The Magister 2

by Marcus Katz

  The educational background of the founders of the Golden Dawn is of a varied nature. William Wynn Westcott (1843-1925) claimed to have been educated “at Grammar School, Kingston-on-Thames and University College, London.”[206] However, as Gilbert (1997) demonstrates, much of Westcott’s claims in the autobiographical letter quoted are “exaggerated or falsified.”[207]

  William Robert Woodman (1828-1891) was qualified as a medical practitioner by 1851, and was described by Westcott as “an excellent Hebrew scholar, and one of the few English masters of the Hebrew Kabalah.”[208] In this, all the founders of the Golden Dawn were self-schooled and self-taught, taking time to pursue their studies. Westcott “went into retirement at Hendon for two years, which were entirely dedicated to the study of Kabbalistic philosophy, the works of the Hermetic writers, and the remains of the alchemists and the Rosicrucians.”[209] Shortly before the establishment of the order, each was lecturing, and a programme card for the Hermetic Society lectures in July 1886 lists Mathers lecturing on ‘The Physical Alchemy’ and Westcott lecturing on ‘The Sepher Jetzirah’.[210]

  Regarding the remaining founder of the order, Samuel Liddell Mathers (1854-1918), we know even less about his early life and education.[211] Waite spoke of him as having “an utterly uncritical mind” and “a fund of undigested learning.”[212] Yeats said he “had much learning, but little scholarship.”[213]

  The lack of formal education in the founders seems to have then been reflected in the development of both the curriculum and the teaching methodology. Whilst the founders were mainly self-schooled, particularly in the mysteries, they expected their students to adopt a formal educational approach.

  However, in the case of Florence Farr (1860-1917), the Golden Dawn did benefit from the presence of a natural teacher, and indeed one who later became a professional teacher. Farr’s contribution to the order’s delivery of the curriculum is, I argue, paramount to their relative longevity. As Greer (1995) notes, “Florence was no feeble figurehead... she was not afraid to create policies she thought essential to magical work, such as changing examinations.”[214]

  Farr was educated at Queen’s College, London (1877-1880), received good reports but did not progress to higher education. After an unsuccessful attempt at teaching (1880-1882), she continued her career in the theatre whilst joining the Golden Dawn in 1890.[215] However, her educationalist tendency was always present, manifesting through her Golden Dawn involvement and ultimately leading to her placement in the final years of her life as Lady Principal of the Ramanathan College, Ceylon.[216] Even before leaving London for that placement in 1912, she was researching the latest educational methodology, including the Montessori techniques.[217]

  A later volume of the Magister returns to share a more detailed analysis of Farr’s work on Ancient Egyptian thought and unpublished work by her on correspondence systems between Western and Eastern thought, Astrology and other matters of relevance to practitioners.

  The Aim and Structure of the Golden Dawn

  In this section, we will trace the history of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, with specific reference to the sources of its taught material and the structuring of that material into a graduated curriculum of study. We will expressly identify primary source material which is contextualised within the overarching theme of ascent-into-gnosis which has been proposed as the meta-narrative of Western esotericism. We will highlight unpublished evidence of the pedagogy of the order and its intent as an educational project. It is intended also to demonstrate that the taught content was purposeful in teaching correspondence, a key component of Western esotericism (Faivre, 1994) in order to achieve changes of awareness. Utilising primary original accounts of the reception of the teaching, we will examine how those changes – and potential for such – engaged students for substantial amounts of time. In conclusion, we will propose that the order failed not through political schisms or personal rivalries per se (Colquhoun, 1975 and others), but only insomuch as those flaws negated the purpose of the order to transmit the study of correspondence to enable the ascent narrative to be actualised in the lives of its participants.

  Light Before the Dawn: The Sat B’Hai and the Gold and Rosy Cross

  The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, whilst evidencing a structure and curriculum that epitomises the synthesis of materials comprising a claimed Western esoteric tradition, should not be considered a creatio ex nihilo, but perhaps a creatio ex materia. In this section we will pursue two pre-existent esoteric societies which are individually lesser known but yet, when brought together, contributed much to the immediate impact and subsequent rapid development of the order, shaping for the following century the content of the magical curriculum.

