References to Introduction-
Samhain and questioning the LBRP:

Aleister Crowley joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the first order, or lowest tier, of the secret Great White Brotherhood of Rosicrucians. The Order, led by Samuel Liddel MacGregor Mathers, which included elements of astrology, the tarot, alchemy, and magick in its rites; other members of this group included the British poet William B. Yeats. After joining the London chapter of the Golden Dawn on November 18, 1898, Crowley dubbed himself Count Vladimir and began moving up through each successive level of ability. In 1899 Crowley also is reported to becoming a member of “Old George Pickingill’s” hereditary covens situated in the New Forrest. It is alleged that he obtained his 'Second Degree' before being dismissed due to his contemptuous attitude toward women, failure to attend rituals with regularity, his personal ego and sexual perversion.  The priestess of his coven later described him as “a dirty-minded, evilly-disposed and vicious little monster!” He eventually graduated from the first order and sought entry into the second, the Order of the Red Rose. Crowley was apparently later mugged and decided to leave England for a period, to travel and study independently. In April of 1904, he wrote The Book of the Law, which he maintained that his guardian spirit, the devil-spirit Aiwaz, an agent of Horus, had narrated to him. The Book of the Law, a three-part long poem, maintained that the age of Horus was upon mankind, ushering in the age of "Thelema," a Greek word meaning "will." Crowley, as the receiver of the word of Horus, must, then, be the prophet for this new age, as well as the interpreter of its laws. The central tenet of The Book of the Law is "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

Old George Pickingill - It was in the various covens of the craft that women priestesses were recognized and found their own power, as seen in the “Old George Pickingill’s” hereditary covens situated in the New Forrest of 1899, which allegedly threw Crowley out of the coven for his rudeness.

S.L Mathers - In 1887 Samuel Liddel "MacGregor" Matthers:

• He completed his first literary work, The Kabala Denudata,
• He helped to create the Golden Dawn,
• He met his future wife Mina Bergson for the first time at the British Museum.  In addition, there was an insistence on women being allowed to participate in the Order in "perfect equality" with men, which was in contrast to the S.R.I.A. and Free Masonry. The original Lodge founded in 1888 did not teach any magical practices per se (except for basic "banishing" rituals and meditation), but was rather a philosophical and metaphysical teaching order. This was called "the Outer Order", and for four years the Golden Dawn existed only in "the Outer". The "Inner Order", which became active in 1892, was the circle of Adepts who had completed the entire course of study and Initiations of the Outer Order contained in the Cipher Manuscripts. This group eventually became known as the Second Order (the Outer Order being the "First" Order).

The Golden Dawn - It was the beginning of the Golden Dawn, founded in 1888, the Isis-Urania Temple in L a short time, the Osiris temple in Weston-super-Mare, the Horus temple in Bradford, and the Amen-Ra temple in Edinburgh were founded. A few years after this, Mathers founded the Ahathoor temple in Paris. The history of the Golden Dawn is well documented though and several of its male initiates have become famous, whereas their female counterparts have received little credit. In 1937 “Israel Regardie published the bulk of the Golden Dawn's rituals and teachings. Written in four volumes called The Golden Dawn. It caused a storm of protest at the time, he stated he did it for it is the heritage of every man and woman and their spiritual birthright. My motives have been to prove without a doubt that no longer is the Order the ideal medium for the transmission of Magic, and that since there have already been several partial and irresponsible disclosures of the Order’s teachings, a more adequate presentation of that system is urgently called for.  Only thus may the widespread misconceptions as to Magic be removed." Some people openly criticized him for his actions, although many Adepts of the Order were secretly grateful to him.  His reasons for doing so he explains in his book My Rosicrucian Adventure - "...it is essential that the whole system should be publicly exhibited so that it may not be lost to man.

