MYSTICS, MAGICIANS AND ESOTERIC ORDERS
Robert A. Gilbert
(This draft taken from the first if two lectures delivered by Mr R.A. Gilbert to the Bournemouth Society on 7 March 2009)We must begin by setting parameters and giving definitions. Mystics and Magicians are, of course, those who seek spiritual illumination and fulfilment in rather different ways. Mystics engage in the quest for mystical experience, while magicians follow the path of magic, but those on either path may choose to enter an Esoteric Order. My aim is to illustrate how this has been done down the centuries, to emphasise such Orders as have sought to reconcile these two paths and to consider whether they really can be in any way compatible. And having set the boundaries, more or less, we must define our terms.
Mysticism is an umbrella term that includes both theoretical and practical elements. On the one hand it is concerned with the study and interpretation, in terms of philosophy, theology and psychology, of the experiences, behaviour, beliefs and speculative thinking of mystics: those individuals who have undergone an overwhelming spiritual experience, and thus entered an exalted state of consciousness in which they have a direct, personal experience of God (or ultimate reality, or whatever they or we may choose to call it). On the other hand, mysticism concerns also the construction and development of the specific practices within a prescribed way of life that will lead the aspiring mystic to such a state of being. And there is a further consideration: the moral element in choosing and following the mystical path, which leads me to magic.
Definitions of magic can range from the bombastic to the merely inadequate and vague. Aleister Crowley illustrates the former: magic for him was ‘the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will’, while the definition of Eliphas Levi, the foremost magician of the 19th century, does little to inspire confidence in his clarity of thought. For him, magic is the ‘traditional science of the Secrets of Nature’. A much better working definition is given by Evelyn Underhill, in her great study of mysticism:
Magic, in its uncorrupted form, claims to be a practical, intellectual, highly individualistic science; working towards the declared end of enlarging the sphere on which the human will can work, and obtaining experimental knowledge of planes of being usually regarded as transcendental. (Mysticism. 1930, 12th ed., p. 152)
Her key words are ‘in its uncorrupted form’, for there is more than one kind of magic. Setting aside natural magic, which is effectively an understanding of the hidden processes of the natural world, there are two major divisions: Goëtia and Theurgy.
In its essence Goëtia is the art of controlling and manipulating, by way of complex ceremonies, spiritual beings – notably those inimical to humanity – for personal benefit and, often to the detriment of others. Here I should point out that magical rituals and ceremonies are not necessarily evil, but it is a fine distinction and I would be hard pressed to declare that ceremonial magic can ever be positively good. A.E. Waite, who had experience of magical, esoteric and mystical Orders, was more forthright. ‘The distinction’, he wrote, ‘between White and Black Magic is the distinction between the idle and the evil word’. For him, magical arts are ‘the path of illusion by which the psychic nature of man enters that other path which goes down into the abyss.’ Most self-styled magicians of today would not, of course, agree with him, but they do tend to aggrandise their work, glorify the self and inflate the ego. Understanding that attitude is a key to grasping the nature of Esoteric Orders, and this comment of Gerald Yorke (who was referring to members of the Golden Dawn, and who makes an implicit distinction between Pagan and Christian) are illuminating:
Now Hermetic Orders as such are only Christian in that they include some Christianity but do not stress it. Rosicrucian Orders on the other hand are primarily Christian but draw on pre-Christian sources. In other words the Hermetists always try to become God in his anthropomorphic or in some instances theriomorphic form. They inflame themselves with prayer until they become Adonai the Lord …. whereas the Christian approached God the Father through Christ (Adonai) but never tried to become Christ, only to become as Christ. (Quoted in Kathleen Raine, Yeats the Initiate, 1986, p. 185)
Perhaps we can now make the clear moral distinction between the mystic and the magician. Again, I use the words of Evelyn Underhill: ‘magic wants to get, mysticism wants to give’ (op. cit., p. 71). The other division of magic, Theurgy, is closer to the spiritual practices of the mystic. Indeed, Theurgy means literally, ‘the works of God’, or ‘divine workings’. To understand them, the seeker for illumination and saving knowledge (gnosis) engages in appropriate ceremonies and incantations to pass through the intermediary spiritual stages between himself and God.
