Orders, Societies & Movements

This section gathers the organised bodies of the esoteric and religious world: initiatory orders, closed societies, the mystery cults of antiquity, and the modern movements that formed around a founder or a new revelation: Freemasonry, the Rosicrucians, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the ancient mysteries, and the new religious movements of the last two centuries.

What sets these apart from the traditions of the previous section is their form: membership, initiation, degrees, and often secrecy. They are groups one joins and is admitted through, rather than traditions one is born into.

This is material about which a great deal has been claimed, by adherents and detractors alike, and the atlas is careful to separate documented history from legend and from the claims of hostile outsiders. The entries record when and where a body was founded so far as that is known, what it taught or practised, and its attested history, while flagging where the record is thin or the traditional origin-story is not supported by evidence.

The modern new religious movements gathered here range from lawful, self-governing religions to groups that have drawn serious criticism; the atlas describes rather than endorses, and notes controversy where it is documented.