Hermetic Order of the Golden DawnThe Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (Ordo Hermeticus Aurorae Aureae), more commonly the Golden Dawn (Aurora Aurea), was a secret society devoted to the study and practice of occult Hermeticism and metaphysics during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Known as a magical order, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was active in Great Britain and focused its practices on theurgy and spiritual development.
StarhawkStarhawk (born Miriam Simos on June 17, 1951) is an American feminist and author. She is known as a theorist of feminist neopaganism and ecofeminism. In 2013, she was listed in Watkins' Mind Body Spirit magazine as one of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People. Starhawk was born in 1951 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her father, Jack Simos, died when she was five. Her mother, Bertha Claire Goldfarb Simos, was a professor of social work at UCLA. Both her parents were the children of Jewish immigrants from Russia.
HermeticismHermeticism or Hermetism is a philosophical and religious system based on the purported teachings of Hermes Trismegistus (a Hellenistic conflation of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth). These teachings are contained in the various writings attributed to Hermes (the Hermetica), which were produced over a period spanning many centuries (300 BCE – 1200 CE) and may be very different in content and scope.
New religious movementA new religious movement (NRM), also known as alternative spirituality or a new religion, is a religious or spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin or they can be part of a wider religion, in which case they are distinct from pre-existing denominations. Some NRMs deal with the challenges which the modernizing world poses to them by embracing individualism, while other NRMs deal with them by embracing tightly knit collective means.
OccultThe occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism and their varied spells. It can also refer to supernatural ideas like extra-sensory perception and parapsychology. The term occult sciences was used in 16th-century Europe to refer to astrology, alchemy, and natural magic.
Chaos magicChaos magic, also spelled chaos magick, is a modern tradition of magic. Emerging in England in the 1970s as part of the wider neo-pagan and esotericist subculture, it drew heavily from the occult beliefs of artist Austin Osman Spare, expressed several decades earlier. It has been characterised as an invented religion, with some commentators drawing similarities between the movement and Discordianism. Magical organizations within this tradition include the Illuminates of Thanateros and Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth.
MysticismMysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in ultimate or hidden truths, and to human transformation supported by various practices and experiences. The term "mysticism" has Ancient Greek origins with various historically determined meanings.
TheurgyTheurgy (ˈθiːɜrdʒi; ), also known as divine magic, is one of two major branches of the magical arts, the other being practical magic or thaumaturgy. Theurgy describes the ritual practices associated with the invocation or evocation of the presence of one or more deities (also called "godforms"), especially with the goal of achieving henosis (uniting with the divine) and perfecting oneself. Proclus (c. 480): theurgy is "a power higher than all human wisdom embracing the blessings of divination, the purifying powers of initiation and in a word all the operations of divine possession.
Magic (supernatural)Magic, sometimes spelled magick, is an ancient practice rooted in rituals, spiritual divinations, and/or cultural lineage—with an intention to invoke, manipulate, or otherwise manifest supernatural forces, beings, or entities in the natural world. It is a categorical yet often ambiguous term which has been used to refer to a wide variety of beliefs and practices, frequently considered separate from both religion and science.
AlchemyAlchemy (from Arabic: al-kīmiyā; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, khumeía) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries AD. Alchemists attempted to purify, mature, and perfect certain materials. Common aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of "base metals" (e.