Clearly, there is a great gulf between mystics and magicians, but they are both human, and while it is possible for either to work alone, humans are not by nature solitary beings and work better and more successfully in company. But no mundane organisation is suitable for spiritual activity, something more private is needed, for either path, within which the quest can be pursued in the company of like-minded fellow travellers. So we come to the Esoteric Order, but before we explore that we must consider the word ‘esoteric’ and the noun developed from it, ‘esotericism’.
‘Esoteric’, from the Greek esw (within) means ‘that which is within’, applied to knowledge and experience that is confined to an inner circle of initiates who have received it. ‘Esotericism’ may thus be defined as a collective term for the various doctrines, theories, ideas and principles believed to underlie and hold together the hidden practices of magic, both ‘natural’ and ‘spiritual’, and of divinatory and related arts and sciences, such as alchemy, astrology, tarot and all forms of contact with the spirit world. It also embraces the practices and beliefs of speculative religious philosophy, such as the Kabbalah and the Theosophy of Jacob Boehme and his successors.
It is a western term, and although it has been applied to oriental theory and practice, I am using it in a solely western context. This restricted use is now widespread in academic circles, and the expression 'Western esotericism' was pioneered by Antoine Faivre, who uses it to encompass both the illumination and saving knowledge (Gnosis) that characterise speculative spiritual philosophy and the more morally acceptable of the occult sciences. The various forms that these esoteric ideas and practices have taken, and the various institutions that have preserved and transmitted them down the centuries, constitute what is called the Western Mystery Tradition.
So having set the scene, let us come to Esoteric Orders themselves. Dion Fortune’s succinct description of the nature and purpose of such institutions will serve us well. In her words they are,
“schools or fraternities, wherein a secret wisdom unknown to the generality of mankind might be learnt, and to which admission was obtained by means of an initiation in which tests and ritual played their part.” (The Esoteric Orders and their Work. 1930, p. ix)
Belonging to such an Order was, and is, evidently beneficial to those wishing to engage communally in their private spiritual quests, but what does membership involve? There is more to it than appears in the simple description. First there is initiation, the ceremony of admission by which the initiate is separated physically, psychologically and psychically from the secular, everyday world and integrated with a new peer group. The elements of such a ceremony are common to all Esoteric Orders, although the details often differ, and the candidate will experience the following:
- He (or she) will enter in darkness so that the unfolding ceremony brings him into light
- He will undergo a numerically significant symbolic journey involving tests and trials; the ritual use of musical sound (usually the unaccompanied human voice); and the stimulation of the senses of touch (perhaps with a symbolic weapon) and smell (incense)
- He will give an obligation to keep secret what he has learned and undergone and to accept the responsibilities of his new situation [he is, of course, unable to divulge the essence of his inner experience of the ceremony as that is, by its very nature, incommunicable to another]
- He will be entrusted with secret knowledge (both practical in the form of signs of recognition; and theoretical as he begins the process of acquiring secret wisdom)
- He will be welcomed into his new peer group in sacramental form (usually by sharing a sacred meal)
Then the learning process begins, including practical techniques, such as forms of meditation, to enable him to advance upon the way of return. He has also entered into a relationship with his initiator by which he accepts responsibilities in return for the rights conferred upon him. These include his own duty, when he is competent to perform it, to transmit in turn the gnosis and the practices of the specific tradition he has entered. This is important, for without the continuing transmission of received traditions in a valid line of succession - from teacher to pupil as well as from initiator to initiate - there can be no Mystery Tradition, whether magical or mystical. From all of this two other factors should be apparent: Esoteric Orders are both disciplined and structured, to ensure which they are also hierarchical – although it must be emphasised that the hierarchy has no authority over the members outside the confines of the Order.
Now that we have established what mystics, magicians and Esoteric Orders are, let us set them in historical context: when and where did such Orders first appear, who created and developed them and why did they come into being at specific times and in specific places ? As we consider all this, bear in mind the definitions, for you will find that we travel down a good many blind alleys before we reach our answers.
Let us begin with the earliest western cultures, taking ‘western’ in a broad sense. I am not concerned with the public worship of formal religions, designed to appease the gods and to ensure a good life both here and after death, but with communal quests by spiritual elites for the secret knowledge that leads to personal enlightenment and salvation. We do not find them in Mesopotamia, nor in Egypt – there is no evidence there of anything analogous to an Esoteric Order before the Hellenic period, even though religious philosophers in Greece looked on Egypt as the fountain-head of esoteric spirituality – so let us move on to ancient Greece and Rome, and to the Mystery Religions.
