Rather than the more familiar approach of using the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organization central to modern magic and occultism, to say something about the fin de siècle cultural context in which it flourished, Alison Butler's Victorian Occultism looks inward to dissect the cultural anatomy of the order itself. In treating the Golden Dawn as a nodal point of significance in the complex development of Western magic, this book diligently traces threads that lead back to ancient Egypt and forward into twentieth-century Wicca and New Age occultism. Butler's engaging book begins with the creation of the order in 1888. Organized into five “temples,” its initiates were predominantly drawn from a middle and upper middle-class background. The order's ceremonial magical practices and its instruction in hermetic traditions served a multitude of needs, ranging from the practical (such as Ann Kingford's attempt to use magic to assassinate Louis Pasteur) to the metaphysical, offering as it did an alternative for those discontented with both Christian orthodoxy and secular materialism.

Following a brief account of the order's development and acrimonious collapse after just twelve years, chapter 1 examines the individual contributions made by its three official founders, the stolid William Wynn Westcott, the flamboyant Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, and the rather understated William Robert Woodman. Subsequent chapters then adopt a longue durée interpretation of the influences that coalesced within the Golden Dawn. It is in this systematic exploration of late nineteenth-century British occultism's cultural genealogies that the book really hits its stride. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the synthesizing nature of Renaissance magic and the tradition of secret societies in determining the order's structure and operation, respectively. Butler's incisive analysis demonstrates sensitivity to not only the diverse range of cultural influences but also their complex interlocutions across the centuries. Key to her argument is that the Western tradition of magic had always been marked by a propensity toward synthesis. As such, the formation, structure, and concerns of the Golden Dawn were not so much the product of an invented tradition as an invoked one. Her consideration of the role played by Renaissance occultist, alchemical, cabbalistic, and Hermetic sources, all incorporated into an organizational framework that owed much to freemasonry and secret societies such as the Rosicrucian brotherhood, convincingly illustrates that there was little that was genuinely original in modern magic other than how its component influences were combined.

Chapter 4 pursues the chronological consideration of influences by nicely situating the Golden Dawn within the broader context of nineteenth-century occultism, taking into account British figures such as Francis Barrett and the midcentury French occultist Eliphas Levi before considering contemporary developments such as the century's advances in and fascination with Egyptology. Butler's concise examination of all these factors clearly shows that these traditions did not percolate down to the modern period in any simple, linear fashion, and it is one of the strengths of her book that she maps this cultural messiness and manages its many tangents with such skill and intellectual dexterity.

Chapter 5's focus on the contents of two key occult libraries tended to lack the subtle and nuanced approach Butler demonstrates in preceding chapters. While the libraries’ catalogs offer a potentially intriguing way into exploring the reading matter of late nineteenth-century occultists, ultimately they tell us little about how an individual used or related to texts and reveal nothing of the organic engagement determined by one's preferences and dislikes. We obtain some idea of the texts that the discerning occultist may have been expected to possess, but we do not know how or even if they were necessarily read. Butler's analysis of other primary sources, such as the Flying Rolls (lectures given to the second or inner circle of the Golden Dawn), is considerably more successful. These provide fascinating insights into the traditions that the order was invoking and also the way its inner circle was encouraged to reimagine reality as containing multiple dimensions that were accessible via astral projection. Butler is particularly good at providing illustrative vignettes that demonstrate how initiates used their magical knowledge. Accounts of astral projection to other worlds and protecting spouses from evil spirits are offset by reports of some members’ disappointment that when the order's secret teachings were revealed they were not as earth shattering as they had hoped. Such testimonies help ground and humanize the abstract nature of the magical theory being explored.

Butler's book is generally stronger and more persuasive when analyzing past influences on the Golden Dawn. In chapter 6 she attempts to claim that the order brought “revolutionary” changes to Western magic by significantly altering former practices. Here Butler becomes a victim of her own success. The first two-thirds of the book make such a convincing case for the evolutionary and synthesizing nature of the Western magical tradition that it is difficult to accept such assertions. The brief formation of a “school” of magic that initiated just three hundred people in eight years and lasted only twelve, and whose strong-minded members had a penchant for pursing their own individual approaches and interests (many of which conformed to older practices), does not convincingly mark the Golden Dawn as truly “revolutionary.” Such bold claims were left a little underdeveloped, as were some of chapter 7's assertions about the legacy of the Golden Dawn in the twentieth century. These slight criticisms should not detract from what is an important addition to the growing literature on the history of modern magic. As Butler states, “It is time to stop apologizing for magic” (x), particularly in the modern period. Her lively synthesis of cultural and intellectual history serves as a valuable contribution to the validity of that field, while also carving out its own significant niche within it.