nce of the Order it is seen that this
so-called "punitive current" was actually directed by the Chiefs against
those who rebelled.

Although the members of the Golden Dawn later became linked up with the
"Esoteric Masons" in Germany, neither the organization nor the ritual of
the Order are masonic, but rather Martiniste and Cabalistic. For amidst
all the confused phraseology of the Order, the phrases and symbols
borrowed from Egyptian, Greek, or Hindu mythology, one detects the real
basis of the whole system--the Jewish Cabala, in which all the three
Chiefs were, or became, experts. Mathers in fact translated the famous
book of Abraham the Jew from French into English with explanatory notes,
and Wynn Westcott translated the Sepher Yetzirah from Hebrew. Lectures
were given to the society on such subjects as the Tarot Cards, Geomantic
Talismans, and the Schemhamphorasch or Tetragrammaton.

The Order was at first absolutely governed by the three Chiefs, but
after a time--owing to the death of Woodman and the resignation of Wynn
Westcott--Mathers became the Sole Chief and professed to have obtained
further instructions from the Hidden Chiefs through his wife--a sister
of Bergson--by means of clairvoyance and clairaudience. But the real
directors of the Order were in Germany and known as the "Hidden and
Secret Chiefs of the Third Order." A curious resemblance will here be
noted with the "Concealed Superiors" by whom members of the _Stricte
Observance_ in the eighteenth century declared themselves to be
controlled.

Who these men were at the time the Order was founded remains a mystery
not only to the outside world but even to the English initiates
themselves. The identity of Sapiens Dominabatur Astris appears never to
have been established, nor was anything more heard about the still more
mysterious Anna Sprengel until her death in an obscure German village
was reported in 1893. Indeed, one of the most active members of the
Order, Dr. Robert Felkin, M.D., known as F.R. (Finem Respice), later
declared that, although he had visited five temples of the Order in
Germany and Austria, he had been unable to get into touch with the
Hidden Chiefs, or to discover how the original MSS. came into the hands
of the clergyman who handed them to Wynn Westcott and Woodman. According
to Felkin's statement, all that he had been able to find out was that
the MSS. were the notes of ceremonies made by a man who had been
initiated into a Lodge