Blackden’s Ritual of the Mystery of the Judgment of the Soul was first published in 1914 for the S.R.I.A. by Bernard Quaritch in which Blackden, like Waite, had remained active. Undoubtedly, he saw this volume as not merely the culmination of all his previous translations and commentaries but rather as a work which reveals the true initiatory purposes of both The Book of the Dead and the Golden Dawn cipher manuscripts. Marcus Blackden was a member of the Isis-Urania Temple of the Golden Dawn, by 1897 he had been initiated into the Grade of Adeptus Minor. He was a member of both versions of Florence Farr’s Enochian ‘Sphere Group’. In 1903 he, A.E.Waite and the alchemist Reverend Alexander Ayton set about to form the ‘Holy Order of the Golden Dawn’. Blackden was convinced that the Golden Dawn ‘Cipher manuscript’ (the basis of the Orders initiatic rituals) had its essential origins in Egyptian magical tradition. The workings of the sphere group are highly relevant to Blackden’s Ritual of the Mystery of the Judgment of the Soul. In 1901 Farr posted a notice at the Second Order rooms inviting “any Member of the Order who feels sympathy either for the study of the Egyptian Book of the Dead or for the symbolism of the Tree of Life projected on a Sphere will be very welcome to join her group on their attainment of the grade of Theoricus [Adeptus Minor].” Farr’s intense interest in Egyptian magic appears to have arisen from her meeting in late 1895 with an Egyptian female Adept in the British Museum. She told other Order members of this encounter and “the possibilities [it] opened up”. In this context the senior Chief of the Order, Macgregor Mathers, wrote a long letter to her in January of 1896 discussing her meeting with the Adept and “approving altogether” of Farr’s working with the Adept. Several important developments ensued from Mathers’ sanction: Farr wrote her volume Egyptian Magic for the Collectanea Hermetica, a series of ten volumes written by various Golden Dawn members and which covered most of the major occult interests of the Order. It was published in 1896 and Farr was especially proud that it was one of the first studies of Egyptian magic, predating Budge’s published works. As important as this was to Farr it was undoubtedly her practical work with the Egyptian Adept and with the sphere group which proved to be so influential on and significant to her and many members of the Order, including Blackden.