  These two societies are the fringe Masonic group, the Sat B’hai, ‘Seven Brothers’, and the German alchemical order, the Orden der Gold- und Rosenkreuzer, ‘Order of the Gold and Rosy Cross’. I present new translations and previously unpublished material on both groups to highlight their contribution to the development of a magical curriculum and the structure of its delivery.

  These two strands come together in the work of Francis George Irwin (1828-1892), Benjamin Cox (1828-1895) and Kenneth MacKenzie (1833-1886). That these three pursued an educational ambition realised through a research project is clear. As Howe points out, with regard to MacKenzie:

  His ‘A Word to the Literary Men of England’ in Notes and Queries, 1 March 1851, proposed the foundation of a learned society whose task would be to rescue old manuscripts in Greek, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norwegian, Zend (an ancient language allied to Sanscrit), and a dozen other middle-eastern and oriental tongues.[218]

  The Sat B’Hai and the August Order of Light

  The esoteric milieu from which the Golden Dawn arose has been characterised as a baffling “lunatic story” and dismissed as “great fun for amateurs of the absurd.”[219] However, despite this, the structures nascent in such sketched out fringe degrees such as the Sat B’hai provided the primary material which allowed the Golden Dawn to appear as a ‘pre-founded’ order.

  The Sat B’hai and the August Order of Light were two ‘orders-on-paper’ that provide us with evidence of thinking that later flourishes into practical realisation in the Golden Dawn.

  A particular item, easily identified, where the code of the Sat B’hai evidences seeds which would later flourish in the Golden Dawn, is code 23 which dictated the changing of passwords and signs at the vernal equinox.[220]

  This is a practice taken through into the Golden Dawn and beyond to Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), who continued to see the vernal equinox as symbolic of the change not only of passwords, but of whole Aeons – representing changes of consciousness across the whole human race. As we know, his first and most influential periodical was entitled, appropriately, The Equinox. There is unpublished primary source evidence to suggest that the writing of his most discussed work, the ‘inspired’ Liber Al vel Legis, The Book of the Law, took place on the vernal equinox, and not 08-10 April as referenced in all published sources.[221] The concept of the change of authority corresponding to the Equinox did not escape Crowley who most surely intended the title to be a barb against the Order as well as the reception of his inspired book.

  The August Order of Light (1881) was structured in three sections comprising nine degrees. In the Sat B’hai, the first three degrees have the candidate being named a ‘Mute’, then progressing to gain their voice as an ‘Auditor’, and finally progressing to ‘Scribe’ in charge of their own senses. This is somewhat mirrored in the August Order of Light with the first three grades being Novice, Aspirant and Viator, foreshadowing the Golden Dawn Neophyte, Zelator and Theoricus.[222] However, as we will see, the Golden Dawn drew upon a different mother-pattern for their graduated system.

  The contents of study of these fringe degrees, particularly these two ‘oriental’ degrees, is often eclectic. Whilst subjects such as spiritualism and mesmerism fascinated the late Victorians, they were often kept at arm’s-breadth
from the ‘occult’ subjects of study.[223]

  Francis George Irwin, however, certainly saw mesmerism as a part of the curriculum. He was a keen manufacturer of Masonic rites, and in one set of notes for the formation of a secret society, whose main initiation ritual would involve a candidate being “conducted to a kind of labyrinth,” he wrote:

  The society is pledged to study the following subjects. Natural Magic – Mesmerism – The Science of Death and of Life – Immortality - The Cabala – Alchemy – Necromancy – Astrology – and Magic in all its branches.[224]

  Howe is somewhat dismissive of Irwin’s “delightful nonsense” so does not comment on the fact that Irwin saw this society, and its symbols, no matter how nascent, as leading to changes in states of awareness. In the brief notes for the symbol of this society, Irwin notes that the candidate would be:

  invested with the Cross of gold and enjoined to fit himself for that state of mind [my emphasis] of which it is the emblem.[225]

