The Order of the Golden Dawn The Order of the Golden Dawn was cooked up by Dr. William Robert Woodman, William Wynn Westcott, and Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers. All three were Freemasons and part of a Rosicrucian-linked group. Many see it as a forerunner to Ordo Templi Orientis and modern occult gangs. Its beliefs draw from Christian mysticism, Qabalah, Hermeticism, ancient Egyptian religion, Freemasonry, Alchemy, Theosophy, Magic, and Renaissance writings. William Yeats and Aleister Crowley were famous members. The key docs, the Cipher Documents, were translated with a Johannes Trithemius cipher. These 60 folios hold magic rituals, many with Rosicrucian roots. There’s a big stink about where these docs came from.
The Black Hand The Black Hand was a secret anti-imperialist revolutionary crew that started in Serbia in 1912. It split from Narodna Adbrona, which aimed to unite Slavs by breaking Serbia from Austria-Hungary’s monarchy. They spread anti-Austrian propaganda and trained saboteurs and assassins to disrupt rule. Their plan? Stir a war between Serbia and Austria to free the country and unite Slavs. They’d be forgotten if not for one huge 20th-century moment. In 1914, they set up the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. It was a botched job, but Gavrilo Princip finished it, shooting the Archduke at close range. The fallout? Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, kicking off WWI, which led to WWII and the Cold War. Crazy, right?