Golden Dawn tarot quiz: the order behind modern decks
A quiz on the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn: when it began, who joined it and what it changed in the tarot deck. Five random questions out of twelve.
- 5 questions
- ≈ 2 min
- +5 bronze keys for a flawless run
What was the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn?
The Golden Dawn was an occult society founded in London in 1888. This quiz checks what you know about its founders, its famous members and the mark it left on the tarot. For the order, the cards were neither a parlour game nor fortune-telling: they were a study map of symbols tied to Kabbalah, astrology and the elements.
Three Freemasons started it: William Wynn Westcott, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers and William Robert Woodman. Their founding story pointed to the so-called Cipher Manuscripts, a set of coded ritual notes whose real origin historians still argue about. Members climbed through grades, learning the symbolism and passing exams at each step.
Who belonged to the order?
An astonishing number of well-known people passed through it. The poet W. B. Yeats, later a Nobel laureate, was a member, as were the actress Florence Farr, the writer Arthur Machen and the painter Moina Mathers, sister of the philosopher Henri Bergson. Arthur Edward Waite, Pamela Colman Smith and Aleister Crowley all joined too, which means the creators of the two most influential decks of the twentieth century came from the same circle.
Around 1900 the order split apart in quarrels over Mathers's leadership and over whether Crowley should be admitted to the higher grades. Several new groups grew out of the pieces, but by then the order's ideas had already travelled far beyond its walls.
What did the Golden Dawn change in tarot?
Its key tarot document is Book T, usually credited to Mathers. It gives every card a place in one system: the trumps get Hebrew letters and paths on the Tree of Life, while the numbered cards get the spheres of the Tree and the decans of the zodiac.
The order swapped Strength and Justice and renamed the court as King, Queen, Prince and Princess. Initiates usually copied and painted the order's deck by hand as part of their training. Both the Rider-Waite-Smith deck and the Thoth Tarot grew out of this school, and Tayna's own correspondences follow its system as well.
All questions and answers
Open after you play: the full question set with right answers and explanations.
1. Where and when was the Golden Dawn founded?
Right answer: London, 1888
The order was founded in London in 1888. 1781 is when Court de Gébelin pitched his Egyptian theory.
2. The poet W. B. Yeats was a member of the Golden Dawn.
Right answer: True
Yeats was an active member for years, long before his 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature.
3. Which of these people co-founded the order?
Right answer: Samuel Mathers
Westcott, Mathers and Woodman founded it. Crowley and Waite joined later, and Lévi had died in 1875.
4. A book says "following the Golden Dawn system". What does it mean?
Right answer: Card links to Kabbalah and astrology
The order tied each card to letters, elements and stars. That grid of correspondences is what people call its system.
5. What is the Golden Dawn's Book T?
Right answer: The order's text on tarot meanings
Book T, usually credited to Mathers, sets out the card meanings and each card's place in the order's system.
6. Golden Dawn students were handed a ready-made printed deck.
Right answer: Myth
Initiates usually copied and painted the order's deck by hand. Making it was part of the training.
7. Which set of court cards did the Golden Dawn use?
Right answer: King, Queen, Prince, Princess
The order's senior figure was a mounted King, with Prince and Princess below. The Thoth deck kept this scheme.
8. According to its founders, what led to the order's creation?
Right answer: The coded Cipher Manuscripts
The founders pointed to the Cipher Manuscripts, coded ritual notes. Where they really came from is still debated.
9. What happened to the order around 1900?
Right answer: It split into several groups
Fights over Mathers's leadership and over Crowley broke the order apart, and new societies grew from the pieces.
10. Which famous deck artist was a member of the order?
Right answer: Pamela Colman Smith
Pamela Colman Smith was a member and painted the 1909 deck. Frieda Harris never belonged to the Golden Dawn.
11. What was tarot to members of the order?
Right answer: A study map of symbols
To the order the deck was a symbol system tied to Kabbalah and astrology, not a game or a party trick.
12. The Golden Dawn's ideas vanished when the order split.
Right answer: Myth
The Rider-Waite-Smith and Thoth decks came out of its circle, and its correspondences live on in most decks.