The original Mysteries of ancient Greece, especially those of Eleusis, were religious festivals with elements of both public worship and private initiation. The secret part of these festivals was designed to make the initiate aware of the holy and of the timeless state in which the ‘mystery’ exists, and for him to gain a secret wisdom which must not be shared with the uninitiated outside world. But the Mysteries were seasonal, the public knew of the initiatic part and accepted that they were excluded, and there were no successive meetings and continued teaching for the initiated. The content of the Mysteries was secret, but secret teaching alone does not constitute an Esoteric Order.
Perhaps Mithraism fits the criteria? Alas, it does not. As a formal faith with a liturgy and theology of creation and salvation, albeit with very private ceremonies of initiation, Mithraism was a fully fledged religion, not a speculative esoteric Order. I must again stress that Esoteric Orders do not engage in formal worship, nor do they offer sacraments or salvation by faith. Essentially they involve teaching, learning and spiritual experience. More to the point, the outside world was well aware that these religions existed. On the other hand Esoteric Orders, by their nature, tended to keep their very existence unknown, not least because of the potential physical threat from hostile religious and political authorities. But such hostility does not of itself convert a religion into an Esoteric Order.
Thus the temptation to see the various elements of the gnostic movement as Esoteric Orders must be rejected. I do not think that they can be considered even as precursors to such Orders. During the 2nd and 3rd centuries, when Gnosticism was at its height – and it was never an extensive or widely supported movement – the Christian Church itself was often under threat and its followers were necessarily cautious, which is why they made use of the catacombs under Rome. But we rightly do not look upon the Church as an Esoteric Order. No more should we in the case of Gnosticism, for even if some of its varieties should be looked upon as a distinct religion, the major branches (e.g. the Valentinians and Marcionites) saw themselves not as possessing secret doctrines but as holding the true, orthodox Christian faith. Remember, orthodoxy as well as history is written by the winners.
And it was within the Christian Church that monasticism was founded and Religious Orders established. The earliest monastic code was the Rule of St. Benedict, written about 528 A.D., for ‘the best kind of monks’, ‘those who live in a monastery under the Rule of an abbot.’ But this was in no sense a secret Order; the Benedictine Rule was a guide to communal living for those dedicated to a life of prayer, worship and labour. Monastic houses were publicly visible and interacted with their local communities, and there were no secret doctrines or teachings in any of the Religious Orders (I use the term loosely; strictly speaking enclosed Orders, Benedictines, Augustinians, Cistercians, are ‘Monastic’, while those of the peripatetic Preaching Orders, e.g. Franciscans and Dominicans, are ‘Religious’). Even such suspect theologians as the 12th century Franciscan, Joachim of Fiore, did not keep his near heretical doctrines secret: they were openly preached to the world.
So if we find no Esoteric Orders within the orthodox church, perhaps we can discover them within Christian heresies and non-Christian faiths? Perhaps, but I think not. Let us consider some possibilities: Cathars, Templars and Kabbalists. The Cathars were Christian dualists, following a heterodox version of Christianity that was seen by the Church, correctly in fact, as heretical. But it was an open heresy, preached and practised openly in the south of France until the 13th century when cruel persecution and crusade led to Inquisition, massacre and suppression. Only then was Catharism, of necessity, practised in secret. It was not, in any sense an Esoteric Order. The Knights Templar – the Order of the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon – were a very different case: a Christian Military-Religious Order, pledged to defend the faith and the faithful from the predations of Islam. As such they had their own Rule of conduct, and despite the many lunatic theories about Templar involvement in the wholly imaginary ‘Bloodline of Christ’, about their secret survival, and their leaving of hidden symbolic clues as to the ‘Great Secret’, there was no secret. The Templars did have a private ceremony of admission into the Order, but that alone does not make the Order ‘Esoteric’; they subscribed to no secret doctrines and their ‘heresy’ was a product of torture, repudiated as they went to their deaths in 1314. However, in their end they had a new beginning – albeit delayed for more than 400 years – and, out of their myth, the Templars would be reborn as a real secret society, as we shall see.
