Chronology · Timeline
Chronology
Twentieth Century
72 moments, 1900 to 1999.
- 1900
Golden Dawn schism
London adepts revolt against Mathers, and Crowley's attempt to seize the order's vault for him ends in the 'Battle of Blythe Road'.
Liber XII · High Magick - 1904
The Book of the Law received
In Cairo, Crowley writes down Liber AL vel Legis over three days, proclaiming 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law'.
Liber XXXI · Thelema - 1904
The Goetia published
Crowley issues Mathers's translation of the first book of the Lemegeton, making the 72 spirits widely known.
Liber XXVII · Solomonic Magic - 1907
The A∴A∴ founded
Crowley and George Cecil Jones create a teaching order of individual mentorship to carry Golden Dawn magic into Thelema; Olcott dies.
Liber XXXI · Thelema - 1909
The Equinox and the Rider–Waite–Smith deck
Crowley launches his occult journal, and Pamela Colman Smith's fully illustrated tarot designed with A. E. Waite is published.
Liber VII · Divination - 1910
Inayat Khan brings Sufism west
The Indian musician and Sufi teacher arrives in the United States, founding a universalist Sufi movement in Europe and America.
Liber VIII · Eastern Mysticism - 1911
Order of the Star in the East
Theosophists organise around the young Jiddu Krishnamurti as the coming World Teacher.
Liber XXXII · Theosophy - 1913
Anthroposophical Society; Spare's Book of Pleasure
Rudolf Steiner leaves Theosophy to found Anthroposophy, and Austin Osman Spare publishes his sigil method, a seed of chaos magick.
Liber XXXII · Theosophy - 1915
AMORC founded
H. Spencer Lewis establishes the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis in New York, popularising Rosicrucianism through mail-order lessons.
Liber XXIV · Secret Societies - 1916
Death of Papus
The French occultist and Martinist leader dies in Paris while serving as a wartime physician.
Liber XII · High Magick - 1918
Death of MacGregor Mathers
The Golden Dawn's chief ritualist and translator of grimoires dies in Paris.
Liber XII · High Magick - 1919
Woodroffe's The Serpent Power
Sir John Woodroffe ('Arthur Avalon') translates the Ṣaṭ-cakra-nirūpaṇa, the source of the familiar Western seven-chakra system.
Liber VIII · Eastern Mysticism - 1920–23
Abbey of Thelema at Cefalù
Crowley's commune in Sicily ends with his expulsion by Mussolini's government after a disciple's death and press scandal.
Liber XXXI · Thelema - 1921
Murray's Witch-Cult in Western Europe
Margaret Murray argues that accused witches belonged to a surviving pagan fertility religion—a thesis since rejected but formative for Wicca.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1922
Gurdjieff's Institute at Fontainebleau
G. I. Gurdjieff opens his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man near Paris, teaching the 'Fourth Way'.
Liber VIII · Eastern Mysticism - c. 1924
Dion Fortune's Fraternity of the Inner Light
Violet Firth founds her magical order, later the Society of the Inner Light; Westcott dies in 1925.
Liber XII · High Magick - 1925
Death of Rudolf Steiner
Steiner dies at Dornach, leaving schools, biodynamic agriculture and the Goetheanum as lasting legacies.
Liber XXXII · Theosophy - 1926
Fulcanelli's Le Mystère des cathédrales
A pseudonymous French alchemist reads Gothic cathedral sculpture as encoded alchemy; his identity remains disputed.
Liber I · Alchemy - 1928
Hall's Secret Teachings of All Ages
Manly P. Hall's illustrated encyclopedia of esoteric traditions becomes a perennial bestseller; Preisendanz's edition of the magical papyri begins the same year.
Liber XXIX · Symbols - 1929
Golden Flower and Magick
Wilhelm and Jung publish The Secret of the Golden Flower; Crowley's Magick in Theory and Practice appears; Krishnamurti dissolves the Order of the Star.
Liber VIII · Eastern Mysticism - 1933
First Eranos conference
Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn's gatherings at Ascona begin, uniting Jung, Scholem, Corbin and Eliade in the study of myth and mysticism; Annie Besant dies.
Liber XIV · History & Scholarship - 1934
Crowley's libel suit fails
Crowley's case against Nina Hamnett's publishers collapses as the court hears lurid accounts of his magic, leaving him bankrupt.