The Nature of Gnosticism from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism - Difficulties are found in offering a categorical definition of Gnosticism, various methods are applied in understanding the ancient philosophical movements called Gnostic. Gnostic systems are marked by:

• The notion of a remote, supreme monadic divinity - this figure is known under a variety of names, including 'Pleroma' and 'Bythos' (Greek 'deep'); The introduction by emanation of further divine beings, which are nevertheless identifiable as aspects of the God from which they proceeded; the progressive emanations are often conceived metaphorically as a gradual and progressive distancing from the ultimate source, which brings about an instability in the fabric of the divine nature;
• The subsequent identification of the Fall of Man as an occurrence with its ultimate foundations within divinity itself, rather than as occurring either entirely or indeed partially through human agency; this stage in the divine emanation is usually enacted through the recurrent Gnostic figure of Sophia (Greek 'Wisdom'), whose presence in a wide variety of Gnostic texts is indicative of her central importance;
• The introduction of a distinct creator god, who is named as in the Platonist tradition demiurgos.
• Evidence exists that the conception of the demiurge has derivation from figures in Plato's Timaeus and Republic. In the former, the demiurge is the benevolent creator of the universe from pre-existent matter, to whose limitations he is enthralled in creating the cosmos; in the latter, the description of the leontomorphic 'desire' in Socrates' model of the psyche bears a strong resemblance to descriptions of the demiurge as being in the shape of the lion. Elsewhere this figure is called 'Ialdabaoth', 'Samael' (Aramaic sæmʕa-ʔel, 'blind god') or 'Saklas' (Syriac sækla, 'the foolish one'), who is sometimes ignorant of the superior God, and sometimes opposed to it; thus in the latter case he is correspondingly malevolent. The demiurge typically creates a group of co-actors named 'Archons', who preside over the material realm and, in some cases, present obstacles to the soul seeking ascent from it;
• The estimation of the world, owing to the above, as flawed or a production of 'error' but nevertheless as good as its constituent material might allow. This world is typically an inferior simulacrum of a higher-level reality or consciousness. The inferiority may be compared to the technical inferiority of a painting, sculpture, or other handicraft to the thing(s) those crafts are supposed to be a representation of. In certain other cases it is also perceived as evil and constrictive, a deliberate prison for its inhabitants;
• The explanation of this state through the use of a complex mythological-cosmological drama in which a divine element 'falls' into the material realm and lodges itself within certain human beings; from here, it may be returned to the divine realm through a process of awakening (leading towards salvation). The salvation of the individual thus mirrors a concurrent restoration of the divine nature; a central Gnostic innovation was to elevate individual redemption to the level of a cosmically significant event;
• Knowledge of a specific kind as a central factor in this process of restoration, achieved through the mediation of a redeemer figure (Christ, or, in other cases, Seth or Sophia).

The Pentateuch comprised the first five books of the Hebrew Scritures which establishes the Torah - containing the primary ten commandments passed to Moses, but it also included nearly 590 other teachings establishing what to eat, family ethics, men and womens role in socieity, legal issues, etc...! The Pentateuch in definition from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah - is composed of four separate and identifiable texts, dating roughly from the period of Solomon up until exilic priests and scribes. These various texts were brought together as one document (the Pentateuch, or Torah) by scribes after the exile. The traditional names are:

• The Jahwist (or J) - written circa 850 BCE. The southern kingdom's (i.e. Judah) interpretation. It is named according to the prolific use of the name "Yahweh" (or Jaweh, in German, the divine name or Tetragrammaton) in its text.
• The Elohist (or E) - written circa 750 BCE. The northern kingdom's (i.e. Israel) interpretation. As above, it is named because of its preferred use of "Elohim" (Generic name for "god" in Hebrew).
• The Deuteronomist (or D) - written circa 621 BCE. Dating specifically from the time of King Josiah of Judah and responsible for the book of Deuteronomy as well as Joshua and most of the subsequent books up to 2 Kings.
• The Priestly source (or P) - written during or after the exile. So named because of its focus on levitical laws.

Women Rabinates - The aspect of women rabbinates was the spiritual view of women being incapable of grasping the deep things in religion and the institution of the public service, either in form or content, was as being students of the temple closed to them until 1837.