Now let us return to the Middle Ages and the kabbalists. The Kabbalah is a system of speculative philosophy that arose within Judaism in the early centuries of the Christian era and flowered in southern Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries. It involves painstaking numerical and verbal analysis of the text of the Pentateuch, and of some of the prophetic Books of the Bible, with the aim of gaining a spiritual understanding of the nature of God and our relationship with Him, and of the complex processes of creation. In addition, within kabbalistic circles there arose ritual practices designed to induce ecstatic states that would ultimately lead the kabbalist to the Divine Vision. Many famous kabbalists also had groups of disciples, who sometimes constituted a distinct school, such as that of Gerona in Spain, but what they taught was difficult to comprehend rather than secret. Their doctrinal texts, such as the Zohar of Moses de Leon (or just possibly of Simeon ben Jochai, who preceded him by 1,000 years) were also widely known and, because they were also highly unorthodox, rejected by most Jews. What is not clear is whether, during the Middle Ages, any identifiable group of kabbalistic scholars engaged in the secret transmission of their secret doctrines, or in the practice of secret ceremonies, within a secret or private institution that can legitimately be described as an Esoteric Order. We simply do not know.
The Kabbalah has also been associated, often unjustly, with ceremonial magic. So were there any specifically magical societies or Orders at this time? Almost certainly there were not. The ritual texts of ceremonial magic, Grimoires, were designed for solitary use (although when necromancy was involved an assistant might be necessary to help with the digging), and given their nefarious ends did not encourage communal working. Only when Theurgy, spiritual rather than demonic magic, was involved would group activity be both feasible and desirable. But Theurgy was conspicuously absent from western Europe before the middle of the 15th century so Esoteric Orders, whether magical or mystical, can again be found conspicuous by their absence.
And so, having briefly surveyed almost 2,000 years and being still without Esoteric Orders in any meaningful sense, you may be forgiven for becoming a little restive. Matters, however, are about to change.
In 1453 the fall of Byzantium led to a flight of scholars, who brought with them to Western Europe a wealth of unknown and forgotten Greek and Latin texts. This influx of knowledge coincided with a late flowering of the spiritual life in western Christendom and gave a huge impetus to the Renaissance of Learning. Enquiring minds, such as Ficino and Pico da Mirandola, turned to philosophical and esoteric texts, to the Kabbalah, to Neoplatonism as well as to Greek drama. Nor did they stop at reading the texts. Through his Platonic Academy at Florence Ficino taught the philosophy of Neoplatonism and, more discreetly, sought to introduce the practice of certain elements from pagan rites and ceremonies as an adjunct to a rational understanding of the texts, especially with the aid of the singing voice. It is probable, but not proven, that Ficino and those closest to him created what was, in effect, an Esoteric Order, less from choice than necessity, for such activities were not looked upon with favour by either the civil or the religious authorities.
It is quite possible that there were similar, contemporary groups, elsewhere in Italy and further afield. If this was so, then they would have shared two significant characteristics that reappear in many later Esoteric Orders. There would be a clear blending of the mystical and the magical approach in their ‘practical spirituality’, and – more important – an unquestioned need for discretion and secrecy, for the Renaissance was followed rapidly by the religious ferment of the Reformation and the dramatic division of Christian Europe into warring camps of Catholics and Protestants, with civil unrest followed inevitably by the Wars of Religion that plagued Europe throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In England the suppression of the monasteries in 1536 and 1539 cast their populations adrift, while the shifts to and fro in the official form of faith ensured that religious speculation and practice alike became dangerous. Open deviation from received orthodoxy invited persecution and punishment and groups of like-minded speculative philosophers necessarily met in secret. If that is what they did, as we have, again, very little evidence of any such meetings, particularly as institutions, either in England or elsewhere in Europe.
Private magical workings of two or three together did take place – Dr. Dee and Edward Kelley are a prime example – and if we are charitable we may see what they did as Theurgy, although their contemporaries perceived it in a darker light. But whatever kind of magic conversing with angels and spirits in alien tongues by way of crystals and magic mirrors may be, it is not institutional and does not conform to the work of an Esoteric Order, any more than does Sir Walter Raleigh’s supposed ‘School of Night’, which if it existed at all simply discussed religion from a sceptical viewpoint.
