotland according to Irish and Scottish mythology and pseudohistory; and both groups used dramatic ritual and theatrical events as avenues for the promulgation of their Isis cults.

It is argued here that while both the Parisian mysteries of Isis and the Fellowship of Isis are historically-inaccurate syncretic constructions, they exemplify the enduring popularity of the Egyptian goddess Isis who since antiquity has been appropriated and re-fashioned in order to serve as a symbol of the zeitgeist. Already in Pharaonic and Roman Egypt, Isis was a universal goddess within whom other goddesses were subsumed. In subsequent centuries, so flexible was the figure of Isis that she was even claimed to have been a goddess of the Druids.

The tradition of an Egyptian origin of the peoples of Scotland and Ireland, as espoused in the medieval myth of the Egyptian princess Scota, legitimised the Mathers’s and the Durdin-Robertson’s claims of their ancient Egyptian priesthood. In addition to asserting that the Isis cult was brought by Scota, Pharaonic Egyptian, Graeco-Roman, Medieval, Hermetic, and Romantic literary and archaeological sources were utilised in order to construct their understanding of Isis. That Isis was recreated according to the abilities and concerns of the founders of the Parisian mysteries and the Fellowship of Isis is evident from examination of eye-witness reports of ritual performances, occult theatre, personal interviews, missives, and explanatory texts. It is determined that both groups favoured an ahistorical construction of the goddess as an eternal, mysterious, magical figure representative of universal harmony, unity and nature, which appealed to late-nineteenth and twentieth century Pagan sensibilities.

Neither the Parisian mysteries of Isis nor the Fellowship of Isis has been the focus of much critical scholarship to date, and the use of the medieval myth of Scota by these figures has never been analysed. This paper builds upon previous research on the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and contemporary Pagan religions, particularly the author’s examination of its prime movers; Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, Florence Farr, and Aleister Crowley; the Order’s utilisation of ancient Egyptian religion; and its influence on the emergence of the modern Pagan movement in the mid-twentieth century.

Keywords: Isis, Scota, Celts, occult theatre

This programmatic paper conceptualises a research topic that has emerged in academic research over the past decades—'Western learned magic'—and provides a theoretical foundation for its historicisation to come. Even though a large amount of specialised findings on this topic have been brought forward in recent years, a diachronic and cross-cultural overview of the history of 'Western learned magic' that reconstructs possible red threads through the manifold material is still an urgent desideratum. Based on the observation that most classic definitions and theories of 'magic' are irrelevant to the history of 'Western learned magic'—as these have been deduced from anthropological sources and theorising—this article raises a range of theoretical issues that need to be taken into account in the course of its historicisation: continuity, changeability, hybridity, deviance, morality, complexity, efficacy, and multiplicity. By means of this novel theoretical setup, historians will be able to work towards a methodologically sound history of 'Western learned magic' that takes into account the recent criticism against a second-order category of 'magic' while, at the same time, revealing outdated stereotypes and master narratives on the topic.

Compared to the large number of Victorian writers who used to see
Pan as a symbol of happy and uninhibited sexuality, Arthur Machen’s
interpretation of the goat-god was quite upstream. Pan (or Faunus, his
Roman counterpart) is present in all the stories the Welsh author wrote
in the period 1890-1899, in many different ways and sometimes without
any diegetic reason. In all cases he is the mark of a misdirected and
malignant sexual energy, of a real pathology of the soul.

Origin, Development and Decline of the Western Geomantic Tradition
Geomancy is a form of prediction that first appeared in the Middle Ages in Arabic North Africa and from there spread throughout the Mediterranean and across Eu- rope, where it became one of the most important divinatory arts. As a consequence, in the Latin world a large body of geomantic literature, made up of Arabo-Latin trans- lations, Latin treatises, vernacular writings, indirect testimonies in philosophical, theological and literary works, developed.
The paper is intended to describe the Arabic background and the main features of the Western geomantic tradition that flourished and influenced European intel- lectual history from the 12th century — the first translations of Arabic treatises were done in this century — until its decline in the 18th century. Though belonging to various literary genres, being composed within diverse historico-cultural contexts and for diverse purposes, all geomantic texts shared common conceptions: the awareness of being part of a tradition, the narrative about the origins, the idea that geomancy has Hermetic and/or Islamic roots, the religious characterization and le- gitimation of the geomantic art, the view that it is associated with supernatural spir- its, and the ritualization of its method.
In the 18th-century Enlightenment, geomantic texts went through a process of simplification and « desacralization », which eventually transformed them into the oversimplified practical handbooks which are today appreciated by those who are in search of an easy-to-use technique for predicting future events.
In contrast, in some Arabic countries and in Persia geomancy has remained un- changed as a strongly ritualized divinatory practice. This divinatory art has survived thanks to the oral tradition, which was lively still into the 20th century, but has also been nourished by the written sources of the medieval tradition.

Modern occultism and Christianity have frequently been defined in opposition to each other. Christians, reflecting longstanding polemics against esoteric knowledge, have continued to view a range of magical traditions as heretical. Conversely, leading occultists have reversed this polarisation, presenting their ideas and practices as a dramatic rebuke of Christian orthodoxy. Scholarly attempts to demarcate modern occultism from pre-nineteenth-century forms of esoteric practice and belief have often focused on this perceived opposition, to the detriment of research subjects who unproblematically merge Christian and esoteric concepts and practices. This chapter argues against overemphasis on the Christian/occult binary, relying on the illustrative example of English poet, playwright, novelist, and theologian Charles Williams (1886–1945). Though Williams was a dedicated Anglican and prioritised Christian doctrine, his preference for pluralism and syncretism also led him to engage with occultism, most notably through his ten-year involvement with Arthur Edward Waite’s occult Rosicrucian order, the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross. In contradistinction to most Williams scholarship, this chapter presents Williams’ heterodox theology as an indicative example of a large number of late modern belief systems which have emphasised syncretism and pluralism over doctrinal loyalty, thus eroding the dynamics of heresy.