  Irwin was perhaps ambivalent about the actuality of esoteric practice. However, Benjamin Cox was of a more practical nature, employing crystal gazing methods and scrying into his everyday practice. Cox wrote to Irwin in 1871 that:

  You seem undecided as to believing in occult science. I have not a shadow of doubt in the matter.[226]

  In 1874, we see the stated motivation for such knowledge to be acquired, as Cox implores Irwin for more information with regard to the Fratres Lucis:

  ... the one desire of my heart is to become a member of some Order wherein I may learn the mysteries of nature and truth so that I may not only benefit myself but that of [sc. also] my fellow men. I have, as you know, ever considered the knowledge of occult science the one sure and safe means whereby we can obtain truth and wisdom.[227]

  The Influence of the Gold and Rosy Cross

  The Golden Dawn also drew from the Gold and Rosy Cross organisation of a century prior, through the cipher manuscripts. The similarity of the structure of the Order outlined within the manuscripts to the Hauptpläne of the G&RC is clear. It is likely that MacKenzie translated these Hauptpläne (main plans) prior to his creation of the cipher manuscript as he had an excellent knowledge of German and as his one-time mentor, Frederick Hockley (1808-1885), had written to Irwin in 1873:

  Of course Mr. M.’s information is only derived from his intimate knowledge of French and German, and when you have mastered that difficulty, a vastly enlarged field of occult science will furnish you with Original matter, as well as others …[228]

  These plans were published by MacKenzie in his Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia in 1875-1877 by John Hogg. However, they are substantially edited and truncated. That MacKenzie has re-constructed this table from the original is made clear:

  It has been thought desirable to insert in this place two tables illustrative of Rosicrucian philosophy – the first of these has never before been published and has been specially constructed by the editor of for this work. The statements therein contained are derived from many sources of an authentic character, but have never been collected together before.[229]

  Westcott’s Western Mystery Doctrine

  Westcott (1848-1925) cites three standard works in his Introduction to the Study of the Kabbalah (1888, published 1910), of which two are in English and one in French: these are The Kabbalah, its Doctrines, Development and Literature (Ginsburg, 1865); The Doctrine and Literature of the Kabbalah (Waite, 1902), and the Kabbalah (Franck, 1889).[230]

  These same works are likewise referenced by E.A. Wallis Budge some 40 years later in his preface to Amulets and Superstitions.[231]

  Westcott positions the kabbalah as a “Western mystic doctrine” related to the “Egyptian Hermeticism” alongside the “Indian Esoteric Theosophy.”[232] Identifying the goal of each to be seeing “God face to face”, he goes on to refer to the grade system:

  We must be content to progress, as students have ever done, by stages of development; in each grade the primal truths are re-stated in a different form; they are revealed or re-veiled in language and symbolism suitable to the learner’s own mental condition; hence the need of a teacher, of a guide who has traversed the path, and who can recognise by personal communion the stage which each pupil has attained.[233]

  This is another clear indication of the graduated ascent narrative, with recognisable – “by personal communion” – stages that would be able to be matched to the “mental condition” of the initiate.

  Mathers and the Book of Concealed Mystery

  In 1887, Samuel Liddell Mathers (1854-1918), by then MacGregor-Mathers, published The Kabbalah Unveiled, a first translation into English of the Latin text of Knorr von Rosenroth’s Kabbala Denudata: “The Kabbalah Uncovered, or, The Transcendental, Metaphysical, and Theological Teachings of the Jews” (Sulzbach, Latin, 1677-1684). The life of von Rosenroth is briefly covered by Scholem (1974)[234] who writes that “although the book contains many errors and mistranslations, particularly of difficult Zoharic passages, there is no justification for the contemporary Jewish claims that the author misrepresented the Kabbalah.”[235]

  History

  The complex synthesis of esoteric materials included in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn curriculum is widely regarded as the apex of late Victorian occultism. The order, whose history and sources we will outline with specific regard to the taught content, was founded in 1888 by MacGregor Mathers (1854-1918), William Wynn Westcott (1848-1925) and Robert Woodman (1828-1891).