Substantive evidence for the idea, if not the reality, of an Esoteric Order first emerges in Germany at the beginning of the 17th century, when a group of Lutheran theologians at Tübingen, inspired by the Utopian vision of Johann Valentin Andrea (1586 – 1654) developed what are known as the Rosicrucian manifestos. These, the Fama (1614) and the Confessio Fraternitatis (1615) present the idea of a community of Protestant religious tertiaries (i.e. men who professed the religious life but worked in the world). According to the Fama, they were led by the mythical Christian Rosenkreuz who had travelled in search of esoteric knowledge – alchemy, astrology, hermetic medicine – and taught it in his House of the Holy Spirit to his fraternity of esoteric Christians, the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, all of whom professed poverty, chastity and obedience, healed the sick and sought spiritual illumination. The fraternity had no real existence, but the manifestos triggered an avalanche of books and pamphlets defending or opposing the Rosicrucians, seeking them or offering to reveal them, and expounding their supposed doctrines. And, as often happens, life followed art.
Students of Rosicrucianism, some of them alchemists and others followers of the religious philosophy of Jacob Boehme, began to share their ideas and their writings, and to create what can best be described as esoteric communities. By the end of the 17th century these included the group around the doctrinally odd clergyman, John Pordage; the ‘Philadelphian Society’ of a Behmenist mystic, Jane Lead; and the community founded in Pennsylvania in 1694 by a charismatic visionary, Johannes Kelpius, who was inspired by Radical Pietist ideas. Pietism was an innovative spiritual movement in the Lutheran Church which urged deep study of the Bible in order to enhance personal devotion, and the practice of Christianity in a spirit of love. Radical Pietism emphasised direct experience of God and spiritual regeneration, plus a desire to separate from what they perceived as a corrupt Church. If not identical with the tenets of the Rosicrucians, these ideas were certainly in harmony with them.
None of these communities were truly Esoteric Orders, but esotericism was a significant factor in the lives of their members, and the ‘Ephrata Cloister’ that grew out of Kelpius’s community included on its fringes a Chapter House built in 1738 for the ‘Brotherhood of Zion’: an Esoteric Order beyond question. The Brotherhood met in a strange, three-storied building at the top of which was;
“the mystical chamber where the arcana of the rite were unfolded to the secluded. …. It was in here that the ceremonies of the rite were performed by the thirteen brethren who were striving for their moral regeneration and seeking communication with the spirit world.”
After a thirty-three day retreat, ‘a visible intercourse commenced between the brethren and the seven archangels, viz. Anael, Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel, Zobiachel and Anachiel.’ Seven days later ‘each of the adepts received from the senior archangel a parchment or scroll, on which was the seal, or the sacred pentagon, containing the ineffable name’ (The German Sectarians of Provincial Pennsylvania 1742-1800, J. Sachse, Philadelphia, 1900, pp.357, 359)
And while the archangels were busy in America, the members of other Esoteric Orders in Europe were also seeking to converse with the spiritual world, but their raison d’être was quite different. From 1638 onwards the Rosicrucians had been associated in Britain, for no justifiable reason, with an utterly different, secular group: the freemasons. Why this association was made is far from clear, for on the one side is a monastic body of esoteric Christians, and on the other a craftsmen’s secular company. But the link was made and it stuck. By 1730 both bodies were being derided as mystifiers, at a time when Freemasonry had recently established its Grand Lodge in London, in 1717, and when its nature and aims were public knowledge. It was then what it is now, a form of Friendly Society; a secular fraternal association of men, dedicated to Brotherly Love, Charity and Truth, and with the specific aim of instilling into its members the precepts of private and public morality. It was not and is not an Esoteric Order in any sense of the term; its meeting places and many of its members are known; its rituals have been widely published since the early 18th century; and it neither teaches nor professes any form of secret doctrine. But that is the reality, from which public perception had parted company from the beginning, with the gap widening when Freemasonry was exported to Europe.
The homely English variety was soon subtly altered in fact by the creation of large numbers of Orders, Rites and Degrees, all widely different from Craft Freemasonry, but all claiming to be masonic, and all equally damned by the various Papal and other diatribes hurled at Freemasonry in general from 1738 onwards. Most of these supposedly masonic bodies, known as Hauts Grades, had a legendary basis and a ritual structure founded upon the myths of the Knights Templar and/or the Rosicrucians. The story of their rise and their spread across Europe is complex, sometimes distasteful and often amusing; many, indeed most of them were short-lived absurdities, but a few of them survived and became respectable. Others were true Esoteric Orders.
