Alpha et Omega

The Alpha et Omega is an occult order, initially named the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, co-founded in London, England by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers in 1888. The Alpha et Omega was one of four daughter organisations into which the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn fragmented, the others being the Stella Matutina; the Isis-Urania Temple led by A.E. Waite and others; and Aleister Crowley's A∴A∴.Following a rebellion of Adepts in London and an ensuing public scandal which had brought the name of the Golden Dawn into disrepute, Mathers renamed the branch of the Golden Dawn remaining loyal to his leadership to "Alpha et Omega" sometime between 1903 and 1913. "The title was usually abbreviated as A.O." and according to some sources its full name was "Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega". All of the temples of the order appear to have gone out of existence by the Second World War.

In 1900, the hegemony of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was disturbed by a letter sent from Samuel Mathers, who was living in Paris, to his representative in London, Florence Farr. In the letter he claimed that his co-founder Wynn Westcott forged communications between himself and the Secret Chiefs who had given him the authority for the Order to exist. This revelation culminated in a rebellion of the Adepts of the Isis-Urania Temple No. 3 by which Mathers himself was expelled from his position as Chief.

This was quickly followed, in 1901, by the Horos scandal; two con artists used Golden Dawn materials obtained from Mathers to cover a sex scam (see Swami Laura Horos). The name and reputation of the Golden Dawn was subsequently defamed in the courts and in the press. In 1906, therefore, S.L. MacGregor Mathers summarily closed the Order of the Golden Dawn and founded the Alpha et Omega in Paris. However, the name A.O. also first appeared in a copy of a 0°=0^□ Hall of the Neophytes ritual owned by Henry Kelf and is dated 1905. It appears to have been used soon after the schism.

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