Liber XXXI · Thelema - 1935
Fortune's The Mystical Qabalah
Dion Fortune's lucid guide to the Tree of Life becomes a standard text of Hermetic Qabalah.
Liber XIX · Kabbalah - 1937–40
Regardie publishes The Golden Dawn
Israel Regardie breaks his oath of secrecy to print the order's rituals and teachings in four volumes.
Liber XII · High Magick - 1939
Yeats dies; Gardner's claimed initiation
W. B. Yeats dies in France; Gerald Gardner later claimed initiation into a New Forest witch coven that September.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1941
Scholem's Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism
Gershom Scholem's lectures found the critical, historical study of Kabbalah as a modern academic field.
Liber XIV · History & Scholarship - 1942
Death of A. E. Waite
The scholar-mystic of the Golden Dawn and Rider–Waite–Smith tarot dies in Kent.
Liber XII · High Magick - 1944
The Book of Thoth; Jung's Psychology and Alchemy
Crowley's tarot study appears with Lady Frieda Harris's designs, and Jung reinterprets alchemy as a map of individuation.
Liber VII · Divination - 1945
Nag Hammadi codices discovered
Farmers in Upper Egypt unearth a jar of thirteen leather-bound Coptic codices, transforming knowledge of Gnosticism.
Liber IX · Gnosticism - 1946
Parsons's Babalon Working
Rocket engineer Jack Parsons, with L. Ron Hubbard, performs Thelemic rites in Pasadena to incarnate Babalon; Dion Fortune dies.
Liber XXXI · Thelema - 1946–47
Dead Sea Scrolls discovered
Bedouin shepherds find scrolls in a cave near Qumran, including Aramaic Enoch fragments and angelological texts.
Liber II · Ancient Magic - 1947
Death of Aleister Crowley
Crowley dies in Hastings in December, months after meeting Gardner and granting him an OTO charter.
Liber XXXI · Thelema - 1949
Gardner's High Magic's Aid
Gerald Gardner publishes a novel containing witchcraft rituals under the pseudonym Scire.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1951
Witchcraft Act repealed
Britain replaces the 1735 Witchcraft Act with the Fraudulent Mediums Act; Cecil Williamson opens a witchcraft museum on the Isle of Man.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1953
Doreen Valiente initiated
Valiente joins Gardner's coven and rewrites much of its Book of Shadows, including the Charge of the Goddess.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1945–53
Ashlag's Sulam commentary
Yehuda Ashlag completes his Hebrew translation and commentary on the Zohar, the basis of later popular Kabbalah movements.
Liber XIX · Kabbalah - 1954
Gardner's Witchcraft Today
Gerald Gardner publicly describes a surviving witch cult, launching the religion later called Wicca.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1955
Grant's New Isis Lodge
Kenneth Grant opens a lodge that develops into the Typhonian current of Thelema.
Liber XXXI · Thelema - 1956
Death of Austin Osman Spare
The visionary artist dies in London; his sigils and 'Zos Kia' ideas are later revived as a precursor of chaos magick. Bardon's Initiation into Hermetics appears.
Liber V · Chaos Magick - 1958
Jonas's The Gnostic Religion
Hans Jonas's existentialist account of Gnosticism becomes a classic; Franz Bardon dies in Brno.
Liber XIV · History & Scholarship - 1960
Museum of Witchcraft at Boscastle
Cecil Williamson relocates his collection to Cornwall, where it remains a major archive of magic and witchcraft.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1960s
Alexandrian Wicca emerges
Alex and Maxine Sanders build a widely publicised tradition mixing Gardnerian rites with ceremonial magic.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1964
Gardner dies; Yates's Bruno
Gardner dies at sea; Frances Yates publishes Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, reshaping Renaissance studies.
Liber XIV · History & Scholarship - 1965
EPHE chair in esoteric Christianity
The École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris creates a chair for the history of esoteric currents, first held by François Secret.
Liber XIV · History & Scholarship - 1966
Church of Satan founded
On Walpurgisnacht in San Francisco, Anton LaVey proclaims the Church of Satan, an atheistic religion of self-assertion.
Liber XXIII · Satanism - 1966
Death of Robert Cochrane; Ginzburg's Benandanti
The founder of the Clan of Tubal Cain dies; Carlo Ginzburg publishes his study of Friulian night-battling visionaries.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1969
The Satanic Bible published
LaVey's paperback manifesto of Satanic philosophy and ritual becomes the best-selling text of modern Satanism; the Thoth tarot deck is printed.
