AEWCH 326: FELIX JOHN TAYLOR on THE LIGHT OF THE HERMETIC ORDER OF THE GOLDEN DAWN

<p>AGAINST EVERYONE WITH CONNER HABIB 326: FELIX JOHN TAYLOR on THE LIGHT OF THE HERMETIC ORDER OF THE GOLDEN DAWN</p><p>The first time I heard about the Golden Dawn, I was in high school. I was gay, Syrian, reading all the time, shunning sports. My town was filled with neo-Nzis and fundamentalists, celebrated stupidity and football players.</p><p>I wanted to feel something like power in a disempowering place, so I went to Brentano’s and found the most startling magic book there. On its cover was a person drawing a pentagram of crackling blue light with a wand. In it, instructions on making magical tools and spellcasting. And in its title, the word magick was written with a K. In contrast to the hell of school, the book represented an academy of magic. I found there allusions to The Golden Dawn, a group from almost a century prior, with secrets of not just power, but antiquity and the cosmos.</p><p>But they also seemed rigid, too elaborate and hierarchical. Plus I didn't like their most infamous member, Aleister Crowley, so I turned away from them. As I deepened my interests in occultism into adulthood, my pursuit of esoteric christianity, particularly the work of Rudolf Steiner, I steered clear.</p><p>I've become more sympathetic over time to the Golden Dawn. That doesn't mean I'm going to wade into their rituals, but that a real re-assessment has occurred. So this episodes’s guest, librarian and scholar FELIX JOHN TAYLOR ’s beautiful book, The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn: Magic Arts and the Occult Revival was a great find for me. In it, he gives a portrait of the Golden Dawn through its key members and its art. A picture emerges of not just a magickal group, but an art and social movement, working to redefine morality for the sake of inclusiveness and creativity. After all, Crowley fell in love with a drag queen at a gay bar in 1897. Oscar Wilde and Edward Carpenter influenced the group. So did Steiner, for that matter! W.B. Yeats brought his Golden Dawn work to revitalize Irish identity.</p><p>I’m so happy you’ll be joining me and Felix John Taylor in this reappraisal.</p><p><a href="patreon.com/connerhabib" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Support the show on Patreon</a>!</p><p>Make a<a href="https://checkout.square.site/merchant/ML8VMB16P8YEV/checkout/7M3HHM6TX2TV3T3I3CCNBOH6" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer"> one-time donation</a>!</p><p>Buy<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/4714/9780500029183" target="_blank" rel="ugc no