The Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley | Secret Societies 4 | European History | Extra History

London 1900 Order of the Golden Dawn Isis urania Temple the magician breaks the ward and opens the door to the temple striding inside he wears a kilt a mask of Osiris and at his belt hangs talismans and a dagger this is the occultist Alistair Crowley and he has come for vengeance once he passed through this door as a member but the Inner Circle have now barred him so he has gone to his exiled master in Paris to learn the spells that will take this building for his own he places a foot on the narrow stairs

but sees a shadowy figure at the top the imperator of the temple his rival and the man who had cast him out Irish poet William Butler Yates Crowley makes the sign of the inverted pentagram snarling an incantation while above Yates makes his own sigil readying a counter spell the Battle of blly Road had begun [Music] thanks so much to imprint for helping me to learn cool new stuff fast prepare thyself quill Bearer for today we shall be revealing Secrets quite different from the extremist militias mystery Cults or Enlightenment revolutionaries we've taught you about prior no

today we'll be dealing with something a bit more magical and should your mind be open to such Tales you will be elevated to the Inner Circle as a Helios in the auto extra Historia so what are we waiting for everyone make the magic circle yes now invoke the Rune of Zoe ascendant and we'll tell you all about History's Greatest and probably funniest wizard duel we often think of the Victorian era as a golden age specifically for Britain but in truth by the 1880s and 90s many Britains were in a spiritual crisis Victoria's reign had brought

wealth power and Technology but also mil towns and pollution Mass poverty and Imperial cruelty not only did many people feel that the traditional structures of religion were not working anymore they felt the current age needed to be destroyed and a more spiritual age born and that is what caught WB yates's attention when a man named McGregor began telling the young poet that he'd had visions of an apocalyptic war that would soon remake the world this man whose real name was Samuel Mathers by the way McGregor was a mystical name he' taken on claimed to no

magic and he was one of the founders of a mystical society called the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn the organization had started strangely around found some coded manuscripts discovered in a bookstall several friends with an interest in the esoteric McGregor included got together to decipher them and ended up expanding their circle into a formal group meant as a sort of magical University real magic magic with a K it's the K that makes it magical Now by Magic we mean any kind of expansion of consciousness through exploration of Arcane knowledge many order members had been

interested in similar ideas put forward by Madame blavatsky's new religion of theosophy but broke from her when she started incorporating more Eastern esoteric Traditions from Buddhism and Hinduism the Order of the Golden Dawn by contrast would explore the Western esoteric tradition of alchemy ritual magic mystery religions numerology Christian mysticism and the Renaissance cabala Traditions associated with Queen Elizabeth's astrologer and spy Master John D they also ripped off stuff from rosar Cruis a wholesale some of them had been English rosicrucians and they pulled their structure from come on say it with me the Freemasons yep grades

of membership initiation rituals inner and outer circles special uniforms and passwords we don't need to belabor the point we're four episodes in here although their ranks were based on tarot cards which is interesting since Arthur Edward weight co-designer of the ryer weight Tarot deck was an influential member Yates took to it immediately since it spoke to a sense he'd always had that the human imagination channeled the spiritual Dimension soon he was doing experiments where he placed sigils on his friends foreheads to see if they imparted any images relating to the meaning of the symbol and

as you might expect the results were mixed Yates shot up through the ranks under McGregor's patronage eventually becoming imperator or leader of the London Temple other members included Bram Stoker and the actress and suffrage activist Florence far together the order published translations of old Renaissance magic grimo and studies of mysticism and Magic they meditated they discussed they debated but not all was well in the order see it's broad remit gave it an inherent tension because you had the McGregor Types on one side who were way more interested in the occult and then you had those

like waight on the other side who considered all of that rubbish and exclusively pursued Christian mysticism then when far attained rank of Chief Adept in Anglia in 1897 many wrangled at taking orders from a woman feelings also soured on McGregor when he moved to France yet kept a strangle hold on the London Temple insisting he was in touch with ancient Masters and could Grant the only legitimate Revelations and then Cain Crowley Crowley and McGregor were in touch and he was very much in the older man's Camp of occultists pursuing magic as a way to get