And here the question arises, were they mystical, magical or a combination of both? Freemasonry as such is none of these, but among these strange offshoots we find examples of all these categories.
The earliest that can legitimately be described as an Esoteric Order, began in 1710 when Sigmund Richter made known his Brotherhood of the Gold and Rosy Cross, which, had it existed in the real world, would have been alchemical. It reappeared in 1749, still as an alchemical Order, under Hermann Fictuld, and then came a change. A German document of 1761 not only lists the members of the Brotherhood, but provides the rituals that they used. These are masonic in nature and it seems that at some time in the 1750s alchemy and a branch of esoteric Freemasonry had fused into the Order of the Gold and Rosy Cross, complete with rituals, secret teaching and eclectic symbolism derived from Rosicrucianism. Its existence was not hidden but its activities were unknown to the public, at least until the publication in 1784 of a pictorial album of the symbols, the Geheime Figuren der Rosenkreuzers (Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians), many of which were incorporated into the ceremonies of later and more famous Orders.
The Gold and Rosy Cross was undoubtedly a mystically inclined Order, as was the un-named Rosicrucian society into which Sigmund Bacstrom was initiated by the Comte de Chazal on the island of Mauritius in 1797. This also kept its activities secret, but they were clearly alchemical and there was one highly significant and original feature: women were recognised as being fully worthy to become Rosicrucians. The admission of women was rare among masonically derived Orders, because Freemasonry was restricted to men, but there was a notable exception in Abbé Pernety’s Société d’Illuminés d’Avignon. which was active in the 1780s, did admit women to its alchemical, visionary and spiritual pursuits.
Other Orders, also quasi-masonic in origin, went in a different direction and became wholly, or to a significant degree, magical. One was founded by H.H. von Ecker und Eckhoffen, an expelled member of the Gold and Rosy Cross, who founded the Order of Knights and Brethren of the Light at Vienna in 1781. By 1784 it had transformed into the Asiatic Brethren, took in Jewish members added kabbalistic elements to its magically oriented rituals and taught esoteric doctrines to its members. After its founder’s death, in 1790, it went into decline – a not uncommon fate for Esoteric Orders that depended too heavily on a charismatic leader who lacked competent disciples.
At this point we should consider the case of the Order of the Illuminati, a secret society with an anti-Jesuit agenda that sought to further the more revolutionary aspects of the Enlightenment. It was founded in Bavaria in 1776, by Adam Weishaupt, who supplied a supposed esoteric content that was nothing more than a sham designed for gullible members who would further his political ends. The Order was effectively suppressed in 1785, but it lives on in the frantic minds of conspiracy theorists, encouraged by devious writers such as Robert Anton Wilson and Dan Brown, who continue to believe that this impotent, and now utterly non-existent Order bends governments and banks to its will. It is instructive to reflect on the power of the idea of an Esoteric Order to influence society far more than any such Order could do by its own efforts. And now back to historical reality.
The most intriguing ‘magical’ Esoteric Order was that of the Élus Coëns (Elect Cohens), created in Toulouse about 1760 by Martinès de Pasqually. The Order was theurgic in that it involved and activated divine energies. Its ceremonies were theurgic rather than magical and were not aimed at acquiring natural or supernatural powers. Its rituals and instructions were replete with esoteric doctrines and the members actively sought mystical experience, trying to create a manifestation, in the chamber of theurgic operations, of a ‘presence’ called La Chose (the ‘Thing’) which was Wisdom personified, or the Divine Sophia . The distance between theurgy and true mystical experience was evident even to Pasqually’s most devoted disciple, the mystic Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, who famously asked, ‘Master, can all this be needed to find God ?’, to which Pasqually replied, ‘We must be content even with what we have.’ The theurgical work required from all members of the Order of the Élus Coëns, however, was not enough for Saint-Martin.
Nor was it for others who had been drawn to Pasqually, including J.B. Willermoz, who, after the decline of the Élus Coëns, set about reviving the Order of the Strict Observance (an unwieldy Order that had grown too fast, perhaps because of its claims of spiritual descent from the Knights Templar). While keeping the Templar content, Willermoz’s new Order, the Rectified Scottish Rite, was given a definite esoteric content, which enabled it to become a true Esoteric Order of the ‘mystical’ variety. This it would still be today, if its members could be trusted to be discreet: something, alas, that they are not. Even so, the case of the Rectified Rite is important, and it will feature in my second paper later this year.
