Egypt. No other name in the Western Mystery Tradition invokes such respect, such mystery. The Black Land on the Nile. The place that most practioners of the High Arts will tell you that those same arts originated. Why this fascination with the land of Egypt? In the Modern Era, Egypt has been the source for inspirations for the occult world since Napoleon's expedition there at the close of the 18th Century.
There were several ancient schools of magick in Ancient Egypt. Everyone from Moses to Pythagoras was supposed to have been trained there in the magickal arts. Even the magnificent Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistos was supposedly found, cradled on the chest of Hermes, in an Egyptian tomb by Alexander the Great. This diminutive text of twelve brief statements is, along with the other Trismegistic literature, completely compatible with the Alchemical and Hermetic Traditions.. Hermeticism, as we know, was the meeting of the ancient Hellenic and Egyptian cultures in the centuries at the beginning of the Common Era, and inspired by a god born from the merger of these two cultures, Hermes Trismegistos. Throughout the first three centuries of the Common Era Hermetic thought and philosophy was at its height.
The influence of Egypt on the Western Mystery Tradition continued through the various minor schools of the Kabbalah well into the 16th Century in Egypt. There were numerous schools in Alexandria and Cairo. The most famous product of these later schools of the Kabbalah was Rabbi Isaac Luria, commonly known as the Ari (an acronym standing for Elohi Rabbi Isaac, the Godly Rabbi Isaac).It is from these later schools of the Kabbalah that originate several of the most important surviving commentaries of not only Kabbalistic writing, but also the Talmud and Torah.
Inspired by these great resources, in the 19th Century several groups of European magicians and esoteric students again began to look to Egypt. There were several Fringe Masonic groups that looked more at the Egyptian Mysteries, including the Universal Rite of Co-Masonry in France and the various occult orders that sprang up in England near the close of that century. The most well know of these orders was of course the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, but there was another earlier order that had just as much influence on what would become the modern Western Mystery Traditions. That order was the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, which helped influence the later Golden Dawn and in the United States, the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.).
The influence on the Order of the Rosicrucians and Masons can also be seen in the format of the initiation rituals that were used within the Order. They used the same basic initiatory rituals that were being used throughout Europe by the various "mainstream" Rosicrucian and Masonic orders of the late 18th and early 19th Centuries. These consisted of a grade system of degrees that had been the accepted manner of advancement within the lodge systems of both the Rosicrucians and Masons. Davidson and Theon used the more Continental Rosicrucian grade system as a basis for the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor's system. (More .... )