power Crowley was interested in dark magic and frequently referred to himself as aligned with the Antichrist himself a poet he was also deeply jealous of yates's talent which grew into a pathetic one-sided rivalry but really it was his libertine lifestyle and open bisexuality the leadership of the temple cited when they denied him the second highest grade of membership yeah listen Crowley kind of sucks but homophobia sucks Too Furious Crowley went to France to meet with McGregor who then unilaterally raised Crowley to the desired Rank and taught him all the secret rituals locked behind it then

he imparted Crowley with a mission to take these dangerous and Powerful spells he taught him go to the Temple of Isis urania raid it do battle and defeat the weak Mystics ooh also dressed like the Kelts of old in a kilt McGregor was sort of a obsessed with the Kelts thus the name change and wear the mask of Osiris and carry a dagger and that is how Alistar Crowley came to be climbing up the stairs dressed as he was making the sign of the pentagram inversed from the opening of this episode Yates responded along with

at least two other members they bellowed and gestured throwing sigils with their hands and calling on Elementals to strike Crowley down casting magical Wards to protect themselves but Crowley Advanced towards them through a blizzard of curses and incantations weaving his own spell in the air besieging them in their own Temple the two sides battled furiously casting spells in hex's invoking the Angelic and demonic alike channeling Elementals and unleashing supernatural creatures to no avail Crowley still climbed towards them despite their esoteric assault as if their Arcane workings had no effect on him at all Crowley was

now close within Striking Distance his knife raised in evocation but in the last moment Yates Drew on his reserved strength and Unleashed his ultimate attack he kicked Crowley in the face yep he just kind of decided you know what screw all this magic stuff I'm just going to boot the guy so did everyone else actually in this duel which must have been the correct Arcane counter to all of the spellcasting because it sent Crowley tumbling down the steps at least that's how one version of The Story Goes at one point Yates claimed that his force

of magicians won by calling on a higher power namely the police who escorted Crowley from the property and told him never to return from there though the rumors just get even more Bonkers one Yates biographer who interviewed Crowley relates that the Bad Blood between the two continued and Crowley later came to believe that Yates had sent a spectral vampire to chew on him in the night yeah anyway the golden Dawn's fractures didn't resolve after Crowley's defeat members drifted away from the order over the next few years its lack of solid spiritual Doctrine and internal divisions

making it less attractive than the new competing religious movements heck even Yates left in 1905 following far's resignation however it did influence a range of new and alternative religions from Alistair Crowley's own thma to the religion of wiah that was developed by a former Golden Dawn member and partially based on its philosophies popular culture too was forever changed by the golden Dawn's ideas about ritual magic involving hand gestures magic circles and occult grimo due to its Publications and translations its principles and practices also deeply enriched The Poetry of wb8 which contains the seeds of its

wide tent Embrace of multiple kinds of mysticism and philosophy and some scholars believe he used meditation and ritual in his writing whether or not that's true it still did influence some of the greatest verse in the English language because in a certain way they were right imagination is a type of magic oh do you feel the power csing through you Helios yes you are now amongst the inner circle of the enlightened ones that is of course again circle with a K because the K does in fact make it magical I mean the convenience story is

just proof of that so now go forth and do good with your new power but just be sure to return next week when our teachings take us to Japan and we dive into the founding of the infamous Yakuza where you very well may attain the rank of Master of history and to help you prepare for this transformation oh seeker of knowledge let me ask you a question in those small moments of your life when you're brewing coffee or in line at the bookstore or waiting for a game to download what are you doing with your

time well if you're like me basically Doom scrolling right just endlessly swiping on my phone through internet driil I'm not going to remember anyway which honestly never leaves me feeling good which is why today I am very pumped to tell you about imprint because I'm finding it a way more rewarding use of my time it's this learning app that lets you engage with a ton of topics like history philosophy science technology productivity and More in bit-sized sessions throughout your day with Visual and interactive lessons that you can complete in around 2 minutes but seriously don't

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with imprint and then for even more Forbidden Knowledge watch another of our videos here say did you hear the one about kuya Koy Joseph blame Izzy coin inner Dominic valenciana arite game Angelo valenciana and Amed zad Turk being legendary patrons yeah turns out they're the best [Music]