Lillie said:
Does the Golden Dawn still exist?
That depends on who you ask.
In my opinion all the modern day Golden Dawn groups fall into two categories.
1) Some are
loosely connected with one of the various
illegitimate splinter groups that broke away from the original
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. None of the founders of these splinter groups had valid charter to set up their own orders or to initiate new members.
2) Some groups are just modern day reconstructions based on published material found in any good bookshop. Some of these kinds of groups try to hide that fact.
For some people the whole lineage and lack of valid charter issue is a touchy subject that they don't like to talk about. Some claim that the magical work being done is all that is really needed. But that begs the question of why so many of these groups covet the name
Golden Dawn so much and try to hem it around with (TM) and (C) as if it gives them some sort of validity.
The Golden Dawn is dead. Modern groups are merely working a Golden Dawn
based magical system. But that doesn't mean they are THE Golden Dawn, no matter how much they like to claim they are.
As an example:
If I bought a book on Freemasonry and set up my own lodge, does that give me the right to initiate other people as legitimate Freemasons? No.