The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

It claimed authority through a charter from a German Rosicrucian adept, correspondence that was later definitively shown to have been fabricated by one of the order's own founders. The order itself admitted women as full equal members from the very start, and later split into several rival successor organisations within its first fifteen years.

The founding warrant of Isis-Urania Temple No. 3, London (1 March 1888); Ellic Howe's 1972 exposure of the forged Anna Sprengel charter