Liber XXIII · Satanism - 1971
Pagan Federation; Thomas's Religion and the Decline of Magic
Britain's Pagan Front, later the Pagan Federation, forms; Keith Thomas's study recasts the history of popular magic.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1973
Ásatrú recognised in Iceland
Iceland grants official status to the Ásatrúarfélagið, an early state-recognised modern Pagan religion.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1974
Principles of Wiccan Belief; Evola dies
The Council of American Witches adopts thirteen principles, and the Traditionalist Julius Evola dies in Rome.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1975
Temple of Set founded
Michael Aquino and others leave the Church of Satan to found an initiatory order venerating Set as the principle of isolate consciousness.
Liber XXIII · Satanism - 1975
Illuminatus! trilogy
Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's satirical novels spread Discordian ideas that later fed chaos magick.
Liber V · Chaos Magick - 1977
The Nag Hammadi Library in English
James M. Robinson's team publishes the first complete English translation of the codices.
Liber IX · Gnosticism - 1978
Illuminates of Thanateros; Liber Null
Peter J. Carroll and Ray Sherwin found the IOT and publish Liber Null, defining chaos magick around belief as a tool.
Liber V · Chaos Magick - 1979
The Spiral Dance and Drawing Down the Moon
Starhawk's feminist Goddess witchcraft and Margot Adler's survey of American Paganism are published together.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1979
Faivre takes the Paris chair; Pagels's Gnostic Gospels
Antoine Faivre becomes professor of esoteric and mystical currents at the EPHE; Elaine Pagels popularises Nag Hammadi.
Liber XIV · History & Scholarship - 1980
Michelle Remembers
A memoir of alleged ritual abuse, later discredited, helps ignite the Satanic panic in North America.
Liber XXIII · Satanism - 1983–90
The McMartin preschool case
California's longest criminal trial, based on ritual-abuse allegations, ends without convictions.
Liber XXIII · Satanism - 1983
Faivre co-founds Aries
Antoine Faivre and Roland Edighoffer begin the journal Aries, relaunched by Brill in 2001 as the field's flagship journal.
Liber XIV · History & Scholarship - 1985
Death of Israel Regardie
The publisher of the Golden Dawn rituals dies in Sedona.
Liber XII · High Magick - 1986
Betz's Greek Magical Papyri; Dettmer v. Landon
Hans Dieter Betz's translation opens ancient spells to readers, and a US appeals court accepts Wicca as a religion.
Liber II · Ancient Magic - 1988
Idel's Kabbalah: New Perspectives
Moshe Idel challenges Scholem's model by stressing ecstatic and practical dimensions of Kabbalah.
Liber XIV · History & Scholarship - 1990
Death of Manly P. Hall
The founder of the Philosophical Research Society dies in Los Angeles, the final event of many older chronologies.
Liber XIV · History & Scholarship - 1991
Orkney case; scrolls opened
Scottish children are removed from homes on unfounded ritual-abuse claims, and the Huntington Library releases Dead Sea Scrolls photographs.
Liber XXIII · Satanism - 1992
Lanning report on ritual abuse
FBI agent Kenneth Lanning finds no corroborating evidence for organised Satanic murder cults.
Liber XXIII · Satanism - 1992
Faivre's L'ésotérisme and Copenhaver's Hermetica
Faivre defines esotericism as a form of thought with six characteristics; Brian Copenhaver's English Hermetica appears.
Liber XIV · History & Scholarship - 1992
Chumbley's Azoëtia and Carroll's Liber Kaos
Andrew Chumbley's grimoire of Sabbatic craft appears alongside Peter Carroll's second chaos magick manual.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca - 1994
La Fontaine report
A UK government inquiry finds no evidence of Satanic ritual abuse in the cases examined.
Liber XXIII · Satanism - 1996
Williams's Rethinking 'Gnosticism'
Michael Williams argues 'Gnosticism' is a misleading category, starting a lasting scholarly debate.
Liber XIV · History & Scholarship - 1997
- 1999
Amsterdam chair in Hermetic Philosophy
The University of Amsterdam creates a chair for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents, held by Wouter Hanegraaff.
Liber XIV · History & Scholarship - 1999
Hutton's Triumph of the Moon; Valiente dies
Ronald Hutton's history of modern Pagan witchcraft appears, and Doreen Valiente dies in Brighton.
Liber XXXIV · Witchcraft & Wicca