Yeats and The Golden Dawn

Rose Cross of W.B. Yeats

photo of the elemental Golden Dawn tools of W. B. Yeats

pages from Yeats' own esoteric writings

Golden Dawn associated items belonging to Yeats, including elemental weapons

Earth Pantacle of W.B. Yeats, on display in Dublin.

Elemental "Air" dagger of either W. B. Yeats or his uncle

(National Library of Ireland)

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His writing abounding in the esoteric and mystic, it is no surprise that Yeats himself held a lifelong interest in the occult. But, unlike others he was not content to merely be a bystander, and was actively involved in various occult orders during his lifetime, notably with The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, infamous for links with Crowley (with whom he was to clash). In Ireland he became deeply involved with Theosophy, then in 1890, he joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, taking the magical motto "Demon Est Deus Inversus" - (DEDI).

Yeats was fascinated by the clandestine and otherworldly - much of his work centering on explorations of his native Ireland, mining folkloric and mythical tales from inhabitants, many of which can be read in The Celtic Twilight. His poetry and prose center around mysticism, The Secret Rose, a collection of short stories explore these themes using central characters to comment on mystic themes, and along with his wife he was involved in the spiritualist movement.

"I believe in the practice and philosophy of what we have agreed to call magic, and what I must call the evocation of spirits, though I do not know what they are, in the power of creating magic illusions, in the visions of truth in the depths of the minds when the eyes are closed"

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