  The impact of the order on its members and later students is a testament to the power of the material to attract and engage individuals over a substantial amount of time. Others have reviewed and analysed the dramatis personae of the order,[236] the women of the order,[237] the poet of the order, Yeats,[238] lesser known members such as Frederick Hockley,[239] well known members such as A.E. Waite (Gilbert, 1987),[240] the politics and group development,[241] the initiatory rituals,[242] and printed a selection of the additional teachings – the Flying Rolls (King, 1981).[243] However, I here focus upon the taught content of the order, its sources, structure, development and reception. In doing so, I intend to demonstrate that this material serves a master ascent narrative whilst further moving to a compendium of Western esoteric material.

  To take a specific example, we find that a Golden Dawn member, upon reaching the grade of Philosophus, would be expected to learn:

  The five rituals [of initiation], the three side lectures of 3= 8 [Geomancy, General Guidance and Purification of the Soul, and the Tarot Trumps and their attribution to the Hebrew alphabet]; the four Knowledge Lectures, and the special Side Lectures of 4= 7, viz. Geomantic Talismans, Tree of Life in the Tarot, Shemahamphorash & [The Chaldæan Oracles of] Zoroaster, Qlipoth [of the Qabalah], Tatwas, [Poly]grams and [Poly]gons ...

  And all of this was before making application – containing a formal statement that these subjects have indeed been studied – for the next grade. The multiple cosmological schema implicit in this summary include kabbalah, ancient Egyptian magical-religious practice, Zoroastrianism, and Eastern (Hindu) and Western (Pythagorean) philosophies. The specific subjects such as talismans and tarot are equally a synthesis of material incorporating elements from a broad range of sources, including the grimoires and magical encyclopaedias of John Dee (1527-1608) and Edward Kelly (1555-1597), Agrippa (1486-1535) and Francis Barrett (b. circa. 1780-80)[244]

  There is evidence that Mathers had a general structure for these subjects. An early 1897 Ritual A on general orders, covering the examinations of a Zelator Adeptus Minor to a Theoricus Adeptus Minor (the first two grade stages of the Inner Order) divides the work into several categories: preliminary, elemental, psychic, divination, magic, Enochian, and symbolic.[245]

  These categories can be summarised as:

  Preliminary: Learning correspondences, e.g. minutum mundum diagram

  Elemental: Constructing magical tools

  Psychic: Spirit vision and astral projection

  Divination: Astrology,
geomancy and tarot

  Magic: Invocation, talismans, rising on the planes

  Enochian: Astral vision of specific Enochian squares

  Symbolic: Analysis of the Neophyte ritual and construction of a ritual

  Furthermore, the structure is often recursive and self-referential, namely in being constructed upon the plan of the kabbalistic Tree of Life, one of the contents of the same structure. In a set of notes on alchemy, Westcott conveys how alchemy as a subject is to be studied in four ways, corresponding to the planes or worlds of the kabbalah, namely:

  Occult chemistry Assiah

  Psychic alchemy Yetzirah

  Mental alchemy Briah

  Spiritual alchemy Atiziluth[246]

  We will return to these divisions of subject matter within the curriculum later, having first traced the foundation of the order and the likely sources of the taught content.

  Foundations at 17 Fitzroy Street

  The first warrant of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was signed by its founders at 17 Fitzroy Street, London. MacGregor Mathers, William Wynn Westcott and Robert Woodman, it has been suggested, used 17 Fitzroy Street as it was the studio of Mina Bergson (1865-1928; later Moina Mathers, after her marriage to MacGregor). However, another name is associated with that same address; a name that has only been highlighted later in the Golden Dawn story – that of H.M Paget. Henry Marriott Paget was married to Henrietta Farr, sister of Florence Farr. In fact, it is at the Pagets’ next home after Fitzroy Street, in Bedford Place, that Farr went to stay after her marriage broke up, and where she met W.B. Yeats.