I do not wish to present an ever-lengthening catalogue of Orders, esoteric or otherwise, so we must progress into the 19th century. In its first year Francis Barrett published his book, The Magus. This ingenious and carefully constructed set of ritual text and derivative commentary was drawn almost entirely from the works of his predecessors in magical practice, and it was not a commercial success. But The Magus did have a mystique of its own that enabled Barrett to set up an esoteric school, in which students could be taught the theory and practice of the occult sciences. We do know that Barrett had students, but his school seems a far cry from a real Esoteric Order.
As in one sense does the ‘Interior Church’ of speculative mystics such as Karl von Eckartshausen and I.V. Lopukhin. This concept is not of a ‘church made with hands’ but of a Holy Assembly of the Elect, comprising mystics, either by illumination or by revelation, who are united spiritually but consciously, although not in any material gathering. This is all very well for our spiritual lives but it is not really germane to any discussion of Esoteric Orders on the material plane, so I shall pass on.
During the first half of the 19th century a variety of communities existed, in England, in the United States and elsewhere, that concerned themselves with speculations on religious philosophy in the context of prayer and worship. They ranged from the private group around John Pierrepont Graves, in Kent, to the widespread Shaker Communities in America, but it is difficult to categorise them as Esoteric Orders. However, among the Shakers and some parallel communities there were private group activities kept secret from the outside world and known by only some within the communities themselves. As with the Rectified Rite and the Interior Church, discussion of these and what their activities imply will be reserved until the sequel to this paper.
We can also pass by as not strictly relevant the various religious Societies and Orders within the ritual movement that, according to one’s viewpoint, adorned or bedevilled the Victorian Church of England. There are, in any case, enough Esoteric Orders of that time to keep us fully occupied now. Let us begin with a Rosicrucian example, the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. The SRIA, as it is known, is a society founded in 1867 and dedicated (in theory) to the study of the kabbalah, alchemy, mysticism, hermetic medicine and all the other subjects pertinent to Rosicrucianism. It also has a ceremonial structure of initiatic and instructional grades for the benefit of its members, who must be freemasons. Although the SRIA does not hide its existence, and its members are quite open about their involvement, the private ceremonial and doctrinal content of the society give some justification for labelling it an Esoteric Order. At least, that was the case in the past, but it has now sadly degenerated into yet another worthless masonic ‘additional degree’, which otherwise unfulfilled individuals can add to their pointless masonic curriculi vitae.
Now why should I be so exercised over such innocuous activities ? Because I believe that Esoteric Orders are important to our inner, spiritual lives – at least to those of us who are drawn to the private ceremonial expression of spiritual experience, and who are enriched by what we discover about ourselves and about the spiritual world as a result of our involvement. True Esoteric Orders are not so much secret as sacred, and I do not like to see them distorted and dismantled until they become mundane and meaningless, or turned to evil ends. But all of this can happen, and did happen to the most famous of all Esoteric Orders, to which we have finally come. Or almost come.
The social world in which the SRIA flourished saw, or believed that it saw, a huge rise in public enthusiasm for the occult sciences, and institutions to corral that enthusiasm, with their appropriate journals, were created in abundance. Some – such as the Theosophical Society, which was born in 1875 – offered new spiritual creeds and disseminated knowledge of their doctrines; others offered an understanding of occultism by practical means – bodies such as the somewhat shifty Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor that rode on the coat tails of Theosophy. Yet others combined theory and practice. Among them were the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society, which had its own secret ceremonies worked at the London headquarters in Avenue Road, and the Martinist Order, established in Paris by Papus (i.e. Gerard Encausse) in 1884.
Martinism is specifically Christian, and its rituals, together with its doctrinal instruction, fall unquestionably into the mystical category of Esoteric Orders. The Esoteric Section, at least in the 19th century, was rather different; it was Neo-Buddhist and vaguely gnostic, and the ceremonial practices were redolent of magic although the ethos of the Section was not. It thus qualifies as a ‘mixed’ form, but an Esoteric Order it certainly was. Much the same can be said of the very paradigm of an Esoteric Order: the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
The history, structure, ceremonies and teachings of the Golden Dawn are all equally well known; its entire membership can be identified, and the relationship between its warring camps has been mapped out. What we need to consider here is the type of Esoteric Order that it was, how its nature changed and what that change can tell us about the tensions and the possibilities inherent in all Esoteric Orders. And for those who may not know I will give a brief, preliminary, and admittedly over-simplified overview.
