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Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers

1854 – 1918 Scottish occultist, ritualist, co-founder of the Golden Dawn

Chief ritual architect of the Golden Dawn who translated key magical texts.

Religion
Ceremonial magic within a Western esoteric frame of Kabbalah, Egyptian imagery, and Rosicrucian and Hermetic sources.
Affiliations
Co-founded the Golden Dawn in 1888 and wrote most of its rituals. Freemason and member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia.

Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers was the main ritual architect of the Golden Dawn, drawing on Kabbalah, Enochian magic from John Dee, and Egyptian imagery to build its system of grades and ceremonies. He translated important magical texts including The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage and a version of the Kabbalah. His autocratic leadership and later feud with Aleister Crowley helped fracture the order.

Connections

  • rival of Aleister Crowley — Their bitter feud split the Golden Dawn.
  • rival of Aleister Crowley — Their feud over authority helped break the Golden Dawn.
  • associate of Arthur Edward Waite — Fellow Golden Dawn member before the order split.
  • influenced Dion Fortune — Trained in a Golden Dawn successor descended from Mathers's order.
  • influenced Eliphas Levi — The Golden Dawn built directly on Levi's ceremonial magic.
  • associate of Florence Farr — Led the English order on Mathers's behalf before their falling out.
  • influenced Israel Regardie — Published the Golden Dawn system Mathers had built.
  • influenced John Dee — Adapted Dee's Enochian magic for Golden Dawn ritual.
  • associate of William Butler Yeats — Initiated and worked within Mathers's Golden Dawn.
  • associate of William Robert Woodman — Third of the three founding chiefs of the Golden Dawn.
  • associate of William Wynn Westcott — Co-founded the Golden Dawn together.
  • associate of William Wynn Westcott — Co-founded the Golden Dawn with him.

In the timeline

Wikipedia