Golden Dawn

Golden Dawn (黄金夜明 (S∴M∴) ) or the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was once the largest magic cabal in the United Kingdom, supposedly founded by a woman named Anna Sprengel, though exact details are not known. This magic cabal was known as the world's most powerful magic cabal 50 years ago when Aleister Crowley faked his death and escaped from England and the forces of Christianity, and was involved in hunting him down.

The initials pinpoint that the proper way to pronounce the name of the golden cabal is "Stella Matutina".

Principles
One of the roles within the Golden Dawn was that of the Secret Chief, a role supposedly carried out by Anna Sprengel.

As a group from, the Golden Dawn was affected by a common thinking among European magicians, who after running into dead ends in their research and exhausting the resources available to them in Europe, believed the answers lay elsewhere and sought them in foreign parts, such as the large, diverse and geographically convenient 'Dark Continent',.

Within the cabal, one's stock of knowledge was directly linked to their power.

Golden-style Magic
The Golden Dawn and Golden-style cabals specialize in constructing sanctuaries and harnessing large amounts of Telesma to conduct large-scale powerful magic.

The Golden-style has a variation of Tarot associated with it which are used in ceremonies. In the standard Golden-style Tarot, the Major Arcana tells the story of the Son of God, from birth to execution and resurrection, in order to draw on a portion of his power. Connected to the 22 paths on the Sephirot tree, they are meant to acquire a technique of entering the realm of god with a human body, miracles which can be explained by Christianity. The four suits of the Minor Arcana are associated with the four elements and the cards can activate a spell associated with their suit's element, though they are generally intended to be used in large-scale ceremonies rather than battle.

Another part of Golden-style magic involves the observation and use of stars and mysterious lights in the night sky. As well as reading the future from the stars, magicians can seal their light into talismans and amulets, and draw their power out when they see fit.

Establishment
One of the figures who supposedly helped in the foundation of the Golden Dawn was a woman called Anna Sprengel, who was said to have had the role of Secret Chief and as a point of contact, an existence of the type that Aleister Crowley would become. However, it is dubious as to whether she actually existed.

The cabal was official founded during the 19th Century by William Wynn Westcott, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers and William Robert Woodman. After the retirement of Woodman during an unknown time between the establishment of the cabal and 1900, the Golden Dawn eventually flourished under the leadership of Mathers and Westcott. However, due to the continuous black propaganda received by magic-side organizations funded by the Roman Catholic Church during the time, the cabal remained a secret meeting place, with its members, as well as the cabal in general, still vulnerable to financial difficulty. Two of the most notable meeting places for members of the Golden Dawn were the Isis-Urania Temple in London, and another located in 36 Blythe Road, the latter of which held much of the cabal's magical artifacts.

Immediately, it became apparent that Westcott and Mathers had clashing views on the path the Golden Dawn must take. Westcott, a coroner by trade, believed that the cabal must exist while making certain compromises. On the other hand, Mathers wanted to see constant progress in the cabal as a magical society and thus, began spearheading several activities like performing ceremonies that involved the use of material extracted from living things—a taboo amongst magical societies at that time—as well as the development of a work kit that would grant flexibility in the way magic is created. This disparity would only intensify upon the arrival of an aspiring newcomer to the cabal, a young man named Aleister Crowley.

Despite being a relatively new member in the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley developed countless spells and spiritual items during his time in the cabal. Some of his ideas, such as the Aeons, were extreme even within the cabal and as such there were a number of people who didn't support them.

Downfall
By 1900, the Golden Dawn was already split between the Westcott and Mathers factions. Crowley, who had decided to dismantle the cabal from within as part of his plan to save his future daughter Lilith from an untimely death (which was foreseen by his mentor Allan Bennett), provoked the two factions into fighting each other in a conflict that would later be known as the Battle of Blythe Road. The bloody onslaught cost the cabal many lives, with the casualties including both of the remaining founders, along with an unknown number of magicians from both factions. Additionally, an artifact, in the form of an arrow fashioned out of a shriveled, disembodied hand, was lost in the battle. Aleister would later disassociate himself from the Golden Dawn at the aftermath of the Battle of Blythe Road.

After the destruction of the Golden Dawn, the splinter groups had developed on their own from the Golden Dawn's legacy and progressed, still existing to this day while continuing to chaotically break apart. The cabals produced by that were known as Golden-style cabals (黄金系結社).

Despite the fall of the cabal, the Golden-style of magic, which had its heyday at the start of the 20th century, continued and is standard in the present day.

Founders

 * William Wynn Westcott
 * Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers
 * William Robert Woodman (retired as of the Battle of Blythe Road)

Members

 * Mina Mathers
 * Aleister Crowley
 * Dion Fortune
 * Paul Foster Case
 * Arthur Edward Waite
 * Robert William Felkin

List of Golden-style cabals

 * Dawn-Colored Sunlight
 * Exit of the Evening Dusk
 * Dawn that Wipes Away Darkness