This book contains the complete, original Cypher Manuscript of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in facsimile along with fully annotated decipherment, a detailed synopsis of the text and a fascinating history of the manuscript itself. The author provides a scholarly commentary establishing the considerable value of the Cypher Manuscript and offering an elegant defense of Dr. W. Wynn Westcott's motives and methods in creating the Fraulein Sprengel ruse. Runyon suggests that there may have been a real person behind the Sprengel "Charter Myth". The book goes on to reveal that: The Cypher Manuscript contains the ancient design for a radically different Eleven Sphere Tree of Life.
Also included is a never-before-published article written especially for this book by the leading Golden Dawn authority, Robert A. Gilbert, on Dr. Westcott's Cypher Notebook (including facsimiles). These are Westcott's actual notes, taken directly from the cyphers, that he, not MacGregor Mathers, used to develop the Golden Dawn's Outer Order rituals.
There have been other versions of the Golden Dawn Cypher Manuscript published but this is the only book that fully examines the mysterious document and actually reveals its secrets. This book is more than a reference tool for magicians, it is a significant commentary on the origins of the Golden Dawn -- and of interest to all thoughtful students of the esoteric.