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was founded in 1888 by a trio of Rosicrucian freemasons: William Wynn Westcott, Samuel Liddell Mathers and William Robert Woodman. They all held high office in the SRIA and many of the early members of the Order were drawn from the society’s ranks. Others came from the Theosophical Society or because of personal association with existing members, but all the candidates for membership knew what it was that they were entering. Westcott, who had invented the Order and developed its rituals, was seeking for a vehicle to provide instruction in occultism in tandem with a ceremonial structure by which it could be impressed; he also sought a form that would be both open and appropriate to both sexes. With the Golden Dawn he found it.
The rituals of the Order, which was originally styled the ‘Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn’, were initiatic rather than magical, and no instruction in the practice of magic was given. The Order was also more or less Christian, albeit highly unorthodox, in tone. But its ethos was decidedly magical, and the course of studies in the kabbalah, various forms of divination, alchemy, the Tarot, and angelic beings, was ‘practical’ in emphasis and conformed to what Waite dismissed as “phenomenal occultism”. Nor was this all, for beyond the Golden Dawn was a second, inner Order, the nominally Rosicrucian and genuinely secret Rosae Rubeae et Aureae Crucis.
The course of the ceremonies of the Second Order followed the myth of Christian Rosenkreuz and included a symbolic crucifixion death and resurrection. Those members who attained to the Grades of the Second Order were styled ‘Adepti’, and they were obliged to follow a complex and difficult course of study in the practice of magic. Although it did have elements of the search for spiritual illumination, the Second Order was essentially magical, and the Golden Dawn in its entirety should be seen as a magical, not a mystical Order.
After twelve years of activity, the tensions created by personality clashes between determined and psycho-spiritually powerful Adepti tore the Golden Dawn apart, and in 1903 a second split broke it into pieces. But this was not the end, for from those pieces were created three distinct forms of Esoteric Order, all descended from the magical parent. One, the Stella Matutina, succeeded, to some degree, in combining the mystical and magical elements, and it is from this that most of the current (and largely self-styled) Golden Dawn Temples have descended, although they all lean strongly in the magical direction. Another, the Alpha et Omega, was professedly magical from its beginning, while the third branch, A.E. Waite’s Independent and Rectified Rite of the Golden Dawn emphasised the mystical aspects of the Order: although he retained the ceremonial grade structure, Waite rewrote the rituals in a wholly Christian form.
And what has happened to these types of Esoteric Order over the last hundred years? In their original forms all of them have gone. What may be called the ‘mixed’ type persist in the more rational of contemporary versions of the Golden Dawn, and in the Society (originally Fraternity) of the Inner Light, the Order developed by Dion Fortune after she left the Alpha et Omega. While the Inner Light is not magical in the pejorative sense, it does suffer from the cultural and personal elitism that bedevils the ‘Hermetic’ approach to Esoteric Orders.
Wholly magical Orders are represented by the spectrum of Orders, Rites and societies based upon the magical writings, attitudes and ideas of Aleister Crowley, who was a child of the Golden Dawn, however much he eschewed it, and who built his own self-centred, anarchic bodies on its foundations. Without the Golden Dawn there would have been no O.T.O. and no Thelema; we have much to lament in the legacy of the Order!
Truly mystical Esoteric Orders derivative from the Golden Dawn all descend, in part or in whole, from the work of A.E. Waite. His own Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, which inspired Charles Williams and infused his ‘occult thriller’ novels, is the spiritual source of the more recent Order of the Rose and Cross. It also exercised more influence over Paul Foster Case, and thus over the Builders of the Adytum, than did his sojourn in a Temple of the Alpha and Omega.
What has yet to be determined is whether any of these distinctive types of Esoteric Order should and could work together, and if so how such accommodation can be brought about. Can magic be purified? Can mysticism be brought down to earth? And if they must be forever apart and in a state or armed truce, if not actual war, what does that say for their respective members and for the future course of Western Esotericism? I do not propose to offer answers now to these questions. They are for you to ponder, and if you wish to hear my views, to take up again when I examine the possible future, if there is a future, for Esoteric Order s of any kind, and consider also how we may assess them morally and spiritually.