The Golden Dawn birth-chart claim, tested
The claim: great magicians are born with a planet on a Magus degree. We measured it.
What is claimed, and by whom
In a French-language interview, a former head of a French order working in the Golden Dawn tradition says that the order examined the birth chart of its postulants to see whether they had occult gifts, using the sidereal zodiac and a list of symbolic degrees he calls Theban. He names two degrees of ceremonial magic, the 21st of Sagittarius and the 2nd of Libra, and cites Papus, Eliphas Levi, Aleister Crowley and Giuliano Kremmerz as examples.
We found no document of the original Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (1888) that states this rule. It is an oral report about a later order, and we treat it as such. This site is not affiliated with any order.
The method
For each of the 136 people in the directory we computed the geocentric longitude of the ten planets. The control is everyone else: one day in seven between 1800 and 1999, 10,436 dates. A rule that holds should hit occultists clearly more often than it hits the calendar.
The result
| Reading of the rule | Directory | All dates |
|---|---|---|
| Two Magus degrees, sidereal, conjunction | 7 of 136 (5.1%) | 5.6% |
| Two Magus degrees, tropical, conjunction | 8 of 136 (5.9%) | 5.8% |
| Two Magus degrees, sidereal, with oppositions | 18 of 136 (13.2%) | 11.0% |
| Two Magus degrees, tropical, with oppositions | 18 of 136 (13.2%) | 11.0% |
| Six degrees, sidereal, conjunction | 23 of 136 (16.9%) | 15.1% |
| Six degrees, tropical, conjunction | 21 of 136 (15.4%) | 15.9% |
| Six degrees, sidereal, with oppositions | 41 of 136 (30.1%) | 28.4% |
| Six degrees, tropical, with oppositions | 40 of 136 (29.4%) | 28.8% |
No reading separates the directory from the calendar. With 136 people, a gap of two or three points is noise.
The four magicians of the tradition
- Gérard Encausse (born 13 July 1865): Mars on the 8th degree of Leo (sidereal); Saturn on the 2nd degree of Libra (sidereal); Jupiter on the 21st degree of Sagittarius (tropical).
- Eliphas Levi (born 8 February 1810): no planet on any of the six degrees, in either zodiac.
- Aleister Crowley (born 12 October 1875): no planet on any of the six degrees, in either zodiac.
- Giuliano Kremmerz (born 8 April 1861): no planet on any of the six degrees, in either zodiac.
Papus does have Jupiter on the 21st degree of Sagittarius, but in the tropical zodiac, not the sidereal one. Crowley’s Neptune is on the 10th degree of Aries (sidereal) and the 2nd of Taurus (tropical): it is not opposite the 2nd degree of Libra. His Venus is at 2°17′ of Libra in the sidereal zodiac, in the 3rd degree, seventeen minutes of arc past the 2nd. Eliphas Levi and Kremmerz have nothing on these degrees.
What to make of it
About one person in nine has a planet on a Magus degree or opposite one. That is common enough for any list of magicians to contain a few, and rare enough for each case to look striking. The degree calendar remains what it is: 360 images, to be read as symbols.