Islands of the Dawn: The Story of Alternative Spirituality in New Zealand

Rating:
Summary: Good source of info on spiritual and occult groups in NZ
Review: Overall I found Islands of the Dawn to be a good introduction to some of the mainstream (and lesser known) Alternative Spiritualities in New Zealand.

There is a great deal of information on Spiritualism, Theosophy and a whole chapter dedicated to The Golden Dawn. If you are interested in any of these three 'paths' - especially with respect to New Zealand - then as far as overviews go, you will not be disappointed. There is plenty more in this book though for people interested in reading about alternative spiritualities in New Zealand. Other groups and paths mentioned include Order of the Table Round, Builders of the Adytum, Anthroposophy, the Culdean Trust, Beeville, the OTO, and various Eastern Spiritualities.

The author has done a great job of presenting background information on various groups and philosophies to give context to the New Zealand branches. This makes the book a good starting point for New Zealander's who want to learn more about alternative religious and esoteric groups without any prior background knowledge.

Those interested in paganism, wicca or satanism are the only paths likely to be disappointed with this book as there is little written on them. Perhaps neo-pagan groups had hardly surfaced at this stage in time, and were harder to find. However, around the time of the authors travels in New Zealand and prior to the published date of the book there was the magazine "Magic Pentacle" being published listing various pagan groups, and at least 2 groups identifying themselves as Satanists were around (Order of the Left Hand Path, and Order of the Sword of Damocles). However some information on these groups may be available in a thesis written by a student at Victoria University who interviewed former members of the OLHP. I don't know if the thesis is publicly available however.