If I had not made magic my constant study I could not have written a single word of my Blake book, nor would The Countess Kathleen have ever come to exist. The mystical life is the centre of all that I do, and all that I think and all that I write.' So wrote W.B. Yeats in July 1892. This belief in the validity of magical philosophy stayed with him to the end of his life. But what was the original impulse of this profound commitment to the occult, and how did it develop? At the centre of it all was the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which Yeats joined in 1890. The Golden Dawn system of magic held his respect and interest for more than thirty years and it was, next to his poetry, 'the most important pursuit of my life'. In this book, Professor Herper chronicles Yeats's involvement with the Golden Dawn in all its aspects and evaluates the influence of the Order on Yeats's life and art.
€25
If I had not made magic my constant study I could not have written a single word of my Blake book, nor would The Countess Kathleen have ever come to exist. The mystical life is the centre of all that I do, and all that I think and all that I write.' So wrote W.B. Yeats in July 1892. This belief in the validity of magical philosophy stayed with him to the end of his life. But what was the original impulse of this profound commitment to the occult, and how did it develop? At the centre of it all was the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which Yeats joined in 1890. The Golden Dawn system of magic held his respect and interest for more than thirty years and it was, next to his poetry, 'the most important pursuit of my life'. In this book, Professor Herper chronicles Yeats's involvement with the Golden Dawn in all its aspects and evaluates the influence of the Order on Yeats's life and art.
